Part 43, page 321

Transcript

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

FBI agents comb Columbia River bank near Vancouver for additional money or clues to the fate of airline hijacker D.B. Cooper.

AP Photo Newsday Map -

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Stacks of rotting $20 bills found near the Oregon-Washington border were identified as part of the loot paid to a vanished hijacker known only as D.B. Cooper.

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A Clue to a '71 Crime Newsday, front [page] 4/2/80

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Rotting Cash a Clue To 1971 Hijacking

The Los Angeles Times Washington—A young Vancouver, Wash., family on an outing along the Columbia River Sunday suddenly stumbled across 12 tacks of moldering money—part of $200,000 that notorious airline hijacker D.B. Cooper had made off with more than eight years ago, the FBI said yesterday.

With the bills traced to the Cooper loot, 30 agents from the Portland and Seattle FBI offices have begun a search of the area for more of the money—and possibly some sign of Cooper or, more likely, his remains.

The family found the money—"several thousand dollars," according to one official—about five miles northwest of the Interstate bridge that spans the Columbia and separates Washington from Oregon. FBI agent William M. Baker said in Portland. The bills were partly buried in sand that the family was scooping out to build a fire.

The discovery, by Harold Dwayne Ingram, 7, his wife, Patricia, 26, and their 8- and 3-year-old sons, marked the latest twist in the bizarre saga of the now-legendary Cooper, who parachuted from a Northwest Airlines airliner on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, never to be seen or heard from again.

Law-enforcement authorities long have be-

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lieved that Cooper died in his plunge from the Boeing 727, because he was wearing only a business suit and street shoes when he jumped into a howling wind and freezing rain with an unreliable parachute.

The saga began when Cooper boarded the jetliner in Portland for a flight to Seattle. Once airborne, he demanded that the airline have $200,000 in $20 bills and three parachutes on hand when the plane landed in Seattle. He threatened to blow up the plane if his demands were not met. The airline complied, providing the parachutes and money. The FBI said yesterday that the serial numbers of the bills had been recorded.

Cooper permitted the airliner's 36 passengers to leave the plane in Seattle. He then ordered the crew to head for Reno and told the pilot to fly at a relatively low altitude and open the plane's rear stairway.

Crew members said they believed he jumped, using the least reliable parachute, over southwest Washington. Law enforcement officials have theorized that his body is in Lake Merwin, 30 miles north of Portland, or entangled in thick bushes. The decomposed money was found 17 to 20 miles from what is believed to have been the jump site.

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Newsday 2-13-86 PP 1 [guess: s] 4

Date: NY file Edition: Auth[or]: [illegible] 64-627 Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: ☐ Being Investigated

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[guess: 1] - 8277

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DB Cooper-17549