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DB Cooper

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1 hour ago, dudeman17 said:

That raises a question. How would Gunther know about the Elsinore investigation? You say maybe he talked to Cossey, and Cossey might know about that, but if Cossey does know and is willing to talk about it, how come nobody else knows about it until the FOIA comes out? If 'Cooper' knows about it, might that tie him to the jump community?

I don't believe Gunther talked to anyone at the FBI who would have known about Elsinore. That investigation was done by the LA office and was concluded long before the book was being researched. Cossey would not have known about it, and Gunther talked to no other Skydivers.

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(edited)
58 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Eyewitness descriptions alone are notoriously inaccurate. You need more than that. Can't convict on just a matching description, even if it IS. 

 

Let's discuss Hahneman for a moment. We're talking about a guy who was convicted of air piracy less than a year after the Cooper Caper. He was in prison until 1984. Don't you think that if he was Cooper, someone at the FBI would have figured it out during the twelve years he was in jail?

Eyewitness descriptions can be inaccurate, however Cooper's Latin appearance was universal. Not one said he had a tan.

 

 

It is a huge mistake to assume that somebody investigated but not charged was innocent.

I have reasons why Hahneman may not have been charged for NORJAK.

I started looking at Hahneman trying to determine why he was NOT Cooper and he became a better suspect. 

Edited by FLYJACK

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1 hour ago, Andrade1812 said:

I don't believe Gunther talked to anyone at the FBI who would have known about Elsinore. That investigation was done by the LA office and was concluded long before the book was being researched.

Do the FBI agencies not share their information with each other?

 

1 hour ago, Andrade1812 said:

Cossey would not have known about it

Well...

1 hour ago, RobertMBlevins said:

And skydivers, I have discovered, are a close-knit group. Word would have gotten around about the FBI hanging out at Elsinore, probably fairly quickly. 

I think Robert's right about that. Word would get around the jump community. But...

1 hour ago, RobertMBlevins said:

The idea that skydivers were being interviewed/questioned was known.

Was it or wasn't it, and known by whom? If it's not known outside the jump community until the FOIA comes out, then how does Gunther know about it?

So my question boils down to, if Gunther only knows about it from the caller, who's supposedly speaking for Cooper, then might that tie Cooper and/or the caller to the jump community? How else would the caller know?

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4 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Okay, what reasons? An investigation into Hahneman, which seems almost obvious it would be done by the FBI, resulted in what? (In case you know what results.)

He could be a suspect, sure. How about a single witness somewhere along the line, something beyond he could be of Latin descent? I think it's a fair question. 

It isn't a fair question it is a silly one... there is lots of info beyond latin descent.

Latin descent is only one, but it is a big one that gets dismissed, that was my point. 

I probably have 150-200 Hahneman pieces that match Cooper..

No other suspect is even close.

 

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(edited)

By the time Gunther started researching his book, the FBI files would have been in the thousands of pages. Perhaps 10,000 even, Flyjack might have a good accounting of it. No one was reading through them to the extent we can now with digital searching. But maybe it is possible, I don't know. I don't know whether or not SA Milnes knew about Elsinore, nor do I know if maybe Cossey dropped that rumor to Gunther. It seems impossibly unlikely to me, and I see no obvious motive for Milnes or Cossey to feed this info to Gunther.

But I guess it is possible someone fed that to Gunther. What is not possible is Gunther being fed Tom Kaye's forensic spectroscopy results from the future.

Edited by Andrade1812

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26 minutes ago, Andrade1812 said:

Flyjack, I'm not sure there are 150 pieces of evidence in this case. I'm not sure there are more than 26 or 27 "elements" to make connections to... There's certainly only a few pieces of physical evidence in this case.

