Man accused of posing as captain has local record

When a Southeast Missouri man posed as a military captain and took control of rescue efforts at a bridge collapse in Oklahoma last month, it wasn't the first time he donned a soldier's uniform in an effort to deceive, authorities say.

According to police, William Clark conned a Cape Girardeau woman out of her car almost 10 years ago, offering her a bogus check as payment while dressed in Army fatigues, toting a duffle bag and regaling her with made-up stories of his behind-enemy-lines exploits as a paratrooper in Somalia.

"He's a pretty good con artist," said Cape Girardeau Police Detective David Sanders, who worked the case in 1993. "When people see some clean-cut military type, they're going to trust him. He came across as legitimate and trustworthy, but he was anything but."

It was that offense, authorities say, that eventually sent the Tallapoosa, Mo., native to jail until last December. Months after his release, police say Clark showed up at the scene in Webbers Falls, Okla., within two hours after the Interstate 40 bridge collapse May 26 over the Arkansas River.

At the time, Clark claimed he was a captain with U.S. Special Forces. He was wearing a beret, camouflage fatigues and boots. Clark gave orders and media interviews at the scene about the accident, in which a barge struck the bridge, sending 10 vehicles into the river and killing 14 people.

He has since been arrested after fleeing to Canada and awaits a hearing next week.

Didn't make connection

The Cape Girardeau incident happened so long ago that when his local victim -- 71-year-old Margie Loiseau-Bauerle -- heard about the Oklahoma incident and Clark's alleged actions there, she didn't even make the connection.

"I didn't know he had gone to jail, I had even forgotten his name," said Loiseau-Bauerle. "It was such a long time ago, I've tried to sort of just bury it. When I read it in the paper, I didn't even know that was him."

But police reports, her statement at the time and Loiseau-Bauerle herself recount the following story:

In June 1993, she was having coffee with a friend at My Daddy's Cheesecake on Main Street when a young soldier walked in with a duffle bag. She described him at the time as clean-cut, pleasant and wearing Army fatigues. He approached her, at first talking about his tour of duty in Somalia.

"He seemed very informed about what was going on in Somalia," Loiseau-Bauerle said. "We quizzed him about the food drops and what happened to the food. He seemed very knowledgeable."

Clark then brought up Loiseau-Bauerle's 1991 Mercury Capri convertible, which had a "for sale" sign on the window. She told him that the car wasn't cheap, but he assured her that he had money that he'd saved while he was on duty.

Clark examined the car, and they agreed on a sale price of $9,000. Clark told Loiseau-Bauerle that he had a check and he would make it out to her and give it to her at his hotel that evening.

Loiseau-Bauerle took a neighbor -- a local businessman -- with her to look at the check. At first, she wanted to wait until the check cleared before she gave him the car. But Clark told her he had a date with his girlfriend that night, and he hadn't seen her in months while he was overseas. She agreed, saying that she would keep the title until the check cleared. He also offered her his Social Security card.

She never saw Clark -- or her car -- again.

"He convinced me," she said. "Desert Storm was so big, and I was so concerned about the young men over there. I have always been very patriotic, and my husband had just died. I was vulnerable, very vulnerable."

When the check didn't clear and Clark didn't return as promised, she called police.

"I really felt like a nerd," she said. "I'd never been taken advantage of before. It wasn't a good feeling. But in the end, I thought, it's only a car. At least it's not my life."

Clark served three years at the Central Missouri Correctional Center in Jefferson City after pleading guilty in 1998. He avoided his Missouri charge while he was in Georgia from 1993 until 1998. Police finally put it all together after he was arrested on a rape charge in Georgia.

The U.S. Army said that Clark has never been in the Army.

"There's nothing that shows he would even meet the minimum criteria to serve in the United States Army, let alone a special forces officer," said a Department of the Army spokesman. "We find his actions reprehensible as we find any impostor of the military reprehensible."

Relatives and acquaintances in his hometown of Tallapoosa weren't surprised to hear of Clark's latest incident.

"He is an odd duck," said Tallapoosa police chief Donald William DeProw Jr., who grew up with Clark in the small town. "I normally don't talk about people, but he is a very strange character."

DeProw said that Clark "always wanted to be someone he never was. He wanted to be a police officer, a city morgue worker. He wanted to be fire chief, an alderman. He'd say he had connections in Jefferson City and was getting block grants and stuff like that. Nobody was surprised to hear it was him."

DeProw said he also wasn't surprised to learn that people had taken him seriously.

"He's a con man," he said. "He's good at what he does."

Argued with cousin often

Even members of Clark's family said similar things. His cousin, Alan Clark Jr., said that Clark, 29, had tried to get into the military when he was younger but couldn't.

"He tells so many lies he believes it," Clark Jr. said. "I've argued with him lots of times about him being in the military. He says he is."

Clark Jr. said his cousin would watch "M.A.S.H.," the television show about a surgical hospital during the Korean War, and gather platoon numbers and military titles.

"Then he'd spit those platoon numbers out as ones he's been in," Clark Jr. said.

In Canada, Clark is charged with a weapons count and with possessing a car reported stolen in Arkansas. Across the border, Clark is accused of renting eight hotel rooms in Van Buren, Ark., after the bridge accident, then skipping town without paying the $900 bill. He also has a history of writing bad checks.

"He does stupid stuff all the time," said Clark Jr., who still lives in Tallapoosa. "But it seems like he's in a lot of trouble this time. I think he's crazy, myself."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137