Part 9, page 202

Transcript

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

50 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

[right side metadata box] Indicate page, name of paper, city and state. San Diego Union, San Diego, Ca.; A-1 Date: Wed., 2/13/80 Edition: Home

Title: D. B. COOPER

Character: HIJACKING or Classification: 164-91 Submitting Office: San Diego

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—IS COOPER DEAD?—

Some Skyjack Loot Found But Trail Still Cold

From The San Diego Union's News Services

PORTLAND, Ore. — Children digging in the sand during a family picnic uncovered up to $3,000 of the $200,000 taken by D.B. Cooper in a 1971 jet hijacking in which the hijacker escaped by parachute, the FBI said yesteday.

FBI officials said the discovery of the money on a Columbia River beach north of Portland reinforced their long-held theory that Cooper was killed in the daring plunge that has made the aerial bandit a folk hero in the Pacific Northwest.

No trace has been found of the hijacker.

At news conferences in Washington, Seattle and Portland, the FBI confirmed that the money — not counted but estimated at $3,000 or less — was part of the $200,000 in $20 bills given Cooper on demand after he commandeered a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 trijet on Thanksgiving eve 1971.

A man using the name D.B. Cooper boarded the jet in Portland, threatened to blow it up, then forced it to land in Seattle to collect the ransom. He allowed 36 passengers aboard the flight to leave the aircraft, then ordered the crew to fly to Reno. When it landed in Reno, there was no trace of Cooper but the rear exit door under the tail was open.

The FBI theorized at the time that Cooper, dressed only in a business suit and street shoes, jumped from the plane over southwest Washington during a freezing storm.

FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who has been on the Cooper case since the night of the skyjacking, said the discovery of the money reduced to "less than 50-50" the odds that Cooper is alive.

(Continued on A-5, Col.1)

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164-91-168

SEARCHED INDEXED SERIALIZED FILED [illegible date stamp] FBI — SAN DIEGO

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FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-906