‘Chameleon Fugitive’ Is Extradited to Stand Trial for 1988 Glendale Killing

A year after a segment on an Amsterdam television show led to his arrest, a man dubbed “the chameleon fugitive” by American authorities has been extradited from Italy to stand trial in a 1988 Glendale murder.

John Barrett Hawkins, 29, had assumed at least six identities and had lip injections and a chin implant to alter his appearance while traveling around the world for three years, authorities said. He was dodging arrest on charges of murdering a North Hollywood man to collect $1.5 million in life insurance payments.

To secure extradition, the district attorney’s office promised Italian authorities that it would not seek the death penalty against Hawkins, who is charged with 10 felony counts--including murder for financial gain, grand theft and insurance fraud--in the April, 1988, death of Ellis Greene, a 32-year-old AIDS patient.

Hawkins was arrested last August on the Italian island of Sardinia after an “Oprah Winfrey Show” featuring his appearance on the television program “America’s Most Wanted” aired in Amsterdam. A woman there, who had been involved with Hawkins in Spain and was furious to learn he was bisexual, told authorities he was sailing the Mediterranean aboard a red catamaran.

Hawkins arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday night, escorted by authorities on a commercial flight. During what was to have been his arraignment Monday, however, the man in court refused to say his name when asked by Municipal Judge Patti Jo McKay.

Sterling Mitchell, who said he was standing in for Melvin Belli, who was hired by Hawkins’ mother to represent her son, said his client insists that his name is Bradley Hewson, and that police have the wrong man. The arraignment was postponed until Sept. 2, when Belli can appear.

Greene, of North Hollywood, was suffocated in the Glendale office of Dr. Richard Boggs, who later told police that Greene’s body was that of Melvin Hanson, another patient who Boggs said had suffered a fatal heart attack.

Hawkins, a former business partner of Hanson and the beneficiary of his life insurance policy, received nearly $1 million in payments soon after the phony death.

Along the way, with his “drop-dead good looks,” he became involved with dozens of men and women, many of whom later cooperated with the police investigation, said Glendale Police Sgt. Jon Perkins, who spent three years tracking Hawkins.

“He was a playboy dancing around the world,” Perkins said at a news conference Monday. “He knew how to party, and he knew how to have fun.”

Boggs was convicted in December, 1990, of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Hanson is awaiting trial; prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him.

Perkins said he has “absolute confidence” in the identity of the man in custody. In addition to photograph and fingerprint match-ups, Perkins said, Hawkins has a rare condition--a lack of skin pigmentation in his genitals--that has confirmed his identity.