Tangled Web of Lies Snags Air Force Sergeant : Deception: Believed killed in a hit-and-run accident five years ago, James Doug Pou now is awaiting a court-martial.

In the end, it was Doug Pou’s lies that caught up with him.

Pou, a member of an elite Air Force pararescue unit, staged his death in 1987 in the New Mexico desert and moved to San Diego, where he assumed the name of a boy who had been killed in a bicycle accident years earlier.

Within months of his arrival, the smooth-talking and confident man married the daughter of a well-to-do doctor in Chula Vista, putting behind him the wife and two sons he had left in New Mexico.

Armed with a new identity and financial backing from his new father-in-law, Pou and his wife--a law school graduate with whom he was to have two children--started a successful business by renovating houses in San Diego’s poorest neighborhoods and then selling them.

In less than three years, Pou (pronounced pew) and his wife were worth nearly $1 million, owning a 4,000-square-foot cabin in Idylwild and a $500,000 house overlooking a San Diego canyon.

“He was the kind of guy who could look you in the eye, lie to you and make you believe everything he said,” said a friend close to him.

When the economy began to worsen two years ago, Pou’s life began to fall apart. He and his wife’s financial security quickly crumbled, and along with it the deceit that insulated Pou’s life.

His second wife learned that he had had an affair with the next door neighbor and that she was pregnant. And, she also inadvertently discovered his secret bank accounts and private mail box.

Sometime last May, after a series of arguments with her husband, Pou’s second wife learned his real identity. Through cursory detective work, she tracked down Pou’s sister, who lives in the Bay Area, and told her the brother she had given up for dead was alive.

The women told the Air Force.

On June 10, Pou, 32, found himself face-to-face with his past. Five years of falsehoods came to an end when Air Force personnel arrested him in San Diego and charged him with desertion, larceny and bigamy.

The high school honors student and star athlete who strived to be an overachiever all his life is now in the brig at March Air Force Base in Riverside, facing a December court-martial, a dishonorable discharge and up to five years in federal prison.

The broad outlines of Pou’s life on the lam have been pieced together through interviews with people who knew him in San Diego, public records, law enforcement sources and members of his family.

Pou declined to be interviewed, as have some people who knew him best, such as his first wife, who now lives in Washington state.

In 1987, Air Force Sgt. James Doug Pou was a member of the prestigious pararescue school housed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. The rescue team prides itself on saving victims from dangerous spots, be it burning planes or glaciers in Iceland.

“He was outstanding--the absolute best,” said Sgt. Michael Vogele, who was chief of training at the school at the time of Pou’s disappearance, in an earlier interview with The Times. “He just had what it took to do this extremely demanding job, and he was devoted to it. His future was extremely bright.”

The physically demanding life fit the rock-hard, 6-foot-3, 195-pound Pou perfectly. A workout fanatic, according to friends, he often took pre-dawn bike rides.

But on the morning of May 12, something was amiss. Pou didn’t show up for duty.

A quick search of his bike route in the desert produced Pou’s cycling shoe and a car’s skid mark on the Rio Bravo Bridge in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Eight miles up the road, investigators found Pou’s damaged bicycle and wallet near a dumpster.

Both Air Force officials and a private investigator hired by Pou’s family concluded that he had been hit by a car on the bridge and thrown into the fast-moving waters of the Rio Grande below.

His buddies on the rescue team launched an anguished search. For 60 days they looked for Pou or his body. Flyers bearing his picture were posted throughout the area. A reward of $5,000 was offered.

The military eventually declared him dead.

Because a body was never found, Pou’s first wife, Suzy, and his family held out hope that he was still alive. They waited a year before going ahead with a memorial service in Garrettsville, Ohio, Pou’s hometown.

“We tried hard to accept the fact that he must be dead,” said Mary Ann Pou, Doug’s mother, who lives in Garrettsville. “In fact, Suzy was very helpful in getting us to understand that he was.”

Several months before the phony accident, Pou traveled to San Diego to attend a four-week training course at the Navy SEAL base in Coronado, home to the commandos.

According to friends, it was during this visit that he met Monica Marie.

Monica had just returned from a trip to Australia and was summoned to a bar in Bonita by a sister, who wanted her to meet an Australian named Doug.

According to a source, Monica quickly realized that Pou was not Australian, and the two had a good laugh over his attempt at fooling her.

Friends of the couple said Pou claimed to be a Navy SEAL, and told Monica he would be leaving for a while but said he would be coming back in a few months.

And after his disappearance in New Mexico, he did. He identified himself as Christopher Keith Riggs, though he said everyone called him Doug.

After Pou’s arrest, law enforcement sources said that Pou told them the real Christopher Riggs was a 10-year-old boy who was killed in a bicycle accident years ago.

These sources said Pou found the boy’s name while going through old newspapers at a library.

Less than three months after abandoning Suzy and two young sons in New Mexico, Pou and Monica became engaged. They were married at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Chula Vista on Sept. 26, 1987. It was Monica’s first marriage.

Monica declined an interview and requested that her maiden name not be published to spare her and her family further embarrassment.

A source said Monica was amazed at the similarities between her and Suzy. The woman said both Monica and Suzy came from large Catholic families. In both cases, Pou converted to Catholicism in order to marry the women.

