Over in the river was a tugboat dragging two barges. Piloting the boat was a man with the darkly prophetic name of Joe Dedmon. On that day, Captain Dedmon passed out thanks to a heart episode. His huge barges crashed into the pier beneath the bridge, which tore down the supports holding the bridge, which dumped the bridge into the water.
Fourteen people died during the disaster. The FBI was soon on hand to handle rescue efforts along with other responders, and they immediately found themselves ordered around by the man in charge. He was William James Clark, who wore military fatigues and called himself a captain in the U.S. Army. Whether it was normal for the army to send a captain over to oversee such matters was not a question that occurred to any of the FBI to ask. In fact, Clark was not a captain and had previously been arrested multiple times for impersonating one.Â
Now, if this was just some guy who donned a costume to take control and help everyone out, that might make him a superhero. A criminal, who the FBI should have caught on to, but a superhero all the same. But it looks like Clark had a little more on his mind than just assistance. For starters, he stopped over in the Army surplus store, picked up $400 in free goods and left, falsely saying the government would pay for it. Then he racked up $900 in hotel bills, again saying the government would pick up the tab. Then he borrowed a pickup truck, saying he needed it for the rescue effort, and just drove away in it. Figuring it was only a matter of time till his charade collapsed like a rickety interstate bridge, Clark fled to Canada, where he was caught by a group far more competent than the FBI: the Canadian Mounties.
Despite the FBI's inability to spot what Clark was doing at the time, prosecutors eventually charged him, and he got 70 months. But that wasn't the end of Clark's adventures as a maybe-military man. In 2007, he phoned the Russian embassy. The US military was planning to assassinate Vladimir Putin in the coming days, he said, and he William James Clark was part of the team that would do it! The FBI investigated and found that while Clark admitted lying about being a part of the team, he had at some point really been convinced about the plot, having peered through a vent and spied on his coworkers seemingly discussing it. Clark was mentally ill, you see. Which explains why those FBI agents so easily mistook him for a superior.