Part 52, page 63
Document date 22 November 2001
FBI 164-81, Vault Part 52 p. 63 (DB Cooper-21669), News clipping, dated 22 Nov 2001 — cooper.theunsolved.net/parts/Cooper-Part-52/pages/63
Transcript
The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.
he Seattle Times: D.B. Cooper [pu]zzle: The legend turns 30 Page 4 of
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the packet later found by the child on the riverbank. He crawled to a cave and later hitchhiked to Portland, where he spent months recuperating before eventually moving to San Diego.
He hid the money until 1978, when he took it to an Indian reservation in Montana to be laundered. When he returned to San Diego, he kept it stashed in the taillight of an old Cadillac.
Because he was constantly fearful of running into someone from the flight who would recognize him, he often changed his appearance, growing a beard and shaving his head, then growing a mustache and wearing a long ponytail.
Rizzo said Huddleston once said: "In the back of my mind, one day I'll be sitting on a bus, in a bar, and look into the face of the only person who could identify me. I'll see that stewardess. I know she will never forget my face."
Huddleston told Rizzo he'd bought the airline ticket under the name Don — his real middle name, not Dan — and was amused that the FBI went searching for a Dan Cooper.
"He was a James Dean type, a daredevil," Rizzo said. "This is not a story I could make up, but the FBI's never going to prove it."
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The real-estate agent's tale
She claims she found the remote spot near Battle Ground, Clark County, where her husband, an insurance salesman and ex-con, took her in 1979. At the time, all he told her was that it was a sentimental journey for him.
It wasn't until 1995, when he was 70 and on his deathbed, that he whispered to her, "I'm Dan Cooper."
Jo Weber had no idea what he meant, and he angrily blurted, "Oh, let it die with me."
She has since uncovered a trail of stories, suppositions and what could just be coincidences. Among them:
Composite sketches of Cooper resemble her husband, who was a chain smoker. Because he'd served time for burglary and forgery on McNeil Island when it housed a federal penitentiary, he was familiar with the general area where Cooper is believed to have landed.
He sometimes talked in his sleep, drenched in sweat. "I left my fingerprints on the aft stairs," he mumbled. "I'm going to die."
When she asked him about it later, he was vague and evasive.
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DB Cooper-21669