Barbara Kogan aka the Black Widow ordered a hitman to murder her millionaire husband George Kogan on a New York City street

This week on Torn From the Headlines, the case of millionaire George Kogan and his jilted wife Barbara Kogan is examined.

Barbara Kogan was dubbed the “Black Widow” by the media after it became clear she had ordered a hitman to murder her husband George in New York in 1990. The name also fitted her choice in black clothing and her seemingly callous personality.

Barbara Kogan was furious when her millionaire husband sidelined her for a younger woman. She was also distraught at the possibility of losing out on the lavish lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

The pair were going through an acrimonious divorce when Kogan’s attorney Miguel Martinez accepted payment of $40,000 from the Black Widow to hire a hitman to take her husband out.

George Kogan was carrying groceries to his mistress Mary-Louise Hawkins’s apartment on New York’s Upper Eastside, when he was gunned down in broad daylight. He was shot three times in the back.

While her husband lay dying in a hospital bed, Kogan, instead of going to see him had her hairstylist come to her home; her new hairdo cost $500.

Geroge Kogan’s mistress instantly accused Barbara Kogan of murder

“The wife did it!” the building doorman recalled Hawkins screaming as she ran to her dying lover’s side.

However, Kogan would spend the majority of the next twenty years living as a free woman. She enjoyed the $4.3 million that she inherited from four life insurance policies taken out on George’s life.

Barbara Kogan spent many years living in Puerto Rico before authorities caught up to her and arrested her in 2008, just seven months after her lawyer Martinez was jailed for his part in the hit.

Kogan eventually admitted her guilt and cut a deal with prosecutors and, in 2010, was sentenced to 12 to 36 years in prison.

More from Investigation Discovery

Previously on Torn From The Headlines, 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo was sexually abused and murdered by her older cousin and her remains dumped in a cooler. The family never reported her missing, and she was unidentified for 22-years.

Eventually, Conrado Juarez confessed to smothering the little girl and was sentenced to prison.

In another case of a wealthy New York entrepreneur being murdered, Howard Pilmar was savagely stabbed forty times in his office. The killers were his wife Roslyn Pilmar and her brother Evan Wald.

Torn From The Headlines: The New York Post Reports airs Monday, April 13, at 10/9c on Investigation Discovery.