/crime

D.B. Cooper money to go on auction block

&= nbsp;

LITTLE= ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- In 1980, 8-year-old Brian Ingram found the sole link to the only unsolved airline hijacking in U.S. history buried in the sandy banks of the Columbia River dividing Washington state from Oregon.

In 198= 0, a boy found $5,800 in tattered $20 bills near the Columbia River in Washington state.

2 of 3 Now 36, Ingram hopes to auction the weathered bundle of $20 bills as the FBI launches a new effort to find the unknown hijacker who parachuted into the night after taking over the 1971 Northwest Orient Airlines flight.

&= nbsp;

"= Think about it; it was the biggest manhunt. They never found any clues to this man," Ingram, who lives in Mena, Arkansas, said. =

&= nbsp;

"= The money that I found in 1980 is the only evidence ever linked to this guy that jump= ed out of the 727 at the altitude that he did, with the weather."

&= nbsp;

A man = calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle the night of November 24, 1971,= and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.

&= nbsp;

In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parac= hutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern W= ashington, he took off his tie and jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.

&= nbsp;

Police= and FBI agents never found Cooper in the dense forest of pine and Douglas fir below= .

&= nbsp;

During= a family vacation nine years later, Ingram was scrounging for firewood in the sands along the Columbia River when he uncover= ed three bundles of deteriorated $20 bills. He said the rubber bands around the money "turned to powder" when touched.

&= nbsp;

The fa= mily called the police the next day and gave them the serial numbers off the $5,= 880. The numbers matched the bills given to Cooper.

&= nbsp;

The di= scovery propelled Ingram into newspapers across the Pacific Northwest.

&= nbsp;

"= When I was younger, it was exciting. I was the ugly duckling, but I had more girlfrien= ds after that than I could shake a stick at," Ingram said, laughing. &quo= t;I went through the time really realizing the historics on the case. ... People are going to know about it, read about it, really f= or a long time, forever."

&= nbsp;

A cour= t forced Ingram to split the find with the airline's insurance company, which put up= the ransom. Now, Ingram said he wants to sell his two envelopes with scraps as small as pennies, along with the 13 half-bills and nearly 20 full bills he owns.

&= nbsp;

Ingram= said he'd like to keep at least one of the bills for his family and maybe offer one to the Smithsonian Institution or another museum. However, he said he thinks auctioning the bills off could raise enough to put a child through college.=

&= nbsp;

Ingram= 's plans come as the FBI announced a new effort to solve the hijacking. The bureau s= ays it found DNA evidence on the clip-on tie Cooper wore. However, Steve Frazie= r, a spokesman for the FBI's Little= Rock field office, said local agents had no plans to look again at Ingram's $20 bills.

&= nbsp;

The la= test bulletin from the FBI points out how Cooper likely wasn't an expert skydiver and probably perished after jumping into 200 mph winds wearing only loafers= and a trench coat. But Ingram would like to believe otherwise.

&= nbsp;

"= I like the idea he's off on some Caribbean island, = which he didn't take off with enough money to be able to do something like that," he said. He's "laughing at this whole thing, going, 'I made off with the loot but the kid got the joy of it."' <= /p>

&= nbsp;

Portions of this website contain articles that are reprinted (and sometimes edited to fit the standards of this website) und= er the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law as educational mater= ial without benefit of financial gain.

See: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

This proviso is applicable throughout the entire we= bsite.

This page was last r= evised: November 4, 2008

&= nbsp;