Part 43, page 187

Transcript

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bones are deeply enmeshed in giant blackberry bushes in the remote area 30 miles north of Portland and never will be found.

Regardless of Cooper's fate, Sun- day's discovery was the first of any trace of the hijacker, the parachutes or the money.

The long frustrated FBI made simultaneous announcements of the find in Seattle, Portland and Washing- ton, D.C., yesterday.

The crumbling stacks of $20 bills, and members of the Ingram family who dug it out of the sand, were put on display at an FBI press conference in Portland.

"An examination of the badly de- composed $20 bills reveals that they bear serial numbers identical to a por- tion of those given to the hijacker," Paul L. Mack, special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle office, said in a statement.

"Because of the decomposed na- ture 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," Mack added, "indicate that the bills have not been separated and are in much the same order as when given to the hijacker."

The money was still held together with a rubber band, FBI agents said.

The bills are being sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C., for further examination.

"It appears logical that the pack- age of bills could have been carried downstream on one of the Washing-

ton tributaries of the Columbia River to the site where they were found," Mack said.

The money was found on the Washington side of the Columbia about five miles downstream from the Interstate 5 bridge at Vancouver, where the river makes a sharp north- ward bend.

The discovery will probably steer agents away from the vicinity of Lake Merwin, which until now they had considered the most likely area for Cooper to have landed in his jump.

Lake Merwin is behind a dam on the Lewis River, which empties into the Columbia about 15 miles down- stream from where the money was found. So it appears to mean the loot couldn't have washed down the Lewis River.

Agent Himmelsbach said the money could have washed down the Washougal River instead. If so, the agent said, Cooper's landing spot would have been about 25 miles far- ther south than the FBI had believed.

About 33 FBI agents from Portland and Seattle swarmed over the area where the money was found with shovels and rakes last night. An agent said they'd be back at work there to- day.

Treasure hunters and curiosity seekers were being kept away.

"We've got the area secured and it will be secured until we're through with it," Bill Williams, a spokesman for the Portland office of the FBI said.

The site is in a swampy dairy farm- ing area, frequently flooded by the Columbia River.

During spring runoff, Williams

said, the money could have been car- ried down a stream into the Columbia, "and then come downstream a little more every year."

Bits of $20 bills were found buried in as much as three feet of sand, Wil- liams said. But he added that the depth wasn't remarkable considering the amount of flooding.

In the increasingly unlikely event that Cooper turns up alive, he will still face a federal charge of airline hijack- ing — and a possible death penalty.

As a precaution, a federal grand jury in Portland indicted "John Doe, also known as Dan Cooper," on Thanksgiving Eve 1976 — the last day before a five - year statute of limita- tions would have run out.

Agent said in Seattle yesterday that the FBI doesn't believe the stat- ute of limitations would have applied anyway because it considers the crime a capital offense, for which there is no time limit.

The person happiest about the dis- covery of the ransom money may be Agent Himmelsbach, who is scheduled to retire from the FBI Feb. 29 after more than eight years of frustration with the hijacking investigation.

"I'm delighted," he said yesterday.

"We haven't gotten him off the ceiling yet," Williams said of Him- melsbach.

Williams said the second - happiest person may be a dairy farmer on whose property the money is believed to have been found. In the past, the agent said, the farmer has posted a sign charging fishermen and picnick- ers 25 cents to use his property.

"He'll probably be charging five dollars now," Williams said.

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