Muncie Evening Press from Muncie, Indiana • Page 36

MUNCIE EVENING PRESS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1980 CHANCES LESS THAN 50-50 THAT 7977 SKYJACKER IS ALIVE PAGE 36 Kiddies find tattered bills of D.B. Cooper loot in sand Children on a Sunday picnic found three bundles of bills about $3,000 in $20 bills printed in 1963 and 1969 that were part of Cooper's loot. The serial numbers showed they matched the $200,000 Cooper extorted from Northwest Airlines in 1971. The partially decomposed clumps of money were to be sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington, but agents on the case were sure all of the bills found were from the loot. FBI agents were to continue searching today at the beach on the Fazio Ranch where agents Tuesday found bits of bills in the same area where the families had found the money in the sand Sunday while on a picnic.

"They're very small pieces of money, about the size of a nickel," said PORTLAND, Ore. (UPI) Children playing in the sand along the Columbia River found tattered remains of part of the loot paid to skyjacker D.B. Cooper, the first break in the case since he bailed out of a plane into a rainy night in 1971. FBI agents dug up more fragments of wet $20 bills late Tuesday along the river on the Fazio Ranch five miles west of Vancouver, Wash. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who has been on the case since the Thanksgiving Eve hijacking, said the finding of the money reduces to "less than 50-50" the odds that Cooper is still alive.

Cooper's case is the nation's only unsolved aerial hijacking for ransom. Since then, 13 persons tried the same thing; three were killed and the others were captured, the FBI said. O- it. FBI agent Tom Nicodemus. He said some of the pieces of money were as deep as three feet beneath the surface.

"It indicates to us there's been a lot of sand shift there and the money has been there for some time," Nicodemus said. The discovery of the money was the first solid lead in the case since Cooper jumped from a Northwest Airlines flight after a hijacking that began at Portland on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971. The middle-aged man, who actually used the name Dan Cooper on boarding the plane, told a stewardess he had a bomb in his briefcase and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes and to be flown to Reno, Nev. He allowed the other passengers to leave the plane at Seattle where he got the money and chutes. After takeoff, Cooper forced the entire crew to the flight deck and while the plane was over southwest Washington he jumped with his loot into the freezing rainy night.

No trace of him ever was found. His actual identity also is unknown. Because an FBI agent told a reporter the night of the hijacking that agents were checking on a man named "D.B. Cooper" that name has stuck even though the man named was found not to have been Involved. Christal Ingram, 25, of Vancouver, said the money was found by her children, Denise, 5, and Brian, who had been digging in the sand with sticks on the beach, which the ranch owners allow people to use for a 25-cent-per-car fee.

"I took it out of the sand and I handed it to Brian," Denise said Tuesday. "I thought it was play money. I gave it 1 D.B.'s admirers still throw party for him COOPER'S STASH? Decomposed $20 bills are numbers showed they were identical to the bills given shown in Portland, after a check of their serial to hijacker D. B. Cooper Nov.

24, 1971. UPI. to Brian, so he could hand it to my Aunt Cooper had possibly gone down in the The FBI said it now appeared that Pat." Lake Merwin area on Lewis River, the money might have been carried money was turned in to FBI since that stream feeds in the Colum- down the Washougal River, which agents, whio said the discovery bia River downstream from the Fazio flows into the Columbia about 12 miles changed the department's opinion that property. east of Vancouver. A it .1 Ab.

Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health. ARIEL, Wash. (UPI) The residents of tiny Ariel say the legend of the mysterious D.B. Cooper will live on even though the FBI says some of the skyjacker's ransom money was found rotting in a river bank. "Most people around here would like to think he's alive," said Dave Fisher, owner of the Ariel Store Tavern, where every year a party is held honoring Cooper's 1971 leap out of a Boeing 727 with $200,000.

"They will still believe he's alive until they've found the body." Like other residents of Ariel, located in the area of southwest Washington where Cooper is believed to have parachuted, Fisher speaks fondly of the first skyjacker ever to demand ransom money "In a sense he's a criminal," Fisher conceded. "But he did it non-violently and he didn't get caught. "It (the party) Is mainly because it happened in this area. It put Ariel on the map. It's a real dinky place just a store, a tavern and a post office." The FBI announced that several thousand dollars of the money paid to Cooper was found Sunday by a family picnicking along the Columbia River north of Portland.

