Part 53, page 83

Transcript

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

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

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

[handwritten: Sub B]

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Young woman's body discovered

Washington historic site yields corpse

By STEVE ERICKSON of The Oregonian staff

WOODLAND, Wash. — The partially decomposed body of a young woman was found under a historic grist mill nine miles northeast of Woodland Wed- nesday in an area where widespread searching was being conducted for an airline hijacker.

Numerous Army, FBI and local po- lice personnel and a dozen newsmen flocked to the scene before the wom- an's body was recovered from the bot- tom of a rotted wooden dry cistern. There was speculation that the body would be that of Dan Cooper, who par- achuted from a jetliner last Thanksgiv- ing eve with $200,000 in ransom money.

The body was discovered at midaf- ternoon Wednesday by Shirley Free, Carnation, Wash., and her sister, Mrs. Howard Pearson, Ridgefield, Wash., as the two were searching for old bottles. They spotted the body through rotted siding at the base of the 20- foot-high cistern, and called police. A soldier used a chain saw to cut a large hole in the cistern, and the body was removed.

It was that of a woman apparently in her mid-20s, about 5 feet, 6 to 8 inches tall, weighing some 130 pounds, with dark hair. She was wearing bell-bot- tom blue jeans, blue low-cut tennis shoes and a sweater or sweatshirt. The pants had been pulled to her knees and the sweater was pulled around her neck and face. The body had blood around the mouth.

Eugene Cotton, Clark County sheriff, said the body appeared to have been in the cistern "for quite some time — pos- sibly since before January's high wa- ter."

Cotton said he was "not aware of" any missing women in the area.

The grist mill where the body was found was built in 1876 alongside Cedar Creek.

It is less than one mile as the crow flies from the spot where the body of Cynthia Glass, Portland grocery store clerk who was kidnapped and slain last month, was found. The two locations, however, are 15 to 20 miles apart by road.

Cotton said the woman could have crawled through a flume and fallen into the cistern, or "at the lower level there is an opening where a body could have been placed in there."

A platform from which a body could have been dumped into the cistern is accessible from the mill.

Cotton said he would await results of an autopsy before concluding whether the case is a homicide.

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

1 THE OREGONIAN Portland, Ore.

Date: 3/30/72 Edition: Sunrise Author: Editor: Title: NORJAK

Character: 164-81- [illegible] or Classification: Submitting Office: SEATTLE

☐ Being investigated

COPY SENT TO BUREAU

SEARCHED ......... INDEXED ........ SERIALIZED ........ FILED ........

APR 3 1972 FBI — SEATTLE

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DB Cooper-22421