Part 54, page 91

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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D. B. Cooper 'Home free' next year, if he's alive

PORTLAND — (UPI) — Just one more year and D. B. Cooper will be home free — if he is alive. The five-year statute of limitations then will run out on hijacking charges against Cooper, the nation's first parachuting skyjacker, who used a bomb threat to extort $200,000. He vanished from a Northwest Airlines 727, with his loot wrapped in one of his parachutes, on Thanks- giving eve, 1971. Did he survive the jump, or is his body at the bottom of a la[illegible], hung in a tree or scattered by animals? These are some of the mys- teries after four years of in- vestigation.

"WE HAVE RUN down literally thousands of leads, and eliminated hundreds of people as suspects," says a senior Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who has spent much time on the case. "My personal guess is that there is just a 50 per cent chance that he is still alive." Cooper arrived at Port- land International Airport that wet, squally night near- ly four years ago, paid cash for his flight from Portland to Seattle, and spent 50 min- utes in an airport waiting area before boarding, but not one fellow passenger re- members him. Shortly after take-off, Cooper handed a note to a stewardess that said: "I have a bomb in my brief case."

The F.B.I. agent says the stewardess reported seeing wires, in Cooper's attache case, connected to eight red sticks of dynamite. "Dynamite is not color- coded this way. She was de- scribing highway flares," the agent said.

THERE IS SOME doubt that Cooper was an experi- enced parachutist, says the agent, since when Cooper jumped he took the two worst choices of the four parachutes given him at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, where he obtained the $200,000 in $20 bills. A world-champion para- chutist was quoted as say- ing "no amount of money" could induce him to make the jump Cooper did, from 10,000 feet into heavy rain clouds. But the F.B.I. is positive Cooper came down about 12 miles north of Portland in an area four miles by six miles. Despite aerial and ground searches, no clues to Coop- er's fate have ever been found. None of the 10,000 bills in ransom have shown up ei- ther, even though The Ore- gon Journal offered a $1,000 reward for the first $20 from the Cooper haul turned in to the Portland newspaper. Serial numbers of all of the bills were taken before the money was given to Cooper and were distributed by the F.B.I.

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

p.A10 Seattle Times Seattle, Wash.

Date: 11/23/75 Edition: Final Author: Editor: Jim King Title: NORJAK Character: or 164-81-SubB Classification: Submitting Office: Seattle ☐ Being Investigated

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Sub 3

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SEARCHED _____ INDEXED ___ SERIALIZED ____ FILED ___ NOV 28 1975 FBI—SEATTLE

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DB Cooper-23017

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b6 b7C