Living a Lie : Man Is Accused of Staging His Own Death to Begin a New Life

For five years, Doug Pou lived a life of deception. His mother, his sister, his wife and his two young sons thought he was dead. So did the U.S. government.

It was only after Pou took a new wife, and had two more sons by her, that it was learned he had apparently staged his death in 1987 in the New Mexico desert and moved to San Diego. There, he assumed the name of a 10-year-old boy who had been killed years earlier in a bicycle accident.

Within months of his arrival, the former member of an elite Air Force parachute rescue unit married the daughter of a well-to-do doctor in Chula Vista, putting behind him the family he had left in New Mexico.

Armed with a new identity and financial backing from his new father-in-law, Pou and his second wife--a law school graduate--started a successful business by renovating houses in San Diego’s poorest neighborhoods and selling them, acquaintances said.

In less than three years, Pou (pronounced pew) and his wife were worth nearly $1 million, owning a 4,000-square-foot cabin in Idyllwild 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 male friend.

The broad outlines of Pou’s life on the lam have been pieced together through interviews with friends and acquaintances in San Diego, public records, law enforcement sources and members of his family. The following account is based on those sources:

When the economy began to worsen two years ago, Pou’s new life started to fall apart. He and his second wife’s financial security quickly crumbled, as did the deception that insulated Pou.

His second wife learned that he had had an affair with the next-door neighbor and that she was pregnant by him. She also inadvertently discovered his secret bank accounts and private mailbox.

Sometime last May, after a series of arguments with her husband, Pou’s second wife found out 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 officials arrested him in San Diego and charged him with desertion, larceny and bigamy.

A former high school honor student and star athlete who strived to be an achiever all his life, Pou is 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.

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

In 1987, Air Force Sgt. James Doug Pou was a member of the rescue 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, chief of training at the school. “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 well. A workout fanatic, according to friends, he often took pre-dawn bike rides.

But on the morning of May 12, Pou failed to show up for work.

A quick search of his bike route through the desert produced Pou’s cycling shoe and evidence of 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.

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 a search. For 60 days they looked for Pou’s 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.

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

Friends said it was during this visit that he met Monica, who asked that her last name not be used. She 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 to fool her.

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

After his disappearance in New Mexico, he did. He identified himself as Christopher Keith Riggs, though he said everyone called him Doug. Law enforcement sources said that Pou told them he found the name of the late 10-year-old while going through old newspapers at a library.

Less than three months after abandoning Suzy and two young sons in New Mexico, Pou asked Monica to marry him. They were married at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Chula Vista on Sept. 26, 1987.

Monica declined to be interviewed.

Once the truth came out, a source said, Monica was amazed at the similarities between herself and Suzy. Both came from large Catholic families. In both cases, Pou converted to Catholicism in order to marry.

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 team was the plucking of a hiker from a glacier crevice in Iceland.

A friend of Monica who attended the wedding said several guests wondered why his family was not in attendance.

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

Borrowing money from her father, Monica and Pou launched their renovation business. The venture was a success. Monica gave birth to two sons.

Then hard times hit, crippling the business, and Pou was so strapped for money that he took over a newspaper route, according to friends.

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 post office box.

The marriage soured when Monica learned that Pou had gotten their next-door neighbor pregnant, friends of the couple said. The woman has since given birth.

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.

The two women agreed it was time to tip off the Air Force.

The news that 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 for a July wedding when she learned in June of Pou’s arrest.

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 persuade the military and a private investigator that he was dead. Friends described him as a highly intelligent, confident and manipulative man.

“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.”

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

Pou’s mother, Mary Ann Pou, says her son was subjected to abuse as a youth, though she declined to elaborate. Mary Ann Pou 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’s) got three sisters who were also affected. The trauma from his childhood was buried a long time.”

She described her son as a generous--albeit confused--person.

“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.

Despite the hurt and sorrow her son has caused, 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’re standing by him after everything that’s 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, he will be a better person. This experience is going to solve a lot of problems that he didn’t understand to begin with.”