Insured for Murder

All the ingredients of a first-rate thriller stand out in this investigative report by Robin Yocum and Catherine Candisky, who reveal a sinister and deadly con game that was three years in the making: a murder, an insurance scam with a multi-million dollar payoff, a playboy businessman, a sinister stun-gun-toting neurologist, false identities, and an international manhunt. On the morning of April 16, 1988, the emergency squad was called to the office of Dr. Richard P. Boggs, a respected neurologist in Glendale, California. On the floor of the examining room was the body of Melvin E. Hanson, the vice president of the Just Sweats athletic clothing store chain, based in Columbus, Ohio. Apparently, he had collapsed and died of heart failure during a routine examination. Early next morning, Hanson's business partner and the company president, John B. Hawkins, arrived from Columbus and had the body unceremoniously cremated. The coroner ruled that Hanson died of natural causes, so there was nothing to be investigated, and the Glendale police did not pursue the case further. But this wasn't just another unfortunate death. There was something very, very wrong here. The body lying on the floor was not Hanson's. The corpse was an anonymous double who had been murdered in a scheme to fraudulently collect on Hanson's life insurance policy.