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The story is reminiscent of the famed Winchester House. The stairs usually lead to nowhere, the halls go around in circles and there are stone walls wherever one turns.
But this story is not about the Winchester house; our story is currently playing in a Los Angeles courtroom.
The cast of characters is fascinating.
Doctor Richard Boggs, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, was known to drive a Rolls Royce before he was sent to prison to serve a life term for murder.
Melvin Eugene Hanson was a wealthy business owner who tired of the rat race and plotted to “die” – on paper only – and split the proceeds of a $1.5 million key-man life insurance policy with his business partner. But where do you buy a corpse?
Wolfgang Eugene von Snowden resided in Miami’s gay community. Prior to plastic surgery and hair transplants, he looked exactly like Melvin Eugene Hanson. In fact, he was Melvin Eugene Hanson.
Ellis Greene was a 37-year-old bookkeeper from North Hollywood. He disappeared the same night that Hanson “died” and his body was presented to the coroner by Doctor Boggs as that of the heavily insured Hanson.
John Barrett Hawkins was Hanson’s business partner and the guy who identified the body and made arrangements for an immediate cremation. He was also the beneficiary on the key-man insurance policy.
The details of the story contain many stairways to nowhere, dead-ends and stone walls.
It seems to have started in 1987 when Hanson decided he wanted out of the Just Sweats sportswear company. It was then that the plot to buy a policy and “die” was born between Hanson and his partner, Hawkins.
It is believed that the two partners approached Boggs and cut a deal to purchase a corpse for an agreed upon price of $25,000 now and another $25,000 upon delivery of the body. Acquisition of the “product” was left in the capable hands of Boggs.
Many months passed. Finally, on April 16, 1988, Boggs phoned 911 and reported that his patient Hanson had died while in Boggs’ office. When the coroner arrived, he found all of Hanson’s identification with the body.
So Hanson was carted away, Boggs signed the appropriate forms and Hawkins showed up to identify his business partner and have him quickly cremated.
But first the coroner did an autopsy on the body. It revealed that the deceased was HIV positive, had signs of ulcers and liver disease and had a blood alcohol level of .29% when he died. But since the cause of death was listed as natural causes, Hawkins proceeded with the claim and collected the proceeds of the life policy.
And they almost got away with it.
Many months later, the fingerprints from Hanson’s dead body were discovered to belong to Greene and the investigators got busy.
Into the story walked Doctor Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist from New York. Baden studied pictures and lab samples collected by the coroner at the time of the Hanson/Greene autopsy and came to the conclusion that Greene was murdered and that the cause of death should be amended to reflect suffocation.
By now, Hawkins had also disappeared and changed identities and appearances so many times over the next few years that he was dubbed The Chameleon by authorities. The trail goes from California to Ohio, then to Miami, Mexico, the Caribbean and more. The story was played out on Oprah and on America’s Most Wanted.
His picture was telecast around the world.
Boggs was arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced to life.
The two business partners were long gone.
Until 1991. Hanson, using the name von Snowden, was arrested in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport as he arrived on a flight from Acapulco. And Hawkins was apprehended as a result of a tip from a jealous girlfriend who’d seen the telecast pictures and put two and two together. When caught, Hanson was on his catamaran, the Carpe Diem, off Sardinia.
And now the various attorneys are duking it out in a courtroom.
The defense attorney, Joan Whiteside, says that purchasing a corpse is not murder. She also points out that Hanson is very much alive, and the only one who actually knows how Greene died is Boggs – and he’s not talking.
At least not yet. There is speculation that he might be subpoenaed to testify, by Whiteside or by Deputy District Attorney Al McKenzie, and then where the next stairway leads is anyone’s guess.
McKenzie’s contention is one of conspiracy, with Hanson, Hawkins and Boggs getting together and planning to murder Greene and then pass his body off as Hanson’s in order to collect the insurance.
Both sides agree on the aspect of insurance fraud. It’s the element of murder that they are arguing.
© Copyright 1995 Alikim Media