Part 70, page 198

Transcript

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FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78) (Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p.B1 Daily News Longview, Wa. Date: 2/14/80 Edition: Final

Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: Seattle

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Geologist's finding contradicts theory

By Bud May The Daily News

A thorough search of a Columbia River beach where part of D.B. Cooper's ransom money was found Sunday has turned up no new clues as to the fate of the legendary skyjacker. The FBI said today that the search will continue today and Friday, then probably be suspended temporarily. Brought to the beach to aid in Wednesday's search were a backhoe and a geologist. The FBI said the backhoe was used to dig a trench near the discovery site, making possible a study of the layers to sand. An associate professor of geology at Portland State University, Leonard Palmer, was retained to inspect the sand and to assist investigators in determining when the bundled money may have been deposited there. Palmer, to the surprise of some authorities, concluded that the money was deposited on the beach in the past year or two because it was above clay deposits put on the beach in a 1974 channel dredging operation. According to the FBI, a coarse layer of sand sloped from a height of about six inches at the river's edge to two feet or more some distance up the river bank. Earlier, Ralph Himmelsbach, a Portland FBI agent who has had charge of following new leads in the Cooper case for a number of years, said he believed the money must have been deposited within a couple of years after the skyjacking. He says discovery of the money provided a major break in the case, but puts authorities no closer to locating Cooper, whom Himmelsbach believes is dead. Agents say the money was tied to Cooper when he bailed out of the plane, but was no longer with him when it was deposited on the beach. If it had still been attached to his body at the bottom of the river when the channel was dredged in 1974, the body would have clogged up the dredge and have been found, agents believe.

Jack Pringle, assistant agent in charge of the Seattle FBI Office, told The Daily News this morning that small bits and pieces of $20 bills were located Wednesday when agents continued digging in sand surrounding the spot where a Vancouver family discovered money Sunday. The Harold Dwayne Ingram family was on an outing north and west of Vancouver when their 8-year-old son, Brian, uncovered several thousand dollars in decomposed bills. Ingram contacted the Portland FBI Office, and a check of serial numbers conclusively established that the money was part of $200,000 in $20 bills Cooper had when he bailed out of a Northwest Orient Airlines jet over the Lewis River area on Nov. 24, 1971. Pringle said the area was still being searched today, but no new evidence had been located as of this forenoon. "Some of the area is inaccessible, and there's no way we can search the whole area," Pringle said in Seattle this morning.

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[illegible routing stamp with partial text] b6 b7C SEARCH SERIALIZ[ED] NO[TATION] FIL[ED] AT

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FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-30006