On February 10, 1993, he called and said he wasn’t feeling well and would go to the hospital. She never saw him again:
Her husband disappeared, leaving all his personal belongings at home, including his passport and toothbrush.
The police found his car at the airport, but no airline had information about a passenger named Richard Hoagland.
The last thing the family received from him was a birthday card for one of their sons with the inscription: “Take care of your mother.”
“What happened devastated us. He left us with nothing, absolutely nothing. I was broken,” recalls Linda, Richard’s wife.
Their sons were 6 and 9 years old at the time. Linda alone could afford the house and family cars.
They sold everything and relied on the help of family. After 10 years, Richard Hoagland was officially declared dead. Linda remarried.
You might have thought that this strange story was over. But this year, the missing man was unexpectedly found … under a false identity.
Meanwhile, Richard Hoagland lived as Terry Simansky (deceased in 1991) in Florida. He married a woman named Mary, and they even had a child.
Everything came to light when the real Terry Simansky’s nephew studied the family tree and discovered that his deceased uncle had married and even obtained a pilot’s license a few years after his death.
Hoagland was arrested for fraudulent use of other people’s personal information.
According to the police, he fled to Florida 23 years ago, where he met Terry Simansky’s father.
After stealing his son’s death certificate, he used it to obtain a birth certificate, driver’s license, and other documents.
The reaction of the new Simanski family was predictable. A 20-year marriage with Mary is destroyed, and the son is in shock: He still has a father, but no longer his last name.
Richard himself does not admit his guilt. His ex-wife Linda had previously said publicly that he had fled 23 years ago because he embezzled funds from his employer and was afraid of prosecution.
The man has a different version: According to him, Linda planned to divorce, but he didn’t want to go through with it and chose to divorce her – to escape.
