Boggs, Missing for 18 Months, Was Extortion Victim

Police have located and arrested former Barbecue on the River executive director David Boggs Jr.

The Paducah Police Department says officers arrested 50-year-old Boggs Thursday morning at a mobile home park in Columbia, SC. He is charged with stealing nearly $25,000 from an account associated with Paducah’s annual Barbecue on the River festival.

The investigation began when Boggs left his home in downtown Paducah on Nov. 4, 2018, and disappeared. After he was reported missing, officials with Barbecue on the River told police that $24,955 was missing from the organization’s operating fund. The ensuing search for Boggs, who many feared dead, included multiple agencies and various methods.

The investigation eventually led detectives to a social media scam in which they say Boggs was blackmailed for thousands of dollars.

Chief Brian Laird said in a Thursday press conference that Boggs had been writing checks to himself from the Barbecue on the River operating account for about six weeks to pay the scammer.

"During the Summer of 2018, Mr. Boggs had used a cellphone app to send an inappropriate picture of himself to someone. 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," Laird said. "Over the next several weeks, during the summer of 2018, Mr. Boggs sent thousands of dollars to the scammers using prepaid cards and wire transfers. As the scammers demanded more money to keep the photo he'd sent secret, Mr. Boggs began taking money from the Barbecue on the River bank account."

In all, Laird said Boggs ended up paying the scammer more than double what he had stolen from Barbecue on the River.

The case had begun to grow cold by early this year, but Laird said detectives caught a break in April when a medical bill was sent to Boggs' former home linking him to the Columbia, SC area. Detectives then began issuing search warrants for telephone and medical records, and scouring social media in an effort to locate Boggs. They eventually identified a potential friend of Boggs’ in Columbia who was associated with a Facebook page aimed at assisting the homeless, and saw a man who appeared to be Boggs in a photo on that page. 

"Finley Park is an area that is known to have a large homeless population. The photo showed Mr. Boggs standing in a line to receive items being handed out by a homeless outreach organization." Laird said.

On Wednesday, PPD detectives began searching for Boggs with assistance from the Lexington County, SC Sheriff's Department. He was later found at a mobile home park just outside Columbia and arrested without incident.

Police said Boggs admitted to stealing the money from Barbecue on the River. He reportedly told them he walked the Greenway Trail on the day of his disappearance, spending the night in the woods. The next morning he said he walked to a truck stop near I-24 Exit 3 and began hitchhiking, trying to get to Florida. He told detectives he ended up in South Carolina, where he spent the next six months living in the woods.

Boggs was booked into the Lexington County Detention Center, where he will await extradition to Kentucky.

“I’m incredibly proud of our detective division and how they never gave up in their search for Mr. Boggs,” Laird said. “They followed every lead and utilized resources and technology to solve the mystery surrounding Boggs’ disappearance. This is another good example of the great police work our officers do.”