Yeah there are, some are major, some minor.. some are more direct match, some fit the profile. When they are all added up it is overwhelming short of forensically putting him on the plane, I am still working on that.

examples... 

hijacked a 727, parachuted from back stairs, turkey neck, smoker (filtered), military exp, aviation crew experience, left a tie on the plane, brown shoes, left open parachute, pills for the crew, ordered military chutes, specific aviation knowledge, no accent, midwest (PA), dark suit, briefcase bomb, white collared shirt, overcoat, sunglasses, dark wavy/marceled hair, parted on right, sometimes slicked back, fly to Mexico, age 49, about 170 lbs, weight fluctuated, intelligent, low voice, latin, swarthy, dark eyes, demanded return of notes, sat in back with a stew, sunglasses, jumped at night over jungle/woods, manager/electrical engineer (tie), radar/navigation expert, a loner, estranged from family, demanded shades closed, prescription glasses, last job Vietnam ended Aug 71, has been in Seattle...     etc..etc.. etc...

Other - he went to Honduras from the US and established residency in Jan 72 using a modified name and incorrect birthdate. He hadn't lived in Honduras since a kid. 

 

I should compile these and all my other stuff into a presentable form but it would be a big job and I am still researching..

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53 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

But do you have a witness that can at least put Hahneman in the tri-state NW area, at least AROUND the time of hijacking? 

I can show you witnesses who can identify that KC owned the tie-clip presented by the FBI...another one who went on film and described KC making the phony bomb, only two weeks prior to the crime, and others that admit they knew he was Cooper. Even another who went into heavy denial with both me and History Channel researchers saying KC was NOT Cooper, no way...and then went on national TV a month later saying that he could be Cooper. That would be the alleged accomplice, who was simply trying to cover his lying ass. Eighteen months of weekends, and some weekdays, is a LONG time to go around interviewing people. You begin to figure out what's real and what isn't. And I kept very good notes, pictures, and documented everything I could. 

Look...you want to talk about evidence? We're also the only folks who confirmed that almost $1,400 in non-hijacking 20 dollar bills was buried on KC's property...and that he built a cute hiding spot in his attic that was extremely difficult to access. And that he did this right after he moved in, using the old countertops he stripped from the house when replacing them with new ones. We also know that the same guy who said KC might be Cooper is the same guy who was WITH KC the entire week the hijacking occurred. Instead of offering an alibi for both of them, he denies involvement and instead tosses KC under the bus. And that no one knew where they were except for the guy's wife, who after a bunch of denials finally admitted in her seventh and final interview that KC was indeed Cooper. She sold her property and house about six months after the Decoded show aired, told her lawyer to keep it a secret where she was going, and vanished. All the documents, the video excerpts, the testimony and pictures are available. 

And that's just some of the public stuff. Not the stuff we had to keep quiet about when we optioned for the movie. I wouldn't call all that a slam dunk, but I would call it significant. 

Those witnesses are very weak. People lie or imagine things all the time based on different motivations. People will say what they think you want to hear.. especially for TV.

How many people claimed to be Cooper? How many in FBI files were told by somebody they were Cooper or knew Cooper?  

People are the most unreliable form of "evidence", especially 50 years later.

I don't believe somebody can recall the exact tie clip another person wore almost 50 years ago..

Somebody just claiming that X was Cooper is not evidence.

 

IMO, If people are claiming somebody they know was Cooper that is a strong indication he wasn't.

 

Lots of people hid money in their house.

 

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7 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Agreed. It's fairly common. Only not all of them do it in a way where you have to use a ten foot ladder and a screwdriver to access the hiding spot. Or bury even more money just out back in a homemade wooden box with a heavy plastic bag inside to protect the money. And are suspected of stealing a great deal of money....and these things all occur at roughly the same time. It was just another 'thing' with him. 

 

It's also true that not all of them are known to have young runaway boys in their home. That alone is reason enough to go to great lengths to hide cash and valuables. 

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(edited)
7 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

None of the people I interviewed, some of them for hours on end multiple times, were on television with the exception of Bernie Geestman, who only agreed to go on TV after he was caught in a series of lies by History Channel researchers. 

