You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Quote

They may have done a quick search, but not as thorough as one would expect finding buried cash.

If I found a wad of old cash buried just below the sand, I might think "what idiot buries his money like this?", I might even dig a bit deeper, just in case. But I don't think I'm in some kind of money burial grounds where wads of cash are laid to rest and all it will take to find more wads of cash is to dig in random spots up and down the sand bar. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

A "financially struggling" family finds bundles of cash in shallow sand and leaves within 2 hours never to return to search..  and they were there for a picnic, anybody think they would have even had shovel with them..

We dont know for a fact they or someone related to them didn't return to look for more cash. Others did. Cook claims others had found parts of bills on the sandbar months earlier... he claims to have witnesses.   

You know very well the same agents you cite said the frags were bagged and tagged (in "check envelopes") and probably sent to Washington for analysis.

Actually, I don't know that at all. I only know that you keep telling us that the shards were bagged and tagged in check envelopes. Dorwin never mentioned it, and when I called McPheters to confirm, he hung up on me. As for Dorwin, I'm reluctant to call him now as, well, ol' DS might just tell me the Bedell might be sailing up the Missouri with the shards aboard...

...that leaves RH and he wants 600 bucks. We need a Plan B on the shards...

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

You know very well the same agents you cite said the frags were bagged and tagged (in "check envelopes") and probably sent to Washington for analysis.

Actually, I don't know that at all. I only know that you keep telling us that the shards were bagged and tagged in check envelopes. Dorwin never mentioned it, and when I called McPheters to confirm, he hung up on me. As for Dorwin, I'm reluctant to call him now as, well, ol' DS might just tell me the Bedell might be sailing up the Missouri with the shards aboard...

...that leaves RH and he wants 600 bucks. We need a Plan B on the shards...

Read the thread - this is all old news! Sources were included.

We are talking about a very tight time frame here.. from 3:30 Sunday to Monday evening.

Between the 3:30 Sunday money find and contacting the FBI Monday their search would only have been very superficial.. at best

They found the cash at 3:30 Sunday on a picnic, do people bring a shovel on a picnic?
Brian said they searched for more, I believe him.
Did they have a shovel, if yes that is odd for a picnic, if no then they searched by hand >> superficial
They left within two hours of the find 30 minutes before sunset, how long did they actually search, did they ever build that fire?
Brian claimed his parents said it was probably "counterfeit".
However, by Monday Dwayne claimed he thought it was mob money or lost, he had called a bank so they knew it was significant and had value.

So, at this point why didn't they return, maybe with a shovel to look for more. They didn't, instead contacting FBI Monday evening.

You find cash buried on a sand bar, you know it has value and don't do an adequate search before calling the FBI the next evening. That goes against human nature, unless Dwayne knew there was no more money there.

I'm not seeing anything in the Ingram's behavior that screams "conspiracy".  It is plausible the discovery of the money altered their original picnic plans and the campfire never happened.  Leaving a couple hours after the discovery seems about right.  These are families with kids, and my guess is the kids were  getting cold and starting to complain.  And after a couple hours of listening to kids bitching and moaning, anybody would want to get the hell out of dodge.   

The possibility of receiving a reward would be incentive for not returning to the bar and going to the FBI.  Dwayne's opinion on where the money originated evolved.  Again, plausible.

What Dwayne did or didn't do following the FBI press conference tells us quite a bit also.  Any time in the last 20 years Dwayne could have come forward with the "real" story of the money find and parlayed that information into six figures at least.  Why wouldn't he do that?  Why not cash in? 

What it boils down to is possible versus probable.  Is it possible the money was a plant?  Yes.  Is it probable?  Not from what I've seen.  That being said, it's a good discussion and who knows where it could lead.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

We are talking about a very tight time frame here.. from 3:30 Sunday to Monday evening.

Between the 3:30 Sunday money find and contacting the FBI Monday their search would only have been very superficial.. at best

They found the cash at 3:30 Sunday on a picnic, do people bring a shovel on a picnic?
Brian said they searched for more, I believe him.
Did they have a shovel, if yes that is odd for a picnic, if no then they searched by hand >> superficial
They left within two hours of the find 30 minutes before sunset, how long did they actually search, did they ever build that fire?
Brian claimed his parents said it was probably "counterfeit".
However, by Monday Dwayne claimed he thought it was mob money or lost, he had called a bank so they knew it was significant and had value.

