Part 53, page 15

Transcript

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

Even so, a lot of odd things happened around Lake Merwin on Thanksgiving Eve and the night before. For example, Jess Hat- field heard a thumping on his rooftop. And in the community of view, a small plane was reported to have landed at an isolat- ed strip near the home of Mrs. Melvin Anderson, Emil Neiger's wife re- called the plane circling overhead. And at La Center, five miles west of View, Mrs. Donald Haun remembered a small plane landed on a strip adjacent to the Haun's blackberry ranch the night before the hijack. The craft took off with the aid of automobile head- lights, returned about 45 minutes later and then both the car and the plane left. Was that a rehearsal? The night of the hijack, the Hauns, like just about every one else in and around La Center, were at- tending a wedding in the Evangelical Church. And for some inexplica- ble reason, an organized search for Cooper did not get really going in this area until the Saturday aft- er Thanksgiving. The sol- diers' helicopters much of the time were unable to penetrate the mist that shrouds the foothills and farmland around Lake Merwin. The 300-foot maxi- mum depth of the lake made a thorough search of its cold waters impracti- cal. Meantime, the FBI has checked out every possible clue — letters purportedly written by Cooper to news- papers and television sta- tions, cigaret butts found in the forest, because the hi- jacker was a chainsmoker, and even a Seattle area skydiver who resembles the composite of Cooper drawn from description. [guess: says] Cooper is "white with an olive complexion," 6- foot-1, 170-175 pounds, and in his mid-40s. His dark hair was cut short and neatly combed. He wore

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tinted glasses, with dark frames and in addition to a dark suit, was clad in a white shirt with narrow black tie and a dark trenchcoat. Regardless of whether he got away with the $200,000, several other persons were able to cash in on the epi- sode, some with dire re- grets. Dick Daiser, a 29-year- old Portland restaurant worker, wasted no time in designing and manufactur- ing D. B. Cooper T-shirts which he sold at $1.50 wholesale, although a con- signment obtained at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport gift shop never were put up for sale. And a Portland night club singer named Tom Bresh wrote and recorded a record called "D. B. Cooper, Where Are You?" with short-lived success. At Ariel, Anna, Friday penned and published a whimsical little book enti- tled "Skyjacker's Guide — Or Please Hold This Bomb While I Go to the Bath- room." It was illustrated by her cartooning brother- in-law, Bill. One of his car- toons shows a sleeping,

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contented bear with para- chute shrouds dangling out of his mouth. And then there is the case of former Newsweek writer Karl Fleming of Los Angeles. He paid out $30,000 for an exclusive in- terview with D. B. Cooper for the new weekly "LA," of which he is editor. That case comes up in federal court in Seattle Nov. 27 with William J. Lewis, 33, and Donald S. Murphy, 49, a couple of Bremerton, Wash., real estate develop- ers charged with conspira- cy to defraud Fleming. Since the Cooper hijack- ing, there have been 21 ex- tortion - hijacks of air- planes. In these a total of $12,712,000 has been de- manded, Shaffer said. Only the $200,000 paid Cooper and $303,000 extorted May 5 by Frederick W. Hannenen has not been accounted for. Three extortionist hijack- ers have been killed by FBI agents. Six of the hijackers para- chuted, but only Cooper has not been found. "Since Cooper," said Shaffer, "we're getting a new animal in this thing. The out-and-out criminal."

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DB Cooper-22353

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[illegible] CRUEL WORLD