Air Force Deserter Is Bank Robbery Suspect

James Doug Pou, whose secret life as an Air Force deserter and bigamist received widespread attention last year, is suspected of robbing at least one Texas bank in 1988 while he was living here under an assumed name.

Air Force officials who helped prosecute Pou last year on charges of desertion and bigamy were tight-lipped about reports that he is a suspect in at least one bank robbery in Texas.

“We have no comment,” said Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Charles T. Moore in Riverside. Pou’s lawyer, Paul Nester, also declined to comment.

However, sources in tiny Calallen, Tex., and nearby Corpus Christi who talked with investigators said they were told Pou is a suspect in the Aug. 2, 1988, robbery of the Coastal Bend National Bank, on Farm Road 624 in Calallen.

Authorities would not disclose how much money was taken.

According to a local newspaper story, the robber was dressed in military fatigues, wore a camouflage cape, which investigators believe is a military poncho liner, and displayed a canister resembling a grenade.

The robber had his face and arms covered with black camouflage paint and carried two backpacks, a witness told The Times.

Bruce Shabot, librarian at the Corpus Christi Caller, said in a telephone interview that federal investigators arrived at the newspaper office last week and asked for copies of the bank robbery story.

“The officer mentioned that the suspect’s name was Pou, and that he was (also) a suspect in a string of bank robberies in Texas. He also said that Pou was in custody in California,” Shabot said.

Kathy Wimberly, an official at the Coastal Bend National Bank, said that bank officials had talked to Air Force investigators and were told “there had been some articles about the suspect” in the Los Angeles Times. She declined to comment further.

Pou’s exploits were detailed last year in several articles in The Times. He was pronounced dead by the Air Force on May 22, 1987, 10 days after he faked his death in New Mexico, where he abandoned a wife and two young sons.

He traveled by bus to San Diego, where he married Monica Marie Joyce four months later. Pou used the name Christopher Keith Riggs. He and Joyce had two sons, and he also fathered a daughter with a woman who was a next-door neighbor.

Pou was arrested June 10 after he was reported to authorities by Joyce.

At the court-martial, Pou testified that he faked his death by staging an accident on a bridge over the Rio Grande near Albuquerque, then worked his way downstream to a wooded area before leaving the river. He received an 18-month sentence.

Cody Daneher, who saw the robber run out of the Texas bank, said in a telephone interview that the robber headed for the nearby Neuces River and disappeared in the surrounding brush country.

Local law enforcement officials, assisted by a Coast Guard helicopter, conducted a 2 1/2-hour search of the area but the robber escaped.

Bruce Lambert, a neighbor of Pou in San Diego, said that Pou, who had a small home construction business here, often was beset by money problems.

“It was the darndest thing,” he said. “There were times when Doug would disappear for a few days and then return with cash.” He would tell us that he was away on a job where he would be paid in cash,” Lambert said.

Pou, a native of Ohio, enlisted in the Air Force when he was living in Texas.