Part 60, page 175

Transcript

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

At the time, Fleming was a contributing editor in Los Angeles for Newsweek magazine, for whom he had worked 11 years. More than a month after placing the ad, Fleming got a telephone call from a man whom he identified in court as Lewis. The man said he could put Fleming in touch with the hijacker, whom he described as a family man disillusioned by being let out of his job at the Boeing company after 14 years of service.

Palevsky Backing

Fleming flew twice to Seattle and paid for the publication, TV and movie rights to the hijacker's story. The $30,000 and $5,000 in expense money was put up by Max Palevsky, 48, a wealthy Los Angeles businessman who was to share equally with Fleming in profits from the story.

Murphy, a real estate man and former operator of heavy construction equipment who said he went broke two years ago because of a drinking problem, admitted he posed as "D. B. Cooper" for lengthy interviews by Fleming.

He said that at Lewis' suggestion, he "boned up" on the hijacking by going to the library and reading newspaper accounts of it. He said he even drove to a sky diving field near Seattle, watched parachute jumps and had a sky diver explain his technique.

Murphy testified that Lewis gave him 17 pages of notes and a script which he used as the basis for his remarks in the interviews, by Fleming. Murphy had never worked for Boeing and said he had never jumped from a plane.

Went to FBI

During four days on the witness stand last week Fleming insisted that he thought he was interviewing the real hijacker. A [guess: More] than a month after ing the real hijacker. Newsweek before Newsweek was scheduled to run a cover story based on the interviews, Fleming had an attorney friend go to the FBI and tell agents about the interviews.

An investigation by the FBI turned up discrepancies, Newsweek canceled the story and the FBI arrested Murphy and Lewis last May 2.

Both Lewis and Murphy admitted in their testimony that they lied when interrogated by the FBI. They claimed they did so to protect Fleming's story. They also maintained Fleming knew all along that Murphy was not "D. B. Cooper."

Lewis claimed that after he had placed an ad carrying the heading, "D. B. Cooper," in a Bremerton newspaper to attract attention to lots which he had for sale, a man whom he believed to be the real hijacker called him in the middle of the night. He said that the notes which he took from this and subsequent calls from the same man were turned over to Murphy so that he could give an authentic impersonation of the hijacker.

'I Need a Body'

Lewis quoted Fleming as remarking, after being informed that the real hijacker would not be available for the interviews: "I need a body."

When he got his story twisted during cross examination by Asst. U.S. Atty. Larry Finegold, Lewis blurted at one point: "I told many lies to the FBI. I mean, it's impossible to keep the lies straight."

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DB Cooper-24853