Part 54, page 114

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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FBI agents return to their cars after unsuccessful search Wednesday.

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'Cooper' pants report awaited

By DAVID KERN Columbian Staff Writer

ARIEL -- FBI agents are waiting for a crime laboratory report before deciding whether a pair of pants found by a rancher in the Green Mountain area of northern Clark County will be a good clue in the five-year-old case of skyjacker Dan Cooper.

John Reed, agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle office, said when he told agents in the crime laboratory in Washington, D.C., that he would be sending them back a pair of dress trousers which might be five years old they responded: "Geez, that's really far out but we'll kick it around."

Seven agents searched for 3 ½ hours Wednesday for any clues in the area where rancher William Lynch found the trousers. "Nothing," responded FBI agent John Pringle when he came out of the wooded area. And Reed said no more searches in the surroundings are scheduled.

"We should have a preliminary crime laboratory report by Friday or Monday," Reed said. He said that report might indicate where the laundry tag came from, whether the pants appeared to have weathered five years of the elements and other possible clues.

"There's a lot of leads that could come from one pair of pants," Reed said. But, he admitted, "Nothing looks good right now."

It was Nov. 25, 1971, that a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 jetliner, gained a $200,000 ransom, and ordered the jet be flown from Seattle to Mexico with a refueling stop in Reno, Nev. He parachuted from the airplane, clutching a briefcase full of the money in $20 bills, when the plane was 35 minutes out of Seattle.

Asked if the [guess: found] [guess: slacks] [guess: could] have been planted by someone wanting to play a practical joke, Reed said, "The pants are possible evidence as far as I'm concerned. This just happens to be the fifth anniversary and these pants came in."

Rancher Lawrence Shinn barely noticed the three FBI cars which were parked only a stone's throw from his barn off an abandoned logging road Wednesday.

Later, he poured a cup of coffee and said, yea, the case of Dan Cooper had created at least a ripple of interest in this mountain ranching community.

"I've set here a million times and said old Cooper is up in that timber," Shinn said, pointing north from a table near a kitchen window.

"To my knowledge, nobody has been in that area -- only by helicopters. The wind was really howling that night and the there was a driving rain," Shinn remembered.

"The helicopters were three or four abreast going back and forth," Shinn added.

Both Shinn and his wife, Maude, said Cooper probably would have had a difficult time surviv- ing because of his fall and the weather that night. The wind was blowing at 30 to 55 miles per hour.

"I have my doubts that he survived because it was quite cold that night," Mrs. Shinn said.

Cattle rancher William Lynch was reluctant to comment on the trousers he found. He said it was up to the authorities to determine if they belong to Cooper.

Lynch spotted the slacks about 25 feet above the ground in a tree while hunting about one month ago. After reading some stories about Cooper, he called the Clark County Sheriff's Office to report his find.

Those slacks were resting crotch up in the tree so that some parts had green moss stains and large tears were in the thighs and knees.

The material seemed to be a double knit type, and the blue-gray slacks are continental style.

Whether Cooper could have worn them is uncertain. The pants have a 36 inch waist and about a 30 inch inseam, according to Dick Dyer, FBI agent in Vancouver. Cooper was described as being about 170 pounds and about 5 feet 10. If those dimensions were accurate, the pants might have been too large to fit the famed skyjacker.

While the FBI waits for a crime laboratory report, folks in these parts may be stopping in at a party in Cooper's honor at the Ariel Store Saturday.

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DB Cooper-23040