DB Cooper

[FLYJACK 654]

4 minutes ago, Math of Insects said:

I can't find a way to read that little blurb that way at all. If anything, it would have the effect of introducing her as a likely recipient of some of whatever money might eventually turn up missing. Without that blurb, no one in the public would have known a thing about that offer/interaction.

It's like when Heidi Fliess, the Hollywood Madam was arrested, and all those producers and politicians released statements saying they didn't know her and had never met her. Great, but no one ever said you did, and now everyone totally knows you did. 

It just seems like Mario was looking for a little human-interest story and filled one of the slots with a crazy-to-most-people tale of how a person with a tie to their area had a real-life interaction with a hijacker, and was even offered money by him. I can't see how this would do anything but hurt "brother-in-law FBI agent's sister," if it were put there for the reasons being proposed here.

If in a week or two later there was a missing bundle from the ransom, everyone would be looking for an explanation. The crew would be under initial scrutiny.. if they placed that article or not.

It was the only way they could make a public statement... and get in front of it.

If they knew a bundle was missing and was about to be exposed from their perspective it makes sense to make that slightly altered narrative public. 

Judging whether it was the right move is another issue.

 

This isn't proof, it is just very suspicious and outside the norm for Tina and it supports the broader TBAR theory.

You can nit-pic and rationalize away virtually everything in this case because there are actually very few provable facts, that is why this is such a tough case... 

We need to accept some things as possibly true to vet them until proven false. Doesn't mean you believe it  but it is part of the inquiry process... when you automatically reject things that are possible but unproven then there is no advancement.

[Math of Insects 95]

7 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

If in a week or two later there was a missing bundle from the ransom, everyone would be looking for an explanation. The crew would be under initial scrutiny.. if they placed that article or not.

It was the only way they could make a public statement... and get in front of it.

If they knew a bundle was missing and was about to be exposed from their perspective it makes sense to make that slightly altered narrative public. 

Judging whether it was the right move is another issue.

This isn't proof, it is just very suspicious and outside the norm for Tina and it supports the broader TBAR theory.

The expression comes to mind, "If all you have is a hammer, soon everything begins to look like a nail."

If the money were recovered a week later, and a little bit was missing, people would assume the guy who stole it had what was missing. No one in the public would assume a flight attendant whose name they wouldn't have known and whose story was completely unfamiliar to them, must therefore have the missing money.

The FBI might wonder, but they are not taking their tips and information from blurbs in the Bucks County newspaper. They already had her statement, and knew where to get more. 

There was no reason to assume more wouldn't be missing, whenever it was found. We only know that because we live in the future, when Tena Bar has occurred and involved a number that starts with 5. For them, in real time, any amount might have been recovered, from 0 to 200,000. Or some might have been recovered one day and some another. And so on. They didn't know that one day we'd be here looking back at no other money found save the number that starts with 5. 

Her FBI agent brother-in-law would not devise some elaborate plan to help his sister in law steal $5000 ransom money from a hijacking she was involved it--at least not one that names her and suggests she might have been offered that exact amount of money. If anything, he would be the one urging her to give it back. And if he did devise one, it would have been internal to shield her from investigation, not external to control what nice old Margie Johnson from down the block thinks. 

This whole proposal is quite contrived and fanciful. It's fine to ponder it, but I wouldn't advance it as anything more meaningful than science fiction. There are a host of far simpler, more ordinary explanations for this very normal little nothing-burger of a local-newspaper blurb. You have to really be looking for conspiracies to find this even vaguely credible. 
 

[WalterRaleigh 8]

On 7/11/2023 at 4:42 PM, FLYJACK said:

Ok, I feel bad for that mistake so I will post something new from my files...

This is a redacted letter that I was able to get unredacted...

 

WHY was it redacted??

and it has elements/themes that were in Gunther's book.. it may have been written by "Clara"... or Cooper himself..

gave her $5000 cash... close to TBAR amount??

The letter isn't written as fact.. but to claim Cooper was dead and he was a good guy.. just like the Gunther narrative which was published much later. 

This letter is fascinating because of the redactions and similarity to Gunther's book, I can't see some rando writing this. It was mailed Sept 72.

This is really interesting, thank you for posting. 

This letter and the "I'm not a boasting man" letter both reference Cooper having some sort of terminal illness.

Are they related?

 

[georger 194]

8 hours ago, WalterRaleigh said:

This is really interesting, thank you for posting. 

This letter and the "I'm not a boasting man" letter both reference Cooper having some sort of terminal illness.

