Julie Mattson as in Julius Mattson.  If my memory is correct, I believe he was SAC in Portland through the 70s and was SAC during the money find period. He ran the DB Cooper operations relative to Portland, but Charlie Farrell had overall command of Norjak, as far as that goes. I don't fully know or understand the nuances of the FBI culture, but it seems like every SAC ran their office like a little fiefdom. Hence, Julie had sway in Portland, perhaps trumping Farrell on Norjak stuff as far as activities in the Portland jurisdiction.

Charlie Farrell was based in Seattle and was the Norjak case agent. As such he had the overall control of the DB Cooper investigation, but there were limits on the reach of his authority. For instance, not all the physical evidence reached Seattle from Reno. Plus, nobody from Seattle was at Reno, as far as I know.

Field command was also mixed. Farrell was not present in Ariel for the ground search over the T-Day holiday weekend, again as far as I know. Rather, local control was granted to the Vancouver Satellite office in the person of Tom Manning.  Essentially, Manning was the boss of the search for Cooper in the first few days.  Why the ground search was so modest is up for total speculation.

However, when the FBI mounted its Big Hunt for DB Cooper five months later in April, Farrell was on site and camped out in the federal bivouac, as shown by many pix from GG in Portland at the 2011 symposium.

As I understand Himmelsbach's role in Norjak, he was a Portland grunt who did the paperwork on DB Cooper. His authority was very limited, and he initiated little actual investigation, although he followed-up on leads as they came in.

He grew to prominence in Norjak in 1975 at the Grand Jury. Portland had the only sitting federal grand jury on the day that the Statute of Limitations was ready to run out on DB Cooper, and since Himms had all the documentary evidence, he was tasked with presenting the FBI case. That put him in an advanced professional position. Russ Calame told me that he had never heard of Himmelsbach until the grand jury hearing.

Then the money was found in 1980, two weeks before Himms was to retire, and that made him King of Cooper Hill, or Green Mountain as Jo prefers.  After that there was no stopping RH. He wrote his book in the 1980s, hit Hollywood, and never looked back.

Charlie Farrell in the meantime was quiet and in the shadows up in Seattle. He may have preferred being there, or others desired for him to stay in the dark and let RH become the Poster Boy of the DB Cooper Investigation. Since the 1980s, the public face of the DB Cooper story has been Ralph Himmelsbach and Earl Cossey, but the real power players, such as Farrell and his successor Ron Nichols, never surfaced in print or on screen until recently thanks to this forum, the DZ, and all the guys who dig, stir the pot, post and otherwise inform the world as to what is happening in Norjak.

Was really pleased to finally be able to watch the Decoded episode devoted to DCD. Or perhaps more specifically KC. Thanks again to EVickiW for finding a shortcut that actually allowed me to play it here in Australia.

You sure wouldn't accuse the Decoded team of thorough investigative work. It resembled more something along the lines of speed dating.

I don't think they checked anything. same goes for Skipp. way to many things have been overlooked with the whole story.

Here is a photo of the receipt for the $200,000 signed by George Harrison.

Hi, I'm Sean, the 'Kid' who presented Duane Dick Jarman as a Cooper potential a few weeks ago. (I am 28 but since I was born 14 years after the hijacking I suppose 'Kid' is appropriate. I have a handle on DZ as Duane2 - in reference to a post Bruce had made on there but I don't intend to further post on DZ. I take this all very seriously and my intentions are to provide and gather information to and from the public regarding D.B. Cooper, particularly in regards to Duane Dick Jarman as the potential identity of the hijacker.

My intentions here are to present what info I have, and to ask for help in finding more information. This is an initial post so I will try to provide a concise, but full description of where I'm at in regards to all this, and all the info I have on Jarman. I am happy to answer questions and do my best to provide information regarding what I may have to offer in a way that promotes a positive approach.

There seems to be some questions regarding my approach and where I'm at now so I'll do my best to explain. In 2008 I learned of D.B. Cooper from my mother; I did not know about the hijacking prior to then. She told me that there was a man her family knew named Duane Jarman who they felt may have been D.B. Cooper. I began looking into the case to see if I felt there was any reason to agree. Initially, I read most of the available info on the web and cross-checked it with what she knew about Jarman. I felt there were enough similarities between what was attributed to Cooper that matched what my mother told me about Jarman that went beyond coincidence. While I continued researching Cooper since 2008 and came to find new information as it made its way onto the web my efforts over the last six years have been less about finding out more about Cooper and more about finding more out about Jarman. I did come to realize over the years just how much conjecture and misinformation was out there regarding the case but as far as what's available on the web the fundamental things I felt made sense to compare Jarman with haven't changed much since I initially looked into it.

