One thing about this case seems somewhat clear. We can eliminate the vision that Cooper died in the deep woods around Ariel and nothing of him or his remains have been found ! There's NO way that some of his loot could have ended up at Tina Bar unless of course some hunter or searcher found him and threw some $$ into the Columbia river for whatever reason. This seems remote,so I'm concluding that the original search area had to be wrong. Am I missing something ?
Or unless he survived in the original lz and walked south then met the boys with the smelly cloths who relieved him of his cash and his life ... near the Columbia ... near Salmon Creek (in one of those hobo camps). Tom may have this right. Based on the lack of hard evidence at hand I still think it's too early to tell, and I hate having to take that position.
My point mainly was that Cooper's body doesn't lay somewhere in the woods around Ariel. Yes I actually believe Coop could have very easily survived the jump and walked out undetected. As a matter of fact just yesterday I was visiting the Hobo camp that still exists today. I don't think Cooper was a easy mark however.
Kermit, you gotta show me that hobo camp, gotta see it. Meyer
Me too! My cousins are convinced Cooper survived and walked south, then had an encounter with the people in these camps in 1971 ... and that they feel is the ONLY explanation for how money later surfaced at Tina Bar ... perhaps through the intervention of a dredging scenario. They feel the money has to be in the area first, before it can be at Tina Bar, or anywhere else in the Portland-Vancouver area. My cousins are also lifetime residents of Vancouver-Portland. One dealt with the hobos many times in his job in law enforcement. He relates a story about how one day he and an FBI agent at Portland went out fishing and encountered 'the boys under the bridge', and were threatened and chased. My cousin pulled his badge and produce a gun and he says that was the only thing that saved them.
So lets hear from some locals!
I dont think Cooper would have hesitated to throw his money bag into the river if it meant the difference between him escaping and living or not. Moreover, I have yet to find one report of any of the itinerants being questioned in 1971 vs the flood of agents and LE that covered the airport and the city of Portland and its surrounds ... including Eugene!
As things stand, the money at Tina Bar has nothing to do with the flight path outside of the fact the plane did cross the Columbia somewhere ... with FJ saying the money bag was snagged on the stairs and left the plane miraculously at that time!
<edit> whatever means the money took to be at Tina Bar, that story must also satisfy ALL of the forensic facts the money itself tells.
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