PORTLAND, Ore. -- The man who sold an plane ticket to skyjacker D.B. Cooper says New Jersey murder suspect John List doesn't look like the same man he faced over an airline counter 27 years ago.
Dennis Lysne, of Portland, says a picture of List 'didn't ring any bells' in his recollection of the hijacker who forced airline officials to give him with $200,000 and then bailed out over southwest Washington on Thanksgiving Eve 1971.
The FBI in Seattle has confirmed that List, who was arrested in Richmond, Va., earlier this month, 'may be a suspect (in the hijacking).'
List is accused of murdering five family members in New Jersey on Nov. 9, 1971 and spending the next 18 years living under other names. He was found living with a new wife and working as an account in Richmond after the May 21 television broadcast of 'America's Most Wanted,' a program that publicizes unsolved crime mysteries.
Lysne, a retired airline ticket agent, was contacted by The Oregonian newspaper and shown a picture of List. But Lysne said there was little resemblance between the picture and his memory of the man who purchased the plane ticket in 1971.
Although the FBI has said List is a suspect in the 18-year-old hijacking, New Jersey officials involved in the List case say there is no evidence to suggest a link between List and D.B. Cooper.
Cooper hijacked a plane flying from Portland to Seattle 15 days after List alleged murdered his mother, wife and three children.
Cooper wrote a note to a stewardess, saying he had a bomb. When the plane landed in Seattle, Cooper asked for $200,000 and four parachutes. Once in the air and bound for Mexico, Cooper donned a parachute and jumped from the plane somewhere near Mount St. Helens.
The only trace found was $5,800 of the money that washed ashore on a sand bar on the Columbia River in February 1980.