So, at this point why didn't they return, maybe with a shovel to look for more. They didn't, instead contacting FBI Monday evening.

You find cash buried on a sand bar, you know it has value and don't do an adequate search before calling the FBI the next evening. That goes against human nature, unless Dwayne knew there was no more money there.

I'm not seeing anything in the Ingram's behavior that screams "conspiracy".  It is plausible the discovery of the money altered their original picnic plans and the campfire never happened.  Leaving a couple hours after the discovery seems about right.  These are families with kids, and my guess is the kids were  getting cold and starting to complain.  And after a couple hours of listening to kids bitching and moaning, anybody would want to get the hell out of dodge.   

The possibility of receiving a reward would be incentive for not returning to the bar and going to the FBI.  Dwayne's opinion on where the money originated evolved.  Again, plausible.

What Dwayne did or didn't do following the FBI press conference tells us quite a bit also.  Any time in the last 20 years Dwayne could have come forward with the "real" story of the money find and parlayed that information into six figures at least.  Why wouldn't he do that?  Why not cash in? 

What it boils down to is possible versus probable.  Is it possible the money was a plant?  Yes.  Is it probable?  Not from what I've seen.  That being said, it's a good discussion and who knows where it could lead.

I dont even like talking about the Ingrams - every time I do I wish I hadn't. I think the Ingrams found Cooper money and that is all there is to it. Everything else involving the Ingrams is secondary to the Cooper case. Had the Ingrams had the wits to keep the money in place and notify authorities rather than jumping to dreams of wealth and fame, they might have made a contribution to solving the Cooper case. The money find was compromised in one way or another by everyone involved with it. The Judge that then split the largest single piece of Cooper evidence up, may have realised the money no longer had the potential it once had .. and his ruling may reflect the fact he felt the money no longer had any 'crucial value as evidence', which then compounded the original problem!

In the time I spent talking and negotiating with Brian he was generally cooperative and rational up to the end, and I came to the conclusion his mother (Pat) is 'one sharp cookie' and she unquestionably knows more about the money find than Brian does. For the Ingrams it's a very personal story.     

Does anyone have the judge's opinion from the Ingram case? It might be an interesting read.

I think a link to it was posted at DZ but that link may be long gone -

Forensic evidence of "stirring" at money find site:

If the Ingram find was a plant, when was it planted, because all accounts of the find including Ingram's account include the fact of fragments or tiny pieces, of one kind or another. In Ingram's account the pieces were so tiny and insignificant that they were not collected and all in the immediate vicinity, or in the same 'hole' as the Ingram bills themselves. The FBI account has fragments sized from tiny to nickle size, to quarter size and larger, distributed in an area around or near the Ingram find. Smith says "in a circle around the Ingram find"? Let's further stipulate that evidence for a "flow field" is unproven. But evidence of small fragments immediately associated with the Ingram bills either around the site, or in a circle around the site, seems the minimum set of detail which people say they saw when examining the area of the Ingram find. It takes time and conditions for pieces to break free of the main body of bills. This has to be prior to the finding of the bills.

The Ingrams don't say once thy pulled the money from the ground they shook like a mop scattering pieces around! They say they slipped the money into a sandwich bag and protected it so as to preserve their find for redemption at a bank. So there is nothing the Ingrams did which accounts for pieces adjacent to the main find.

If this was a plant how can there be lose fragments at any distance from the Ingram bills themselves unless you also introduce the notion of stirring in the area of the Ingram money. Something has to cause the fragments. The Ingram bills did not just 'walk around leaving dust and small fragments in an area around the Ingram bills. Either wind or water is required to "stir" the layered bills, leaving fragments and small pieces outside the zone of the find.

If it was wind then the Ingram bills had to be near or very near the surface for wind to work on the bills and deposit pieces elsewhere.