Finding information on Jarman proved very difficult. Only in the last year did I find most of the information on him that I now have. I reached a point in researching him that I felt I was at the limit of what I could do aside from getting in my car and driving around the country knocking on doors of offices and homes. I felt I needed to put it all out there to the public and see what came of it. I could have gotten on the forums, including DZ years ago, but the negativity and conjecture I saw there was a major turn-off to joining. I trust many can relate.

In my efforts I've come to believe that proving that anyone is Cooper is perhaps beyond rational means and my intention is not to prove that Jarman is Cooper. That being said, I do believe it may be possible for the public to one day come to some kind of conclusion on the identity of Cooper and if Jarman were to turn out to be the person who the public concluded he was, I feel a need to tell his story as best I can.

I am not currently hoping to be putting forth Jarman as a suspect for D.B. Cooper. Once I presented what I was putting forth I was contacted by Bruce Smith who shared his in-progress book about the case with me. While I had read versions of most of the information presented in Bruce's book, he had presented it all in a much more concise, effective manner than is available by scouring the plethora of sources on the web. I was able to wrap my head around the case much more by reading Bruce's book. It helped me assign value to certain aspects of the case that I had never been able to before and as a result I made some determinations that allowed me to see I needed to take a step back, thus I diminished my web presence. I've had a few weeks to digest the info from Bruce's book that has helped me to approach the other available sources of info in a new light and while I don't feel the word "suspect" best describes Jarman at this point, I've realized that ultimately I can't rule out his potential as the hijacker.

I need help to move forward. I fumbled about for years trying to find info on Jarman and still have very little. Here, I'll present what I have and if anyone feels they have ideas on how I might proceed in researching Jarman I would greatly value what they have to say.

My mother's father - my grandfather - met Jarman in 1967 while Jarman was incarcerated at Cowlitz County jail in southern Washington state. My grandfather was not in jail but met Jarman through a program that the jail had in which inmates could attend 12 step recovery program meetings. Upon his release, Jarman became close family friends with my mother's family and spent much time with them between 1967 and 1969. My mother would just as soon find out that Jarman was not Cooper. She is uninterested in anything more than finding out what happened to Jarman as she nor her family heard from him after 1969. She use to have a picture of Jarman but it was lost at one point when she moved. I have no picture of Jarman

Here's what I've got on Jarman:

-Born: October 31, 1936 Hot Springs Montana to Charles and Mildred Jarman.
- 5' 10" Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown
-Grew up in the Hoquiam/Aberdeen, WA area
-Arrested in Reno, Nevada in 1962 on a Grand Larceny charge of transporting a stolen car across state lines, which he likely spent time in prison for. I don't know how to research prison records and have no idea what prison he may have been sent to.
-Arrested in Cowlitz County in 1967, perhaps on violating parole from prison release.
-Have found no evidence of Jarman's existence after 1969.
-Potentially estranged from most of his family many years prior to 1967.
-FBI sketch of D.B. Cooper: My grandmother told me there was no doubt in her mind that Jarman was the man in the sketch. My mother says initial sketch with sunglasses most closely matched Jarman, but that the eyes of the 1972 sketch more closely matched Jarman than the eyes of the initial sketch. She says she feels Jarman more closely matches the sketches than any available pictures of the current suspects.
-Internet available physical descriptions attributed to flight attendants Florence Shaffner and Tina Mucklow match my mother's physical descriptions of Jarman.
-Attire attributed to Cooper matches what my mother feels he would have worn had he been committing the hijacking.
-Demeanor attributed to Cooper matches my mother's descriptions of Jarman's.
-Jarman was a smoker. No recollection by mother or her brother of brand he smoked. (My grandparents brand was Raleigh). Grandparents passed away before I had thought to ask if they remembered Jarman's preferred brand.
-Jarman sent a letter to my mother in 1968 in which the handwriting on the addressing to her on the envelope's front matches the available descriptions given by Florence Shaffner of the bomb threat note the hijacker showed her. The handwriting on the front of the envelope addressed to my mother is in all caps, black, felt tip, extremely neat handwriting.
-A forensic handwriting expert determined with an 80% probability of a match between the letter sent by Jarman to my mother to 'The Provence' letter - a letter sent to a Vancouver, BC newspaper of someone claiming to be Cooper. (The forensic expert said that with more samples of each set of handwriting it could be possible to determine a higher percentage of a match.)
-Have so far nothing to support that Jarman may have had military background. I don't know how to research whether or not he may have.
-In 1968 Jarman worked for a brief period for Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company, who had a facility in Everett, WA that built tools provided to Boeing for work on airplanes.
-Jarman had been operating as a con-man since at least 1958. Mostly, he conned people out of small amounts of money, a few hundred dollars usually, then would skip town. He did this all over the country between 1958 and 1962 until he was arrested in 1962 in Reno on transporting a stolen car across state lines.
-An FBI ID# for Jarman exists: 988 756 B
-The last time my mother and her family saw Jarman was in in mid 1969. After this they, nor anyone they knew ever saw or heard from him or anything of him.
-Jarman was on the run from the law the last time he saw my mother's family. He was using the alias Gordon Chapelle.
-Jarman told my grandmother it made no difference to him whether he was alive or dead, and that he would never go back to prison.
-On November 24, 1971 Jarman would almost certainly have either been on the run from the law or incarcerated.


