Well, Georger, you are psychic, as I do have a new chapter for ya - at least part of one. Here's the part:
Another Evidentiary Break-Through
In 2019, Tom Kaye revisited the diatom question with a close examination of a Cooper twenty provided by the Cooper aficionado known as “377.” Using high-powered electron microscopes similar to those he utilized with McCrone on the tie particles, Kaye explored stub samples from four different spots on 377’s twenty and discovered diatoms, a finding which he had originally discounted in 2009. When questioned, Kaye told me that he and the CS did find diatoms during their initial examination in 2009 of bills provided by the FBI, but they were the most common forms of diatoms and not indicative of any specific location or water body. Since their investigatory interests lay elsewhere, the CS explored the issues of the blackened bills and the tie.
However, when Kaye looked at 377’s bill he found several unique and interesting diatoms – Asterionella and Fragilaria – which triggered a great deal of investigatory interest.
“These diatoms are a spring species,” Kaye said. “They only bloom in the spring, and certainly not in November when Cooper jumped.”
Since the bills only had one season of diatoms on them, Kaye theorizes that the bills were only in the Columbia for a short period of time – a spring of an unknown year – and arrived at Tina Bar months or years after Cooper’s skyjacking.
After exposure to these springtime diatoms, apparently the money got buried and became inaccessible to diatoms, which only live in water or on the wet surface of shoreline sand. Further, since the bills became so compressed, they seem to have been covered by a heavy load of sand, perhaps several feet worth.
In addition, Kaye said that the Fragilaria was only found on one section of 377’s bill – an inner portion – and because of the extraordinary power of the electron microscope they discovered several bits of other bills stuck to the larger twenty, which were covering up the Fragilaria sample. Thus, Kaye speculates that when the bills were exposed to water they also fanned out for a period of time, allowing the Fragilaria to enter more deeply into the wad of bills.
With a laugh, Tom Kaye concedes that these findings make the money find even more mysterious, as they certainly disprove the Washougal Wash-Down theory, and impugn the possibility of burial by DB Cooper. Unless, of course, DB buried his money the night of the skyjacking and when he came back for his loot – in the springtime of some year – he dropped these three bundles inadvertently into the river and lost track of them, only to have them re-buried at Tina Bar before they picked up any more diatoms.
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LoginI've re-written the chapter on the Citizen Sleuths.