Part 52, page 90

Transcript

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

How [REDACTED] Came To Suspect X

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[REDACTED] but it wasn't until the early 1990s that [REDACTED] had any suspicion that [REDACTED] might have committed any crimes in the past. Even then she had no idea that he might have committed the Cooper skyjacking (a crime she had heard about, but about which she knew little, mostly only what she gathered from a movie she had seen back in the 1970s).

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Then, in 1997, she read a long article about people who had mysteriously disappeared and had never been found (Jimmy Hoffa, Madlyn Murray O'Hare, etc.). One of the cases touched on in the article was D. B. Cooper. One aspect of the article interested her (not the Cooper part) and she wanted to get [REDACTED] reaction, so she read the article to him. When she did so, it was the part about D. B. Cooper that interested him, and he showed a surprising amount of knowledge about the case -- quite detailed knowledge about a case then almost 30 years old. Since she now suspected him of having committed other crimes in the past, this got her thinking, and she quickly remembered two things.

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First, back in the mid-1970s, she and [REDACTED] had seen a movie about D. B. Cooper. She had no particular interest in the movie, but [REDACTED] was eager to see it and so they went as soon as it came out. The only reason she remembers it is because of the highly unusual reaction of [REDACTED] to the movie. His normal personality is somewhat reserved, not much given to enthusiasm or emotional expression. But at this movie, he was on the edge of his seat, his face aglow, laughing at all the jokes. His reaction was so oversized and unusual that [REDACTED] remembers it much better than she does the movie. But it never entered her mind at that time that he could have committed the crime (or any crime). His reaction, taken by itself, might mean only that the movie struck a chord with him or perhaps that, unknown to her, he was a D. B. Cooper "fan."

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The second thing she remembered also occurred in the mid-1970s. She and [REDACTED] lived in the eastern United States. During this time [REDACTED] announced on one occasion that he would be in California on business for a few days and afterward could drive up to Portland. He had been to Portland any number of times before, and liked the city, but she had been there only once, and then only briefly. So he suggested that she fly out to Portland to meet him, and to see the city, and then they could drive home across the U.S., making it a vacation trip.

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When she flew into the Portland airport, [REDACTED] met her and insisted on giving her a full tour of the airport, as if it were one of the major tourist sites of the city. It was a nice enough airport, but there was nothing distinctive about it; it was much like

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4.

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DB Cooper-21703