That's the basics; there is minutia of course, but hoping to keep this initially concise. I will relate more in future posts. But here is some more info regarding things I've found from researching that would likely come up in people's questions.

-Jarman does not appear in high school yearbooks from the highschools surrounding the area.
-Had 7 siblings (also have not been able to find in yearbooks). A 2010 obituary of one of Jarman's siblings listed all the other siblings except for Jarman.
-Have tried to locate surviving siblings and contacted one who appeared to be Jarman's brother but have not gotten a response.
-Attempted to find other surviving family members but has proven ineffective.
-Have used reputable people-search and criminal-backround search services to attempt to find records of Jarman. None have returned results, although Ancestry.com did provide some valuable info.
-Have tried to track down arrest record for Inyo County where Jarman was arrested sometime between 1958 and 1962. They said they didn't have a record for him and that their records only go back to 1960.
-Have looked into seeing what it would take to obtain employment records at Chicago Pneumatic. But it was a dead end.
-Have sent a request for Washington state DOL info on Jarman. No response. Unlikely they would share much info.

There's more, but hopefully that gives an idea of some things I've tried. I am hoping to get some help to think outside the box and particularly to get some advice on services, pathways, people to talk to, etc. that may be able to help me find more information on Jarman. Particularly any leads in finding a mugshot of Jarman, or other arrest records, or any public records. I greatly appreciate any assistance, questions, comments or anything that anyone feels may help me in any way.

Thanks,

Sean

Ah yes, probably missed an opportunity to explain age better right off. Yes the age is a big issue, my mom did say before I found his dob that she always suspected due to some vain parts of his personality he was lying about his age and when she met him in 67 she figured he could have been 38. He also was a genuine alcoholic and lived on the fringe most of his life as well as having spent time in prison. Particularly in the years between which he knew my mother and 71 he would have certainly been living on the fringe and whether this all aged him more than the average person I cannot say. If I'm not mistaken there is a description by one witness that pegged Cooper at 35.

I sent copies of the handwriting samples from Jarman to my mother to Schaffner with the thought being perhaps she could positively or negatively identify it as the style she saw in the bomb threat note. No response.

The problem with the passengers description is the fact of them not knowing, or needing a reason to remember him. that's why you have different descriptions of him. I always say this. do you remember who was at the store, or gas station today? now if either one of those was held up, and you were there for an hour. I think you would have a better view of the people around you since something like that unfolded while you were there. some were able to recall Cooper, but most had different views of what he looked like. Flo, and Tina were with him, and knew exactly why he was there. they had a very good reason to remember him.

A mugshot of Jardine would surely be useful. Even if a likeness only succeeds in keeping him in the game.

Mugshot would be ideal. I meant to mention that in the Reno and Cowlitz arrest records I obtained there were no mugshots. I asked if they may have them stored separately from the arrest record, but no dice.

I live on the other side of the planet. But would it be considered unusual in the States for those arrest records not to contain mugshots? Not familiar with your protocols over there. Particularly for 40 odd years ago.