Tag Archives: John Sohus

Clark’s Other Identity

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“Who Is Clark Rockefeller” will air March 13 on Lifetime.

Eric McCormack of Will & Grace fame will play Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who masqueraded as a Rockefeller scion, is serving time in prison for kidnapping his daughter, and remains a “person of interest” in the 1985 disappearance of two LASFS members John and Linda Sohus.

The trailer includes the briefest flash of human bones lying in the ground, the only specific hint I found in any of the promotional material that the Sohus disappearance is part of the story.

Jury Convicts Clark Rockefeller

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Christian Gerhartsreiter, aka Clark Rockefeller, has been sentenced to four to five years in a Massachusetts prison after being found guilty of kidnapping his daughter.

The jury returned its verdict on Friday, June 12, ending 26-1/2 hours of deliberations over five days. The jury also found him guilty of assault and battery with a deadly weapon on a social worker. They rejected his insanity defense, but found him not guilty on two lesser charges.

After the conclusion of the hearing, the jurors returned and gave a joint statement:

“This was a complicated case, and not as clear-cut as it might have seemed to those who followed it in the media,” the jurors’ statement said.

“We are confident that our verdict is fair and just, and based only on the information we were legally allowed to consider,” it continued. “Our verdict is a unanimous one, as the law requires, and all of us stand by the verdict completely. “

The jurors said the terse statement was their final word on the case. They did not take questions.

When Gerhartsreiter completes his sentence, he faces removal from the country by immigration authorities.

A grand jury in Los Angeles is continuing to investigate his possible role in the 1985 disappearance and deaths of John and Linda Sohus, two LASFS members. The LA Times had speculated that if Gerhartsreiter was found not guilty of kidnapping, local authorities might be forced to file charges before he could be deported. Now LA authorities will not be compelled to take urgent action.

Rockfeller Trial Continues

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The Boston Herald is posting daily articles about the trial of Christian Gerharstreiter aka Clark Rockefeller on charges of kidnapping his daughter last July. The prosecution and defense have wrangled over numerous procedural issues, including what name Gerharstreiter will be called by the judge, leading to a peculiar decision:

The con man known internationally by a half dozen aliases – but mainly as Clark Rockefeller – will essentially have no name at his trial.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today ruled that Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter – living in the United States under the name Clark Rockefeller since 1983 – will simply be know as “the defendant.”

Judge Frank Gaziano’s decision did not sit well with Rockefellers’s defense team, even though Gerhartsreiter, 48, a German national, is the name for which he was indicted on charges stemming from the July 27 kidnapping of his then 7-year-old daughter Reigh “Snooks” Boss during a supervised visit in the Back Bay while his ex-wife Sandra Boss of London waited at a Boston hotel.

Gerhartsreiter’s defense is that he was insane or suffering from a “mental defect” at the time. Several psychologists are testifying.

Prosecutors have agreed not to tell the jury that ‘Rockefeller’ is a “person of interest” in the 1985 disappearance of a California couple, LASFS members Linda Mayfield and John Sohus.

[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]

Half Already Think Rockefeller Is Guilty

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Pretrial wrangling continues in the Clark Rockefeller kidnapping case:   

Jurors hearing the sensational Clark Rockefeller kidnapping case next month will never see a taped four-hour interview he gave Boston police and the FBI because officers ignored his request to remain silent…

But the court has refused to drop the charge that Rockefeller used a false name, for the probable cause of avoiding deportation.

Meantime, a poll of Suffolk County (MA) residents show nearly half believe Rockefeller is guilty of kidnapping. His attorneys are maneuvering for a possible change of venue.

There have been no new developments in the Sohus disappearance case, where Rockefeller/Gerhartsreiter is a person of interest.

More on Sohus Grand Jury

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A Los Angeles County grand jury looking at the 1986 disappearance of LASFSians Linda and John Sohus are expected to hear from two handwriting specialists about the authenticity of a postcard from Europe purportedly signed by Linda Sohus, received by sf bookstore owner after she had vanished. The Boston Globe reports:

Prosecutors reviving the case have subpoenaed Katherine Koppenhaver, a handwriting analyst who has testified in more than 350 cases….

Last summer, The Pasadena Star-News contacted Koppenhaver and two other handwriting analysts to examine one of the Paris postcards and compare it with a known sample of Linda Sohus’s writing from late 1984. Koppenhaver and another analyst concluded that the postcard they examined was written by someone else. A third analyst, however, believed that both writing samples were from Sohus…

Koppenhaver said yesterday that she gave verbal, not written, findings for the newspaper story. But she reiterated that the known Linda Sohus writing sample and the postcard were written by different people….