You are comparing apples to oranges. FBI files were not available during our investigation into KC and his friends. When I first started the investigation, which covered a year and a half and a few thousand miles of travel, most of the people I spoke to were only able to provide minimal evidence, or their relationship to Christiansen. Or what they personally knew about him. It wasn't like he told people he might be Cooper. 

That's a blanket statement. If that were true, we wouldn't have jury trials. One judge, or a computer, would decide the case. Of course they matter. Establishing the credibility and honesty of the witness is also a factor. 

That's your belief. The accomplice's sister, Dawn Androsko, easily identified the clip, and without any prompting or pre-information from me. She also told me that KC was gay, but wasn't obvious about it. And both she and another witness testified that KC owned a toupee, but only wore it on social occasions. They also said he never wore it again to their knowledge after the date of the hijacking. She also pointed out an expensive, handmade cuckoo clock on the wall that KC gifted her shortly after he gave her the $5,000 cash loan. The loan was made in April 1972.

I'll buy that. It's not, unless they can also provide something beyond an accusation. If that's all there was to it, I wouldn't take it as evidence either. Actually, only two people directly pointed to KC as Cooper. The accomplice, Bernie Geestman, and finally, his wife Margaret. Geestman's sister Dawn Androsko said later she and a couple of her friends suspected KC was Cooper from the start, but because he was such a 'nice guy' they couldn't bring themselves to believe it. After I finished my interview with her, I presented what I had to that point and this is what she said:  "So THAT'S where he got all that money. Figures." She was the recipient of not only a nice gift, but a $5,000 dollar loan she freely admitted receiving from him about five months after the hijacking. Later, I wondered if she knew KC was Cooper almost from the start. When History Channel contacted her, it was because after her brother Bernie heard I had interviewed her, and what she had said (he denied the loan to his sister was ever made) he told her to retract everything. She told this all to Marisa Kagan, one of the researchers. Kagan wanted her on Decoded to refute her brother. She stuck to her story, saying not only that her brother arranged and delivered the money to her from KC, but certainly knew about it. But she refused to go on Decoded, telling Kagan that she wouldn't testify against her own brother...who she considered dishonest in the first place. 

Asked and answered. Out of the dozens of people I traveled to and interviewed, only two said that. No one else said that. But sometimes they provided pieces of the puzzle. 

Agreed. It's fairly common. Only not all of them do it in a way where you have to use a ten foot ladder and a screwdriver to access the hiding spot. Or bury even more money just out back in a homemade wooden box with a heavy plastic bag inside to protect the money. And are suspected of stealing a great deal of money....and these things all occur at roughly the same time. It was just another 'thing' with him. 

Look, one thing's for sure. At this point we have a lot more evidence directly implicating KC in the hijacking than anyone else has been able to come up with to date. Some people don't like that, but the majority of them are other Cooper investigators. It's not my fault that Skipp Porteous was pretty good at his job, and that being a book editor, I can be pretty thorough about things. Confirmation is a big thing with me, at least with witness testimony. I just don't take someone's word on something and call it evidence you know. None of this proves absolutely that KC was Cooper. Even I know that...but despite the critics out there, no one has come up with anyone better. YET. 

Maybe you will do that someday. I haven't written off your guy completely and who knows, maybe everyone lied to me for a year and a half and they put some other guy on TV instead of the real Geestman. Or maybe they didn't. I lean with 'didn't' because I would have figured that out after a while.

What started really leaning me to Kenny was listening to the alleged accomplice's niece describing the creation of the phony bomb, which was allegedly done two weeks prior to the crime. That came along late in the game, and listening to her story, I thought it had the ring of truth to it. She told it simply and without embellishments. By that time, I had been in off-again, on-again contact with many members of her family. She only came forward, and reluctantly, after her uncle finally passed away. She told me originally that's the way it would be. He was family, she said. She wouldn't talk about it while he was alive. I believed her, and so did everyone who was there that day listening to her simple story. The creation of the bomb, she said, was done at her Uncle Bernie's house, in the garage. She happened to walk in while KC was working on it. She has four kids now, and they believe her story as well. So do I. She asked for nothing, and neither did anyone in her family. The general consensus is that they believe Bernie WAS involved, and that Kenny was put up by him to do the hijacking to solve BOTH their money problems. But they are also embarrassed by the whole thing. 

