Josh Gates and Brian Ingram Search D.B. Cooper’s Money Site! | Expedition Unknown | Discovery

Walk to the area where Eric has determined the money was originally found.
I’m skeptical until I see who’s holding the fort.

Josh, I’ve got a special guest here.
I know who this is. What’s up, man?
How you doing, buddy?

Little Brian Ingram, the only man who’s ever found DB Cooper’s money.
We refer to Brian as Cooper royalty.
Brian was just eight years old when he made the only true break in this case, finding bundles of Cooper’s ransom money on the beach here at Tina Barr.

So all told, you found just under six thousand dollars of Cooper’s money, correct?
Would you like to see some of it?

You have it?
I do.

Get out of here.
Cooper’s money!
Like, I have chills! This is the real deal, folks.
Remnants of the actual bills that were carried through the air by our mystery skyjacker.
This money went out that plane with DB Cooper.
That’s incredible. Thank you.

Okay, we have to be relatively close to where you found the money, but it’s changed so much since then.
That’s right.
So how do we know right where the money was found?

Here, take a look at this.

Thank you.

So this looks like old aerial footage.
That’s Craig. This is footage taken from a news helicopter that was filmed during the FBI search.
You can see the agents on the beach, right?

First thing that pops out here is how much beach there is.
I mean, it’s all sand. It’s completely different.
There’s an old gravel road that you can see in the footage here that an FBI car is actually sitting on.
That’s part of what we walked on. That gravel road is right up there.

Right, and utilizing landmarks, I was able to identify the precise money find spot.
They’ve got a still image from the footage that you’re looking at that shows a little better exactly the money find spot.

Now, somebody might say all this is well and good, but isn’t the FBI all over this place?
The FBI did not search from the money find spot back up to the gravel road.
I don’t know why.

Should we pick up some metal detectors and some shovels?
I think so.

Are you here to help, man?
There’s $194,000 still out there. You’re a lucky charm, Brian.
Give me a shovel.

We grab our metal detectors and begin exploring the area from the shore up to the old gravel road.
Our team is now four strong, including Brian and Eric’s friend, expert metal detectorist Jeff Morgan.

Is it hard?
Yeah.
Yeah, something down there.

But you got a strong hit right here.
Something here.

What is that?
It’s an odd enough piece, I just can’t tell what it is.
I mean, it could be anything. Could be part of a barbed wire fence.
Yeah, interesting, but hey, it’s a start.

Yeah, alright, keep looking.

The wire is just the beginning.
As we start to pile up the hits…

It’s like a feeder straw of some kind.
Yeah.
Yeah.

That’s WD-40.
Can did Cooper jump with WD-40?

Shotgun shell.
Okay, we got a shotgun shell.

We got permission to be on this property, right?
Nice. Snail. We were in the iron collection business.
Yep, we’d be rich.

[Music]

Now, in terms of the actual money find spot, Brian said it was right around here.
Yeah, that’s correct.
If you see that furthest boulder out right there…
Yes.
If you go out from there, that’s exactly where the money was found in the water.
That’s correct.

Nowadays, the money find spot is about 15 feet offshore.
Well, it feels like one of us should probably get out there and check that out.
Good luck, Josh.

Alright, I’ll go.

Foreign.
To get wet.

I trade in my detector for an aquatic model and wade back into the search.

Okay, so around here, two feet to the left of that shark over there.
Alright.
There’s no sharks in Portland.

There’s no sharks, right?

I program my phone’s GPS to zero in on the exact spot where Brian found Cooper’s cash.

[Music]

Get a hit.
There is literally a hit right here.

[Music]

It’s like an old spike.

You know, the cool thing about this, Josh, this is exactly what I think DB Cooper went through in June of 1972 retrieving the money.
I mean, DB Cooper could have been standing right here.

That’s right.
Now we just got to see if he left anything else behind.

[Music]

Eric, yes?
Hey, check this out.

What is that?
Look.
It’s like a buckle or inch or a buckle.

Yeah, yeah, those are clearly two rivets.
And it looks like the kind of piece you would have on a briefcase.
I mean, it really does.
I mean, what else would you use it for?
I don’t know. Very cool.

I mean, that’s pretty unbelievable.
It’s pretty intriguing.
Okay, that’s going right there.
I’m going back to that same area to keep searching.

Things are heating up.

Because like right in here…
Big hit!

[Applause]

[Music]

Oh, Eric, look at this.
Come here. Come here.
Come here, check this out.

That’s a clasp!
That’s a clasp!

That is an absolute clasp!
There’s no doubt about that.
That looks like it’s off a briefcase.
That is definitely from a briefcase.

Do we know what his briefcase looked like?
There’s no photo of it, right?
No, no photo at all.
We don’t know if it was metal or what the case was, but that definitely looks like a clasp.
That could have gone to his briefcase.

And it is rusted to high hell.
And look where this is.
This was found close to this.
These could be from the same thing, I think.

I mean, how could they not be from the same thing?
You got a clasp, and you’ve got what appears to be some sort of hinge or something like that.

I’m kind of flabbergasted, because I mean, we’re at THE spot.
The money spot.

That’s right.
That could actually be the very first piece of evidence we found related to DB Cooper since the money, in the same spot.
That’s insane.

That is very cool.
Unbelievable.

Oh my word.

[Music]

Okay, I need to go back and see if there’s anything else in here. Standby.

[Music]

Up with any more hits out there?
It’s all quiet now. Not a…

I scanned the water up and down the bank to be sure.
There’s nothing else to find.

And soon, the sun begins to set on Tina Barr and on this chapter of my hunt for DB Cooper.

In the days that follow, we conclude that the serial number on the tag found in Cle Elum doesn’t match the registry of any known components of a parachute canopy, container, or harness.

The hinge and clasp found at Tina Barr have been carefully examined and appear to match those found on many soft briefcases from the 1960s and 70s.
Unfortunately, they also match any number of other containers and are therefore compelling, but inconclusive.

For me, the biggest headline here is the discovery of the diatoms on Cooper’s cash.
New forensic evidence in a case that’s supposedly cold, but feels significantly hotter today.

[Music]
Thank you.