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Tall tale or actual account?

By SCOTT SCHWEBKE

Standard-Examiner staff

sschwebke@standard.net

OGDEN -- Even now, Maurice Richards is reluctant to talk about the strange encoun= ter that may help crack the most baffling unsolved crime in FBI history.

The Ogden attorney b= elieves that, about 30 years ago, he may have come face to face with D.B. Cooper, t= he hijacker turned folk hero who commandeered a Boeing 727 en route from Portland, Ore., t= o Seattle.

After obtaining a $200,000 ransom, Cooper parachuted = from the plane into the dark abyss of the Pacific Northwe= st and the psyche of a stunned nation, never to be seen again.

That is, perhaps until sometime around 1977, when Wil= liam "Wolfgang" Gossett marched into Richards' office. Richards was he= ad of the state public defender's office for Weber, Davis and Morgan counties,= and Gossett was his investigator.

Richards recalled Gossett seemed eager to talk.<= /o:p>

"He came into my office and said, 'There's somet= hing I've got to tell you,' " Richards told the Standard-Examiner. "He said, 'You know, I'm D.B. Cooper.' "

Richards' advice to Gossett was quick and to the poin= t: "If it's a joke, don't spread it around. If it's true, don't tell anybody."

The attorney has a gut feeling that Gossett, who was = 73 when he died from a stroke in = Lincoln City, Ore., in = 2003, was indeed Cooper.

"I thought it probably was true. I always knew h= im to be truthful."

Over the years, Gossett shared his dark secret with s= everal others, including a son, Greg Gossett, who lives in Ogden, and Jim Bjornsen, a close friend and attorney in Newport, Ore.

Greg Gossett and Bjornsen= were initially skeptical of William Gossett's claim.

However, new information uncovered by Galen Cook, a <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Spokane, Wash., attorney who has been doggedly investigating the Cooper case for more than = two decades, has changed their minds.

"A lot that he had dug up dovetailed with what Wolfgang told me," Bjornsen said in a phone interview. "I believe William Gossett hijacked that airplane."

Cook, who is working on a book chronicling his investigation that may be released by the end of the year, said William Gos= sett is the most credible Cooper suspect ever.

Not only does William Gossett look almost exactly lik= e the FBI composite sketch of Cooper, he also had extensive military training enabling him to safely jump from a jet in poor weather, Cook told the Standard-Examiner in a phone interview.

"He had the opportunity, talent and motive to ca= rry out the crime," he said.

Cook has forensic evidence that could determine wheth= er William Gossett was Cooper, including fingerprints from military identifica= tion cards and hair samples from a headband he wore.

Since William Gossett's death, the items have been ke= pt in a Depoe Bay, Ore., storage unit.

One of the fingerprints has been provided to the FBI'= s Seattle field off= ice, Cook said, and hair samples were sent Thursday for DNA analysis.=

FBI Special Agent Larry C= arr, who is overseeing the Cooper investigation, said information accompanying t= he fingerprint supplied by Cook is incomplete.

Carr also recommended that Cook submit William Gosset= t's hair sample to a private lab, then provide the results to the FBI for comparison to DNA gleaned from a clip-on tie worn by Cooper and left aboard= the hijacked jet.

It would be difficult for the FBI's crime lab in Quantico, Va., to get around to testing the hair sample because it is occupied with numero= us high-priority cases, he said.

Carr disputes Cook's claim that William Gossett and C= ooper are likely one and the same because there isn't any physical evidence connecting Gossett to the hijacking.

"There is not one link to the D.B. Cooper case o= ther than the statements (Gossett) made to someone."

Still, the Cooper case remains an FBI priority and has received considerable publicity lately in connection with the agency's 100th anniversary, observed Saturday.

Over the years, the FBI has eliminated 1,053 suspects, including four through DNA testing, as part of its probe into the crime that seems straight out of a Hollywood movie.=

Carr said, "Everything about the case is just bizarre."

The Crime

It was, in fact, a dark and stormy night on Nov. 24,1971, when one of the greatest mysteries in FBI histo= ry went down.

