Part 50, page 196

Transcript

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

D. B. COOPER (continued from page 79) sensed the man was somehow going to get away with his bold plan. Still holding the stewardess, Cooper's hand slipped down to the swell of her hips. She sucked in her breath and remained motionless as his fingers explored the shape of her round, firm ass. His other hand started to reach for the proud peaks of her bosom. But suddenly he seemed to change his mind. Releasing her, he bent down and picked up the mailbag. "Yep, it's all here," Cooper said, plopping the satchel onto the nearest cushioned seat. "Aren't you going to count it?" Muchlow asked, straightening her skirt and jacket, relieved to be free from him. "I trust 'em," he smiled. Opening the bag, he pulled out a fistful of twenties and offered them to her. "Here," he said. "Call it a tip." "Oh, no," she stammered, "we're not allowed to accept gratuities." Cooper shrugged, and dropped the money back into the bag. "Are the chutes aboard?" "They're up front." "Bring them back here, then shut the door. We're getting outa here. Fast!" Grabbing a microphone at the stewardesses' station, Cooper ordered the crew to fly him to Mexico City. Pilot William Scott explained that that destination was outside the aircraft's range; they would have to stop to refuel. "Then make it Reno," the skyjacker snapped. "And let's get this motherfucking show on the road!" Shortly after takeoff he ordered the pilots to unlock the 727's rear passenger ramp, remain at exactly 10,000 feet altitude, fly at a 200-mph cruising speed with wing flaps down at a 15-degree angle and maintain a particular compass setting. Obviously, Cooper knew exactly what he was doing. After instructing the pilot to fly the direct course to Reno, he gave the stewardess a final smile and closed her inside the cockpit with the flight crew. The last thing she remembers seeing was Cooper removing his street shoes and putting on a pair of heavy work boots, which he had taken from a paper bag. Cooper monitored the flight with a compass and wrist altimeter. Since the rear exit door had been left open on his orders, the cabin pressurization was broken, and an altimeter could thereby function. At one point, when the plane drifted slightly above the instructed altitude, he barked to the cockpit over the intercom: "You son of a bitch, you better keep on 86 AUGUST HUSTLER

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WAS THE D.B. COOPER?

The FBI composite sketch of the alleged skyjacker (above), drawn from eyewitness descriptions supplied by Flight 305 crew members, was widely circulated in 1971-72... to no avail. Three years later, mystery man Byron (Jack) Coffelt—shown in a 1953 photograph (below)—provided believable evidence that he was the elusive D. B. Cooper. Before his 1975 death, Coffelt enlisted the aid of a former convict friend, but failed to find the missing $200,000 ransom money.

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course!" He also ordered the pilot to tell three Air Force jets trailing behind to back off; he could see their lights. What happened next only D. B Cooper knows for certain. Just as Northwest Flight 305 was passing over Lake Merwin, instruments in the cockpit indicated that the rear exit had been

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opened. No personnel entered the cabin until the plane landed in Reno three hours later. By then Cooper, two parachutes, the mailbag and the attache case had vanished. All he left behind were some lengths of cut-up parachute shroud line—and reams of speculation concerning his fate. The FBI claims it expended thousands of man-hours tracking down leads on some 900 suspects, without success. Its conclusion is that Cooper, or whatever his real name was, probably perished in the jump. Official line aside, many observers familiar with the case suggest that Cooper was actually an ex-convict named Byron (Jack) Coffelt. They cite, in part, convincing evidence supplied by James Brown—a former Army officer who shared a cell with Coffelt at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. At various intervals from June 1973 until his death in June 1975, Coffelt told Brown intimate details of the skyjacking and its aftermath that nobody except someone with firsthand knowledge of the incident could possibly have known. Until then Brown knew surprisingly little about his old cellmate's past history. Coffelt, a hard drinker who stood six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds, was always shrouded in mystery. And undoubtedly that's the way he wanted it. Born in 1916, he spent much of his first 30 years in Midwestern jails for a variety of minor crimes. In 1949 he received a ten-year sentence for interstate transportation of a stolen automobile. Over the years his cellmates in the Atlanta and Leavenworth federal prisons reportedly included Colonel Jack Durant, who was convicted of stealing the Hesse crown jewels during World War II, and James Earl Ray, who is presently serving a life sentence for killing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. During those prison years Coffelt apparently made contact with the FBI. A source who requests anonymity mentions a letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover asking the prison warden for information about Coffelt. The source also says that the agent in charge of the Atlanta FBI office was Coffelt's sole visitor for five years. Some believe that he became an FBI informant in prison, secretly turning over information damaging to his cellmates. To Brown, Coffelt described his time behind bars as a "revolving door"—meaning that he would be let out for a few days of weeks at a time to carry out "hit jobs" for the government. Years later Coffelt was known to carry FBI and Department of Agriculture credentials, as well as passes for the White House and the Pentagon. A college professor reports that he was once riding DB Cooper-20801