INSURED FOR MURDER

A routine tip about an ``interesting lawsuit'' leads two Ohio reporters to a multimillion-dollar insurance scam: a pulsing tale of murder, false identities, drugs, and sex. When Melvin Hanson, 46, allegedly collapsed and died at his doctor's office in Glendale, California, in April 1988, it entitled John Hawkins, his partner in the Just Sweats clothing stores, to a $1-million payoff. The Farmers Insurance Co. paid the young Columbus, Ohio, businessman but later filed suit, claiming that it wasn't Hanson who'd died in Richard Boggs's office. Columbus Dispatch reporters Yocum and Candisky tenaciously followed their leads from Las Vegas to New York to California despite a lack of interest by the Glendale police, who considered the death from ``natural causes'' a closed case. The high-rolling Hawkins—a former ``male prostitute,'' according to his mother—disappeared after getting the insurance check, leaving a company awash in rumors of embezzlement by both partners. As the reporters learned, Hanson had variously claimed to be dying of AIDS or a heart condition when he left for California. He allegedly took $2 million from the 22-store chain when he departed in January—but he also changed his will to make Hawkins his beneficiary. When the coroner's report suggested that Boggs ``may have sexually assaulted...the decedent,'' Yocum and Candisky knew the story would go beyond simple embezzlement and insurance fraud. It also helped spur official interest, leading to the discovery that the dead man was actually an alcoholic drifter whom Boggs had met at a nightclub. Boggs was convicted of murder and is now serving life, while Hanson, who turned up alive, and Hawkins, who was extradited from Italy, are awaiting trail on murder charges. The third-person narration is a little self-conscious at times, but it lends this wild story an urgency that serves it well: a good prospect for true-crime fans. (Photo insert—not seen)