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Arkansas man says he's boy who found hijacker ransom money in Washington state
Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | Sunday, February 12, 2006 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on 02/12/2006 2:00:16 PM PST by skeptoid

MENA, Ark. -- An Arkansas man hopes to auction off some frayed $20 bills that he says could bring him thousands of dollars. Brian Ingram, 34, a Mena carpenter, says he was the boy on a family outing 15 years ago in Washington state who found money stolen by legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Sunday. Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., in 1971, and parachuted out with $200,000 in ransom money. His fate remains unknown. Ingram says he has 17 of the bills plus torn pieces and is working with an attorney to auction off some of them through Sothebys in New York.

"It's time to make a sale," says Ingram, who has a wife and three children. "I want to invest for our future." Ingram says that when he was 8, he found three bundles of bills "with rubber bands still on them" in the sand along the Columbia River. He says he was on an outing Feb. 10, 1980, with his family near their home in Vancouver, Wash., and he was raking the sand to build a fire. In all, he found $5,880, he says. "At the time, it was 'Wow. This is nice,'" Ingram says. His father, Dwayne Ingram, contacted the police and was asked to supply a few of the bills' serial numbers. The numbers linked the bills to the hijacking and police instructed the Ingrams to contact the FBI in Seattle, which was heading the investigation, Brian Ingram says. The federal agents told the Ingrams they would have to part with the money because it was evidence in the Cooper case. But Ingram's parents battled with the government in federal court to keep the money, he says. In the end, the FBI kept 13 or 14 bills; the rest of the money was divided between the airline's insurance company and himself, Ingram says.

In the hijacking, a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper boarded a plane headed for Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971, told the crew once the plane was in the air that he had a bomb and demanded $200,000 and parachutes. When the plane landed at Seattle, he released the passengers in exchange for the money and ordered the pilot to fly toward Mexico. While in the air, Cooper apparently then jumped from the rear stairway of the plane. The jumper later became known as D.B. Cooper after authorities questioned and then released a man named Daniel B. Cooper. That man was cleared but the name stuck.

Ingram's family moved to Oklahoma when he was 13. He served in the Army for three years after high school, then moved to Mena about 12 years ago. He says he's kept the bills locked in a bank safe deposit box. Over the years, Ingram shied away from telling people that he was the boy who found some ransom money. "It was like, 'Yeah, right,'" he says of the reactions he got. He says he even waited six years into his 12-year relationship with his wife before he told her.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Arkansas; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: arkansas; arkansasman; brianingram; dancooper; dbcooper; mena; ransommoney
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snip...."FBI kept 13 or 14 bills; the rest of the money was divided between the airline's insurance company and himself"...snip

First time I've heard this part.

1 posted on 02/12/2006 2:00:18 PM PST by skeptoid
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To: skeptoid
I know, does not even make sense.
2 posted on 02/12/2006 2:12:34 PM PST by svcw
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To: skeptoid
bookmark for later read with more info.

This is an interesting story I followed for a while.

3 posted on 02/12/2006 2:14:41 PM PST by IllumiNaughtyByNature (There is an APB out for my tagline. If you find it, FReepmail me.)
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To: skeptoid

Bookmark.


4 posted on 02/12/2006 2:15:50 PM PST by LucyT (All terrorist are muslim.)
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To: skeptoid
"Arkansas man says he's boy who found hijacker ransom money in Washington state

I can trump that.

I am DB Cooper.

5 posted on 02/12/2006 2:16:44 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum.)
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To: skeptoid

Mena Arkansas Bump


6 posted on 02/12/2006 2:17:17 PM PST by DainBramage
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To: Joe 6-pack

Uh oh, you're in trouble now!


7 posted on 02/12/2006 2:22:38 PM PST by i_dont_chat (I defend the right to offend!)
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To: Joe 6-pack

Floatin' I'm floatin' on down through the sky
Never had no ambition to learn how to fly
I'll be glad when it's over and ready to land
With this bag full of money I've got in my hand

Oh I grew up believin' in Jesse and Frank
Cause I never had nothin' or no one to thank
And I came pretty close to unloadin' a bank
But I was saved by my draft board who made me a yank

Floatin' I'm floatin'...

And in the 101st they busted your hump
But they taught me a man isn't always a chump
In the course of Korea I learned how to jump
In the card game of life I was holdin' a trump

Floatin' I'm floatin'...

If you can't get a job and they think you're insane
If the years of your youth have been washed down the drain
And you wake up some mornin' with nothin' but pain
It was then I decided to grab me a plane

Floatin' I'm floatin'...

With all of my trainin' it wasn't too tough
Now I'm through takin' orders and all of their guff
Gonna buy a Rolls Royce and some luxury stuff
Cause a veteran's pension ain't nearly enough

Floatin' I'm floatin'...


8 posted on 02/12/2006 2:23:22 PM PST by proxy_user
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To: Joe 6-pack
NO.

I am D.B. Cooper!

9 posted on 02/12/2006 2:24:10 PM PST by JOE6PAK (Diagonally parked in a parallel universe)
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To: i_dont_chat

I've got an *air*-tight alibi....


10 posted on 02/12/2006 2:24:43 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum.)
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To: JOE6PAK
"I am D.B. Cooper!"

The REAL DB Cooper would know that there aren't periods separating the D & B. It's Like Harry S Truman...

11 posted on 02/12/2006 2:26:34 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum.)
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To: JOE6PAK

PPPfffffftttt.

I'm SPARTACUS!


12 posted on 02/12/2006 2:29:17 PM PST by Lee'sGhost (Crom!)
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To: skeptoid; Thinkin' Gal; Lijahsbubbe
His story will make a great movie.

Unfortunately, it's already been done.


13 posted on 02/12/2006 2:29:28 PM PST by aculeus
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To: skeptoid

14 posted on 02/12/2006 2:31:08 PM PST by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: Joe 6-pack

The real DB Cooper was named Richard McCoy and was killed in a shootout with the FBI in 1974.

Weird coincidence that this guy lives in Mena. That will give the tinfoilers hours of fun.


15 posted on 02/12/2006 2:32:55 PM PST by kms61
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To: kms61
"The real DB Cooper was named Richard McCoy and was killed in a shootout with the FBI in 1974."

That's what they say, but what proof do you have that he was the REAL McCoy?

16 posted on 02/12/2006 2:36:05 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum.)
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To: kms61

In Florida couple of years ago, a man on his deathbed confessed HE was the real DB Cooper.


17 posted on 02/12/2006 2:42:54 PM PST by LucyT (All terrorist are muslim.)
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To: Lee'sGhost

I'm Henry the 8th I am ... Henry the ... (anyway, you get it)


18 posted on 02/12/2006 3:14:33 PM PST by TexGuy
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To: All

i call shenanegans


19 posted on 02/12/2006 4:20:24 PM PST by Kewlhand`tek (Those that can't , Teach. Those that can't teach , Report)
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To: skeptoid

****MENA, Ark. -- An Arkansas man hopes to auction off some frayed $20 bills that he says could bring him thousands of dollars. Brian Ingram, 34, a Mena carpenter, says he was the boy on a family outing****

And if I remember my history, his papa was wanted in another state as there was a warrent out for his arrest.


20 posted on 02/12/2006 4:49:25 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Islam, the religion of the criminally insane.)
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