FYI: I didn't just look at files and do internet research regarding the work I have done on the Cooper case. You won't find the answers there anyway. I did the hard stuff. I hit the bricks, I put other considerations aside to find out if Skipp Porteous was onto something or not. You can respect that, or you can believe the lies told to you by the kind of people who post hatred to the Mountain News Peanut Gallery, who haven't the sense God gave a goat. 

Those witnesses are weak. Geestman was lying until he wasn't. You can't substantiate any of what they say is true.

The way I look at suspects is this,, look at all the pieces that support in context, those pieces can range from very strong to very weak. So far, all suspects are circumstantial, but most are weak, some ridiculous..

 

My point is Hahneman is the strongest suspect, he is an excellent match for the description, the profile and the evidence plus he committed a virtually identical crime.  He actually hijacked and jumped out the rear stairs of a 727 at night over a jungle with a military chute.

Objectively, that puts Hahneman on another level. It just isn't debatable.

Edited by FLYJACK

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16 hours ago, dudeman17 said:

That raises a question. How would Gunther know about the Elsinore investigation? You say maybe he talked to Cossey, and Cossey might know about that, but if Cossey does know and is willing to talk about it, how come nobody else knows about it until the FOIA comes out? If 'Cooper' knows about it, might that tie him to the jump community?

There are a number of ways Gunther could have found out about Elsinore.  He could have traveled there, he could have a contact in the FBI, the man who called him could have been in the jump community.  I acknowledge all of these as possible, but not probable.  Gunther wrote his book around 1985, and got the Elsinore visit down almost perfectly.  Gunther was not huge into DB Cooper, so for him to go so far out of his way to get these little details is unusual.  Also, there has never been any other reference to that Elsinore visit in any books or articles.  This leads me to believe that a lot in the FBI just did not know about it, or read the 302's.  Even without Gunther, the Elsinore visit is a great story, and for it to not make the headlines tells me it was just buried in the huge pile of info, which makes it even more unusual that Gunther heard about it.

As for the industrial chemicals, I'm not as big a believer in that being Dan LeClair's true occupation.  It might be, but I lean towards Elsinore being one of the real smoking guns in that book.  I think DB Cooper contacted Gunther, and I think like Colonel Jessup in the movie A Few Good Men, he wanted to tell his story.  He did not want to keep it a secret.

I looked for clues in The Village Voice paper that had Gunther's "Happy Birthday Clara" ad in it, but was unable to find anything that jumped out.  If Cooper used clues to correspond with Gunther, then he likely used clues to correspond with the two other journalists mentioned, maybe more.  

There are a few avenues a motivated researcher could go down to help uncover some more info on Gunther's book.  Someone who wanted to do some in the weeds work might turn over a stone and get some info that a couple of others have not been able to get, to include myself.

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7 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

If you know all that, so did the FBI when Hahneman was arrested, tried, and jailed. Don't you think they did some checking to see if he was also Cooper? Once they had him in custody, it would be an easy thing for them to verify whether he was, or not - especially less than a year after the Cooper Caper. 

You are essentially claiming that if Hahneman was Cooper, the FBI would have arrested him. They didn't so he isn't Cooper.

That is just a false argument. There are many reasons why they may not have charged him...  

They just botched it, there was high level interference or they couldn't put him on the plane.

Without giving all the details I have, I believe it was all three.. based on evidence.

 

The FBI has never eliminated Hahneman or given any reason.. they have for many other suspects.

 

 

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(edited)

Somebody tell Eric that it is not a FACT that the three packets arrived separately.

This is his MO,, he elevates conjecture to fact then ridicules any objections.

