Jury Deadlocks in Insurance Murder Trial

In business, they were partners, and in the courtroom they sat side by side--accused of killing a man to use his corpse in a $1.5-million life insurance scam.

But on Wednesday, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury could not decide if John Barrett Hawkins--who made off with most of the money--deserved equal blame. They convicted his business partner, Melvin Eugene Hanson, of murder, but deadlocked over whether Hawkins was guilty of the same crime.

Both had been found guilty earlier this week of conspiring to murder.

Now Hanson, 53, may face the death penalty for the murder conviction while a mistrial has been declared in Hawkins’ murder case.

A Los Angeles County district attorney’s office spokeswoman said no decision has been reached on whether to retry Hawkins, 32. Prosecutors contended that both were equal partners in what they termed “almost the perfect crime.”

Hanson and Hawkins, partners in an Ohio athletics clothing business, planned the 1988 scam, then recruited Glendale neurosurgeon Richard Pryce Boggs to help them kill a man and make it appear to be a natural death, prosecutors said.

Hawkins was in Ohio when police in 1988 found a corpse that Boggs contended was Hanson’s. Hanson, meanwhile, was at a nearby hotel, registered as Wolfgang Eugene von Snowden.

The pair eventually were arrested, and the jury Wednesday convicted Hanson of murder for financial gain, but found that he was not lying in wait. The penalty phase of the trial begins Aug. 21.