Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper (20 page)

They’re polyester, the manager says. Easy to wash. They’re for bus-boys, waiters, bartenders.

The list of suspects is growing. Gary Samdel is a parachute expert from Illinois. Joseph H. Johnston, a steelworker from Alabama. Louis John Macaluso, a racetrack security guard. John Gordon Hoskin, a mechanic from Sacramento. Some tips that come in are mug shots of men with dark hair lacquered with pomade, chins and cheeks dotted with jailhouse stubble. Others have scars, tattoos crawling up their arms, and names that sound regal for suspects: Wells B. Van Steenbergh Jr., R. H. Werth, Floyd J. Snider, James Henry Zimmerman, Owen Patrick Moses, William Cameron Warwick.

Throughout Seattle and the states of Washington and California, there are knocks on doors. Suspects are taken into interrogation rooms for questioning.

“I could have done it, yes, but I didn’t,” says William Whitney, another parachutist. “It would be nice to look like a movie star or something, but not the guy who pulled a job.”

Jirí Fencl, a country club manager, is detained for three hours at the Sacramento airport after police find $800 in his wallet, and a card that states Fencl was once a parachutist.

“I went through it calmly because I knew I was innocent,” Fencl says later.

More names come in for agents to investigate. Merlin Gene Cooper. Daniel Louis Cooper. Marvin John Dooper. Leif E. Hanson. James Raul Wood. John Scott. James Conrad Clifford. Tom Rompot. Leslie Gene Mince. Robert Lee Horton. Delbert Earl Downing. David Ray Mann. Kent Phillips. Harold Lee Dowell. Ralph Vincent Galope. Jesse Edwin Bell. Ben Liebson. Harry William Celk. Jerry Eugene Dodele. William Wilfred Kriegler. William Latham. George Bryn Siegrist. Henry Epperson.

T
HE
H
IJACKER IS
E
VERYWHERE
runs one headline in the
Post-Intelligencer
. More letters arrive at newspapers and Bureau field offices.

I didn’t rob Northwest Orient because I thought it would be romantic, heroic or any of the other euphemisms that seem to attach themselves to situations of high risks. I am no modern-day Robin Hood. Unfortunately (I) do have only 14 months to live. My life has been one of hate, turmoil, hunger and more hate. This seemed to be the fastest and most profitable way to gain a few grains of peace of mind.

August 24, 2007
Woodburn, Oregon

I have the proof. It is in my bag. The bag is near my feet, which are tap-tap-tapping away on Himmelsbach’s porch.

I go over my argument for Kenny again. First point: the spooky resemblance. Kenny
is
the sketch. The thin lips, the cheeks, the slightly balding forehead, the nice-guy hair, the social-studies-teacher look—it’s him. Second, he knew how to jump out of airplanes. He was in the Paratroops. Third, during the war, he jumped out of airplanes for money. Somewhere in his psyche, there was a connection between his jumps out of a C-46 for a $150 bonus and the $200,000 he asked for years later when he hijacked Northwest 305.

Now, more facts. Ken Christiansen was military. Given the choice between the luxury model Pioneer parachute or the clunky NB6, Ken would have felt more comfortable with the NB6. It probably would have looked like the chutes Ken jumped with in the 11th Airborne during the occupation in Japan.

Kenny also knew airplanes. As Cooper did, Kenny knew how to call the cockpit with the cabin’s interphone (
“Let’s get the show on the road”
), and where oxygen was located on the plane (
“If I need it I will get it”
). He knew commercial pilots can file flight plans in the air. He would also know, as Cooper did, that airplane cabins need to be pressurized only above 10,000 feet. By keeping below 10,000 feet, the hijacker avoided getting sucked out of the plane once the aftstairs were released.

Kenny’s knowledge of aviation also mirrored the hijacker’s. Kenny was not a pilot, but as a veteran purser he would have access to aeronautical information. From colleagues, he could learn that the way to keep a B727 moving slowly, as Cooper requested, was to keep the landing gear down and flaps at fifteen degrees.

I thought a purser like Kenny would also know how to operate the aftstairs, and wouldn’t need assistance like the hijacker. But according to Lyle, Kenny only worked on international flights. He had seniority.
It was possible Kenny never actually had to fly on a 727 and operate the aftstairs.

More facts. Kenny was a chain smoker. Lyle couldn’t say if his brand of choice was the same Raleighs the hijacker smoked, but his brother was “always very saving.” He was likely a coupon smoker.

Kenny liked bourbon too, the hijacker’s drink. Kenny drank bourbon so much, he collected his own bourbon bottles, Lyle told me.

Kenny was also the same age as the suspect. Flo and Tina both told the feds Cooper was in his midforties. Kenny was born October 17, 1926. At the time of the hijacking, he had recently turned forty-five. Bull’s-eye!

Now, the motive: Kenny’s revenge against Northwest. How far-fetched could that be? Feelings against the airline were hostile, so much so that even Tina Mucklow suspected employee sabotage.

I look over at Himmelsbach. I feel good that I am here. I can finally end the retired agent’s uncertainty about the case. I anticipate the moment of monumental joy that will sweep over the old man when he sees a photo of Kenny and looks into the eyes of the man he’s been hunting for four decades.
Hallelujah!

