Gerhartsreiter Trial 3/21

Postcards ostensibly mailed by Linda Sohus from France were the focus of the Gerhartsreiter murder trial on Thursday, March 21.

Susan Mayfield, Linda Sohus’ mother explained how confusing it was to receive her daughter’s postcard mailed from France because she had never talked about leaving the country and lived “paycheck to paycheck.”

The prosecutor accused Gerhartsreiter of using someone to mail three postcards for him to create the illusion John and Linda Sohus were away.

Another witness, Elaine Siskoff, said she received an unexpected postcard years earlier from Gerhartsreiter. She dated him while both were students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the early 1980s. When he left Wisconsin, he told her he was moving to California to pursue an internship with director George Lucas.

The postcard, which was displayed for jurors, bore an image of the queen of England and was mailed from England, which, he wrote, “is just great!” He wrote that he was teaching a Sunday school class in England and would soon be traveling to Africa. Prosecutors have said Gerhartsreiter was in San Marino when the card was mailed.

The LA Times, in another article, caught up with additional testimony given March 19 by someone who knew Gerhartreiter the summer John Sohus was murdered.

Dana Glad Farrar, who knew the defendant as Christopher Chichester, asked him about the overturned dirt while playing Trivial Pursuit at the home months after the landlady’s son John Sohus and his wife went missing in 1985. “He said he had been having plumbing problems,” she testified.

Farrar testified Gerhartsreiter claimed to be descended from royalty, and passed out cards with a family crest.

She testified that Gerhartsreiter hosted a gathering in the summer of 1985 and that she saw him go into the main house on the property, bringing out spoons, ice and sugar for the iced tea his guests were drinking. Farrar asked him why he went into the house.

“They are away; they will not mind,” she recalled him saying.