Larry Hillblom spent much of his fortune on sex workers in Asia. When he died in a plane crash in 1995, several of his illegitimate children successfully claimed a share of his estate.
Larry L. Hillblom FoundationLarry Hillblom, the reclusive millionaire.
On May 21, 1995, DHL co-founder Larry Hillblom’s plane crashed as he flew between Pagan Island and the Northern Mariana Islands. Search crews later found wreckage, along with the bodies of the pilot and another passenger. Hillblom was never found and presumed dead. But in the aftermath, a number of women came forward claiming that he had fathered their children — and they demanded a share of his $600 million estate.
With that, the curtain of Hillblom’s life was pulled back. He’d always been seen as an eccentric recluse — he’d been living in the Northern Mariana Islands since the 1980s — but the women revealed another, darker side of his personality. For years, Hillblom had indulged in “sex safaris” across Asia, and by his own estimation had spent $10 million on sex workers.
But proving their claims was not easy. Nothing about Larry Hillblom had been simple in life, and nothing was simple about him in death.
The Rise Of Larry Hillblom, A Co-Founder Of DHL
By the time Larry Hillblom died, he had a networth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But he hadn’t come from a wealthy background. Shortly after his birth on May 12, 1943, in Kingsburg, California, Hillblom’s father died, and Hillblom was raised by his mother and his stepfather, a peach farmer.
But Hillblom long dreamed of striking out on his own.
“Someday,” he told a friend, according to the 2012 book King Larry by James D. Scurlock, “I’m going to move far away, and I won’t write any letters.”
After high school, he attended Reedley College and Fresno State before enrolling in law school at the University of California, Berkeley. While in law school, he worked part-time with a courier service, helping to transport corporate documents between Oakland and Los Angeles. And in 1969, he and two business partners had an idea for a similar service.
YouTubeAdrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn, co-founders of DHL, the global shipping company they built in 1969.
While still in law school, Hillblom co-founded a courier company with Adrian Dalsey and Robert Lynn. Combining the first letter of their last names, they dubbed the company “DHL,” and marketed it as a service that could deliver documents faster than the regular postal service.
Lynn dropped out of the company early, and Hillblom ultimately forced Dalsey out, but DHL became an international, highly lucrative operation. With clients like Bank of America and Standard Oil, it soon operated in more than 100 countries — and made Hillblom a very wealthy man.
From the outside, it looked like as success story. But there was a darker side to Larry Hillblom.
The Life And Death Of A Reclusive Tycoon
According to Scurlock, Larry Hillblom had never wanted to operate a company. He wanted to be a reclusive billionaire, like Howard Hughes. And when word of his coke-fueled parties with sheikhs and high-end sex workers made it back to his concerned partners, Hillblom agreed to to quit DHL (though he kept his controlling stake in the company).
In 1981, Hillblom moved thousands of miles away from the business he had helped build. He settled in Saipan, the capital of the U.S. commonwealth the Northern Mariana Islands, far from the spotlight.
Buffaboy/Wikimedia CommonsA beach in Saipan, where Larry Hillblom relocated in the 1980s.
There, Hillblom focused on new projects. Some were professional, like the restoration of the Dalat Palace Hotel and golf course in Vietnam. Others were personal, like the restaurant he bought on the island, or the newspaper he published — and delivered — there. Indeed, Hillblom treated Saipan like his own kingdom, buying the island’s bank and its cable and phone company, and even becoming a justice of the Saipanese supreme court.
He also benefited from Saipan’s status as a tax haven, which helped him to avoid paying taxes. And Hillblom frequently sought out young Asian sex workers, some of them prepubescent, on so-called “sex safaris.” According to Scurlock, Hillblom once stated that he only had sex with virgins because he was terrified of catching AIDS. By his own estimation, Hillblom had spent $10 million on teenage sex workers, many of them hardly out of childhood.
Larry Hillblom had built his own paradise on Saipan, but by the 1990s problems from the real world had begun to seep through. Despite his effort to dodge paying taxes, Hillblom owed the IRS millions — and to make matters worse, he’d violated the Trading with the Enemy Act by doing business in Vietnam before the U.S. embargo was lifted in 1994.
Meanwhile a woman had begun harassing Hillblom, claiming that he was the father of her child.
Then, in 1995, Hillblom vanished from the face of the Earth.
The Mysterious Disappearance Of Larry Hillblom — And The Chaotic Aftermath
Larry Hillblom had long been interested in aviation. He owned multiple vintage aircraft and frequently flew them himself. He had even survived a plane crash in 1993 that left him badly injured and required reconstructive surgery. But Hillblom kept flying. And in 1995, he took off for the final time.
On May 21, Hillblom was flying from Pagan Island to Saipan when his plane went down. The body of the pilot and Hillblom’s business partner were recovered, but Hillblom’s remains were never found.
FacebookLarry Hillblom in a plane, in an undated photo.
The circumstances of Larry Hillblom’s disappearance have naturally led to theories that he somehow faked his death. But Hillblom has not been seen alive since the day in May. And his estate, in his absence, has had to contest with claims by multiple women that Hillblom had fathered their children.
According to the Chicago Tribune, eight women filed claims. They came from the Philippines, Vietnam, and even the Republic of Palau, and each claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Hillblom that resulted in a child.
“He was not handsome,” Nguyen Thi Be, who met Hillblom in 1993 when she was 18, told the Los Angeles Times. “But he was funny and nice to me.”
She claimed that she had told Hillblom that she was pregnant and showed him pictures of their son when the baby was born. According to Nguyen, Hillblom was pleased about the pregnancy, and promised to send her money, though he never did.
Her claim — and the claim of the other seven women — was tectonic. Saipan’s laws stated that any child fathered by Hillblom would have a legitimate claim to his estate, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And Hillblom had not included a disinheritance clause in his will, which would have disinherited any illegitimate children.
But proving Hillblom’s paternity wasn’t as simple as it seemed.
For starters, no one had ever found Hillblom’s body. And it proved surprisingly difficult to find a sample of his DNA. When investigators went to his home in Saipan, they found that his personal belongings were gone. His toothbrushes, combs, and clothing were all missing. Some surfaces looked like they had been scrubbed clean. And his live-in girlfriend, Josephine Norcasa, claimed she had been instructed by lawyers to bury his personal belongings in the backyard. This effectively destroyed any DNA.
YouTubeLarry Hillblom with Josephine, his live-in girlfriend in Saipan.
It was a dead end. But lawyers representing the women came up with a solution.
The Lucrative Settlement Won By Larry Hillblom’s Children
With none of Larry Hillblom’s DNA to test, attorneys were forced to think differently. Instead of testing the children against Hillblom, they ultimately decided to test them against each other. If the four children shared the same paternal DNA markers, it would suggest they had the same father.
Wikimedia CommonsLarry Hillblom on a boat in an undated photo.
DNA from the children was tested, and it proved that four of them had the same father. Then, Hillblom’s mother — in exchange for $1 million — agreed to give her blood to investigators. This further confirmed that the four children were related to Larry Hillblom.
Rather than move forward with a long and highly public trial, the parties ultimately reached a settlement. Sixty percent of Hillblom’s estate would go to his children, meaning that the four children would share $300 million (or $180 million after taxes).
In the end, Hillblom left behind more than a fortune. He left behind two competing legacies. On the one hand, he built DHL from nothing, and it remains one of the largest logistics companies in the world. On the other, Larry Hillblom’s murky disappearance shone a bright light on how he lived his life. It revealed details about his “sex safaris,” the young sex workers he hired, and the children that resulted.
And even now, decades later, many questions about Larry Hillblom remain.
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