[1] Boggs lured a drunk 32-year-old Ellis Henry Greene into his office in Glendale, California[2] and disabled him with a stun gun, then suffocated him with the help of co-conspirator Melvin Eugene "Gene" Hanson on April 16, 1988.
[citation needed] The case was officially closed, and the body was quickly cremated at the behest of Hawkins, who collected the $1 million life insurance policy he had taken out on Hanson, cleaned out his bank accounts, and disappeared.
In Hanson's knapsack, the Customs agents found $14,000 of undeclared cash, several stolen or forged identification cards (including the California state driver's license of Ellis Greene), and a Dade County library book How To Create a New Identity.
His case was profiled on America's Most Wanted and The Oprah Winfrey Show, and reported around the world before Hawkins was captured off Sardinia by Italian police in 1991.
In 1992, Edwin Chen, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a book titled Cheating Death, which provides an in-depth review of the murder.
[5] Richard Boggs died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on March 6, 2003 while serving his sentence at Corcoran State Prison.