<P> DeBardeleben was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, the second of three children born to James Mitchell DeBardeleben Sr. and Mary Lou Edwards DeBardeleben . His younger brother Ralph was a U.S. Army paratrooper who committed suicide at age 19 . His older sister, called Michael Linda by the family, is identified in the 1940 U.S. Census as "Linda M. Debardeleben," (sic) aged 1 year at the time of the census . </P> <P> After the Pearl Harbor attack, James DeBardeleben Sr. took a commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and was posted to Washington, D.C. for the duration of World War II . In 1945, the family moved to Austin, Texas, and James Sr. was shipped out to the South Pacific for nine months . In 1949, the family moved briefly to Kentucky before relocating to Frankfurt, Germany . In 1950, James Sr. was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and the family moved to The Hague in the Netherlands, where James Sr. served for two years as a military adviser for the U.S. embassy . In 1953, James Sr. retired from the army, and took a federal civil service post in Albany, New York . </P> <P> In 1956, at the age of 16, DeBardeleben physically assaulted his mother . On September 8 of that year, he purchased two handguns and ammunition with a friend . Later that month, he was arrested and convicted of his first felony, possessing a concealed firearm . This arrest was the first of many that followed, on sodomy, attempted murder, kidnapping, and other charges . </P> <P> In the Spring of 1957, DeBardeleben was expelled from Peter Schuyler High School, which effectively ended his formal education . In October of that year, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas . After only a year, he was court - martialed for disorderly behavior and sentenced to two months in the base stockade . In 1958, he was ordered to see a psychiatrist for counseling after he was pronounced AWOL several times . At the age of eighteen, he was discharged from the Air Force and moved in with relatives in Fort Worth, Texas . </P>

In 1983 the secret service are on the trail of a counterfeiter