I suppose I'm reiterating what's been said above. I'll restate it, because it's so astonishing. It blows the myth of rubber bands away, with the some ferocity as the myth of the back rigs coming from Cossey or that the untaken rig was a better choice than the NB6. (i.e. the implication it was a skydiving rig, not just another emergency rig).
I have two additions to prior info. Tina Mucklow's confirmation of the strapping (bank bands) and the erroneous 1980 FBI memo talking about order.
The money that Cooper received was not wrapped in rubber bands.
The only testimony that Cooper received rubber band bundles in random amounts, comes from Larry Carr. Larry Carr has produced incorrect evidence before, notably the source/ownership of the back rigs (which he attributed to Cossey). All of Carr's posting about Cossey and modified NB6 rip and "hard pull" should also be ignored.
My belief is that Carr misinterpreted things, both FBI files and interviews he made. There is no reason to believe that Carr described the money correctly. There is no documentation that supports what he posted in Dropzone.com
The money was not in random amounts per bundle. It was 100 bills per bundle.
The order of the bills in each bundle matched the order in the microfilm. That is an unknown order to us since the published serial number list is not the microfilm order.
The reference to bank bands is paper straps.
There are two documents that back this up.
First a FBI memo. Second Tina Mucklow's interview summary. If people don't have this pdf (from Geoffrey Grey, unredacted), it's part of the files I've recently uploaded to shutter's google drive. He'll probably make all that accessible soon. They've all been OCR'ed for text search.
Both snippets are attached as jpeg due to posting size restrictions, although shutter has the full pdfs.
A third FBI memo in 1980 is interesting. It claims the money was found in the same order as delivered, and in the same packaging. The order would not be known unless the microfiche was checked. Also, rubber bands were not the original packaging.
They also immediately claimed the floating down streams explanation. I think they were just trying to shut down speculation, so the memo doesn't reflect any real facts. I've included the damning snippet.
The memo was sent to multiple FBI offices 2/12/80 the day of the money find press conference.
It's obvious it's wrong, since they couldn't have verified the order like they claimed (time frame, microfiche).
Shutter has all the full versions of these in pdf form. (extracted from the source material)
1) FBI memo.
"He" means the Seattle-First National Bank employee. There are not unique rubber bands for Seattle-First and Federal Reserve. Also, it would not be possible to put identifying marks on rubber bands. At least, none that would be reliable. The mention of bank bands here, is another phrase for currency straps that had no other markings other than Seattle-First or Federal Reserve.
On 12/2/71 <redacted> Seattle-First National Bank, Seattle, Washington, advised that the ransom money paid in instant hijacking, was made up of all used 20 dollar bills, selected at random and without sequence.
He stated the bills were made up in packets of $2,000 each and were banded with Seattle-First National Bank or Federal Reserve Bank bands or quite possibly banded with bands from other banks.
No identifying marks were placed on these bands.
2) Muckow Interview
From Tina's interview, summarized in the FBI files that Geoffrey Grey obtained. Critical page attached. "He" is Cooper. "bank-type bands" are currency straps.
He opened the bag and inspected the contents which Miss MUCKLOW observed was money packed in small packages with bank-type bands around each package.
Having inspected the money in a cursory fashion, the hijacker stated that "it looked okay" and then indicated to Miss MUCKLOW that the crew could now permit the passengers to deplane.
3) FBI Memo 2/12/80 on the money find.
The statement about order and "packaging" should be ignored, since the order could not have been verified. Don't know why they put this out to the FBI offices. (Himmelsbach faulty reasoning?..see stream theory same day)
[On February 10, 1980]...ON AN OUTING WITH THEIR CHILDREN, MR. AND MRS. HAROLD DWAYNE INGRAM OF VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON, DISCOVERED A SUM OF MONEY PARTIALLY BURIED BY SAND IN THE NORTH RIVER BANK OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER , APPROXIMATELY FIVE MILES DOWN RIVER FROM THE U.S. INTERSTATE 5 BRIDGE CROSSING BETWEEN PORTLAND AND VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON.
THE INGRAMS CONTACTED THE FBI AND AN EXAMINATION OF THE BADLY DECOMPOSED $20 BILLS REVEALS THAT THEY BEAR SERIAL NUMBERS IDENTICAL TO A PORTION OF THOSE GIVEN TO THE HIJACKER.
BECAUSE OF THE DECOMPOSED NATURE OF THE BILLS AN EXACT ESTIMATE OF THE RECOVERED MONEY IS NOT POSSIBLE PENDING A LABORATORY EXAMINATION, HOWEVER, IT APPEARS TO BE SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS.
THE PACKAGING AND THE NUMBERED SEQUENCE INDICATE THAT THE BILLS HAVE NOT BEEN SEPARATED AND ARE IN MUCH THE SAME ORDER AS WHEN GIVEN TO THE HIJACKER.
THE BILLS WILL BE SENT IMMEDIATELY TO THE FBI LABORATORY FOR ADDITIONAL
EXAMINATION.
IT APPEARS LOGICAL THAT THE PACKAGE OF BILLS COULD HAVE BEEN CARRIED DOWNSTREAM ON ONE OF THE WASHINGTON TRIBUTARIES OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER TO THE SITE WHERE THEY WERE FOUND.
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