Bruce Lambert, a close friend of the couple, said Pou seldom talked about himself. According to Lambert, Pou told friends he used to live in Switzerland, where he worked with a mountain rescue team.

On rare occasions, when Pou was talkative with his new friends, he impressed them with stories about daring rescues in Iceland and the Swiss Alps and harrowing missions for Interpol, the international police organization.

There was some truth to some of the stories. Among his many rescues while on the Air Force rescue team was the plucking of a hiker from a glacier crevice in Iceland.

A friend of Monica’s who attended her wedding said several guests wondered why his family was not in attendance. The wedding license lists Monica’s brother as Pou’s best man. Monica’s twin was the maid of honor.

Pou had an answer to the questions about his family. He said he was an orphan.

He and Monica, borrowing money from her father, launched into the renovation business. For a time, everything was bliss. The business was successful and Monica gave birth to two sons.

Then the souring economy crippled the business. At one point, Pou was so strapped for money, he took over a newspaper route, according to friends.

But finally, Monica began to suspect that “Doug Riggs” was not who he said he was. Her suspicions were heightened by several unsettling revelations, including Monica’s discovery that Pou had a secret bank account and mail box.

However, according to friends of the couple, the marriage became irreconcilable when Monica learned that Pou had gotten their next-door neighbor pregnant. She has since given birth to a boy.

Using her new information, Monica found Pou’s sister, Nannette Wehg, in the Bay Area. Wehg didn’t believe her brother was alive, according to sources.

Monica pulled out her wedding pictures. The evidence was irrefutable.

After the initial shock, the two women agreed it was time to tip off the Air Force.

The news her husband was alive came at an especially bad time for Suzy Pou. Having accepted the Air Force’s conclusion that he had been killed, she went ahead with her life. She was making plans to marry in July, when she learned of Pou’s arrest in June.

After Pou was declared legally dead, Suzy Pou received close to $500,000 in life insurance and other benefits for her and her children, sources close to the family said. It is these benefits that form the basis of the larceny charges against Pou.

Pou’s friends in San Diego said they were not surprised that he was able to convince the military and a private investigator that he was dead. Friends described him as a highly intelligent and manipulative man.

Incredibly, Pou had several contacts with police prior to his arrest, but his true identity was never discovered.

According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, Pou was arrested for drunk driving on July 8, 1990, and was placed on probation. His license also was suspended and Pou was driving with a suspended license at the time of his arrest.

Less than two months after his drunk driving arrest, Pou was cited for crossing the median on a divided highway Sept. 29, 1990. San Diego Police also issued him two traffic citations in May, 1991.

“That’s the way it was for Doug,” said a male friend who did not want to be identified. “If the guy wasn’t good at something, and, mind you, he was good at a lot of things, he was lucky. He is an incredible person. He will give you the shirt off his back, but he is also the kind of guy who can look you straight in the eye, tell you a lie and make you believe him.”

So why did Pou do it? Why did he fake his death and live a life of lies that has emotionally devastated those closest to him? Those who know him say he was scarred by an overbearing father he could never satisfy, and that that may have something to do with it.

“Remember, Doug was an overachiever all of his life,” said a source close to Pou. “He was a good student and star athlete. He did all this in order to gain recognition from his father. But he never got as much as a nod from his father.”

According to this source, who requested anonymity, when Pou was in high school he once displayed his frustration over his lack of recognition by dumping his wrestling, track and football trophies in a trash can.

A friend believes that Pou continued to seek his father’s approval by becoming a member of the Air Force’s elite pararescue unit.

Pou’s mother, Mary Ann, said her son was subjected to abuse, though she declined to elaborate.

Mary Ann said Doug was 12 when she divorced her husband, and she has not had any contact with her former husband in 20 years.

“Doug’s father was very demeaning and degrading. (Doug has) got three sisters who were also affected. The trauma from his childhood was buried a long time.”

Despite that, she said, her son is a generous--albeit confused--person.

“He was always a generous person,” she said. “When he was 20, he had a Jeep that he was selling for $800. The most he was offered was $600. He said he would rather give it to someone who would appreciate it than sell it a lower price.

“On Christmas Eve, he parked it in the front yard of a 13-year-old neighbor. He put a sign on it that read, ‘Yes, Dean, there is a Santa Claus.’ Do you know that Dean still drives that old Jeep,” she said.

Pou pulled a similar surprise on a friend in San Diego, said Pou’s buddy Lambert, who “partied with Doug” and lived next door to him on Lomitas Drive.

According to Lambert, Pou had borrowed the friend’s motorcycle but it was stolen in Palm Springs. Pou felt so bad about the loss of the friend’s motorcycle that a few weeks later he replaced it “with a brand new $6,000 bike.

Despite the hurt and sorrow caused by her son, Mary Ann Pou said she “unreservedly loves and supports” him.

“What he did was wrong, but I have to wipe all of that from my mind. I have faith in my son, and I think Doug is amazed that we are standing by him after everything that has happened. . . . A lot of people in the world have to live with memories of abuse. All of this will be told at his (court martial),” she said.

“When he gets through this,” she said, “he will be a better person. This experience is going to solve a lot of problems that he didn’t understand to begin with.”