April 1st comes once a year, but some people have the habit of telling lies every day. This was the case of a family man who disappeared 23 years ago and was found alive and married. The fact is unbelievable, but it is true.
Man fakes his disappearance
Richard Hoagland was a married man with two children who lived a seemingly normal life with his family in a typical American city. But one ordinary afternoon, his story took a complete turn. Richard called his wife, saying that he was leaving work, feeling ill, and that he needed to be taken to the hospital. After that call, the man was never seen again by his wife and children.
Richard was declared dead 10 years after his disappearance; and his wife remarried a nice man. What Richard’s wife Linda didn’t know was that the man had moved to another city 1,000 miles away; and had assumed a new identity.
Hoagland moved to the city of Zephyrhills, Florida, USA, and with the identity of Terry Symansky, a fisherman killed in 1991. He managed to marry again and had another son.
The hoax is discovered by chance
Richard’s charade began to unravel when a curious young man began researching his ancestors to form a family tree and discovered his uncle’s name in an online registry. Digging deeper, the young man discovered that his uncle had remarried four years after his death. That’s when Hoagland’s mask fell off.
The wife he married using false documents ended up finding a briefcase with her husband’s original documents. Richard was arrested and is facing a series of crimes. In his statement to the police, he said that he wanted to separate from Linda, but did not want to have to go through another divorce process (Linda was his second wife).