I reach into my bag. I retrieve the mischievous-grin photo of Kenny. I place it on the table, grin side down. I ask Himmelsbach if during the investigation he and his fellow G-men ever investigated anybody at Northwest Orient—say, a lone-wolf employee who had an ax to grind with Northwest management?

“No,” Himmelsbach says. “We had an awful lot of suggestions by people who said, ‘I think it’s an inside job.’ ”

So why didn’t he look in to it?

“It is inconceivable for several reasons,” he says. The main one is character. “If you were acquainted as I was with many of the people in the airline industry, they are exceptional people. They are head and shoulders above the standards and values and the character of normal average Americans.”

So maybe that’s why Kenny was never investigated?

I finger the photo on the table. I ask Himmelsbach to offer his expert
opinion on my suspect. He turns the image over and eyes Kenny for the first time.

“Not bad,” he says.

I gush. I tell the agent about Kenny’s experience in the Paratroops, his jumps for extra money. I can see the ends of the old man’s mustache curl.

I pass him Kenny’s records from the Paratroops, which prove much of what I’m telling him. They also contain details of Kenny’s physical description.

Himmelsbach squints at the military form, ingesting the information. I think of the Pulitzer Prize committee again. Are there acceptance speeches? If so, what will I say?

“Well,” he says.

Well?

“He’s too short, too heavy, and has the wrong-color eyes.”

I leave Himmelsbach’s farm in a huff. I haven’t gotten my blessing, and the world’s foremost expert on the case has dismissed my suspect.

It’s true. Himmelsbach has a point. Kenny is on the short side for a suspect. Most witnesses pegged the hijacker to be between the height of five-foot-ten and six-foot-one. According to his military records, Ken Christiansen was five eight. According to an old driver’s license that Lyle had, Kenny was as tall as five nine. That jibed with the description at least one witness, paint company owner Robert Gregory, had given. And how much can we trust the descriptions of the eyewitnesses on the flight? Aren’t eyewitnesses notoriously wrong, especially in dramatic situations? And how could they really tell how tall the hijacker was when he was sitting down throughout most of the flight? In photos, Kenny also seemed to have a longish torso, which would have made him appear taller than he was.

It was unfair to dismiss Kenny because of his height.

Plus Himmelsbach didn’t have all the facts. Kenny was not fat. At least not yet. The mischievous-grin photo was taken years after the hijacking, in the mid-1970s, Lyle said. In the fall of 1971, Lyle claimed Kenny was in decent shape. About 175 pounds, the same as the hijacker.

And what was wrong with the color of Kenny’s eyes? On military records, they are described as “hazel.” Flo Schaffner reported them to the feds as “brown.” On a hijacked flight, who could tell the difference between hazel and brown?

As an expert, Himmelsbach presents his own problems. As a pilot, his bias is toward the airlines. He confesses to not investigating leads about inside jobs because airline people are “head and shoulders above the standards and values and the character of normal, average Americans.”

Bullshit. Somewhere in the airline industry, there have to be a few criminal minds. And considering Cooper’s familiarity with airplanes, and the venom Northwest employees had against Northwest, how could the feds not look at insiders?

I pull onto the freeway. I follow the signs to Seattle, retracing the flight path of the hijacked plane. The landscape here is not a mythical tangle of impenetrable forest. This is the Willamette Valley, an agricultural wonderland prized for its rich soil, hops, berries, hazelnuts, Christmas trees, and pinot noir.

I can see the land is flat and the grass is thick. The fields of farms are arranged in well-groomed squares. I get it now. This area along flight path Vector 23 is the ideal drop zone for a parachute landing. I imagine the hijacker, forty years ago, driving the same route north to Seattle, planning the hijack and peering out the window at the verdant land, wondering where to parachute down.

Across the border into Washington, en route to Seattle, the landscape changes. Inside the forest, there are mossy thickets and brambles and vines. It’s dark and alive, a forest that watches you. I think of a line from a reporter who followed the first search teams into the woods after the hijacking. “The country is like a beautiful and moody woman,” he wrote. “It is itself a character in the story of D.B. Cooper.”

December 5, 1971
Woodland, Washington

The weather is taking over. The search teams are stuck. Daily Teletypes are sent back to headquarters.

FOR INFORMATION OF BUREAU, TERRAIN IN SEARCH AREA VARIES FROM A RIDGE LINE WHICH AVERAGES SEVENTEEN HUNDRED FEET AND DENSE WOODS WITH EXTREMELY HEAVY UNDERGROWTH.… THERE ARE MANY STREAMS AND HILLS AND MUCH OF THE TIMBERLAND IS ALMOST IMPENETRABLE
.

AIR SEARCH COMPLETED WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS. A TOTAL OF EIGHT HUNDRED SQUARE MILES WAS COVERED IN THIS SEARCH WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS AND IT WAS NOTED THAT IT CONSISTS MAINLY OF EXTREMELY ROUGH TERRAIN WITH A NUMBER OF LOGGING ROADS IN EXTREMELY POOR CONDITION
.

In Seattle, more names come in for agents to vet. Charles G. Whitaker, Donald Lewis Coleman, James Wayne Wallace, Monroe John Wobick, Daniel McCall Allen. In photos, some have greasy pompadours, combovers, long shaggy ponytails, crew cuts, spiky ears, bug eyes, droopy chins, snaggle teeth, cheap suits, ruddy faces, skinny faces, pale faces, hawkish faces.