Earlier that afternoon, a man calling himself Dan Coo= per went to the counter of Northwest Orient Airlines in P= ortland, Ore., and used cash to buy a one-way $20 ticket on Flight 305 bound for Seattle, according to the FBI.

The hijacker was later misidentified by the media as = D.B. Cooper, but the moniker stuck.

Cooper was described as a quiet man who appeared to b= e in his mid-40s, wearing a business suit with a black tie and white shirt.=

While preparing for takeoff, Cooper ordered a bourbon= and soda. On the plane shortly after 3 p.m., Cooper handed a stewardess a note indicating he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted her to sit with him.

He opened the attaché case, displaying a mass = of wires and red-colored sticks, and ordered the stewardess to jot down a note. The note, delivered to the plane's captain, demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in cash.

After the plane landed in Seattle, Cooper exchanged the 36 passen= gers for the ransom money and parachutes. He kept several members of the flight = crew aboard as the plane took off en route to Mexico City, flying about 200 mph at an altitude below 10= ,000 feet.

Sometime after 8 p.m., Cooper walked down the plane's= rear stairs and jumped. FBI agents swarmed over the aircraft when it landed in <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Reno, N= ev.

Cook believes William Gossett was well prepared to ca= rry out the elaborate hijacking because of his extensive military training and nerves of steel.

"He was a guy who lived on the edge."<= /o:p>

The Suspect

William Gossett had a colorful life.

Born in 1930 in San Jose, Calif., h= e was married four times and had four children.

William Gossett was a career military man, serving in= the Air Force, Marines and Army from the end of World War II through the Vietnam conflict, according to his obituar= y, published in the Newport (Oregon) News Times.

After his military career ended, he worked in the ear= ly 1970s as an ROTC instructor and military law professor at Weber State University.

Ogden police Chief J= on Greiner recalled meeting William Gossett in 1971 while deciding whether to enroll in Weber State's ROTC program.

"He was the kind of guy who could teach you surv= ival skills," Greiner said. "He would eat a bug or whatever would give= him nourishment to live in the wild. He was a Special Forces type of guy."=

Greiner said William Gossett never told him he was Co= oper but isn't surprised some people believe he may be responsible for the hijacking.

"He was a guy who thrived in a tactically challe= nged environment. That's where he would have felt best."

William Gossett also worked as a radio talk-show host= in Salt Lake City, w= here he moderated discussions about the paranormal.

Perhaps his strangest career move was his ordination = to the priesthood in the Old Roman Catholic Church in Salt Lake City. As a priest, he dabbled= in the occult and was known as a "bit of an exorcist," Cook said.

He moved to Newport, Ore., in 1994, and his hobb= ies included marathon running and storytelling, his obituary says.

Greg Gossett recalled his father was also a compulsive gambler and skilled survivalist who often left his family for days to camp alone in the wilderness.

"We would drop him off at North Ogden Pass and pick him up in Emigra= tion Canyon," more = than 30 miles away.

The Confession

Greg Gossett said that, in 1988, when he turned 21, h= is dad gave him a birthday surprise.

William Gossett took out the FBI sketch of Cooper fro= m a filing cabinet and asked his son who the man in the picture resembled. Then= he dropped a bombshell.

" 'I just want you to= know, in 1971, that I hijacked a plane,' "Greg Gossett said, recalling what = his father told him.

Stunned, Greg Gossett managed to ask his father what = he did with the ransom money.

It was then that William Gossett pulled out two keys = that he said were for a safety deposit box at a bank in <= st1:City w:st=3D"on">Vancouver, British Columbia<= /st1:State>, where the money was stored.

"He said that I could never tell anybody until a= fter he died," Greg Gossett said.

Kirk Gossett, another son of William Gossett, who liv= es in Gilbert, Ariz., said his father also told him numerous times he was responsible for the Coo= per hijacking.

"He had the type of temperament to do something = like this," Kirk Gossett said in a phone interview.

Kirk Gossett recalled that, in 1973, his dad took him= to Vancouver and lef= t him alone in a hotel for several hours, which would have given his father ample time to deposit or withdraw ransom money from the safety deposit box.<= /o:p>

After Greg Gossett learned of his dad's secret, he sc= arcely thought about it. But that all changed on the night of = Nov. 24, 2007, the 36th anniversary of the hijacking.

Greg Gossett was listening to Coast to Coast, a late-night nationally syndicated radio talk show that typically deals with topics involving the paranormal and conspiracy theories.

Cook, the show's guest, was discussing the Cooper cas= e. It was then that Greg Gossett remembered his dad's confession and odd behavior over the years.

For one thing, William Gossett was obsessed with Boei= ng 727s, the type of jet Cooper hijacked.

Greg Gossett said that, when he was a kid, his dad frequently took him to airports, where he would point out 727s because they were the only passenger aircraft with a stairway that lowered in the back.<= o:p>

Also, around Christmas 1971, about a month after the hijacking, William Gossett was flush with cash, which was unusual because he was nearly always broke.

"He was proud as a Cheshire cat," Greg Goss= ett said, describing his dad's newfound wealth.

A few days after the Coast to Coast broadcast, Greg G= ossett contacted Cook to tell him about his father's claim of being Cooper.

Cook was skeptical until Greg Gossett e-mailed him a military photo of his dad taken in 1971.

"It shocked me," Cook said. "I found t= he resemblance (between William Gossett and Cooper) dead on."<= /p>

Indeed, the photo and FBI sketch are eerily similar. = Both William Gossett and Cooper have the same deep-set eyes, pronounced forehead, thin lips and widow's peak.

Cook has sent the photo of William Gossett to a pair = of flight attendants who were aboard the hijacked jet. He hopes Tina Mucklow Larson, who reportedly lives in Pennsylvania, and Florence Schaffner Wheeler, who resides in South Carolina, can make a positive identification.

Larson and Schaffner have not responded to the reques= t, Cook said. The Standard-Examiner could not reach them for comment.

The Motive

Cook believes William Gossett planned the hijacking to coincide with Thanksgiving week vacation at Weber State so that he wouldn't be missed.

William Gossett's military training prepared him to parachute from high altitudes in poor weather, Cook said.

"I wouldn't doubt that Gossett jumped out of many airplanes in Vietnam= ."

Cook also maintains William Gossett probably landed o= n the Oregon side of the Columbia River somewhere west of= Portland. After s= pending the night in the woods, he probably made his way to Portland International Airport, took a plane to San Francisco and then tra= veled on to Utah, he said.

The FBI has long maintained that Cooper landed near B= attle Ground, Wash., about seven miles north o= f the Columbia River, but didn't survive the jump because= the parachute he used couldn't be steered and his clothing and footwear weren't= suitable for a rough landing.

In 1980, 8-year-old Brian Ingram found on the banks o= f the Columbia River a rotting package of $20 bills total= ing $5,800 that matched serial numbers of the Cooper ransom money, further bolstering the claim that the hijacker was killed, according to the FBI.

Cook believes the money could have been planted by Wi= lliam Gossett to throw off authorities.

Earlier this year, the FBI recovered an old parachute= from the area where Cooper is believed to have landed, but it didn't belong to t= he hijacker.

Cook maintains that while William Gossett may have ne= eded the ransom money to pay off gambling debts, there was possibly a "high= er moral mission" for the hijacking.

He claims to have uncovered information indicating Wi= lliam Gossett may have committed the crime because he was upset about a clandesti= ne government operation during the Vietnam conflict.

Cook also theorized William Gossett chose to confess = to Richards and Bjornsen because of his need to cl= aim responsibility for the hijacking, knowing that the two lawyers were legally obligated to keep the information secret because of attorney-client privile= ge.

Bjornsen said William Gos= sett explained to him in great detail his reasons for the hijacking.<= /p>

"I'm the only person he's told the whole story to," Bjornsen said, declining to elaborate. "He told me many times."

Meanwhile, Cook shuttles between a library in Fairbanks, Alaska= , where he has sequestered himself to complete his book, and the banks of the Columbia River, where he has a bead on a possible location of one of Cooper's parachutes.

"It's a hell of a case," he said.

"It's one that begs to know the identity of the hijacker."

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