FD-350 clipping, Pioneer Press 2/13/80: "Boy on picnic discovers D.B. Cooper hijack loot"

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78) (Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) 1 Pioneer Press St.Paul, Minn. Date: 2/13/80 Edition: Morning

itle: D.B. Cooper haracter: or lassification: 164-73 Submitting Office: Minneapolis

---

Boy on picnic discovers D. B. Cooper hijack loot

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Twelve weathered stacks of $20 bills — part of the $200,000 given to legendary airline hijacker "D. B. Cooper" before he parachuted from an airliner more than eight years ago — were produced Tuesday by the FBI.

But agents said they still have no trace of Cooper.

"This clue is the first we've had since the night of the occurrence," said Bill Baker, assistant special agent in charge of the Portland FBI office.

He said wads of the money, bound by rubber bands, were found Sunday while Harold Ingram, his wife, Patricia, and their 8-year-old son, Bri-

an, were preparing to build a picnic fire along the Columbia River, five miles northwest of the Interstate 5 bridge linking Portland and Vancouver, Wash., where the Ingrams live.

Ingram said at a press conference here that the money was found about 20 yards from the river's edge under a thin layer of sand.

"MY SON ran up and said, 'Wait a minute, Daddy,' " Ingram said. "He raked a place out in the sand and there it was. There were three bundles" of money.

Baker said officials estimated there were several thousand dollars in the wads, but it was impossible to make an accurate estimate because

were weather-beaten and crumbling along the edges.

Ralph Himmelsbach, agent in charge of the Cooper case since it happened, has speculated that Cooper died after he parachuted from the Northwest Airlines plane over a densely wooded area along the river.

"I think we can only presume at this time that because the money was found clumped together tightly in what we believe was the manner in which it was originally packed lends credence to the theory that at least the

money did not make it out" of the area where Cooper was believed to have dropped.

"And from there, I would really leave it to conjecture," he added.

ANNOUNCEMENT of the discovery was made simultaneously in Portland, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Serial numbers of the money were recorded before being given to the hijacker on the evening before Thanksgiving in 1971.

The commandeering of the Boeing 727 jetliner is the only known unsolved hijacking.

The hijacker boarded the jet in Portland, then displayed what a flight attendant said looked like dynamite. He demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills.

He ordered the pilot to fly to Seattle where the plane circled for 2½ hours while authorities gathered the parachutes and money.

AT SEATTLE, the passengers and two of the three stewardesses were allowed to leave the plane. The money and parachutes were loaded and the plane took off for Reno, Nev.

The pilot was ordered to fly as slowly as possible.

Somewhere over southwest Washington, the hijacker, the money and one of the parachutes disappeared out of the plane's rear exit. The door was opened in flight.

In 1977, just to make sure the hijacker didn't escape prosecution via the statute of limitations, he was indicted on federal charges in absentia.

Cooper has become somewhat of a folk hero. T-shirts have been printed bearing the question: "D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?".

---

D. B. Cooper Artist's sketch of hijacker

---

164-73-626 SEARCHED _____ INDEXED ___ b6 SERIALIZED ___ FILED ___ b7C FEB 13 1980 FBI FBI/DO. DB Cooper-34265