They likely arrived as one rubber banded bundle of packets, as the rubber bands deteriorated the three packets were left. The claim that rubber bands were intact is nonsense, look at the money, no way they were "intact", there were fragments that crumbled right away. We have no evidence for the location of the rubber band fragments on the packets.

The money went to Cooper in rubber banded bundles of multiple packets of 100 bills each. To arrive on TBAR separately the packets had to be removed from their bundle prior. They were in the same order and packaging as they were given to Cooper per FBI.

What is amazing is that people accept this type of argument from Eric. If it isn't Eric's view, it is "magic" and "not embedded in reality".

 

Eric...

"It's amazing to me how many people simply discount that three individual packets were found, on top of each other, with rubber bands still intact yet very brittle, 8 years after the fact.

Any theory that magically describes these packets floating and burying themselves together, especially months or years after the skyjacking, strikes me as not embedded in reality."

 

The rubber bands don't last long in the wild,

Palmer Report, money arrived within a year of find, in top layer with "fresher" debris

Money likely arrived as one bundle of packets,

Diatoms, Spring river immersion,

Money found at high tide line.

== Spring 1979 into the river and deposited on TBAR, (most likely)

 

.

Edited by FLYJACK

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(edited)
1 hour ago, FLYJACK said:

The money went to Cooper in rubber banded bundles of multiple packets of 100 bills each.

Is there enough proof that the money bundles were taken out of bank straps and rebounded within rubber bands before Cooper took possession?

I find it kindof odd that in the McCoy hijacking (not long after) they did not bother to put the 500k of bundles into rubber bands.

Most banks at the time had (given all the extortion for money) bundles ready to go for such events without having to reshuffle/record SN and bind with rubber bands. 

Edited by Coopy

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6 minutes ago, Coopy said:

Is there enough proof that the money bundles were taken out of bank straps and rebounded within rubber bands before Cooper took possession?

I find it kindof odd that in the McCoy hijacking (not long after) they did not bother to put the 500k of bundles into rubber bands.

Most banks at the time had (given all the extortion for money) bundles ready to go for such events without having to reshuffle/record SN and bind with rubber bands. 

The indication via Larry Carr was that the bundles were made random,, Carr incorrectly believed that the individual "packets of 100" were made random and rubber banded, they were not. The bundles of packets were.

The only conclusion is that the bundles of packets were rubber banded and made random.

There is no evidence the packet "straps" were altered.

Now, were the packets in rubber bands, bank straps or both? That isn't known for sure, there is more evidence for bank straps but they could have had rubber bands as well.

The takeaway is... the claim that money arrived as three separate packets but together is an assumption not a fact. It is more likely they arrived in one rubber banded bundle as Cooper got them.. and as the rubber bands holding all the packets together deteriorated the packets fell slightly apart.

 

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16 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Sure they arrested him. For hijacking a commercial aircraft. It's well-known that in my younger days I had a few scrapes with the law. I never did an armed robbery, but let's use that as an example. The first thing detectives do when questioning you, beyond giving you the Miranda warnings, is to start asking about OTHER robberies on the books. 

It seems inconceivable to me that the FBI would arrest him for almost an identical crime and NOT question him or check out whether he was Cooper as well. As you say, according to the sketches he was a dead ringer for Cooper. Unless you believe the FBI was completely brain dead, they would have checked him out for the unsolved case that was done in almost an identical manner. And just seven or eight months into the Cooper investigation, no less. 

Maybe the reason Hahneman isn't in the Cooper files is that they discovered early-on that he was not involved with the Cooper caper. If you could get your hands on the files regarding Hahneman, I am certain you will find entries in those files where they DID check him out. And...that he must have been dismissed as a suspect for Cooper almost right away. To put him on the plane, all they would have to do is show his mug shot and/or pictures provided by family, and show them to the stews, the ticket agent, the passenger witnesses, etc. We're not talking about years down the road after the crime, either. Just a few months after Cooper. 

If you want to prove Hahneman was Cooper, you are looking in the wrong place. You should FOIA the Hahneman files. 

 

Hahneman was not co-operating after he was caught for his hijacking.

