Part 50, page 182

Transcript

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street clothes. In fact, much of the FBI's long-standing belief that Cooper died in the jump is based on exactly this point, for after all, wearing only thin oxford slippers, how could he possibly survive the gruelling landing somewhere in the rugged forests of the Pacific Northwest? But the FBI never even bothered, it seems, to question Florence Schaffner thoroughly.

The stewardess related many other relatively minor points which nevertheless confirmed to the last detail Jack Coffelt's version of the crime. According to Florence, Cooper was — just as Coffelt had said — the last person to board the plane at Portland. Florence said that she actually had to fetch him from where he was peering out the terminal windows and lead him to the entrance-way of the plane. Coffelt told me that as he was peering out the terminal windows, watching for a Brinks truck that was supposed to deliver several million dollars — the real target of the skyjacking — in unmarked currency to the cargo hold of the 727, he "almost got left behind." In fact, when the Brinks truck failed to arrive as scheduled he was standing there deliberating whether or not to go ahead with the skyjacking when the girl approached him. It was then that he decided to demand the $200,000 for himself, his modest cut of the few million dollars that was to have been divided among other conspirators. Florence remembered that Cooper was well-dressed, wearing an old-fashioned black suit as Coffelt had claimed, not a "brown" or "dark" one as press accounts have always reported. And she also recalled that he wore white gloves, verifying Coffelt's claim that he wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Her memory of that night was so clear, in fact, that in a most surprising development Florence insisted that she forgot to relay Cooper's request that the ransom money be collected in $20 bills; he refused to accept any other denomination. "I completely forgot about that part," she said. "I was so scared at the beginning of the whole thing." However, if no denomination is specified it is standard procedure for the FBI to deliver such ransom money in larger bills, 50's or 100's, since they are much easier to trace. But even though Florence forgot to tell anyone, Cooper was nevertheless delivered the ransom money in $20 bills by those on the ground!

These perplexing and darkly disturbing details faded into the background, however, when Florence at last provided major new evidence in the case. When I finally found her in July of 1977, the pretty, half-Filipino stewardess, who was then working for Frontier Airlines in Denver, took one look at my photographs of Jack Coffelt, her mouth dropped open, and she gasped, "Oh my God! Where did you get those? I never thought I would see that face again! It's him! My God, it's him!" • • •

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