Are they related?

 

The last letter is a boast!  Every sentence is a boast. It is nonsense. Not to mention illiterate. .......... etc! Its almost laughable.    .....  a concoction. ?

Edited July 13, 2023 by georger

[FLYJACK 654]

5 hours ago, georger said:

The last letter is a boast!  Every sentence is a boast. It is nonsense. Not to mention illiterate. .......... etc! Its almost laughable.    .....  a concoction. ?

It is a boast..  doesn't mean it can't be Cooper. I think it was an initial contact for a shake down.

The  4 codes in the letter for each news media were meant for a follow up to confirm the ID of the writer.. but there was never any follow up. The writer bailed on his plan, just like the person who contacted Gunther wanted money but just dropped out.

The follow up would probably have been a money for info scheme.  I did find a solution to one of the codes, it may be a coincidence but it would have to be 1 in over 100000 odds..

The unredacted letter I posted, the coded letter(s) and this one are the ones I consider possibly from Cooper and worth examination.

 

 

[Math of Insects 95]

“Completely bedridden” in a fast descent to death as of January, or traveling to the Bahamas and boasting of future travels in March. These can’t both be true…

[olemisscub 463]

I'm not sure I see a criminal being as studious as Cooper was about not leaving evidence behind then turning around and writing a letter. Post-crime letter writing is generally reserved for a select few sociopaths. It's serial killer type crap. 

[olemisscub 463]

Another example of FBI ransom money. This one a photo from a 1971 extortion case. Again, rubber bands AND bank straps. These look to be five packets to a bundle, so if what Grinnell told us is correct, then this is a very close approximation to what Coop's money looked like. Five packet bundles also seems to reinforce the testimony of one of the passengers who said it looked like the bag had bricks in it. Those bundles do rather look like bricks. 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by olemisscub

[FLYJACK 654]

29 minutes ago, Math of Insects said:

“Completely bedridden” in a fast descent to death as of January, or traveling to the Bahamas and boasting of future travels in March. These can’t both be true…

The problem with your analysis..

The letter's aren't necessarily factual..

"Bedridden" was Sept 72,,, and "Bahamas" was March 72..

Neither is necessarily true.

IMO, the Sept 72 is an attempt to convince that Cooper had died,, he hadn't. (Clara did the same 10 years later)

 

[Math of Insects 95]

Then all bets are off.

To me they read like off-the-rack fan-fiction. (I.e., the work of randos who who just wanted to borrow a little glory from a thing in the news.) 

[FLYJACK 654]

16 minutes ago, olemisscub said:

I'm not sure I see a criminal being as studious as Cooper was about not leaving evidence behind then turning around and writing a letter. Post-crime letter writing is generally reserved for a select few sociopaths. It's serial killer type crap. 

This is not true, Cooper did leave evidence behind. Cigs, tie, drinking glass, magazines, the open chute, the packing cards he handled, and the money the stews "refused" could have had his prints.. doesn't sound studious.

The notes he took had hijacking comms writing on them,, the matchbook had notes written on it. He took it because of the notes not prints.. he didn't care about prints, maybe he had obscured his fingertips..

I don't see that an argument either way..

 

[FLYJACK 654]

20 minutes ago, Math of Insects said:

Then all bets are off.

To me they read like off-the-rack fan-fiction. (I.e., the work of randos who who just wanted to borrow a little glory from a thing in the news.) 

Most of the other letters are.

Those three letters stand out from the rest as possible,,

They don't seem like randos.. two of them had an agenda.

Why would some rando want to convince that Cooper was dead and a really good guy??  

Sounds more like Cooper or an associate trying rehab his character and end the search... and I don't think he was dead.

Edited July 13, 2023 by FLYJACK

[olemisscub 463]

23 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

This is not true, Cooper did leave evidence behind. Cigs, tie, drinking glass, magazines, the open chute, the packing cards he handled, and the money the stews "refused" could have had his prints.. doesn't sound studious.

The notes he took had hijacking comms writing on them,, the matchbook had notes written on it. He took it because of the notes not prints.. he didn't care about prints, maybe he had obscured his fingertips..

I don't see that an argument either way..

 

That's fair. Although I'm increasingly of the opinion that he obfuscated his prints somehow, either by having something already on his fingers or by wiping his area down (maybe that's why he took the tie off?). It's curious that they recovered full prints from elsewhere in the plane but the only "partials" were those recovered from around his seat. 

