Part 43, page 265

Transcript

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

on Highway 140 in March 1976 when he spotted what looked like a woman's purse in the roadway. The purse turned out to be a bank bag with $6,040 inside, all 20s, except for two 10s. "Being an honest person, I turned it in," Smith said. "Then I waited a year. The FBI checked to see if it was part of the Cooper money. I wasn't." After a year, no one claimed it, so Smith got half. Under state statute, the other half of the money goes to the state general fund. Devaney's and Smith's experi- ences may mean that the Washou- gal River, while possibly not the source of the Cooper money, is a veritable stash of someone else's. In fact, soon after the Cooper money was found near Vancouver, an FBI agent said an anonymous person called to tell agents that three 20s folded together were found in the river. The caller said they were already spent, ruling out a serial number comparison.

While Devaney has kept his money, Smith spent his $3,020. "I didn't have to 'launder' it," Smith said. "I used it to drill my well and put in a septic tank." With tales of money along the Washougal River and the possibili- ty of the D.B. Cooper cash coming from its watershed, suprisingly, no FBI agents have seemed to be around asking the river folks if they know of money being found.

"I haven't seen anyone that well dressed today," said Sharrol Fuller, one of the owners of the Riverside Grocery, a meeting place for Washougal River residents.

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DB Cooper-17485