Uncategorized

Now, everyone is interested in the Just Sweats case. Authorities from California and Ohio converge on Fort Worth in hopes of getting custody of Gene Hanson. On Feb. 2, 1989, John Hawkins, Gene Hanson and Dr. Richard Boggs are charged with murder for financial gain with death penalty specifications. The fly in the ointment is that the death of Ellis Henry Greene had been ruled “natural causes.” An expert witness, renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, is brought in to see if he can pinpoint a cause of death that will prove that Greene was murdered. His conclusion was, that …

Read more

The reporters have a little fun with a Glendale detective who sent a spy to determine if Robin and Cathy had secret missives from John Hawkins. At this point, Hanson and Dr. Boggs are in jail, but Hawkins is still on the run. It’s an upset lover in the Netherlands and an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show that puts authorities on the trail of John Hawkins. And, it’s an unusual birthmark that seals his fate. Listen now!

The chaos continues as Dr. Boggs heads to trial for murder. Hawkins has been extradited from Italy. He and Hanson are set to go on trial together. All three men will be convicted. In a subsequent interview, Hanson said that he and Hawkins concocted the murder-for insurance plan during what he called a late-night brainstorming session. He also said, “It was a foolish thing to do.” Okay, how about evil? Could we go with evil? After all, there was an innocent man lying dead on the floor of the doctor’s office. In this episode, Robin and Jaclynn will begin to wind down the saga. …

Read more

What happened to the central figures in the Just Sweats case? Robin and Jaclynn will cover that in the final episode of Season 2 of Dead Before Deadline. They will also discuss some of the unusual, and sometimes humorous, events that occurred during the years that Robin and colleague Cathy Candisky covered the case, including the events that led to his leaving the newspaper. Listen now!

Where’s Gene Hanson? If the Just Sweats co-founder isn’t dead, then where did he go? This episode follows Hanson to Florida and tracks his bizarre and often hilarious miscues as he tries to stay one step ahead of the authorities. He has plastic surgery and tries to pass himself off as a German National. Ultimately, Hanson wears out his welcome in Florida and runs to Mexico to hide. Listen now!

Welcome to season two of Dead Before Deadline. This season hosts Robin Yocum and Jaclynn Yocum Wilson will take a deep dive into the singularly most fascinating case of Robin’s career as a journalist – the Just Sweats Case. This story had everything – murder, multi-million-dollar scams, theft, international intrigue and manhunts, beautiful women, sex of every variety, beautiful women, crazy people, evil people. It goes on and on. It was a reporter’s dream, and it dominated Robin’s life for well over a year. In this episode, we’ll discuss the background and establish the foundation for this complicated story, in which even Oprah Winfrey makes …

Read more

John Hawkins and Gene Hanson have a potential gold mine in the chain of retail clothing stores they have opened in Columbus, Ohio, and Lexington, Kentucky. But Hawkins and Hanson were con men before they were businessmen, and old habits are hard to break. In this episode, we’ll explore the history of insurance scams this duo pulled off before creating Just Sweats, including a massive scam in New York City that netted them more than $100,000, which they used as seed money to establish their chain of clothing stores. Operating a seemingly successful business wasn’t enough for Hawkins and Hanson. As they grew …

Read more

The scam enters phase one. It is late 1987, and Gene Hanson is dying, or so he claims. He tells co-workers that he has AIDS and doesn’t have much time to live. But this is just part of the scam. Hanson was depriving himself of sleep and losing weight in order to appear sick. With their accountant on a company-paid, European trip and Hawkins in Hawaii on vacation, Hanson loots the company coffers and vanishes. When Hawkins and the accountant return, it appears they have been victims of a massive theft. Meanwhile, the first attempt to find a corpse to be the “dead” …

Read more

John Hawkins is in a panic. By this point in their scheme, Dr. Boggs was to have killed a man to be the “dead” Hanson, and Hawkins could begin collecting on the $7 million in life insurance that Hanson carried and to which Hawkins was the beneficiary. With his business partner technically dead, Hawkins would have no way to collect the $2 million Hanson had taken from the company, but Boggs had not come through with a corpse, so Hawkins must pretend to locate Hanson and return to Columbus with most of the money his partner had taken. This of course is necessary …

Read more

Ellis Henry Greene was a lost soul. He was gay and had moved to Los Angeles in search of some kind of identity. He was an alcoholic, had held a variety of jobs, had no home and no clear path in his life. Ellis was the kind of guy who could disappear and not be missed. This made him the perfect victim to be the “dead” Hanson. At 7 a.m. on April 16, 1988, a 9-1-1 operator in Glendale, California, received a call from Dr. Richard Boggs. One of his long-time patients, Melvin Eugene Hanson, had collapsed on the floor of his office. …

Read more