FD-350 clipping: "D.B. Cooper: Did He Attend Play?" (AP), Seattle P-I, 5/3/79
Document date 3 May 1979
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Id: Cooper-Part-54:154-154
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-54:154-154 Document: FD-350 clipping: "D.B. Cooper: Did He Attend Play?" (AP), Seattle P-I, 5/3/79 Id: Cooper-Part-54:154-154 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-54%3A154-154 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
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FBI 164-81, Vault Part 54 p. 154 (DB Cooper-23083), News clipping, dated 3 May 1979 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-54%3A154-154
FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p. A5 Post-Intelligencer Seattle, Wa. Date: 5/3/79 Edition: Final
Title:
Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: Seattle
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D.B. Cooper Did He Attend Play?
MINNEAPOLIS — (AP) — Has D.B. Cooper — the hijacker immortalized after he jumped from a plane in the Pacific Northwest eight years ago — been to Minneapolis Cricket Theater recently?
He has if letters received by the Cricket are for real. And if not, the Cricket has the benefit of a promotional gimmick.
Last month the Cricket opened a musical based on the life of Cooper, who disappeared in 1971 after hijacking a Northwest Airlines plane and parachuting somewhere over southwestern Washington. Cooper took a $200,000 ransom, but neither Cooper nor the money ever was found.
Early this year the Cricket placed an ad in Time magazine, telling "D.B. Cooper, wherever you are," that "two free tickets are waiting for you at the Cricket Theater . . ."
Two replies were received, both apparently written by the same person.
The first, postmarked in Chicago, thanked the Cricket for the invitation. "I won't say I will accept, and I won't say I won't," the writer said. The brief note was signed Daniel B. Cooper.
The letter mailed in Los Angeles was received late last month after the play opened. Written on the same kind of green notepaper with apparently the same typewriter, it was longer and full of grammatical errors.
The writer claimed to have seen the play in Minneapolis. "The actors and actresses were wonderful," the writer said. "I wish I had known them in my own actual life."
A spokesman for the theater said Producing Director Bill Semans "firmly believes" the letters are on the level.
But playwright John Orlock doesn't buy it. "I think it was (written by) someone who couldn't resist the challenge," he said.
Some law enforcement officials say Cooper died when he jumped from the plane. Orlock believes Cooper survived the jump but died of cancer later.
Orlock's play is based on a letter printed in the New York Times about three weeks after the hijacking. In it, Cooper claimed to be dying of cancer and added that he had hijacked the plane in hopes of gaining a "few fast grains of peace of mind."
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The FBI thinks the hijacker didn't know much about parachutes when he jumped from the rear door of a jet traveling 197 mph at 10,000 feet, and he probably landed in some of the roughest wilderness in the Pacific Northwest.
Cooper was, for a while, a folk hero, immortalized by songs, bumper stickers and T-shirts. Orlock saw him as a sick little man whose miserable life concluded with a ritualized act that put it all in order.
Shortly before the fifth anniversary of the Nov. 24, 1971, hijacking, an indictment was returned against "Dan Cooper," eliminating the statute of limitations in the case.
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[stamp] LC 4 - 81- Sub B [stamp] MAY 3 1979 FBI—SEATTLE
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FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-23083
Serials: LC 4-81-Sub B