If it was water and the bills are near the surface, then the last high water period according to Vancouver gauge records was in mid January 1980 - see USGS graph below. This means at minimum the Ingram find had to be planted far enough in advance of actual discovery for water-stirring and/or wind-stirring to occur and create the forensic scene found at the site.

The chart attached shows a water level at Vancouver of 12 feet. Would this have been high enough to affect the Ingram find and stir the area and the Ingram bills, to create the forensic scene found?

But, if the plant was immediately before the Ingrams found the money, there is nothing to account for the forensic details at the scene of the find, ie dust and fragments dis-articulated from the bills.
 

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Forensic evidence of "stirring" at money find site:

If the Ingram find was a plant, when was it planted, because all accounts of the find including Ingram's account include the fact of fragments or tiny pieces, of one kind or another. In Ingram's account the pieces were so tiny and insignificant that they were not collected and all in the immediate vicinity, or in the same 'hole' as the Ingram bills themselves. The FBI account has fragments sized from tiny to nickle size, to quarter size and larger, distributed in an area around or near the Ingram find. Smith says "in a circle around the Ingram find"? Let's further stipulate that evidence for a "flow field" is unproven. But evidence of small fragments immediately associated with the Ingram bills either around the site, or in a circle around the site, seems the minimum set of detail which people say they saw when examining the area of the Ingram find. It takes time and conditions for pieces to break free of the main body of bills. This has to be prior to the finding of the bills.

The Ingrams don't say once thy pulled the money from the ground they shook like a mop scattering pieces around! They say they slipped the money into a sandwich bag and protected it so as to preserve their find for redemption at a bank. So there is nothing the Ingrams did which accounts for pieces adjacent to the main find.

If this was a plant how can there be lose fragments at any distance from the Ingram bills themselves unless you also introduce the notion of stirring in the area of the Ingram money. Something has to cause the fragments. The Ingram bills did not just 'walk around leaving dust and small fragments in an area around the Ingram bills. Either wind or water is required to "stir" the layered bills, leaving fragments and small pieces outside the zone of the find.

If it was wind then the Ingram bills had to be near or very near the surface for wind to work on the bills and deposit pieces elsewhere.

If it was water and the bills are near the surface, then the last high water period according to Vancouver gauge records was in mid January 1980 - see USGS graph below. This means at minimum the Ingram find had to be planted far enough in advance of actual discovery for water-stirring and/or wind-stirring to occur and create the forensic scene found at the site.

The chart attached shows a water level at Vancouver of 12 feet. Would this have been high enough to affect the Ingram find and stir the area and the Ingram bills, to create the forensic scene found?

But, if the plant was immediately before the Ingrams found the money, there is nothing to account for the forensic details at the scene of the find, ie dust and fragments dis-articulated from the bills.
 

Hypothetically, I don't see any inconsistency, if the fragile bundles were buried in shallow sand, then dug up, you'd expect fragments to become dislodged and dispersed in the sand. More digging and searching may disperse the fragments slightly further.

You never know, maybe the bundles were brought to the sand bar in sandwich bag or container, then dumped into a shallow hole, the bundles and fragments are deposited initially. The fragments don't really impact the plant theory unless they were a significant distance..

In fact, in a plant situation, it is more likely that the bundles were brought in some container.

Flyjack, How long do you think the bundles would have to be buried at Tina Bar before they would start "fragmenting"?     I believe that some reports are to the effect that the bundles themselves had become compacted or essentially solidified and that there was quite a bit of difficulty separating those bills.  So how far ahead of their "find date" did the bills have to be planted at Tina Bar?

See Tom Kaye's web page for a fuller discussion on how money acts in water, and especially read his discussion on the bill packet that appears to have been "torqued".

At least two FBI agents have said that they picked up bill fragments at Tina Bar.  One of those agents wrote in his book that he placed those fragments in small evidence bags and put his initials on those bags.  The agent in charge of collecting the evidence at the site then, presumably, sent those bags to the Seattle FBI office.

Why would anyone plant money at Tina Bar in the first place?  The money would be in a much better condition before the planting and just as likely to have been redeemable or subject to a reward.  In my opinion, planting the money doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever.