FD-350 clipping, Los Angeles Times, 'No Trace of Hijacker in Foot-by-Foot Search'

FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)

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(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

No Trace of Hijacker in Foot-by-Foot Search

Fate of 'D. B.' Cooper, Who Jumped From Airliner With $200,000, Still a Mystery

BY DARYL LEMBKE Times Staff Writer

LAKE MERWIN, Wash. — Soldiers of the 3rd [guess: Battalion] hunt and who described the search as "cold, miserable and a lot of walking."

Vince Tricola, proprietor of a grocery store and adjoining pub here on the shores of Lake Merwin, is waiting for delivery of a painting which he plans to display behind the bar. It will commemorate the search for the elusive "D.B. Cooper," who the FBI thinks bailed out over this area with $200,000 on a rainy day last Thanksgiving eye after hijacking a Northwest Orient Air lines plane.

Tricola said he doesn't know if the artist is going to depict the hijacker floating safely and serenely to earth, or hanging by his parachute from a tree.

Tricola's customers have debated both possibilities endlessly since the hijack area have been hazy but statements were made that the hijacker let down the plane's rear stairs at [guess: 8:13] p.m.

Mystery Remains

The fate of D.B. Cooper is as much a mystery now as when he jumped despite a new, intensive search of a 10-square-mile area around the lake by 1200 soldiers from Ft. Lewis, Wash.

That 18-day hunt ended last week without finding either the hijacker's body or a single clue as to what happened to him. There was no parachute, no clothing, and none of the 10,000 $20 bills which he demanded and got in Portland, escape?

He wasn't where we searched, said Maj. Warren Shiroma, who was operations officer on the [guess: more] Calvary regiment. The search tramped over every foot of the search area. The mountains are wooded with fir, hemlock, alder and maple. Interspersed in the rugged areas and forming a checkerboard pattern are scattered farms on lowland areas where apple trees are in blossom and sheep and cows graze.

The area around the lake was chosen for the search because the FBI had indications that the hijacker jumped two miles south of [guess: foot].

Time Element

Details of the computer calculations which pinpointed the jump over this [guess: area] have been hazy but [guess: the] hijacker let down [guess: vived].

There were reports that flight instruments recorded a slight lurch of the plane two or three minutes later. That would have placed the plane over Lake Merwin in its flight from Seattle to Reno, Nev., where the crew eventually landed without the hijacker.

Did "D. B. Cooper," the name used by the hijacker when he bought a ticket in Portland, escape?

"Either he got away alive or he's at the bottom of the lake, or the FBI calculations of where he jumped aren't correct, but I have no doubt that this is where he dropped."

Capt. Charles Markham, an Army helicopter pilot with two hitches in Vietnam, who participated in the search, said troops covered every three to five feet of the search area on foot.

Tapes were stretched out to make sure that everything was systematically covered. Observers in eight Army helicopters also scanned the terrain from the air. Every broken treetop was examined.

Markham was asked if he believes Cooper survived.

"I think it's quite possible," he did," replied Markham. "There's a lot of wide open area in which he could have jumped, and it's possible that he's dead somewhere in there and we didn't find him, but not probable."

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

1A-1 Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, Calif.

Date: 4/28/72 Edition: Friday final. Author: Editor: Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office Los Angeles

☐ Being Investigated

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SEARCHED INDEXED SERIALIZED FILED APR 28 1972 FBI—LOS ANGELES

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DB Cooper-24223

FBI Agents Join In [guess: house], think the hijacker Shiroma said that hav- got away. ing divers search the bot- "I figure he was long tom of the lake, which is gone," said Neiger. "I still 12 miles long and 300 feet think the plane we saw deep, would be a stagger- had something to do with ing project. Earl Milnes, it. My wife saw a man in a chief special agent in car parked by the air strip charge of the FBI in Seat- for two or three hours at a tle, agreed that dragging time on the three days be- the lake would be a big fore the hijack. job. He had no comment "She had field glasses on on whether it is being con- him and it looked like he sidered. The Army was requested was sitting there writing by the Justice Department something." in Washington to conduct Jim Rhodes, an atten- the ground search, which dant at a service station in a Ft. Lewis spokesman de- nearby Woodland (popula- scribed as a "combination tion 1,520), agreed with search and field exercise." the getaway theory. Scores of FBI agents "People say he made a hiked over the terrain bad jump, but I was in the with the GIs. paratroopers," said Troops were bivouacked Rhodes. "Fir trees are the in tents at a park main- easiest to come down tained by Pacific Power & through. Light Co., adjacent to its "His friend, Jim Beck, dam, which forms Lake also agreed. Merwin. "The money ain't turned "Morale of the men was up, but he ain't stupid high," said Markham. "It enough to spend it," said was better than policing Beck. the area back at Ft. Le- Richard Dahlstrom, wis."

Differing Views owner of the Western Said Shiroma: "The Auto store in Woodland, Army has the only capa- still thinks the hijacker is bilities to conduct a search probably up there in the like that. It was an excep- brush. tional type of operation "I know from hunting for the Army, but we deer that if he was injured sometimes do conduct a in a landing, holed up in search for a missing child. the brush for protection Besides, it was a good and then died, you could training vehicle." walk right by him and Opinion is still divided in never see the body," said the hamlets and on the Dahlstrom. small farms of the area as Mrs. Donald Haun, who to the fate of D. B. Coop- lives on a farm near Le- er. center in the search area, Mr. and Mrs. Emil Nel- said she wondered if the ger, who on the stormy ost of the search didn't night of the hijacking saw exceed the $200,000 that a mysterious light plane the [illegible] took. land and take off again on a rural air strip near their