Of course he was investigated, even the crew thought he was Cooper, he is briefly in the Cooper FBI files but name redacted even though he died long ago.. which is not necessary if he was dead and eliminated as a suspect. 

I did FOIA..   you won't prove Hahneman was Cooper from FBI files, you prove it by forensically putting him on the plane and that is extremely difficult for any suspect.

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14 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

If you missed the announcement, you missed it. I wasn't leaving it up at Dropzone for more than a few hours. B)

 

Some of us can't/don't check the site every couple of hours. If we can't/don't see it till later in the afternoon or evening, did we do something rude to where we don't deserve to see announcements?

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Hmmm...

While I obviously disagreed with the way you handled the Sky Sports guy issue, I would actually urge you to reconsider that position you're taking with the movie people.

You signed their contracts, agreed to their terms, and cashed their checks. So why would you renege on that now? The time it takes to puzzle a movie together, especially when it's fuckered up by this Covid crap, that's their business, not yours. I'd suggest you just keep their terms and wait it out. Why should you care what people you don't like on sites you're not welcome at have to say?

I'm going to disagree with something you said a while back. For a writer to option his work for a movie deal is not 'selling out'. It's a reasonable business goal for a writer, and you're fortunate to have gotten the offer. You know that old saying, 'nothing succeeds like success'? It's blatantly true in the movie biz. The people who make decisions in Hollywood, well I'll again quote Goldman: "Nobody knows anything." The decision-makers largely are not artists, they're business people who wouldn't know talent or an original idea if it slapped them in the face. They depend a lot on resumes. People trying to get into 'the biz' have a hard time getting their first break because the decision-makers think that if someone hasn't worked yet, they must suck. But if someone does, by whatever serendipity, get a break, then those idiots now want to know what they're missing out on. So you're about to semi-retire and move to So Cal? Gee, would you like your next career to be a potentially lucrative one in Hollywood? Well the fact that you've got a book currently being produced would make it a whole lot easier for you to get a literary agent and pursue that. You got anything else that might make a good movie? Maybe that 'Pilot Down' story? Do you think Hollywood ever produces movies based on science-fiction stories? Why, Robert, why would you want to risk screwing that up now by getting a reputation for being 'difficult'? If I was you, I'd cash their check, keep my mouth shut, let the movie people do what they do, and secretly thumb my nose at 'Cooper folk' who give you a hard time.

Just a thought...

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(edited)
20 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

You must have missed the part where they agreed to my terms

No I didn't miss that part. That's precisely the part that prompted me to respond. But once again you totally missed the point.

 

22 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I said that after so long keeping all the secrets, it was time for THEM to come forward. I would not sign the extension unless they did. And I gave some pretty good reasons why all the secrecy was no longer necessary.

 

20 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I had already hinted a few months ago that it was time for that.

That's not your decision to make. It's theirs.

 

20 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

No one likes to be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement

Attached to a movie contract, I don't think most writers would mind that at all.

 

20 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

The idea of 'people' talking about this or that...   I couldn't care less about that.

That's hard to believe against...

22 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Frankly, I was also tired of taking all the heat, (people calling me a liar about a movie even BEING in the works) and reading silly posts at a few websites. 

 

22 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

There are positive and (unfortunately) negative folks who read this site who would use my comments in their usual sick/weirdo way

...and the dozens of multi-paragraph posts you've made railing about just that.

------

 

I'm not trying to antagonize you, Robert. I'm trying to help you. Instead of pestering the producers to agree to your terms, you should be hitting them up to Taft-Hartley you into the WGA and introduce you to a good agent.

Edited by dudeman17

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(edited)

I finally did a thorough analysis of the money find location...

Based on pics, video and maps... statements during the find that it was found at the high tide line.

Granted it is 40 years after the find...

 

1979 image.. money find = red dot

tbarmoneyspot.jpg.d9ac06c8a94dfe1fef3b0ad30d01a464.jpg

 

Edited by FLYJACK

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