By Bruce A. Smith

Additional updates added 5. 24. 13

Sgt Cindi West told the Mountain News on Tuesday that the family of Earl Cossey intends to raise the amount of reward offered for the Good Samaritan who returned Coss’ driver’s license and other personal items to come forward.

 Earl Cossey was found murdered in his Woodinville’s home garage in late April.  Cossey was widely known as the man who packed the parachutes delivered to DB Cooper the night of the famous skyjacking, and later Cossey became a primary architect of the FBI’s narrative that Cooper selected an inferior parachute to make his getaway and was most likely unsuccessful. 

 This claim has been hotly disputed in recent years, and Cossey’s additional pronouncement that he was the owner of the parachutes used by Cooper have also come into questions as recently revealed FBI documents indicate that a Renton acrobatic pilot named Norman Hayden actually owned the parachutes and insured their delivery to airline officials at Sea-Tac.

 The Mountain News queried Sgt West about what kinds of forensic testeing was conducted on the driver’s license, credit cards and a casino chit returned to the Cossey family several days after the murder.  When asked if detectives had examined the envelopes for DNA from the Good Samaritan and similarly the fingerprints on the credit cards, Sgt West emailed the following reply:

“We have done extensive forensics on this case but I do not specifically know what forensics were done on the ID and cards that were mailed back to the family nor if we did DNA on the envelope.     I generally do not ask for specifics on open cases and let the detectives do their jobs.”

  In addition, Sgt West declined to offer any comment on the declaration left on the Mountain News web site by a poster named Clancy Crossroader claiming that Earl Cossey was a gambler who regularly kept $5, 000 – 25,000 in cash in his house. 

 “We’re not talking about those kinds of matters at this point,” Sgt West said.  “We’re not talking about his habits or personality.”

 Crossroader has declined to comment further on his gambling allegation despite multiple attempts to reach him.

 Nevertheless, Sgt West reassured the Mountain News that “We’re looking into all aspects of this case.”