Part 85, page 68

Transcript

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149-179-1/2 (S)

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10 Section 1 Chicago Tribune, Sunday, November

D. B. Cooper, $200,000 leap still a mystery

PORTLAND, Ore. [UPI]— It's Thanksgiving time and thoughts around here not only turn to turkey, pumpkin pie and football, but also to D. B. Cooper, history's first and only successful parachut- ing sky bandit. Where is he and where did he stash the cash?

Three years ago on Thanks- giving eve Cooper went aboard a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in Portland for a short hop to Seattle.

The plane wasn't airborne much more than five minutes when one of the more bizarre crimes in history was commit- ted.

COOPER, THREATENING to set off an explosive device, demanded and got $200,000 in $20 bills delivered, along with three parachutes, to the plane in Seattle. Then after allowing the passengers to debark, he ordered the crew to fly the plane to Reno, Nev., following a course down the western sector of Washington and Ore- gon before cutting across the mountains on a direct flight to Reno. Somewhere en route he bailed out via the tail exit.

No trace of Cooper or the money ever was found.

It set off a chain of similar skyjackings that changed the face of air travel thruout the world.

BUT ONLY Cooper beat the law at taking the money and jumping. The law still is look- ing for him.

"The case is an active one, not only here but thru the Unit- ed States," said Julius Matt- son, agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investiga- tion, Portland office.

"We're still getting leads," he said, "but not quite as heavy as we were. The case still is in the public mind and when the public thinks of it, it also thinks of us."

"THERE REALLY has been no substantive development. The work now is mostly elimi- nating possibilities, proving or disproving tips offered.

"Not one of the $20 bills has turned up anywhere."

Cooper apparently strapped the money to his body for the jump. A theory that he may have fallen into Lake Merwin in southwest Washington about 30 miles north od Portland could not be proved.

THE RASH of Skyjackings that followed brought multiple changes for the air traveler, the major one being search of luggage and persons.

The electronic surveillance has produced an arsenal of weapons and explosives.

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UPI Telephoto FBI artist's 1971 composite sketch of D. B. Cooper.

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Tribune Map

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