Kentucky nonprofit director didn’t die – he fled to SC after stealing $25K, cops say
The director of a popular festival in a Kentucky town was believed dead by many after he disappeared 18 months ago, police say.
Now he’s sitting in a South Carolina jail, accused of stealing thousands from the nonprofit he oversaw. Investigators say he stole the money to pay blackmail.
David Boggs Jr., 50, went missing from Paducah, a city along the Ohio River in western Kentucky, in November 2018. He was executive director of Barbecue on the River, the town’s most popular festival, when he disappeared.
Shortly after Boggs vanished, event organizers realized nearly $25,000 was gone from the organization’s operating account, police say. Investigators suspected Boggs stole the money.
Detectives discovered Boggs was writing himself checks from the organization to pay blackmail in a social media scam, police said.
“Mr. Boggs had used a cellphone app to send an inappropriate picture of himself to someone,” Paducah Police Chief Brian Laird said at a Thursday news conference, the West Kentucky Star reported. “After sending the picture, Boggs was later told that he had sent the picture to an underage person. This was not true. This situation is a common social media scam used to blackmail and extort money from people,”
In all, police say Boggs paid the scammers more than double what he’d stolen from organization’s account.
When a medical bill turned up in the mail at Boggs’ former residence, detectives found a new lead in the case that turned their attention nearly 600 miles away to Columbia, South Carolina, the news outlet reported. Detectives identified a friend Boggs may be staying with in the city after executing search warrants for phone and medical records in April, police said.
The friend was associated with a Facebook page in Columbia intended to help homeless people, leading police to dig through social media posts, police said. He was spotted in a video and photo standing in line receiving assistance to homeless people at Finlay Park downtown, police said.
On Wednesday, police found Boggs at a mobile home park outside Columbia and arrested him.
He admitted to stealing the money in an interview, police said. Boggs told investigators he began hitchhiking in November 2018, attempting to reach Florida, before he went to South Carolina, where he spent about six months living in the woods.
“I’m incredibly proud of our detective division and how they never gave up in their search for Mr. Boggs,” Laird said in a news release. “They followed every lead and utilized resources and technology to solve the mystery surrounding Boggs’ disappearance.”
