Local News

National Weather Service forecast

D.B. Cooper

D.B. Cooper: We can’t pass up an opportunity to mention that The Olympian has a story about the opening Saturday of an exhibit dedicated to all things Cooper. The Washington State History Museum in Tacoma will open “Cooper,” which “uses artifacts, first-person accounts, FBI documents and a mock-up of a 727 interior to tell the story of the mysterious hijacker,” according to The Olympian. If for some incredible reason you don’t know who Cooper is …

Did Army brass know? The Olympian also has a story that says at least some Army officials at Joint Base Lewis-McChord knew that a former civilian employee was spying under an assumed name on an anti-war group on behalf of the Army. Documents with details of the employee’s activities were released as part of the Olympia anti-war group’s civil rights lawsuit against the employee, John Towery.

Eastlake Little Leaguers gettin’ ‘er done. We all like good news, and the Little League team from Sammamish has been providing a heap of it. Yesterday it  held off a Nashville team with a 6-5 win, meaning it has secured at least third place at the World Series in Pennsylvania.

The slaughter in Afghanistan: If you haven’t been following the sentencing hearing of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who has pleaded guilty to killing 16 Afghan civilians, surviving villagers are providing details to a military jury of what happened when he went on the rampage.

Most-read stories on seattletimes.com:

1. Seahawks trade guard John Moffitt to Cleveland
2. Adoptive parents on trial in Ethiopian girl’s death
3. McGinn didn’t release coal study’s findings for 5 weeks
4. Amazon blasts GAO and IBM over $600 million CIA contract
5. Soldier to face victims of Afghanistan massacre

Nick Provenza: 206-464-2142 or nprovenza@seattletimes.com Follow @NickProvenza1

The family of a man who was found slain in his Woodinville home last month is trying to find the person who mailed the victim’s credit cards and driver’s license in the days after the slaying.

Earl Cossey, 71, was found dead in his home of blunt-force trauma to the head, and the King County Medical Examiner’s Office placed the date of death as April 23. Cossey’s daughter found his body three days later when she went to check on him.

During a news conference this morning, King County sheriff’s Detective Jake Pavlovich said that days after the slaying, someone mailed Cossey’s license, credit cards and a casino gaming card to his home. The mail was then forwarded to the home of his son, Wayland Cossey, who also spoke at the news conference.

Pavlovich said he believes the items were taken when Cossey was killed but were then later dropped or intentionally discarded. Pavlovich said someone else then likely found the items and mailed them to Cossey’s home.

Pavlovich and Wayland Cossey said they hope that person comes forward, so they can learn more about where the items were discovered. Authorities are offering a $1,000 reward if that person comes forward.

An additional $2,500 is being offered for information on the slaying.

Pavlovich also revealed this morning that whoever killed Cossey had also “gone through” his home, although detectieves have not settled a a specific motive for the slaying.

Cossey spent several years teaching at Leota Junior High in Woodinville. He was also the man who packed the parachutes used by infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper more than four decades ago. However, Pavlovich said detectives have no reason to think the slaying is linked to the Cooper case.

In November 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper — later erroneously identified as D.B. Cooper — hijacked a passenger plane from Portland to Seattle. He released the passengers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes, and asked to be flown to Mexico.

The plane took off again at his direction with some of the crew on board. As the plane neared Oregon, Cooper jumped from its lowered rear stairs. No one knows what happened to him. Investigators doubt he survived the nighttime jump in a frigid rain, and some of his money was found by a boy playing on a Columbia River beach in 1980.

The parachutes provided to the skyjacker came from an Issaquah skydive center, which had recently bought them from Cossey. The one Cooper apparently used was a military-issue NB6, nylon parachute with a conical canopy.

Over the decades, as parachutes were sometimes discovered in the area of Cooper’s jump, the FBI sought Cossey’s help in identifying them.

“They keep bringing me garbage,” Cossey told The Associated Press in 2008, after the FBI brought him a silk parachute discovered by children playing at a recently graded road in Southwest Washington. “Every time they find squat, they bring it out and open their trunk and say, ‘Is that it?’ and I say, ‘Nope, go away.’ Then a few years later they come back.”

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

The man who packed the parachutes used by infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper more than four decades ago has been identified as the victim of a homicide in Washington state.

However, authorities say they have no reason to think the death of 71-year-old Earl Cossey was linked to the Cooper case.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office said Tuesday that Cossey died April 23 of blunt force trauma to the head. Cossey’s daughter found his body Friday when she went to his home in the Seattle suburb of Woodinville to check on him, said King County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cindi West.

“We have no information that leads us to believe that this case has any relation to the Cooper case,” West said in an email.

In November 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper — later erroneously identified as D.B. Cooper — hijacked a passenger plane from Portland, Ore., to Seattle. He released the passengers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes, and asked to be flown to Mexico.

The plane took off again at his direction with some of the crew on board. As the plane neared Oregon, Cooper jumped from its lowered rear stairs. No one knows what happened to him. Investigators doubt he survived the nighttime jump in a frigid rain, and some of his money was found by a boy playing on a Columbia River beach in 1980.

The parachutes provided to the skyjacker came from an Issaquah skydive center, which had recently bought them from Cossey. The one Cooper apparently used was a military-issue NB6, nylon parachute with a conical canopy.

Over the decades, as parachutes were sometimes discovered in the area of Cooper’s jump, the FBI sought Cossey’s help in identifying them.

“They keep bringing me garbage,” Cossey told The Associated Press in 2008, after the FBI brought him a silk parachute discovered by children playing at a recently graded road in Southwest Washington. “Every time they find squat, they bring it out and open their trunk and say, ‘Is that it?’ and I say, ‘Nope, go away.’ Then a few years later they come back.”

That didn’t keep him from having fun at the expense of reporters. Cossey told some who happened to call him on April Fools’ Day that year that the chute was, in fact, Cooper’s.
One reporter called him back and angrily said he could be fired for writing a false story, Cossey said. Another said the newsroom was entertained by the prank.

“I’m getting mixed reviews,” Cossey said. “But I’m having fun with it. What the heck.”

Cossey was also spent several years teaching at Leota Junior High in Woodinville.

Cossey’s family last saw him the night of April 22, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators were asking anyone who saw Cossey alive after that night and anyone who knows with whom he associated to contact them.

A reward of up to $1,000 was being offered for information leading to an arrest.