Morris: Spotlight in the News
Brother of famous skyjacking legend D.B. Cooper?
Cracking the Cooper case?
Morris Sun Tribune
Published Saturday, November 03, 2007
"These are heady days for Lyle Christiansen, but they’re frustrating times, as well.
The Morris man recently made public a belief he’s harbored for the last three or four years -- that his late brother, Kenneth, is the famous skyjacking legend D.B. Cooper.
But he’s also finding out that cracking romantic mysteries isn’t easy, and that doubters -- many of whom don’t want the mystery to die – are everywhere, no matter how compelling Christiansen finds his growing pile of circumstantial evidence.
Lyle Christiansen’s theory about his brother first surfaced last week when a lengthy story was published in “New York” magazine about D.B. Cooper and the possible connection to Kenneth Christiansen. Since the magazine story’s author and a New York private investigation company began nosing around the case again, the FBI has also begun rechecking old evidence and taking stock of new leads in light of Lyle’s claims.
But Lyle and some of his family were disheartened by skeptical remarks about the veracity of his evidence made by an FBI agent in charge of the Cooper case in a “Minneapolis Star Tribune” story published Thursday.
Lyle produces a laundry list of coincidences that point in the direction of his brother. He’s got other information, tied to Max Gunther’s 1985 book, “D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened,” that he won’t yet divulge in the hope that keeping his own secret will compel investigators to take his claims more seriously.
Except for a couple of calls, investigators haven’t made contact with Lyle about the latest information and he’s a little confused by that. He calls the information relating to Gunther’s book his “ace in the hole,” hoping to pique investigators’ interest.
“It’s nearly as good as a fingerprint,” he said.
Modern-day Robin Hood
Lyle Christiansen said that until a few years ago, he had never heard about D.B. Cooper, even though the November 1971 skyjacking and extortion ploy – seen by many as a modern-day Robin Hood story -- captivated millions, spawned songs, a movie, books, countless searches and thousands of suspects, and led to sweeping security changes in the airline industry.
In a nutshell, D.B. Cooper – more appropriately, Dan Cooper -- is the alias used by a passenger who boarded a Northwest 727 on Thanksgiving eve 1971 and told a flight attendant that he had a bomb in his brief case. The plane, which took off from Portland bound for Seattle-Tacoma Airport, landed and $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes were brought aboard. Then, he instructed the flight crew to take off for Mexico City.
Once on the ground, passengers and much of the flight crew left the plane, and the FBI and Northwest officials met all of Cooper’s demands. Minutes after the plane took off, aft stairs unique to the 727 were lowered and Cooper leapt into the rainy, cold darkness with two of the parachutes, the money and the brief case.
Except for the discovery of about $5,800 of the ransom, found nine years later, neither Cooper nor the bulk of the money were ever found.
Could it be?
Lyle Christiansen was watching the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” a few years ago and a segment on D.B. Cooper caught his attention. Just about every detail of the case, especially a sketch of the skyjacker, led Lyle to believe his brother Kenneth, who died in 1994 of cancer, was the famed skyjacker.
“They showed the composite sketch, said he had a receding hairline and said he asked for bourbon on the plane,” Lyle said. “I thought, ‘Oh boy.’ That was a lot like Kenneth.”
Lyle headed for the library and began researching D.B. Cooper and he found Gunther’s book. Again, Lyle kept the juicier information off the record, but the book’s details and his intimate knowledge of his brother’s life left him convinced.
“That really sold me on it,” Lyle said.
The obvious comparisons are intriguing in and of themselves.
First, there was the appearance, the fairly polite and calm demeanor and elegant handwriting witnesses reported. Check on Ken. Second, investigators were looking for a man who was familiar with flying and parachuting. Ken for years was a purser for, of all airlines, Northwest, and he was a skilled paratrooper from his time in the military. Third, Ken knew the area into which he would be jumping. Fourth, Kenneth never married and lived a modest, mostly solitary life in the Seattle area. He purchased a house with cash about a year after the skyjacking, he was generous – especially with those down on their luck – and he paid for everything with cash or with money orders. He would sometimes spend lavishly on parties or dinners, and he had a substantial array of collector items, such as plates and coins, Lyle said.
