Part 2, page 3

Transcript

The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.

[illegible scan artifacts — fragmented characters, no coherent text recoverable]

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24 LA October 21, 1972

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EXHILARATION FILLED HIM

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the follow-on planes from spotting him. The free fall carried him to about 4,500 [feet], where he opened the chute. Below, he could pick up familiar landmarks — fields, barns, roads, and the power line he needed to avoid. The wind was from the east, which was fine. He needed to drift westward, closer to the freeway and his car, anyway. He landed skill- fully in a big open field (it was the first jump he had made in several years) fearing only one thing: that dogs might spot him and begin barking. They didn't. He gathered up the white parachute, walked downhill to a weedchoked gully beside a small dirt road and there stashed the money and the chutes.

Then he simply walked up the road to his car, ducking off into the weeds three times when cars passed. When he reach- ed his car, he got in, drove back, col- lected the money and chute, picked up his radio transmitters, packed every- thing in the trunk, got on the freeway, and drove home.

Exhilaration poured over him. "I felt like I could have walked all the way to Chicago," he said. "Not only did I have the money, but I had a plan and carried the plan through under conditions that a lot of people would be reluctant to jump in. But then the reaction hit me, I became extremely nervous driving up the freeway. I became almost paranoid. Because if I were ever stopped, if I had to open the trunk, I was dead in the water. I considered stopping and getting [rid of] all the visible evidence. But where? So I figured the best thing I could do was keep on going. And this is what I

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[Image 1] UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — $20 bill — Serial: L 54904730 A — Series 12 — TWENTY DOLLARS [Image 2] UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — $20 bill — Serial: L 33529797 A — Series 12 — TWENTY DOLLARS [Image 3] UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — $20 bill — Serial: L 20168977 A — Series 12 — TWENTY DOLLARS

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in a shopping bag, and returned it to the car trunk.

Next morning, he drove to a remote spot, burned part of his gear and buried the rest, along with the money, "in a spot where nobody will ever, ever find it."

Several days later, Cooper inadvert- antly discovered that although the money was not marked, authorities had the serial numbers of every $20 bill he possessed. So though he had the money, he couldn't spend it. What to do? He thought of taking it to Mexico, or Europe, and "fencing" it. But he was an engineer, not a criminal. Therefore, operating on alien turf, he figured to lose not only the money, but his life as well. He was furious. He felt he had been double- crossed. Here he had a fortune, and couldn't spend a dime of it.

That is roughly where I came into the picture. The foregoing narrative was related to me by the man I believed to be Cooper in a series of taped inter- views in a Seattle motel that ran for some eight hours over a period of three days last February. He also guided me by car over the route of his crime.

It had started when a man calling him- self "Seth Thomas" contacted me on the phone on the night of Jan. 31, say[ing] he was acting as intermediary for Cooper. He said Cooper was interested in telling his story, but wanted to be paid, be- cause he couldn't spend the money he had stolen. He said he and Cooper real- ized that the recent Clifford Irving Howard Hughes hoax would devalue the Cooper story in the minds of potential publishers, but that they had thought and [thought] and finally agreed on what [amount — partially illegible] ...[$15,000]