'Sure, D.B., You Can Come Out Now' by Fred Brack (Seattle Post-Intelligencer Northwest)

THE TWO MEN SIT[ting] across from me in the small offic[e] [be]side the new federal building in downtown Seattle are indistinguishable from most other men in the business district on a weekday, except for their slightly unfashionable clothes. Their names would distinguish them, but the one ground rule for this meeting is, no names, please.

This is a meeting between the press and the FBI.

"I take care to signal I'm no threat, trust me. My legs are crossed, my notebook is opened but my pen is capped. This is just an 'informal chat, boys, no cross examination.' You can level with me.

We've been through these meetings before, the FBI and I, in different cities on different matters. Sometimes it's the FBI which is asking the questions.

I'm here hoping to develop something new on the D. B. Cooper case. I'm hardly the first. It has been nearly five years since that swarthy, middle-aged man calling himself D. B. Cooper boarded in Portland a Northwest Orient 727, bound for Seattle, showed the flight stewardess a bag he said was full of explosives, allowed the passengers to leave in Seattle in exchange for $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes, directed the plane to head for Mexico with a refueling stop in Reno, jumped off apparently 35 minutes later and landed, with the money, somewhere in the thick forests near [Ariel] in Cowlitz County.

Authorities searched at the point of exhaustion. The Army sent in 300 troops to help in the rugged country. And amateurs have tromped the woods ever since. Nothing.

Five years of mystery. Five years without finding D. B. Cooper or the $200,000. Five years as of November 24, 1976, the day, it is popularly and mistakenly thought, when the statute of limitations on this crime will run out and D. B. Cooper will be a free, rich man.

(See accompanying story.)

Cooper's inventiveness captured the fancy of a lot of people in this land of free enterprise, and the coming anniversary of his daring has drawn many journalists to this small office in the new federal building in downtown Seattle. They, like me, have been seeking the FBI's secrets. Many have been freelancers, because big bucks can be [illegible]

FRED BRACK, a P-I staff writer, specializes in harassing government agencies such as the FBI[illegible]

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Cooper's inventiveness captured the fancy of a lot of people, including the FBI ...

'Noooo Comment'

by Fred Brack

[I] had for uncovering something new about the case.

"I'm carrying not information that [it] [guess: drops] [illegible] of the others have [shown] these two agents. I have been told that [there] once was and still may be, an 'official [lineup]' about who did it, and I am going to [describe] [the] [information] at their feet [during] the [interview] [illegible] and see if they'll [blink].

"One of the two is the case agent. He's [illegible] that designation since August of 1972 and that means he should know [more] about the D. B. Cooper case than anyone else in America, except D.B. himself.

"We don't know if he's dead or alive," the Case Agent says while the Other Agent answers the phone.

"Does that mean, [task], that you don't know whether he survived the jump or [that]?"

The Case Agent considers the question, carefully [rubbing] [against] his [secrets].

"Nooo comment," he says [tentatively].

My respiratory rate changes. It [does] not noticeably.

"Ah, does that mean... you have evidence... that he survived the jump?"

"No comment," he says, quickly this time.

I shrug and move on to something else, hoping to conceal my excitement.

What in the hell do those "no com- ments" mean? That they've found evidence, physical evidence, that Cooper's alive? It couldn't be evidence that he's dead because that would be the body—and then the case would be closed? Or would it? What if they found the body but not the money, and [illegible] [they] want to tip off a suspected accomplice? What could the evidence be? [illegible] [illegible]

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"I understand you've investigated about 800 or 850 suspects, [I say], stalling.

"Right around 850," the Case Agent says.

"And you have 15 to 18 [live] suspects you're still checking?"

"Fifteen to 30, yes."

"Are these all new suspects or have some of them been on the list for years?"

"These are all new."

"You've cleared all the others, all the rest of the 850?"

"Yes."

"How does someone get to be a suspect? What gets you on the list?"

"We normally get information from various sources."

"A [guess: common] one," the Other Agent inter- jects, [illegible] sometimes [illegible] says 'I have an acquaintance and he's a parachutist' or a soldier of fortune or something 'and he's got a lot of money.'"

"We checked them all out," the Case Agent [says] of tips or are from month to month," the [illegible]

"Every time an article appears there's a rash of calls," the Other Agent says. "There was a National Observer article in January [illegible] and we got a lot of calls after that."

"Who are they?" [illegible]

"They come from every economic group, every occupation, a cross section, everyone calls in."

"The suspects or the tipsters?" I ask, slightly lost.

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Sure, D.B., You Can Come Out Now

A LOT OF PEOPLE think the five-year statute of limitations for a federal crime is going to run out for D. B. Cooper on November 24, 1976.

A lot of people are wrong, says Stan Pitkin, U.S. attorney in Seattle.

Air piracy with a threat to harm someone, Pitkin says, is a capital offense. Federal capital offenses, he says, may remain active forever, unless a suspect is brought to trial and guilt is decided.

A capital offense is a crime punishable by death, Pitkin says. Judicial decisions on the death penalty may forestall D. B. Cooper's execution, but his crime was and is a capital one, anyway.

If D.B. Cooper is holed up somewhere in

a cave or seedy boarding house ripping pages off a calendar in the expectation of becoming a free man, he may be in for a rude shock. And there may be a tax case, also, for which the statute limitations is six years.

Of course, Pitkin says, there may not be a tax case. It is possible, he says, that Cooper has paid taxes on the $200,000 somehow [or] has [plucked], more or less, out of the sky. There's no way of telling [it] because authorities don't know who Cooper is.

