Interesting article about an old story on the mountain. The woman was reserved and smiling. The version circulated that she had experienced a loving slight that had made her come to Mount Aconcagua in a particular emotional state. Her lover had left her, and she had stayed at the door of her house for two days until the police forcibly removed her. This situation led to even talk of a suicidal tendency in Jeanette.
In some of the journalistic chronicles of the time, it was said that Cooper had more than $ 1,000 that did not appear, but the version seems to be part of the romantic aspects of the case. We suppose that he wanted to climb Aconcagua cheap. In the review that Alfonso and Brandi made of the body of the NASA engineer, they found that one of her hands covered a wound in the abdomen, which to Brandi looked like a bullet, so it was circular. Subsequent tests, carried out after the definitive rescue with a helicopter, determined that it was a wound made with a sharp object.
The presumptions indicated that it had been made with the pickaxe, which could not be found. Other versions said that it was a knife. It was also surprising that Cooper was missing one of his crampons, an essential element for traveling on ice. It is known to climb Aconcagua on ice; it is impossible without crampons.
These discoveries fueled the stories surrounding the case. None ceases to be assumed; it will never be known for sure what happened.
One of the elements that caused more doubts was the position of Cooper’s corpse, which did not match the description made by Zeller. He had stated that he was sitting with his hands holding his head, when in fact, he had one hand pressing against the wound in the abdomen, and the other stretched across the body. But Zeller was amid a delusion, so his testimony must be taken with a grain of salt. By then, a file had already been opened in the Second Investigating Court by Miguel Calandria Agüero. Investigations stalled until two years later.
In February 1975, a group accidentally found the body of Jeanette Johnson, near where Cooper had been found.
The woman had some signs of violence on her head, attributed to the falls. She was also missing a crampon, and she had a safety rope placed very precariously. These elements served to continue the suspicions.
Another point questioned was that in the place where the body was found, a fall was unlikely to cause injuries such as those found because there was practically no slope. Also, the lack of a crampon, as in Cooper’s case, led to new conjecture. There remains today a sense of mystery around the case. Forever remained the halo of the perfect crime, which was never going to be solved.