What is your source for him writing in a matchbook? I've tried to investigate that recently and am missing it somehow. 

[Math of Insects 95]

43 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

Most of the other letters are.

Those three letters stand out from the rest as possible,,

They don't seem like randos.. two of them had an agenda.

Why would some rando want to convince that Cooper was dead and a really good guy??  

Sounds more like Cooper or an associate trying rehab his character and end the search... and I don't think he was dead.

Perhaps, but we can pick any of them equally, at random, to choose to “believe,” and then make the case that best supports them. Cooper needs to be dead to never be caught, so it feels like low-hanging fruit for rando fan-fic writer. “Haha, The Man, you’ll never get him now.”

Surely if you’re Cooper, writing to the one organization that otherwise had no clue where to find you or who you were, giving them their first and best shot at really finding you, you weren’t under the impression that they’d read that you were dead in an anonymous letter and that would be the end of it.

They just seem like someone’s backstory idea (or rather, a couple of people’s). Maybe in the end one or more of the letters will prove to have been from him, but it feels equally possible to have been the least likely candidate, as the most.

Horses for courses…

 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Math of Insects

[FLYJACK 654]

7 minutes ago, Math of Insects said:

Perhaps, but we can pick any of them equally, at random, to choose to “believe,” and then make the case that best supports them. Cooper needs to be dead to never be caught, so it feels like low-hanging fruit for rando fan-fic writer. “Haha, The Man, you’ll never get him now.”

Surely if you’re Cooper, writing to the one organization that otherwise had no clue where to find you or who you were, giving them their firwt and best shot at really finding you, you weren’t under the impression that they’d read that you were dead in an anonymous letter and that would be the end of it.

They just seem like someone’s backstory idea (or rather, a couple of people’s). Maybe in the end one or more of the letters will prove to have been from him, but it feels equally possible to have been the least likely candidate, as the most.

Horses for courses…

 

 

Like TBAR, we will never know for sure.. just a bunch of theories to argue about.

Edited July 13, 2023 by FLYJACK

[FLYJACK 654]

12 minutes ago, olemisscub said:

That's fair. Although I'm increasingly of the opinion that he obfuscated his prints somehow, either by having something already on his fingers or by wiping his area down (maybe that's why he took the tie off?). It's curious that they recovered full prints from elsewhere in the plane but the only "partials" were those recovered from around his seat. 

What is your source for him writing in a matchbook? I've tried to investigate that recently and am missing it somehow. 

We agree I also think he obfuscated his prints.. 

In the FBI files.. 

 

[olemisscub 463]

5 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

 

In the FBI files.. 

 

Appreciate that. Those summaries that they wrote, and there are several (as you know), often have nuggets in them like that. 

[FLYJACK 654]

7 minutes ago, olemisscub said:

Appreciate that. Those summaries that they wrote, and there are several (as you know), often have nuggets in them like that. 

It never made sense to me, the argument that he took the matchbook because it had his prints..

He left other items and "offering" the money that had potential prints.. 

It wasn't about the prints, he didn't care about them.. probably because he had obscured them.

Edited July 13, 2023 by FLYJACK

[olemisscub 463]

2 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

I never made sense to me, the argument that he took the matchbook because it had his prints..

He left other items and "offering" the money that had potential prints.. 

It wasn't about the prints, he didn't care about them.. probably because he obscured them.

Odd to have written notes on a matchbook. That's an incredibly awkward thing to do. Just write on a magazine or something else. I'm honestly not sure if I believe that. I think that may be an agent reading Rat's statement and conflating things together for that summary because Rat mentions the matchbook and Cooper's notes in back to back sentences. That doesn't appear in any testimony nor does it appear anywhere else in the files. Also, I don't believe Tina ever went to the cockpit once she took Flo's place. What would need to be written on a matchbook? She communicated everything through the interphone. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, olemisscub said:

Odd to have written notes on a matchbook. That's an incredibly awkward thing to do. Just write on a magazine or something else. I'm honestly not sure if I believe that. I think that may be an agent reading Rat's statement and conflating things together for that summary because Rat mentions the matchbook and Cooper's notes in back to back sentences. That doesn't appear in any testimony nor does it appear anywhere else in the files. Also, I don't believe Tina ever went to the cockpit once she took Flo's place. What would need to be written on a matchbook? She communicated everything through the interphone. 

Not really, my father wrote notes on matchbooks all the time.

It is always possible it was an error in the FBI notes but then that can applied to virtually everything in the case..

If it wasn't for notes and he left other potential prints why would he want to retrieve an empty matchbook.

