PORTLAND, Ore. -- The man who gave police a description from which artists drew facial pictures of the skyjacker who became known as D.B. Cooper said he will always remember the 'man in black.'
Hal Williams, who was a ticket agent at the gate for the Northwest Orient aircraft that Cooper boarded Thanksgiving Eve of 1971, said the man was dressed all in black.
'I couldn't help but notice him,' said Williams, who now operates a furniture refinishing business. 'His clothing was all black, including his shoes and his attache case. Even his hair was kind of black.
'It was about three in the afternoon and the other 20 or 30 people waiting for the flight to Seattle were milling around -- laughing and back-slapping. But he stood off to himself ... very calm and quiet ... and looking out the window most of the time.
'No, I didn't suspect anything bad while observing him. He looked like a sharp looking businessman to me. But I noticed him quite a bit because his behavior was different from the others, and he was all in black during the day of polyesters and plaids.'
Cooper obtained $200,000 in $20 bills from the airline by threatening to use explosives he said were in the attache case. Apparently he jumped from the airplane southeast of Mount St. Helens after having first allowed the other passengers to leave the aircraft in Seattle.
No one actually saw him parachute from the plane and there is considerable speculation on whether he survived.
The only solid clue on the hijacking was the recovery of a wad of crumpled bills totaling $5,800 found on the banks of the Columbia River just west of Vancouver, Wash., in January 1980.
Williams said he still is not satisfied with the drawing made up of Cooper.
'The composite drawings never did look just like him,' he said. 'The chin was a bit thin and hair was not quite right.'
Williams said the FBI spent considerable time talking to him about the case, which remains the nation's only unsolved airliner hijacking.
'The FBI talked with me for months -- years -- after the hijacking,' he said. 'They just kept coming back. Yes, it did go through my mind once or twice that maybe they thought I was in cahoots with Cooper.
'And the people I worked with were always teasing me -- asking what I was going to do with my share of the money. All that talk was fun for a while, but then it got to be a pain.'
