was a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot.
I must ask you, who in the hell do some of you people think you are, and what in the hell do you think you are doing. I have succeeded in pulling off one of the most successful, talked about crimes of today.… No one was endangered, the caper was only committed to show the unbelieving world that a PERFECT crime was possible.
NO HARM DONE
the perfect crime
grant me amnesty
money will be returned
no harm done
answer by way of public announcement
within 48 hours
i’ve won, admit you’ve lost
—d.b. cooper
i am alive and doing well in home town PO. The system that beats the system. db cooper
ATTENTION!
Thanks for hospitality. Was in a rut.
D.B. Cooper
you will never find me
give up
db cooper
i am right here portland and the $200,000 is for revolution
dear manager,
much of the credit for my success is yours, thanks.
I am departing very soon for foreign soil, flying naturally, thanks again.
D.B. Cooper
August 24, 2007
Approaching Portland International Airport, Oregon
I am on the plane and I am thinking of the Pulitzer prize. What is the prize? Is there a trophy? A plaque? Anything I’ll be able to keep? A check to cash? And how will I apply? Or will they just know about my exposé unmasking the real D.B. Cooper as bashful Northwest purser Ken Christiansen? And how should the story start? With Kenny as a boy, growing up in the Great Depression and running up to his attic to gaze at his father’s Perpetual Motion Machine?
Now I am wondering about a metal detector. Before I left, Lyle was insistent: Bring a metal detector to Bonney Lake. If Lyle knew his brother Kenny, he told me, Kenny would bury the loot in his backyard like the family dog buries gnawed-up bones.
How can I take Lyle seriously? If Kenny was Cooper, why would he have kept the evidence on his property? Then again, if Kenny actually planned out the hijacking—if he was gutsy enough to jump out of a plane over the remote forests of southwest Washington with $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills tied to his chest with a pair of parachute shrouds—then he was capable of anything. To prove the case, I would have to consider the most unlikely scenarios, stretch the limits of my own logic.
My first interview is forty miles south of Portland, with the man considered to be the world’s foremost expert on the D.B. Cooper case, Ralph Himmelsbach. The retired special agent is now in his eighties, and there is talk about how he became “obsessed” with the case after the first call (“164 in progress”) came over the radio. He’s chased Cooper for decades and still failed to identify him. They say Cooper ruined his first marriage.
I have come for his blessing. I have photos of Ken Christiansen in my bag and copies of his military records from the Paratroops. I have my arguments all mapped out. If I can convince an expert likeHimmelsbach that Ken Christiansen is a worthy suspect, I’ll be on my way toward making my case.
His ranch is set back from the main road. I drive down the gravel moat and across fields that sit in the shadows of Mount Hood.
Himmelsbach opens the door and the face I see is the same as in the old newspaper clippings. High, arching eyebrows. A mustache trimmed just so. Cheeks so closely shaven they look pink. He wears light stiff jeans and a bolo tie. I follow him out to the back porch. This is where Himmelsbach lines up his .22 rifle and snipes varmints sneaking into his garden.
Himmelsbach—or, H, as Cooper sleuths call him—is the voice of reason in the Cooper case. Since the night of the hijacking, he’s been interviewed by countless news outlets—print, radio, television, local, national, international—and he always shoots down the Robin Hood analogy. How, he snuffs, could the hijacker be a hero when he put thirty-six passengers at risk? And the six brave crew members? And what about the
I must ask you, who in the hell do some of you people think you are, and what in the hell do you think you are doing. I have succeeded in pulling off one of the most successful, talked about crimes of today.… No one was endangered, the caper was only committed to show the unbelieving world that a PERFECT crime was possible.
NO HARM DONE
the perfect crime
grant me amnesty
money will be returned
no harm done
answer by way of public announcement
within 48 hours
i’ve won, admit you’ve lost
—d.b. cooper
i am alive and doing well in home town PO. The system that beats the system. db cooper
ATTENTION!
Thanks for hospitality. Was in a rut.
D.B. Cooper
you will never find me
give up
db cooper
i am right here portland and the $200,000 is for revolution
dear manager,
much of the credit for my success is yours, thanks.
I am departing very soon for foreign soil, flying naturally, thanks again.
D.B. Cooper
August 24, 2007
Approaching Portland International Airport, Oregon
I am on the plane and I am thinking of the Pulitzer prize. What is the prize? Is there a trophy? A plaque? Anything I’ll be able to keep? A check to cash? And how will I apply? Or will they just know about my exposé unmasking the real D.B. Cooper as bashful Northwest purser Ken Christiansen? And how should the story start? With Kenny as a boy, growing up in the Great Depression and running up to his attic to gaze at his father’s Perpetual Motion Machine?
Now I am wondering about a metal detector. Before I left, Lyle was insistent: Bring a metal detector to Bonney Lake. If Lyle knew his brother Kenny, he told me, Kenny would bury the loot in his backyard like the family dog buries gnawed-up bones.
How can I take Lyle seriously? If Kenny was Cooper, why would he have kept the evidence on his property? Then again, if Kenny actually planned out the hijacking—if he was gutsy enough to jump out of a plane over the remote forests of southwest Washington with $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills tied to his chest with a pair of parachute shrouds—then he was capable of anything. To prove the case, I would have to consider the most unlikely scenarios, stretch the limits of my own logic.
My first interview is forty miles south of Portland, with the man considered to be the world’s foremost expert on the D.B. Cooper case, Ralph Himmelsbach. The retired special agent is now in his eighties, and there is talk about how he became “obsessed” with the case after the first call (“164 in progress”) came over the radio. He’s chased Cooper for decades and still failed to identify him. They say Cooper ruined his first marriage.
I have come for his blessing. I have photos of Ken Christiansen in my bag and copies of his military records from the Paratroops. I have my arguments all mapped out. If I can convince an expert likeHimmelsbach that Ken Christiansen is a worthy suspect, I’ll be on my way toward making my case.
His ranch is set back from the main road. I drive down the gravel moat and across fields that sit in the shadows of Mount Hood.
Himmelsbach opens the door and the face I see is the same as in the old newspaper clippings. High, arching eyebrows. A mustache trimmed just so. Cheeks so closely shaven they look pink. He wears light stiff jeans and a bolo tie. I follow him out to the back porch. This is where Himmelsbach lines up his .22 rifle and snipes varmints sneaking into his garden.
Himmelsbach—or, H, as Cooper sleuths call him—is the voice of reason in the Cooper case. Since the night of the hijacking, he’s been interviewed by countless news outlets—print, radio, television, local, national, international—and he always shoots down the Robin Hood analogy. How, he snuffs, could the hijacker be a hero when he put thirty-six passengers at risk? And the six brave crew members? And what about the
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