Koppenhaver and the dissenting analyst have been subpoenaed in the case. The third specialist contacted by the Pasadena newspaper, Karl Schaffenberger, could not be reached yesterday for comment.

Sheila Lowe, a handwriting analyst from Ventura, Calif., said she mailed prosecutors written findings, including a chart prepared for the Star-News. The different writing samples contained many similar features, suggesting they were written by the same person, she said. “That’s something I’d feel comfortable going to court and testifying in.”

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]

Charges Soon Against “Rockefeller”?

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The Boston Herald speculates that charges may soon be forthcoming against “person of interest” Christian Gerhartsreiter in the Sohus murders.

Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David Deakin would not comment on whether California authorities are close to charging Gerhartsreiter, 47, in connection with the San Marino missing persons case of his former landlords, Jonathan and Linda Sohus.

However, he told Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margaret Hinkle that Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Detective Timothy Miley’s affidavit in support of a warrant to search six computer hard drives Deakin’s office holds in evidence against Gerhartsreiter in his pending parental kidnapping case is “17 or 18 pages” long and lays out the case they’re building against the chameleon con artist.

Meanwhile, Gerhartsreiter’s lawyers are considering a plea to the child kidnapping charges he faces for abducting his daughter last summer.

Herald reporters have also managed to make the prisoner’s haircut resemble news:

Gerhartsreiter, 47, who’s battling baldness behind bars in addition to a parental kidnapping charge, paid to have a hairstylist brought into Nashua Street Jail to give his do a modern makeover, rather than trust his tresses to the Big House barber shop, the Herald has learned.

Rockefeller Coverage in Vanity Fair

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Vanity Fair has published a lengthy piece about the “person of interest” in the 1985 disappearance of LASFSians Linda Mayfield and John Sohus, titled “The Man in the Rockfeller Suit”.

David Klaus forwarded the link with a comment:

Comprehensive account, although very little new, except more small details of each of his steps. Legally, he’s innocent until proven guilty. Metaphysically, it’s a certainty he killed Linda and John. He makes my blood boil. Linda was genuinely warm-hearted and decent, and reading about what he’s done leaves me feeling soiled.

Snapshots 10

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Seven developments of interest to fans.

(1) There’s a wacky music video tribute to John Williams making its way around the web, where a fellow sings four parts a capella while combining some of Williams’ memorable movie themes with filk-style lyrics.
 
(2) Follow this link to NBC News’ excellent summary of the Clark Rockefeller case, “Famous name, infamous life.” From the interview:

Natalie Morales: Did you kill John and Linda Sohus?

Clark Rockefeller: My entire life, I’ve always been a pacifist. I am a Quaker and I believe in non-violence. And I can fairly certainly say that I have never hurt anyone.

(3) Bob Baker, whose marionettes performed in a Star Trek episode, now is 84. Just like the big corporations, his LA puppet theater for kids could use a bailout. (Which episode? It was Baker manipulating Beauregard, the highly animated plant spooked by the “salt-vampire” in the first Star Trek episode ever broadcast, “The Man Trap.”)

(4) The New York Times discovered “An Otherworldly Opera That Speaks Klingon“:

Mr. Schfeld, 26, who speaks English, German, Dutch and what he calls basic Klingon, started creating the opera in the summer of 2007 as his masters thesis at the Interfaculty ArtScience program, affiliated with the Royal Conservatory, in The Hague, where he lives. With a group he founded, the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble, he performed parts of the opera at the Zeebelt Theater in The Hague, most recently in July. They can be seen on YouTube clips linked to his Web site, www.ktre.nl

(5) David Klaus recommends an article for its revelation of “a new twist on ‘they’re out to get me’ – ‘they’re out to watch me,’ as paranoid schizophrenia manifests itself as a belief they’re in The Truman Show or The Matrix.”

One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life. Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for a TV contest. A third believed everything — the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed — was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie “The Truman Show.”

(6) Aaron Ross Powell tells about his experience selling a draft novel on Amazon’s Kindle.

(7) The economic crisis has killed a manga publisher:

In what looks to be a reaction to the economic downturn, manga publisher Broccoli Books, the U.S. branch of Broccoli International, a Japan-based international producer of anime, manga, games and pop culture merchandise, will close at the end of this year.

Broccoli Books is based in Los Angeles.

[Thanks to David Klaus, Francis Hamit, and Andrew Porter for these links.]

Experts Analyze Sohus Handwrtiting

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David Klaus sends along this link to an August 23 story which I don’t recall posting before. It reports how three experts studied handwriting evidence in the Sohus disappearance case, contributing very little to solving the mystery. They examined a letter and a receipt known to have been written by Linda Sohus prior to her disappearance.