Part 79, page 10

Transcript

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

Date: Edition: October 12, 1986

Title: D.B. COOPER

Character: 164A-73 or Classification: HIJACKING Submitting Office: MINNEAPOLIS

Indexing:

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They're still singing about D.B. Cooper, and 1 man is searching

There is a little latch near the tail of many airliners with rear stairways. During flight, the wind flips the latch up so no one can lower the stairs. In the industry the latch is called "the Cooper Vane." But it has been nearly 15 years since airlines began install- ing them, and some people have for- gotten why.

By Larry Batson National Correspondent

Vancouver, Wash. This time, Richard Tosaw says, he is going to find D.B. Cooper. "I know where he is," Tosaw said. "I don't know who he is, but he's from the Seattle area, and maybe we'll get lucky and there'll be a wallet with some piece of identification."

On Nov. 24, 1971, the night before Thanksgiving, a man who came to be known as D.B. Cooper held a North- west Orient airliner, its crew and, briefly, its passengers for ransom. He got parachutes, $200,000 in cash, released the passengers and part of the crew, ordered the pilot to take off for Mexico City, but quickly low- ered the rear stairway and leaped into the darkness, never to be seen again.

Not yet, anyway.

Tosaw maintains that Cooper's re- mains, his parachute and a canvas bag still holding $194,000 lie up- stream from a Columbia River

Batson continued on page 13A

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beach where nearly $6,000 of the ransom was found six years ago.

And how did the $6,000 get there?

As Tosaw explains it, when Cooper released two of the three flight at- tendants in Seattle before the final take-off, he pulled some bills from the bag and offered them a "tip." They refused.

"I believe he stuffed those bills in- side his coat or clothing, maybe un- der his belt. That's the $6,000 that came up (Actually $5,800; 10 bills were missing from one packet). The rest is in the bag. If the bag had opened, a lot more would have been found. That beach is a popular place, with people on it every day of the year. Besides, the FBI dug up the whole beach area after the discov- ery."

Tosaw obtained the piece of evi- dence key to his theory long after the bills were found.

"The money was still in packets, with the rubber bands around them, though the bands broke as soon as they were touched," he said. "That showed it couldn't have come far. And it couldn't have been there long."

Early reports said the packets were scattered near each other and cov- ered with sand.

But while talking with the mother of Brian Ingram, the 8-year-old boy

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Larry Batson's America

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164A-73-1069 SEARCHED_ SERIALIZED OCT 1 5 1986 FBI - MINNEAPOLIS

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b6 b7C FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-34302