'Rockefeller' remembers couple who vanished

updated 9:05 a.m. ET Aug. 12, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Blaming a faulty memory, the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller has repeatedly denied allegations of an alias-filled past and any link to a Southern California couple who disappeared 23 years ago.

Now he says he's starting to remember.

More than a week after being charged with kidnapping his daughter from Boston, the man has admitted using aliases and knowing the newlyweds who went missing in 1985.

His attorney said his client remembers only "bits and pieces" of his life before 1993, but authorities said they have figured out much of the man's past and have deemed him a "person of interest" in the couple's disappearance.

On Monday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the suspect is a German who lived in the guesthouse of the young couple.

Spokesman Steve Whitmore said investigators “positively identified” Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter as the man being held in Boston and wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Jonathan and Linda Sohus.

Police: Planned kidnapping
Gerhartsreiter had been living under the name Clark Rockefeller. Police have said he snatched his daughter from a Boston street on July 27 in an elaborately planned kidnapping in which he hired two people to drive them to New York.

He was caught Aug. 2 in Baltimore, where he had bought a home and boat.

Gerhartsreiter went by the name Christopher Chichester when he was a guest at the San Marino home of the couple now presumed dead. Chichester has long been suspected in their disappearances.

The alleged aliases appear to reflect a twisted life of multiple identities that unraveled last week. If authorities and reports are to be believed, Gerhartsreiter was many things besides the suspect in the California disappearances:

• As Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, he lived with families in Connecticut until he wore their hospitality thin.
• A teen husband who left his wife in Wisconsin a day after they wed.
• A Wall Street bond salesman named Christopher Crowe, who talked a good game but rarely closed a deal.
• A stay-at-home dad who lived in a $2 million brownstone in Boston's tony Beacon Hill neighborhood until his wealthy wife divorced him when she grew suspicious of his background.

Rockefeller’s Boston attorney, Stephen Hrones, said at a news conference Monday that his client has acknowledged using the name Christopher Chichester while living in California, and that he remembers the Sohuses.

Hrones said Rockefeller told him that he barely knew the couple and that they left while he was still in California.

“He was aspiring to be an actor out there. He was trying to get into the acting business and he thought it was a more appropriate name,” Hrones said.

“There is nothing wrong with using aliases as long as you don’t use it to defraud,” said the attorney, who said Rockefeller also remembers using the alias Christopher Crowe while he worked on Wall Street.

Hrones said his client remembers little of his past, believes his real name is Clark Rockefeller and has no memory of being Christian Gerhartsreiter.

'Doesn’t remember anything'
When told that Los Angeles County investigators had identified Rockefeller as Gerhartsreiter and Chichester, Hrones said, “They can do what they want with it, but he doesn’t remember anything. He remembers nothing before 1993, except for little bits and pieces.” 

"There are certain things you know you didn't do," Hrones said.

Los Angeles police said Rockefeller's prints matched those on an old license application submitted by Chichester, who has long been a suspect in the disappearance of Jonathan and Linda Sohus.

Rockefeller's prints also match those on a stockbroker license application filed under the name Christopher Crowe, The Boston Globe reported Friday, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.

The district attorney’s office and FBI in Boston said Monday they were not ready to declare that Rockefeller and Gerhartsreiter are the same person.

In the San Marino case, skeletal remains were unearthed at the Sohus property in 1994 when new owners were putting in a swimming pool. Investigators at the time were unable to identify the bones but believed they probably belonged to Jonathan Sohus. Investigators have requested a new round of forensic tests, Whitmore said.

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