Richard Pryde Boggs was born on May 15, 1933, in California. Boggs pursued medicine and became a licensed neurologist, building a professional reputation in Glendale, California. For many years, he operated a private practice, treating patients with neurological conditions.

Despite his respected position as a doctor, Boggs led a secretive and financially troubled personal life. By the 1980s, he faced financial strain and was susceptible to schemes promising large financial rewards. Boggs became acquainted with Melvin Eugene “Gene” Hanson and John Hawkins, two men involved in various fraudulent business activities, including operating a clothing store chain called “Just Sweats.”

Boggs’s medical expertise and ability to falsify documents made him a valuable player in an elaborate insurance scam that would ultimately involve murder. By 1988, his life would take a dark turn as he stepped into the role of a calculated killer, orchestrating a plot to end a man’s life and assume another’s identity for profit.

On April 16, 1988, Richard Boggs and his co-conspirators, Melvin Hanson and John Hawkins, lured 32-year-old Ellis Henry Greene into Boggs’s Glendale medical office. Greene, who was reportedly intoxicated, was incapacitated using a stun gun. Once subdued, Boggs and Hanson suffocated him to death.

The plot was designed to make it appear that Hanson had died, enabling Hawkins, Hanson’s business partner, to collect a $1.5 million life insurance payout. To set up the deception, Boggs forged medical records and carried Hanson’s birth certificate and credit cards, planting them on Greene’s body. When paramedics and police arrived, Boggs falsely identified Greene as Hanson, but authorities noted suspicious circumstances:
- A neurologist treating a heart patient at 5:00 a.m.
- The body temperature didn’t match Boggs’s stated time of death.
- The scene felt staged.

Initially, the case was ruled as death by natural causes (myocarditis). Hawkins claimed Hanson’s body, insisted on cremation, and quickly received $1 million from Farmers Insurance. He then emptied bank accounts and fled the country. Meanwhile, Hanson underwent plastic surgery and assumed the identity of Wolfgang Von Snowden, vanishing from law enforcement’s radar.

The insurance company, skeptical of the claim, hired a private investigator. The California Department of Insurance Fraud Division (CDI) reopened the case after investigators noted that the fingerprints and photographs of the deceased did not match Hanson’s official records. CDI agent Kathy Scholz eventually found a missing person report for Ellis Greene, and further analysis revealed Greene was the real victim.

In 1989, Hanson was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport carrying $14,000 cash, stolen IDs, including Ellis Greene’s, and a library book titled How to Create a New Identity. Around the same time, Boggs was arrested in California.

John Hawkins fled to Europe but was eventually captured in Sardinia, Italy, in 1991 after being profiled on America’s Most Wanted and The Oprah Winfrey Show. While awaiting extradition, Hawkins attempted an escape but was caught.

In 1990, Boggs and Hanson were convicted of Greene’s murder and multiple counts of fraud. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment plus nine years without parole. Hawkins, who did not directly commit the murder but was integral to the conspiracy, received 34 years to life. Hawkins was paroled in 2010.

The case gained nationwide attention, inspiring books such as Insured for Murder and Cheating Death, as well as TV episodes of Forensic Files (“Mistaken for Dead”) and Murder by the Book.

On March 6, 2003, while serving his sentence at Corcoran State Prison, Richard Boggs died of a heart attack at age 69. He had been HIV-positive for over a decade and had developed terminal pancreatic cancer prior to his death.