FD-350 clipping, Pioneer Press: 'Dead or alive, D.B. Cooper where are you?'

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) 12 PIONEER PRESS St. Paul, MN Date: 5-2-79 Edition: Morning

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

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

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

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

"Never let the truth interfere with good publicity." In show business that advice is right up there with the Ten Commandments, but sometimes things get too far-fetched.

ENTER THE Cricket Theater, which last month opened a whim- sical musical based on the fic- tionalized life of an airplane hi- jacker named D.B. Cooper. In real life a man identified by that name commandeered a North- west Airline aircraft in 1971 and later parachuted from the plane somewhere over Washington- state.

He carried with him about 21 pounds in money, totaling $200,000. No one knows what happened to Cooper and none of the money, all of which was marked, has been recovered.

Until now, anyway. If you believe what follows, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.

Earlier this year the Cricket, in a promotional gimmick, placed an ad in Time Magazine. "D.B. Cooper, wherever you are," the ad said. "Two free tickets are waiting for you at the Cricket Theater for 'The D.B. Cooper Project.'"

TWO REPLIES WERE received — both appar- ently written by the same person.

The first, postmarked from Chicago, thanked the Cricket for the invitation. "I won't say I will accept, and I won't say I won't," the writer said. The brief note was signed by Daniel B. Cooper.

The second letter, mailed in Los Angeles, was received late last month after the play opened. Written on the same type of green notepaper with apparently the same typewriter, it was longer and full of grammatical errors.

The writer claimed to have visited Minneapolis to see the play. "The actors and actresses were wonderful," the writer said. "I wish I had known them in my own actual life."

What do you do with two such letters? Copy them and put out a news release, of course.

Another question is whether anybody at the Cricket really believes the letters could be genuine literary products by D.B. Cooper. A spokesman for the theater said Producing Director Bill Semans "firmly believes" the letters are on the level.

PLAYWRIGHT JOHN Orlock doesn't buy any of it. "I think it was (written by) someone who couldn't resist the challenge," he said. "If perhaps one more letter comes in we'll have a competi- tion."

Where is D.B. Cooper? Dead, says Orlock. Dead, says the FBI.

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164-41-1753 SEARCHED [...] INDEXED SERIALIZED [...] b6 b7C MAY 4 1979 FBI - PORTLAND [initials] FBI/DoJ DB Cooper-43166

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

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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.

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

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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.

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DB Cooper-43167