What do you all think about Brian's father's History Channel account of the Tena bar money find? Credible?
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I think Harold is lying through his teeth - about something. It all seemed to be triggered by "that hippie couple" and "drugs". Fuentes picked up on it immediately and classified Harold's body language as 'getting ready to fight'.
I dont think Harold is capable of telling the "whole truth" at any time. He's hiding something. Harold's second performance on the beach was better but it still had all the traits of a made up story.
Brian is the one that let it slip the "stuggling family's" major concern in the beginning was getting a fat reward. A "$200,000" dollar reward? Was the reward offered by the FBI ever that high? I dont think so!! Brian says something about a "fat reward being dangled in front of a struggling family". ? Is Brian now saying they already knew there was a fat reward for Cooper money and Cooper evidence even before they found the money? That's not the original story they gave when this money was found. They told people they had found money at Tena Bar and "what can we do about it?". They asked for help and advice, at Dwanye's work, they called a bank, and they called the Sherriff's Dept before ever calling the FBI. It was the Sherriff's Dept who told them to call the FBI - this wasn't Harold's idea!
Is Brian saying that if they hadn't thought there was a reward they wouldn't have turned the money in at all or ever called the FBI ? They even called radio stations trying to pump up support for the FBI giving them a reward.
The original story is they didnt know what they had found. They intended to redeem the bills at a bank and they tried to clean the money up for that purpose. This somehow morphs into them suspecting they had found Cooper money with a $200,000 reward, before they even called the FBI, and when Harold calls the FBI he "pimps" the FBI by saying: "do these serial numbers mean anything to you?". Harold somehow already knew he might have Cooper money! Maybe the Sherriff's Dept had suggested it. But Brian is now saying they thought a fat reward was there to get!
Im sorry to say this but I judge these people as struggling opportunists who dont take a step without trying to have some idea of what it is they are stepping into - the problem is, their judgements often turn out to be wrong. Harold himself now says he wishes they had never found the (damned) money.
In the HC interview Harold also lets it slip he had been to Tena Bar before, he says he discovered Tena Bar before and thought it was a nice place to "hang out" ? I believe he says. A "place to hang out" ? What? He likes hanging out with fish and raccoons and driftwood on an isolated fishing beach less accessible than other beaches and 4.7 miles away from Vancouver!? The family's original story is they had never been at Tena Bar before!
I mark Harold as self deluded dodger and an opportunist who circulates relying on gossip rumors to support his meager lifestyle. This family is a disadvantaged family that has always relied on their luck. I dont think the money was a plant at Tena Bar, based on the forensic evidence, but I do think it's entirely possible Harold or Pat had heard through the grapevine that somebody had seen or found money at Tena Bar, so Harold took the family out there to look for it! He may have encountered somebody in one of his visits to Tena Bar, who had seen pieces of money out there on the beachhead. He now admits it wasnt the first time he had been out there - which is brand new in his story. Agent DS says when he and fellow agents got to Tena Bar "a blind man could have followed the fragments up the beach where the Ingram money was found". And Harold now says he told Brian to "try over there"!
Is Brian now saying if there hadn't been "a reward being
dangled out in front of a struggling family, they wouldnt have turned the money in at all ? I guess they would have gone with their original plan to go to a bank instead? And
what reward being dangled out in front of a struggling family" ? Is Brian contending the reward being offered in the Cooper case had the Ingram family's name on it ... in 1971? This is ridiculous, but it reveals how this family thinks and operates.
Harold says he wishes he had never found the money. That part may very well be true!
I think somebody had already tipped Harold and Pat off to the idea that the money might have something to do with a 'bank robbery' or even the DB Cooper Hijacking, before Harold even called the FBI in his cocky fashion asking: "do these serial numbers mean anything to you". Harold had already talked to the Sherriff's office and people at his work - he called the FBI from his work site, according to one report. I think the idea of a reward was already in his mind when he called the FBI. We dont know if there had already been a communication between the Sherriff's Dept and the FBI, before Harold called the FBI. Harold may have been trapped at that point and had no choice but to call the FBI! In any event he was told almost immediately that the reward in the Cooper case had expired and the FBI didn't offer anything. Then Harold at Pat etal continued to be self-serving and they held back some of the bills and didn't turn in everything they had to Himmelsbach! Crystal Ingram didn't want any part of this act so she called the FBI a day later and informed Himmelsbach they Ingram's hadn't turned in everything they had ...
The question is why did Harold go to Tena Bar in the first place? Had he or Pat heard some gossip that caused Harold to go to Tena Bar to explore, before taking the family there to broaden a search under the guise of innocence and pure chance? Because the person raising the question is Harold Ingram himself in his interviews ... which Fuentes isn't buying.
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