Boggs Diamond was a minor antagonist who appeared in the early part of The Shawshank Redemption. He was the leader of a group of prison rapists called the Sisters, who took a liking to the main protagonist Andy Dufresne shortly after his arrival. Red would later tell Andy that Boggs and the other members of his group were not homosexual, they committed their brutal acts simply for the fun of it.
Boggs first spotted Andy Dufresne in the cafeteria at breakfast the day after his arrival. Boggs later confronted Andy in showers, where he sizes him up. He makes a pass at Andy, who rebuffs him. Boggs and the other Sisters waited until Andy was alone, then attempted to rape him. They ended up beating him up after Andy would not submit. Over the next two years, Boggs continued to target Andy, who often showed up with fresh bruises - Red noted that sometimes Andy managed to fight them off, other times he didn't. Even so, Andy never said who beat him up.
In 1949, Andy and the other inmates were watching Gilda. When Andy leaves, Boggs confronts him and forces him into the projection room. Andy hits Rooster with a reel of film, breaking his nose. The Sisters overpower Andy and force him to his knees. Boggs then draws a knife and tells Andy that he must perform oral sex on him or else he will stab him in the head. Andy says that anything Boggs puts in his mouth he will lose, and if he stabs him Andy will bite down hard and his jaws will have to be opened with a crowbar. The Sisters ultimately do not rape Andy, instead, they beat him to within an inch of his life, forcing him to spend a month in the infirmary.
Boggs is caught, however, and subsequently spent a week in the hole for his actions. When his time was up, he returned to his cell, only to find Captain Hadley and Guard Mert waiting for him. They, in turn, proceeded to attack Boggs, hitting him with their batons for what he did to Andy.
The attack was so savage and brutal it left Boggs paralyzed, and according to Red, he never walked again. Boggs was then transferred to a minimum security hospital upstate, where Red heard he spent the rest of his life "drinking his food through a straw". After the attack, "the sisters never laid a finger on Andy again".
Trivia
- According to director Frank Darabont, there was another scene in which Boggs blew Andy a kiss during breakfast. The scene was cut because it made Bogs out to be homosexual, when he was a prison rapist, which Darabont drew a line between.
- In the book, Boggs was never beaten for what he did to Andy. Once his time in the hole was served, he was simply transferred to another prison, and never heard from again. Even so, the Sisters still left Andy alone.