Part 46, page 84

Transcript

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

Staff photo by KRAIG SCATTARELLA

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COOPER'S CASH — Portland State University geologist Leonard Palmer discusses probable history of $20 bills found Sunday on Vancouver, Wash., beach. The money, part of ransom paid to hijacker "Dan Cooper," washed ashore recently after spending about eight years in water, Palmer says.

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begins with Cooper parachuting from the Boeing 727 somewhere over South- west Washington.

Cooper may have landed in a wil- derness alive and then decided to find a stream to follow out of the woods, Palmer speculated. He said the chance that Cooper landed in water was re- mote.

Once Cooper got to the water, something happened that caused him to become separated from at least part of the money, Palmer continued.

"He would not let go unless he was

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in trouble. He had gone through a lot of work to get that money," Palmer said. "But there were plenty of reasons for him to be in trouble."

Whatever the source of the trouble, the money entered the water.

"Up to that point, it's conjecture," Palmer said. "But once we have it in the water, we know what happened to it."

The bills spent the next nine years moving slowly downstream, probably getting caught at spots on the stream bottom, resting there a time and then becoming dislodged by river action.

The bills recovered Sunday were

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worn away in a rounding fashion and were matted together — evidence that the money had been in the water most of the time, Palmer explained.

Palmer said he believes the bills probably were washed up on the river bank within the last three to six months. The bills could have been there as long a year if they were well pre- served in the water, he added.

The FBI sent the decomposed $20 bills Wednesday to its Washington, D.C., laboratory.

The FBI ultimately plans to return the money to its proper owner when it determines whether the owner is Northwest Airlines or Royal Globe In- surance Co. of New York, which cov- ered the loss. The airline's offer of a $25,000 reward for return of the money has expired.

Charles Arnold, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department in Washing- ton, D.C., said the tattered bills would be replaced at face value if they were returned to the Treasury.

Responsibility for the Cooper inves- tigation Thursday was returned to the FBI office in Seattle. Technically, the Seattle field office has been in charge of the hijacking investigation.

Jack Pringle, assistant special agent in charge of the Seattle office, said there was a chance that laboratory tests on the money "could find additional debris that might give us an idea where it may have been."

Preliminary results were not ex- pected until next week.

The FBI has asked the Corps of En- gineers to begin assessing streamflows of the Columbia and its tributaries in the Washougal River watershed.

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DB Cooper-18856