The money was uncovered by two young children digging in the sandy riverbank with sticks. Fisher contends there's a possibility that the FBI may have lied about the serial numbers matching up with the stolen bills. "I'm not saying they did, but they'll do anything to get a story off their backs." he said. Fisher, 30, a Los Angeles native, bought the Ariel Store Tavern a little Triumph forlar Witchers! FTn3 0 WHAT HAPPENED TO D.B.? This 1971 artist's composite released by the FBI shows the middle-aged man who called himself "D.B. Cooper." UPI.

over a year ago from Mr. and Mrs. Vince Tricola, the originators of the annual Cooper party. Fisher said he knew little about the Cooper legend when he first started negotiating for the tavern, but he has continued the annual celebration and shares the local hope that Cooper somehow survived. The money found along the river "could have been a diversion on D.B.

Cooper's part," said Fisher. "Then again, he could have drowned in the river. We may have to change it into a D.B. Cooper memorial party." mwmm 17-floor jumper falls on car trunk, lives WM ptiii Sir grail lie (3 He said Boyle had been working at the investment securities firm for three years. Despite the stay at Western Psychiatric, Hervoyavich said Boyle was almost always happy.

"We never had any problems with him," the official said. "We wish we had more people like him Everybody loved him. It's a crazy world." there," said Police Lt. J. J.

Montgomery. "Then he said he jumped." Nobody saw Boyle fall, and nobody heard anything except the crash as his body hit the car. Police said Boyle had been treated at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic for two or three weeks a month ago. Peter Hervoyavich, corporate secretary, was at a loss to explain why Boyle did what he did. PITTSBURGH (UPI) A young man with a history of mental illness jumped Tuesday from a 17th-floor window of a downtown office building and survived because he landed on the trunk of a parked car.

The man, Michael Boyle, 24, was hospitalized in critical condition and later his condition was upgraded to guarded. Boyle, a courier for Cunningham, Schmertz had left the firm's office with a briefcase containing $100,000 worth of Pennsylvania State Public School Building Authority bonds shortly before his leap. The briefcase, with the bonds intact, was found on a ledge of the Bene-dum-Trees Building by the 17th-floor window a few feet from an office where Boyle was to deliver them. Police said Boyle seemed confused when they interviewed him at the hospital. "At first, he said he didn't know how he got Body falls from casket, widow sues MARSHALL Mich.

(UPI) A woman has filed a $1 million damage suit against a casket firm and funeral parlor, charging poor workmanship caused her husband's body to break through the bottom of a casket while It was being carried to the grave site. The suit says Mary Bates suffered an "apparent heart attack" when she saw the body of sadly out-of-date. Not just by a little. A Lt The reason Is simple. Todays low tar Jriumpl Coffers 1 remarkable taste at only 3mg tar And no matter how you figure it, that's a tot less tar than Merit at 8-Salcm LM its THE FAMILY CIRCI Hy (lit k'tHif her husband, Stanley, along with unusual casket packing materials, fall onto the ground hile being carried to his grave.

The suit, filed last week In Calhoun County Circuit Court in Marshall, asks Mrs. Bates be awarded "in excess of $300,000" for medical expenses, emotional distress and the "loss of life's enjoyment." The suit also named as plaintiffs 18 other people who allegedly suffered nervousness, nightmares and lack of sleep after the Incident, bringing total damages sought "in excess of $1 million." The suit claimed that as Bates' casket was being carried from a hearse to the grave Oct. 19, the floor of the casket gave way and the body, surrounded by rags, newspapers, shredded paper and what appeared to be pantyhose, rolled upon the ground. The suit claimed Mains Funeral Home of Homer was negligent In not using more "respectful materials" to cushion the body inside (he coffin. at 12-or Marlboro Lights at 12 And itsa tot more taste than Carlton at 1 (which doesrit even claim to haw taste).

A 7 Tailc aTriumph-Vbur taste doesnt lie. And the TryTriiimpfi-todays tow tar. Triumph for taste! Only 3 mg tar. "Daddy, why don't you tokt th other half of your doughnut for recess?" Of All Brands Sold: Lowest lar; 06 0.05 mg. nicotine av.

per cigarette. Triumph: 3 mutaf," 0.4 mg. nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC Method..