Part 53, page 16

Transcript

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

FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

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Year later, D.B. Cooper legend grows

By BYRON JOHNSRUD

Soft breezes brush the fir and hemlock along the Lewis River dividing Clark and Cowlitz Counties in what, natives say, has "been the loveliest autumn in years."

Bright leaves spiral down and an occasional cone chunks into the leafy undergrowth.

But, alas. Nary a D. B. Cooper $20 bill.

So now, on the anniversary of the first parachute-skyjacking, D. B. Cooper grows larger than life in lore and legend in the area. But what actually may have happened to him is as much a mystery as ever.

"About the best we can do in the way of Cooper bills," said Anna Friday of Ariel, "are some reasonable facsimiles. The Oaks Restaurant has printed its Thanksgiving menu on them as a sort of anniversary memento, Cooper and Thanksgiving all in one."

IT WAS a misty, cloudy, miserable Thanksgiving Eve when Cooper, obviously an alias, jumped from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727, $200,000 in $20 bills attached to his person.

Along with the ransom, he had asked for four parachutes and demanded that the plane be flown at 10,000 feet and 200 miles an hour. When the 727 landed at Reno, Cooper, the money and one of the parachutes were gone. The Ariel-La Center-Woodland area has been fixed as the most probable spot of his drop.

"Around here," said Mrs. Friday, a writer on The Lewis River News, "people deplore the horrors of the skyjackings that came after. But Cooper never hurt anybody — a Little Boy Blue, or Little Lord Fauntleroy by comparison.

"So, even though people here are in full accord that something must be done about skyjacking, most of us have adopted Cooper as a sort of folk hero.

"Most of us think he got away with it and I'd bet most hope he did."

NONE OF the Cooper money has turned up. This could mean that Cooper still is lying low or that in his drop to earth "he screwed himself into the ground up to the elbows."

If it's the latter, no clues have been found. But it's a wild country above the flatlands along the river and a body or shreds of chute might go undiscovered for years.

Elk hunters flooded the area during hunting season, many of them as eager for Cooper loot as for elk. Some didn't even get an elk.

There are rumors afloat that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents still prowl the hills.

"But if so, they don't drop into my place for a beer and chat about it with me," said Germaine Tricola.

Mrs. Tricola operates the Ariel general store and tavern, a favorite gathering place for Cooper gossips from near and far.

"NEWSMEN STILL come around once in awhile," said Mrs. Friday. "That's fine with me. They always seem to mention my little book and we've had to start printing another thousand copies."

Mrs. Friday wrote a Cooper skyjacking spoof titled "Skyjackers Guide—Or Please Hold This Bomb While I Go to the Bathroom."

(Cooper pulled off his stunt with what he said was a bomb.)

There are a few indefatigable amateur Cooper hunters.

"There's an old fellow from Portland still around quite a bit," Mrs. Tricola said.

The local joke is that this fellow really is D. B. Cooper come back to look for a wallet he dropped in his jump.

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

p.A1 Seattle Times Seattle, Wash.

Date: 11/22/72 Edition: Final Author: Byron Johnsrud Editor: Henry McLeod Title: NORJAK Character: or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

☐ Being Investigated

COPY SENT TO BUREAU

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DB Cooper-22354

164-81-Sub-B

SEARCHED.......... INDEXED.......... SERIALIZED........ FILED...49...... NOV 27 1972 FBI—SEATTLE

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Sub B