Edited July 13, 2023 by FLYJACK

[SeventyWonderful 18]

The Manson Family prosecutor talks about fingerprint characteristics and existing forensic technology/crime scene processing techniques in the Helter Skelter book.  While nobody can accuse the Family of being criminal geniuses, there were surprisingly few fingerprints recovered from the crime scenes.  I think only two of the fingerprints recovered were able to be linked to the murderers and this was after they ran around both houses barefoot and without any gloves on.

In fact the police recovered surprisingly little in the way of physical evidence used to convict the murderers.  The knives at the crime scenes had no fingerprints.  The gun was found months later by a boy scout, which was promptly mishandled by the police.  The murderers' clothing was found down an embankment by reporters who retraced the Family's escape route, again after several months elapsed.  Some hair and fiber evidence was accidentally destroyed by the police during the trial.  And so on.

And yeah, these are completely different types of crimes from the Cooper hijacking, but it's interesting to see the limitations of the technology of the time.  The Los Angeles Police were able to detect wipe marks from both the Tate and LaBianca residences however, so I would imagine that the FBI would be able to determine if Cooper had wiped down any surfaces he touched.  

 

[FLYJACK 654]

3 minutes ago, SeventyWonderful said:

The Manson Family prosecutor talks about fingerprint characteristics and existing forensic technology/crime scene processing techniques in the Helter Skelter book.  While nobody can accuse the Family of being criminal geniuses, there were surprisingly few fingerprints recovered from the crime scenes.  I think only two of the fingerprints recovered were able to be linked to the murderers and this was after they ran around both houses barefoot and without any gloves on.

In fact the police recovered surprisingly little in the way of physical evidence used to convict the murderers.  The knives at the crime scenes had no fingerprints.  The gun was found months later by a boy scout, which was promptly mishandled by the police.  The murderers' clothing was found down an embankment by reporters who retraced the Family's escape route, again after several months elapsed.  Some hair and fiber evidence was accidentally destroyed by the police during the trial.  And so on.

And yeah, these are completely different types of crimes from the Cooper hijacking, but it's interesting to see the limitations of the technology of the time.  The Los Angeles Police were able to detect wipe marks from both the Tate and LaBianca residences however, so I would imagine that the FBI would be able to determine if Cooper had wiped down any surfaces he touched.  

 

Smudged prints.. he may have modified his fingertips..

[olemisscub 463]

1 minute ago, FLYJACK said:

 

If it wasn't for notes and he left other potential prints why would he want to retrieve an empty matchbook.

Perhaps something was already written in the matchbook. This would have been the ICS-type matchbook and since it ran out of matches, then presumably Cooper had it for at least a day or two prior. Perhaps he had a phone number written somewhere on it or something else written on it that could be traced back to him. Although this would be risky to be handing a matchbook to Tina that may have had something written on it. 

Maybe the matchbook had some identifying feature as well like if it was from a particular location. 

Point is, there were many other things for them to have written on without having to scribble things on a matchbook and it would have been Tina writing the note, not Cooper. She had access to other notepads and things if she wanted to write something. Plus, unless I'm misremembering, I don't believe Tina ever ferried a note to the cockpit. 

[SeventyWonderful 18]

From what I remember from Helter Skelter, smudges at crime scenes in general are more commonly recovered than complete fingerprints because whenever you move your fingers against an object they'll create a smudge.  I do remember the police being able to determine that there were specific "wipe=type marks" at the Tate & LaBianca crime scenes.  If Cooper had deliberately wiped down the surfaces he touched, the FBI would likely be able to determine that as well.

And yeah, I do agree that Cooper modified his fingerprints somehow.

PS: This is in response to Flyjack's post at #61402.  I forgot to hit the quote button when I replied.

Edited July 13, 2023 by SeventyWonderful

[olemisscub 463]

17 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

Smudged prints.. he may have modified his fingertips..

 

I actually asked Carr just yesterday about the "partial prints". I essentially asked if he remembered what they looked like. Was curious if they could be used to eliminate suspects even though they were partials. Obviously they were determined to be of no value when it was suggested that they be fed into a database, which makes sense for partials. But even though they were partials could you still use what was left to compare to someone's prints. Your post about McCoy makes me think that it was possible. 

As for Larry's answer, he said "I've seen them but can't make a judgment on how useful they may be. If I recall, there needs to be 8 points of comparison for a print to be of value. I'm not sure how many points are on the partials in the file. Could be worth another look."