NCJ Number
147057
Date Published
1993
Length
286 pages
Annotation
Two newspaper reporters describe how they unraveled a con game 3 years in the making that involved a murder, an insurance scam, a businessman and a neurologist, and the use of false identification.
Abstract
In 1988, the emergency squad was called to the office of a respected neurologist where the body of a clothing store chain vice-president was found on the floor. He had apparently collapsed and died of heart failure during a routine examination. The dead man was cremated the next day by his business partners, and the coroner ruled that he had died of natural causes. It was later determined that the body on the floor was not the clothing store chain vice- president; rather, the corpse was an anonymous double who had been murdered in a scheme to fraudulently collect on the real vice-president's life insurance policy. The deception was eventually uncovered by an insurance investigator. Persistent efforts of the two reporters led the Los Angeles County District Attorney to launch an investigation that resulted in the convictions of the neurologist and the businessmen.