It was a perfect August day in Sardinia when John Hawkins' luck ran out.
There he was, young and handsome - some would say beautiful - returning from a date with one of his many lovers, heading for the fire-engine red catamaran he had sailed to the world's most glamorous ports.And then the Italian police moved in.
Hawkins, 28, one-time partner in the Ohio-based Just Sweats apparel company, was the missing defendant in a complex murder-for-money mystery.
The alleged scheme involved two of Hawkins' friends, who are in jail in Los Angeles. Dr. Richard Pryde Boggs was convicted in the 1988 murder of bookkeeper Ellis Henry Greene, whom authorities say he met at a gay bar and brought to his office to be killed.
Prosecutors say Greene resembled Boggs' friend, Melvin Eugene Hanson, who switched identities with the dead man.
They say Hawkins claimed the body, had it cremated, and moved quickly to collect $1.5 million in insurance on Hanson, his business partner in the bankrupt athletic clothing store chain, prosecutors said.