Although Kenneth’s home was open to friends from his military days and others he found in need of a roof and a meal, if he was D.B. Cooper, he never let on.
“You’d think he would want to tell somebody,” Lyle said. “He had a little bar near his place and he spent a lot of time there. You would think if he had a little too much to drink some night he might let something slip.
But even his immediate family was never privy to many details about the way Kenneth lived, and that probably explained his ability to keep a secret like this, Lyle said.
“He had a good chance to keep it secret,” Lyle said. “He lived by himself. He didn’t have a wife asking him, ‘Where were you last night? How’d you get mud on your shoes?’ ”
‘Proof’ is secret
That’s where Gunther’s book comes in.
The book details conversations Gunther allegedly had with a woman who found an injured Cooper on her property, nursed him to health and fell in love with him.
A couple of the details Lyle will talk about related to the book are that the person the author talked to knew elements of the investigation that weren’t public. D.B. Cooper actually boarded the plane as Dan Cooper. But a reporter’s error when gathering information about the skyjacking led to the D.B. moniker. Also, the person Gunther talked to knew the parachutes were red and white. That information also hadn’t been made public, Lyle said.
Lyle said Kenneth was clever enough to pay attention to even the smallest details and to concoct a plausible story line. He is convinced the “woman” Gunther talked to was actually a man, namely Kenneth.
“Kenneth took journalism in college,” Lyle said. “He could write a story. There were details in there that gave it away that (Gunther) was talking to (Kenneth).”
Those and other details interwoven in Gunther’s tale made it clear to Lyle that his brother was the man, despite the FBI’s contention that physical details, such as height and eye color, rule Kenneth out as a suspect.
“I think he put those hints (in the book) so we would know about it,” Lyle said. “He was probably proud he pulled it off. That took a lot of nerve.”
Kenneth left Northwest in 1992 when he was diagnosed with cancer of the lower bowel. On his death bed in 1994, Lyle said Kenneth told him, “There’s something you should know, but I can’t tell you.”
Having no clue at that time what Kenneth might actually have had on his mind, Lyle brushed off what he now believes was his brother’s attempt at a confession.
“I didn’t want to know anything bad at that time,” Lyle said. “I just told him, ‘We love you.’ ”
Getting to the truth
Ten years later, the pieces started falling together in Lyle’s minds. He knows thousands of people have been looked at as suspects, and that others have made the claim. In fact, after the latest news broke about the case, Lyle received a call from the widow of a man who was a top suspects in the case and confessed to his wife in his dying days that he was Dan Cooper. The woman, like Lyle, is adamant in her belief after all these years that her late husband was D.B. Cooper.
And that’s what Lyle Christiansen is up against in his quest. The FBI isn’t sold – the bureau’s consensus opinion since the beginning is that Cooper died during his airborne escape – and one of the flight attendants that night in 1971 said Kenneth is the closest match she’s seen to her description of D.B. Cooper, but she won’t commit completely.
Lyle initially tried – unsuccessfully -- to contact movie maker Nora Ephron about the case. That’s how the New York P.I. company got involved in the first place.
But Lyle said he isn’t in this for anything more than the truth.
“If the FBI can prove it or disprove it, then everybody will be happy,” he said. “It would be nice to know one way or the other so that everybody would be satisfied. Otherwise, (Kenneth) is just another guy they thought did it – he’d be put on the list with the rest of them.”
Related Sites:
-State
D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened (Hardcover)
by Max Gunther (Author)
Wikipedia
.."At various points, several people have been suggested as possible candidates for Cooper, though the case remains unsolved. Over the years, the suspect list has exceeded over 1,000 people.
Some of the favorites are listed below:"
-Nation:
FBI makes new bid to find 1971 skyjacker, 1 hour, 8 minutes ago (Tuesday, January 1st of 2008 @4:30pm CDT) on news.yahoo.com
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PORTLAND, Ore. - The FBI is making a new stab at identifying mysterious skyjacker Dan Cooper, who bailed out of an airliner in 1971 and vanished, releasing new details that it hopes will jog someone's memory. The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov, 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.
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In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.
On Monday, the FBI released drawings that it said probably are close to what Cooper looked like, along with a map of areas where Cooper might have landed.
"Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? We're providing new information and pictures and asking for your help in solving the case," the FBI said in a statement.
The FBI said that while Cooper was originally thought to have been an experienced jumper, it has since concluded that was wrong and that he almost certainly didn't survive the jump in the dark and rain. He hadn't specified a route for the plane to fly and had no way of knowing where he was when he went out the exit.
"Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his chute open," Seattle-based agent Larry Carr said.
He also didn't notice that his reserve chute was intended only for training and had been sewn shut.
Several people have claimed to be Cooper over the years but were dismissed on the basis of physical descriptions, parachuting experience and, later, by DNA evidence recovered in 2001 from the cheap tie the skyjacker left on the plane.
In 1980, a boy walking near the Columbia River found $5,800 of the stolen money, in tattered $20 bills.
"Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream," Carr said. "Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle."
On the Net:
FBI on Cooper: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec07/dbcooper123107.html
Bull Loose at the State Fair
Bull meets its demise after a run through the crowd at State Fair
By Mary Lynn Smith and Maria Baca, Star Tribune
Last update: August 31, 2007 – 9:50 PM
"The running of the bulls was an unexpected feature event on Friday at the Minnesota State Fair.
In a brief, frenzied moment, an angry bull charged through the fairgrounds, barreled past fairgoers, butted a faded red fire hydrant and died. No one was injured. And no damage was done to fair exhibits. "Even our fire hydrant is OK and good to go," said fair spokeswoman Brienna Schuette.
Usually, mornings are much quieter on the fairgrounds.
Leo Pritschet of Oakdale was daydreaming while he dished up Pronto Pups, Tim Radtke of Lakeville was serving Icees and Matt McClay of Shoreview was slinging hot dogs and fried onions.
But then the crowd parted. Shouts erupted. And there it was: a black bull careening down the street.
"He was trying to get away from something," Radtke said.
The bull looked to be headed right to McClay's Almost a Footlong Hot Dog Stand. Then he veered away.
Phew. That was close.
Fairgoers casually strolling the street ran and scattered.
"There were a lot of people on the grounds at that time because when I got to the scene there were about 250 people standing around the bull," said Steve Pooch, deputy general manager of competition at the fair.
Were they afraid?
"I would be," Pooch said. "You have a 1,600- to 1,700-pound animal running at you, you don't want to get in its way."
Saber, the 1-year-old bull, apparently had set his sights on a fairgoer, but the man jumped out of the way, Pooch said. Then the bull turned and saw the fire hydrant, across the street from the Midwest Dairy Association's All-You-Can-Drink Milk stand. "I guess he decided to take it out on the fire hydrant," Pooch said.
A veterinarian on the scene immediately checked for a heartbeat and found none. "I don't think he felt any pain," Pooch said.
Before his short visit to the State Fair on Friday, Saber had never been off the family farm in Morris, Minn.
"He was always fine at home," said Jim Wulf, Saber's owner. "He's been around the kids there every day."
Wulf has shown cattle at the fair for nearly 30 years, and none of his animals have ever made a break before. But Saber came out of the trailer angry. Maybe it was the three-hour drive from Morris. Maybe he was uneasy about being with so many people.
"Something got him excited," Wulf said. "People have to remember that fair animals are not pets. They need to be treated responsibly."
Saber shook loose from the halter as he was being led out of the trailer. He was gone in an instant, with 16-year-old Travis Wulf on his trail.
"You're pretty helpless in that situation," Jim Wulf said.
The bull run was a first for Pooch, who has worked with livestock at the fair for 30 years. But animal mishaps do happen. Every now and then an animal will die because it can't handle the stress of a truck ride or the commotion of the fair crowds. One year, a steer more accustomed to an air-conditioned barn keeled over from a heart attack. "It just couldn't take the heat or humidity," Pooch said.
And then there was the calf that jumped over the baby stroller. "It didn't hit the stroller but you just cringe when something like that happens," Pooch said.
Jim Wulf, who had hoped to show Saber in today's livestock competition and then put him on the market in the spring, likely is out $4,000 to $6,000. Saber's body was taken to the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Minnesota, where he was chemically cremated.
"It's a pretty good loss," Wulf "But were just so thankful that no one got hurt."
So is Pooch. "Bulls are replaceable."
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