Dead Before Deadline

It's January of 1989 and Columbus Dispatch reporters Robin Yocum and Cathy Candisky have a pretty clear picture of how the multi-million-dollar scam was supposed to work.

What they don't know is the whereabouts of co-conspirators John Hawkins and Gene Hanson.

Until . . .

At 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 29, 1989, American Airlines Flight 150 from Acapulco lands at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. As the passengers are filing off, customs officials see a man coming off a flight who looks nervous and is in a big hurry.

Customs officials think he's a drug dealer. He's not, but the running is about to be over for Gene Hanson.

Even though the insurance companies know that Dr. Boggs misidentified a corpse, the police in Glendale, California, are sitting on their thumbs. They arrogantly tell Robin's colleague, Cathy Candisky, "This may be a big deal in Columbus, Ohio, but this is L.A."

In this episode, Katherine Lawley, Gene Hanson's mother, shows up in the newsroom of the Columbus Dispatch in a search for answers about her missing son.

Meanwhile, authorities in California finally identify the "dead" Hanson as a former Ohio resident, Ellis Henry Greene, and Robin must notify his mother.

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.

John Hawkins has collected $1 million from the Farmers New World Life Insurance Company upon the reported death of his business partner, Gene Hanson.

But there's a problem. When he attempts to collect on other policies, he's told that authorities are now questioning the identity of the corpse originally identified by Dr. Boggs.

The thumb-print taken by the funeral home that cremated the "dead" Hanson does not match the thumb-print on the real Hanson's California driver's license.

Oops.

In a panic, it's time for John Hawkins to disappear.

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.

The plan was in overdrive.

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 to keep the authorities away from the company and their scam.

He comes back to Columbus with a fantastical story of finding Hanson and the money. The scam is still moving forward as Hanson and Boggs identify the victim to be the "dead" Hanson.

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" Hanson fails when their accomplice, Dr. Richard Boggs of Glendale, California, botches a murder attempt with a stun gun. The company attorney is threatening to bring in the FBI to locate Hanson, so Hawkins comes up with a plan to retrieve the stolen money.

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 a cameo appearance.

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 tired of the business, they concocted a scheme to collect $16 million by embezzling from their company and pulling off a complicated life insurance scam. But to do that, they need a body.

On this special season finale of Dead Before Deadline, Jaclynn interviews her father Robin Yocum, the host of Dead Before Deadline to give listeners a better understanding of his backstory, his incredible career as a reporter, and much more! Listen in to hear all about Robin and what to expect moving forward with Dead Before Deadline!