FBI Portland press release on recovery of D.B. Cooper ransom money, with press conference attendee list

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

In Reply, Please Refer to File No. Portland, Oregon January 12, 1980

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PRESS RELEASE

Arthur G. Barger, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for Oregon, has announced a development in a crime which began on the night of November 24, 1971, at Portland International Airport, Portland, Oregon, and has become widely known since that time as the D. B. Cooper Hijacking Case.

On the night before Thanksgiving, 1971, a man who gave the name Dan Cooper bought a one-way ticket on Northwest Airlines Flight 305 from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. Upon departing Portland International Airport, Cooper notified a stewardess that he was hijacking the aircraft and displayed to her what he said was a bomb in his briefcase. The flight proceeded to Seattle, where after maintaining a holding pattern for several hours, it was permitted to land and refuel. After $200,000 and four parachutes demanded by the hijacker were brought on board, he released all of the passengers and all but four members of the crew. The flight then took off and proceeded south through Washington toward Reno, Nevada. The hijacker instructed that the flaps and gear remain lowered and the rear stair door open. As the aircraft passed over LaCenter, Washington, cabin

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pressure fluctuation was observed, which was later determined to indicate his departure from the aircraft through the rear stairwell door. Since that time no trace of the hijacker, the parachutes, or the money has been found until Sunday, February 10, 1980.

On that date while on an outing with their children, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dwayne Ingram of Vancouver, Washington, discovered a sum of money partially buried by sand in the north river bank of the Columbia River, approximately five miles down river from the U.S. Interstate 5 bridge crossing between Portland and Vancouver, Washington. The Ingrams contacted the FBI and an examination of the badly decomposed $20 bills reveals that they bear serial numbers identical to a portion of those given to the hijacker. Because of the decomposed nature of the bills an exact estimate of the recovered money is not possible pending a laboratory examination, however, it appears to be several thousand dollars. The packaging and the numbered sequence indicate that the bills have not been separated and are in much the same order as when given to the hijacker. The bills will be sent immediately to the FBI Laboratory for additional examination.

It appears logical that the package of bills could have been carried downstream on one of the Washington tributaries of the Columbia River to the site where they were found.

Special Agents of the FBI from Oregon and Washington have secured the area and commenced an intensive search.

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For the information of the media, those present at a news conference conducted at the office of the FBI, Portland, at 3:00 p.m. on February 12, 1980, were William M. Baker, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI for Oregon, Ralph P. Himmelsbach, Special Agent of the FBI, and Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dwayne Ingram.

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