Part 54, page 192

Transcript

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

THE TWO MEN SIT[ting] across from me in the small offic[e] [be]side the new federal building in downtown Seattle are indistinguishable from most other men in the business district on a weekday, except for their slightly unfashionable clothes. Their names would distinguish them, but the one ground rule for this meeting is, no names, please.

This is a meeting between the press and the FBI.

"I take care to signal I'm no threat, trust me. My legs are crossed, my notebook is opened but my pen is capped. This is just an 'informal chat, boys, no cross examination.' You can level with me.

We've been through these meetings before, the FBI and I, in different cities on different matters. Sometimes it's the FBI which is asking the questions.

I'm here hoping to develop something new on the D. B. Cooper case. I'm hardly the first. It has been nearly five years since that swarthy, middle-aged man calling himself D. B. Cooper boarded in Portland a Northwest Orient 727, bound for Seattle, showed the flight stewardess a bag he said was full of explosives, allowed the passengers to leave in Seattle in exchange for $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes, directed the plane to head for Mexico with a refueling stop in Reno, jumped off apparently 35 minutes later and landed, with the money, somewhere in the thick forests near [Ariel] in Cowlitz County.

Authorities searched at the point of exhaustion. The Army sent in 300 troops to help in the rugged country. And amateurs have tromped the woods ever since. Nothing.

Five years of mystery. Five years without finding D. B. Cooper or the $200,000. Five years as of November 24, 1976, the day, it is popularly and mistakenly thought, when the statute of limitations on this crime will run out and D. B. Cooper will be a free, rich man.

(See accompanying story.)

Cooper's inventiveness captured the fancy of a lot of people in this land of free enterprise, and the coming anniversary of his daring has drawn many journalists to this small office in the new federal building in downtown Seattle. They, like me, have been seeking the FBI's secrets. Many have been freelancers, because big bucks can be [illegible]

FRED BRACK, a P-I staff writer, specializes in harassing government agencies such as the FBI[illegible]

---

Cooper's inventiveness captured the fancy of a lot of people, including the FBI ...

'Noooo Comment'

by Fred Brack

[I] had for uncovering something new about the case.

"I'm carrying not information that [it] [guess: drops] [illegible] of the others have [shown] these two agents. I have been told that [there] once was and still may be, an 'official [lineup]' about who did it, and I am going to [describe] [the] [information] at their feet [during] the [interview] [illegible] and see if they'll [blink].

"One of the two is the case agent. He's [illegible] that designation since August of 1972 and that means he should know [more] about the D. B. Cooper case than anyone else in America, except D.B. himself.

"We don't know if he's dead or alive," the Case Agent says while the Other Agent answers the phone.

"Does that mean, [task], that you don't know whether he survived the jump or [that]?"

The Case Agent considers the question, carefully [rubbing] [against] his [secrets].

"Nooo comment," he says [tentatively].

My respiratory rate changes. It [does] not noticeably.

"Ah, does that mean... you have evidence... that he survived the jump?"

"No comment," he says, quickly this time.

I shrug and move on to something else, hoping to conceal my excitement.

What in the hell do those "no com- ments" mean? That they've found evidence, physical evidence, that Cooper's alive? It couldn't be evidence that he's dead because that would be the body—and then the case would be closed? Or would it? What if they found the body but not the money, and [illegible] [they] want to tip off a suspected accomplice? What could the evidence be? [illegible] [illegible]

---

"I understand you've investigated about 800 or 850 suspects, [I say], stalling.

"Right around 850," the Case Agent says.

"And you have 15 to 18 [live] suspects you're still checking?"

"Fifteen to 30, yes."

"Are these all new suspects or have some of them been on the list for years?"

"These are all new."

"You've cleared all the others, all the rest of the 850?"

"Yes."

"How does someone get to be a suspect? What gets you on the list?"

"We normally get information from various sources."

"A [guess: common] one," the Other Agent inter- jects, [illegible] sometimes [illegible] says 'I have an acquaintance and he's a parachutist' or a soldier of fortune or something 'and he's got a lot of money.'"

"We checked them all out," the Case Agent [says] of tips or are from month to month," the [illegible]

"Every time an article appears there's a rash of calls," the Other Agent says. "There was a National Observer article in January [illegible] and we got a lot of calls after that."

"Who are they?" [illegible]

"They come from every economic group, every occupation, a cross section, everyone calls in."

"The suspects or the tipsters?" I ask, slightly lost.

---

Sure, D.B., You Can Come Out Now

A LOT OF PEOPLE think the five-year statute of limitations for a federal crime is going to run out for D. B. Cooper on November 24, 1976.

A lot of people are wrong, says Stan Pitkin, U.S. attorney in Seattle.

Air piracy with a threat to harm someone, Pitkin says, is a capital offense. Federal capital offenses, he says, may remain active forever, unless a suspect is brought to trial and guilt is decided.

A capital offense is a crime punishable by death, Pitkin says. Judicial decisions on the death penalty may forestall D. B. Cooper's execution, but his crime was and is a capital one, anyway.

If D.B. Cooper is holed up somewhere in

a cave or seedy boarding house ripping pages off a calendar in the expectation of becoming a free man, he may be in for a rude shock. And there may be a tax case, also, for which the statute limitations is six years.

Of course, Pitkin says, there may not be a tax case. It is possible, he says, that Cooper has paid taxes on the $200,000 somehow [or] has [plucked], more or less, out of the sky. There's no way of telling [it] because authorities don't know who Cooper is.

Fugitive criminals have been known to pay taxes on their loot, Pitkin says.

[illegible] As for anyone who might find the money 'Cooper' took out of the airplane, Pitkin reminds fortune hunters that there is a [illegible]

---

thicket of federal criminal statutes under which they could be charged were they found in willful possession of the money. There is a five-year limitation on these offen- ses, he says.

But a lucky fortune hunter who correctly counted the [bills] and avoided criminal prosecution, Pitkin says, still would be open to a civil claim on the money by Northwest Orient or its insurance carrier, since the money belongs to them and not to the finder.

What does Pitkin, who should know, think about the case?

"I share the judgment widely held," he says, "that the only thing uncertain about the case is that the body and the money have not been recovered." —F.B.

---

J12

☆Sun, Dat, 10, 1976

Seattle Post-Intelligencer NORTHWEST

---

DB Cooper-23121