Neither an Officer, Nor a Gentleman

May 13, 2005 — -- He charged into their lives like a knight in shining armor, claiming to be a Navy officer, an F-14 fighter pilot with a business degree, and with big plans for their futures. Women found his charms -- and uniform -- irresistible.

Like Richard Gere's character from "An Officer and a Gentleman," Eric Cooper seemed like every woman's dream. And in fact, over a 10-year period at least nine women from the Houston area were married or engaged to him. Each woman says she was oblivious to his past relationships, and each woman was convinced she was his one true love.

Krystal Weber, 21, was in her last year of nursing school when Cooper, then 28, swept her off her feet on their very first date.

"He was telling me all about what he did and how he has all the money he inherited from his mom when she died, a trust fund he inherited," she said. Weber said Cooper also told her he was a Navy pilot who was second-in-command in Houston and had an MBA degree.

The young woman's parents, Jack and Lynn Weber, also thought Cooper was a special young man.

"I was very impressed. He was very well-mannered, very clean-cut. He made a little speech saying that his life up to that point had been incomplete and that Krystal completed his whole life. That she was the final piece of his puzzle," Lynn Weber recalled.

The relationship progressed rapidly, as Cooper pressed Weber to marry him, she says. The couple married during a weekend trip to Las Vegas, shocking Weber's parents.

Suspicions Raised After Proposals

But Weber and her family didn't know Cooper had a lot of practice getting women to say "Yes." He had been married to at least six women before her.

Brandy Lloyd said "yes" to Cooper three years earlier. Lloyd, who was 17 at the time, had been dating Cooper for just six weeks when he proposed to her in front of her family on Christmas Eve.

Lloyd says she was still in high school when Cooper began pressing her to have a baby. "He wanted me to get pregnant quite early because his grandfather was going to pass away and he wanted him to see some grandchildren. So of course I went along with it," Lloyd said.

But once pregnant, she says, Cooper became physically abusive with her -- grabbing her by the throat, slamming her up against a wall when he found pictures of her with her old boyfriends.

The violence wasn't the only clue that Cooper wasn't the man he made himself out to be, Lloyd said.

"My family and I started finding out things about him that didn't add up and red flags where flying everywhere," she said. They found Cooper's truck -- which he said was government issued -- in fact belonged to Cooper's grandfather.

After Lloyd gave birth, she says Cooper assaulted her in a fit of jealous rage. "He choked me, he would shove and push me down to the ground. He broke glass over my head, turned the gun on me and shot me with a Taser," she said.

As in Brandy Lloyd's case, a relative of Krystal Weber soon became suspicious about Cooper. Weber's grandfather, a pilot, was shocked when Cooper wasn't able to answer a question about the weight of the jet fuel in the F-16 jets he said he flew.

"My dad said, 'You know that guy is either one helluva good catch or he's the biggest con man that you and I will ever meet," Weber's mother, Lynn, said.

Lynn Weber said there were questions about money missing from her family's bank account. She did some research and learned Cooper had a criminal record, spent time in prison, and married five or six different women. "I was panicked about my daughter being with him -- being married to him. It was frightening. It was terrifying," she said.

The Webers called the Houston Police Department and asked for an escort to get her belongings out of the apartment. But by the time they arrived at the apartment, Cooper had already begun packing to leave.

One week after Cooper left Weber, he set his sights on 28-year-old Tonya Causey. Divorced with two young sons, Causey had just moved to Houston when she met the handsome young naval officer who said he was house-sitting the apartment above hers.

As with the other women, Causey says Cooper soon proposed marriage. It didn't take long before she too figured out something was wrong. "And I remember just tears coming to my eyes when I realized that all this money is missing from my account," Causey said.

Weber's and Causey's heartbreak could have been avoided if they'd known what happened to April Jarboe three years earlier.

Served Time After Forging Checks

Jarboe, who was a 19-year-old waitress when she became Cooper's fifth wife in 2001, said Cooper had stolen checks from her great-grandmother and forged them.

When Jarboe's family realized their bank accounts were missing about $7,000, they pressed charges against Cooper. He was convicted and sentenced to jail for two years. But a year into his sentence, Cooper convinced a judge that he had a life-threatening illness and he was set free on his own recognizance on $1,000 bond. A week later, he met 26-year-old Jennifer Smith, a divorced mother with two kids.

She became wife No. 6 less than two months after they met. But as the others had before, the marriage fell apart quickly. Smith said the marriage ended abruptly after she caught him taking her credit card without asking.

"20/20" caught up with Cooper, along with his lawyer and grandmother, on his way to court to face a felony charge which came about after Krystal Weber's family went to the police. He said he would speak to "20/20," but then disappeared the next day.

"20/20" also found two other women who married Cooper, Melissa Pope and Paula Herren. Pope had become Cooper's first wife when she was just 14 years old. She had a child with him, one of at least three that he fathered.

Cooper had been in the Navy, "20/20" has learned, but only for about five months during boot camp. He was never a pilot, a SEAL or a lieutenant. He has no job, owns no house and never earned a college degree. There is even some question as to his real name. He used various aliases with the women he married: Tyler Eric Lee, Tyler E. Lee, and Eric Lee.

Before he disappeared, Cooper told The Houston Chronicle that he did not pretend to be in the military and denied the allegations the women have made against him, saying they were made out of spite.

Women Want to Warn Others

The women say they now share a determination to stop him from deceiving others.

"If they would take all our little misdemeanors and put them together, they would realize that he wakes up every morning to commit a crime," said Jarboe.

For local law enforcement, the kinds of crimes Cooper allegedly committed were often not considered a priority. Cooper has still not been held accountable for the bigamy charge against him in San Jacinto County, which has been pending for four years.

But the Weber family's decision to go to the police led the district attorney's office to file a felony charge against Cooper. He could be facing between two years and 10 years in prison.

Juan Aguirre, the Harris County Assistant District Attorney in charge of the case, says Cooper was due in court this past Monday to face a felony charge for tampering with a government document -- when he tried to add his name to Krystal Weber's car registration.

But once again Cooper didn't show. Some of the women speculated he had already found his next victim. But it turned out he was in jail in Kansas. He violated his probation and was caught after a routine traffic stop. He will soon be extradited back to Texas to face the charges against him.