Fugitive criminals have been known to pay taxes on their loot, Pitkin says.

[illegible] As for anyone who might find the money 'Cooper' took out of the airplane, Pitkin reminds fortune hunters that there is a [illegible]

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thicket of federal criminal statutes under which they could be charged were they found in willful possession of the money. There is a five-year limitation on these offen- ses, he says.

But a lucky fortune hunter who correctly counted the [bills] and avoided criminal prosecution, Pitkin says, still would be open to a civil claim on the money by Northwest Orient or its insurance carrier, since the money belongs to them and not to the finder.

What does Pitkin, who should know, think about the case?

"I share the judgment widely held," he says, "that the only thing uncertain about the case is that the body and the money have not been recovered." —F.B.

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J12

☆Sun, Dat, 10, 1976

Seattle Post-Intelligencer NORTHWEST

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DB Cooper-23121

[Large illustration of a woman with long hair, appearing contemplative, and a smaller inset illustration of two men in conversation. Artist signature: MCCAUSLAND]

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siders the question, his head cocked to one side. He isn't looking at me. Is he about to lie? "No." He says slowly, "I've never heard of that one." I look quickly at the Other Agent. He shrugs and shakes his head slightly. "And you saying that you don't have nor ever had two air traffic controllers from the Midwestern city) as suspects?" I am more aggressive now. I can't let them just shrug off my hot information What about my ar- ticle? My book? The movie sale? "I don't remember all of the suspects!" the Case Agent says. "Look, there have been a lot of sus- pects," the other Agent interjects. "It's hard to say, but I don't remember anything like that." "Are you saying," I press, that you don't have any theories?" "Well, I have lots of theories," the Case Agent says with a small smile and then turns solemn again. "But as far as it affects the investigation, I have an open mind. I have to have an open mind. I have to be able to check out information without any judg- ments about it," He says earnestly. [The] Other Agent helps him out. "There are a lot of guys in the office who have theories. Some say he's dead. Some say he's alive. But I've talked to [the Case Agent] here many times and, he says he has no theories. He just doesn't. He doesn't know." It's convincing, but my suspicions are up. They seem too anxious to quash the air controller theory. "You wouldn't be trying to mislead me?" I ask the Case Agent with my warmest, peanut farmer smile. "No," he replies, and his smile looks more sincere than mine feels. I need some new information. So no one else has. Desperate, I try or

looking for one man or more than one? "We are looking for at least one man," the Case Agent says. "Does that mean 'more than one'?" I'm shameless now, begging for a tidbit, anything. "At least one man," the Case Agent says, smiling at how easy it is to parry my thrusts. I leave with handshakes, not entirely disconsolate. At least I've learned that possibly, no confirmation, but a hint of a shadow of a clue that the FBI has evidence that Cooper did, or did not, survive the jump! In the D.B. Cooper case, people are happy if they maybe learn something. I also have the possibility that they are lying to me about the air traffic controllers. We've been spinning in one spot on that tip for weeks. Time for a last try. I talk to a guy. He tells me to talk to another guy. I talk to the other guy. He directs me to call another guy, John H. Shaffer, director of the Federal Aviation Administration at the time of the skyjacking and now in the freight-forwarding business in Hyattsville, Md. It was the FAA, not the Justice Department, I learn, that told the federal official about the air traffic con- troller. "I remember that theory," Shaffer says. over the phone. "I don't remember all the details, but the evidence against these guys was circumstantial, not physical; it was early in the investigation, it was a hot trail at one time, but it just petered, out, went flat, deflated. It wasn't them." "Personally," Shaffer says, "I think he's dangling from one of those high pine trees out there."

DB Cooper-23122

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"Both," the Other Agent says. "Both," the Case Agent says. "A cross section of suspects and of people who call in." "Is there any geographic concen- tration?" "Most of the calls are from the Pacific Northwest," the Case Agent says. That's enough of this. I've got to get back to the idea that they may have evidence Cooper survived the jump. Maybe they found some of the money? "Was the money marked?" "We have the serial numbers," the Case Agent says. "Has any of it ever been found?" "No," the Case Agent says, but then makes his answer precise. "At least, we, the FBI, know of no money ever having been found." I turn to the Other Agent. "While you were on the phone we were talking about whether you have evidence that Cooper sur- vived the jump." "Well, now," he says rather too quickly, "there are certain things about the case that have never been published. Look, what if some guy walks in here some day and says, 'I'm D. B. Cooper. I spent the money and had a wonderful time but now it's all

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gone and I want to give myself up and write a book and make a million dollars.' Well, there are certain things about the case that only we and Cooper know, and we will want to use those things to identify him." Certain things that only the FBI and Cooper know. That means physical evi- dence, doesn't it? Anything else, since the FBI wasn't on the plane, would have to come from a third party. Or is the other Agent exaggerating? If it is physical evidence, where was it found? On the plane? On the ground? There's something here, if only I could get it. But the FBI is no small town constabulary. I can't trap these guys. The questions change, does the FBI have evidence that Cooper survived the jump? Or evidence that he didn't? Further questions along this line will only antagonize them before I reveal my hot information. It's time to do that now. "If I understand that the Justice Depart- ment, oh, maybe four years ago, told a federal official that there was an 'official' theory, in the case and that this involved two air traffic controllers from [a Midwestern city] who were gone from their jobs when this happened and were known to have been in this area and visited some of the airports involved. Is this, or was this, an 'official' theory?" Will they blink? The Case Agent con-

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer NORTHWEST Sun., Oct. 10, 1976 13