FD-350 clipping: David Hawley column on D.B. Cooper and the Orlock play, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 5/2/79

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-75)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) 12 PIONEER PRESS St. Paul, MN

Date: 5-2-79 Edition: Morning

Title: Dead or alive, D.B. Cooper where are you?

Character: or Classification: 163-74 Submitting Office: MINNEAPOLIS

---

Dead or alive, D.B. Cooper where are you?

---

Never let the truth interfere with good publicity. [guess: ently] written by the same person. In show business that advice is right up there The first, postmarked from Chicago, thanked the with the Ten Commandments, but sometimes Cricket for the invitation. "I won't say I will things get too far-fetched. accept, and I won't say I won't," the writer said. ENTER THE Cricket Theater, The brief note was signed by Daniel B. Cooper. which last month opened a whim- The second letter, mailed in Los Angeles, was sical musical based on the fic- received late last month after the play opened. tionalized life of an airplane hi- Written on the same type of green notepaper with jacker named D.B. Cooper. In apparently the same typewriter, it was longer and real life a man identified by that full of grammatical errors. name commandeered a North- The writer claimed to have visited Minneapolis west Airline aircraft in 1971 and to see the play. "The actors and actresses were later parachuted from the plane wonderful," the writer said. "I wish I had known somewhere over Washington them in my own actual life." state. What do you do with two such letters? Copy them He carried with him about 21 and put out a news release, of course. Cooper pounds in money, totaling Another question is whether anybody at the $200,000. No one knows what happened to Cooper Cricket really believes the letters could be genuine and none of the money, all of which was marked, literary products by D.B. Cooper. A spokesman for has been recovered. the theater said Producing Director Bill Semans Until now, anyway. If you believe what follows, I "firmly believes" the letters are on the level. have a bridge you might be interested in buying. Earlier this year the Cricket, in a promotional PLAYWRIGHT JOHN Orlock doesn't buy any of gimmick, placed an ad in Time Magazine. "D.B. it. "I think it was (written by) someone who Cooper, wherever you are," the ad said. "Two free couldn't resist the challenge," he said. "If perhaps tickets are waiting for you at the Cricket Theater one more letter comes in we'll have a competi- or 'The D.B. Cooper Project.'" tion." TWO REPLIES WERE received — both appar- Where is D.B. Cooper? Dead, says Orlock. Dead, says the FBI.

---

164-81- Sub B SEARCHED ...INDEXED... SERIALIZED... FILED... MAY 4 1979 FBI — SEATTLE

---

DB Cooper-23091

David Hawley [guess: series] of [guess: stories] [illegible] 2AW [illegible] [illegible]

---

wilderness country in the Pacific Northwest. Worst of all, Cooper took two parachutes with him — one a small emergency chute used by stunt flyers and the other a training chute used for demonstrations. The big chute was sewn shut and the smaller chute, if used under ideal conditions by an expert, proba- bly would have resulted in a broken ankle or leg. So who was D.B. Cooper? For a while he was a folk hero of sorts, immortalized by songs, bumper stickers and T-shirts. "D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?" was the song title and bumper sticker ques- tion.

But they don't agree as to when he died. Law enforcement people have long asserted that Cooper died when he jumped from the Northwest 727 somewhere over southwest Washington state. Or- lock believes Cooper survived the jump, but later died of cancer.

Orlock's play is based, rather whimsically, on a letter that was 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 the hopes of gaining "a few fast grains of peace of mind." "The tone of it seemed really quite honest to me," said Orlock.

THE FBI'S CLAIM is based on a number of fac- tors — the belief that the hijacker didn't know much about parachutes, that he jumped from the rear door of a jet going 197 mph at 10,000 feet and that he probably landed in some of the roughest

He was macho. He was daring. He didn't hurt anybody, but he ripped off a big corporation. And he beat the fuzz.

ORLOCK, WHO WAS obsessed with the letter printed in the New York Times, saw D.B. Cooper as a sick little man whose miserable life concluded with a ritualized act, something that put it all in order. He thinks Cooper died 14 months after the crime.

D.B. Cooper, where are you? A fictionalized ver- sion of your life is being performed at the Cricket through Saturday.

If you're still alive, all is forgiven. The statute of limitations for the hijacking ran out more than two years ago.

---

DB Cooper-23092