FD-350 clipping: 'FBI: Cooper likely dead man', Tacoma News Tribune

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78) (Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p.A3 News Tribune Tacoma, Wa. Date: 2/13/80 Edition: Final

Title: NORJAK

Character: or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

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FBI: Cooper likely dead man

By KERRY WEBSTER TNT Staff Writer

It's more likely than ever that the legendary D. B. Cooper is just a grinning skeleton in a nylon shroud, say FBI agents raking the sand for the last of his mouldering stash.

"The discovery of the money adds credence to the theory that he probably did not survive the jump," said Bill Williams, a special agent in Portland.

On the north bank of the Columbia River today, more than 30 FBI agents worked behind a cordon of armed sheriff's deputies, spading over every square foot of sand along 150 feet of shoreline.

The site is where eight-year-old Brian Ingram of Vancouver, digging idly in the sand with a stick on Sunday, turned up a sodden wad of $20 bills.

Serial numbers on the money — 12 stacks of twenties, still in their bank wrappings — matched some of those given to "Dan Cooper" when he hijacked Northwest Airlines Flight 305 on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971.

Flourishing what looked like a stick of dynamite, "Cooper" ordered the plane to fly from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Reno, Nev., after first demaninding $200,000 and four parachutes.

The Boeing 727's flight recorder indicated that he jumped from the plane's lowered rear stairwell somewhere near Ariel, a tiny logging town in Southwest Washington.

No trace of Cooper or the hijacking loot had shown up in the past nine years. The mysterious air pirate in that time has become a cult figure, with sweatshirts, bumperstickers and endless pulp-magazine stories dedicated to the exploit.

FBI agents, who have been the butt of D. B. Cooper jokes for nine years, did not conceal a certain grim satisfaction when they announced the finding of the money in Seattle and Portland press conferences yesterday.

The fact that the money appears to have washed up on the riverbank, rather than having been purposely buried there, increases the chances that Cooper is dead.

"There is no way we can tell if he is dead or alive," said John Pringle, assistant agent in charge of the Seattle office. "We only know that if he is alive, he doesn't have this money."

The site of the find is about nine miles downriver from the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia between Portland and Vancouver. Young Ingram made the discovery while picnicking with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dwayne Ingram.

The elder Ingram told reporters yesterday he was preparing to build a fire when his son "ran up and said, 'Wait a minute, Daddy.' He raked a place out in the sand, and there it was."

Ingram told The Associated Press he didn't even consider spending the money, because it looked so badly deteriorated.

The decomposed money was being sent today to the FBI crime lab in Washington, D.C., for examination. Pringle said there is a possibility that mud and soil deposited in the bundles may give a clue as to where they were washed from.

"We're going to be doing some study of tide tables and flood records, also," added Portland agent Williams today. "That'll tell us whether examining any of the Columbia's tributaries would be useful."

The Washougal River flows into the Columbia below the money site, and its origins are deep in the woods over which Cooper is believed to have jumped.

However, Williams noted, the Columbia is frequently dredged and often floods where the money was found, so the situation could be very confused.

Pringle said Cooper jumped with the money tied around his waist, and he said he believed "it was in a bag which would have deteriorated over this length of time."

He said a major objective of the search going on now is to find some other object that is connected to Cooper.

"We could find bones, or a piece of parachute," he said. "Nylon does not deteriorate rapidly."

Agents using spades and rakes have discovered a few more pieces of $20 bills, about the size of nickels and dimes, according to the FBI. The new discoveries were made within a three-foot radius of the original finding.

"We are planning to bring in some heavy equipment tomorrow to speed things up," Williams said. "The problem when you dig up a spadeful of sand is, what do you do with the sand?"

In Ariel, meanwhile, tavern owner Dave Fisher said the little town will go on with plans for its annual "D. B. Cooper party" at his Ariel Store & Tavern this Nov. 24. "You know, if they [guess: had] found [guess: him]," he said, "we [guess: were] [guess: planning] some sort of a memo[guess: rial] [guess: party] [illegible]

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FEI - SE[illegible] DB Cooper-27434 |b[illegible]-81-[illegible]

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