Did Anger-Prone Boy Become 'Rockefeller'?

Aug. 11, 2008 — -- As authorities attempt to confirm accused kidnapper and con man Clark Rockefeller is actually German-born Christian Karl Gerhartstreiter, residents in the small German community where Gerhartstreiter grew up are talking about the young man they once knew.

In an interview with ABC News, a man claiming to be one of Gerhartstreiter's childhood friends in Bergen, Germany, described his former classmate as a bright and clever, but spoiled young boy -- a loner with a sometimes violent temper.

The childhood friend, who asked not be identified by name, said he knew Gerhartstreiter from age five to 14. Their grandmothers were close friends and the two boys went to school together until sixth grade, according to the man.

The friend told ABC News that the possibility Gerhartstreiter was living in the United States under several different aliases did not shock him.

Rockefeller continues to remain a mystery as he sits in a Boston jail cell, where he is held on charges of abducting his 7-year-old daughter Reigh during a supervised parental visit in Boston on July 27.

Authorities unraveling Rockefeller's byzantine back story believe that he swooped into Southern California high society in the mid-1980s under the name of Christopher Chichester, only to leave as a person of interest in the disappearance of a newlywed couple he lived with. Before that, he apparently arrived in Connecticut from Germany for an exchange program in 1978 as Christian Gerhartstreiter, police sources say.

"It has grown abundantly clear that Christopher Chichester is Christian Gerhartsreiter," a high-ranking Boston police official with direct knowledge of the investigation said this past week. "It appears that Clark Rockefeller is also Gerhartsreiter."

It came to light Friday morning that Rockefeller's birth brother appears to have been located in Bergen, Germany, according to separate reports published in The Boston Globe and Boston Herald.

Shown several pictures of Clark Rockefeller that have circulated since the child's alleged abduction sparked an international manhunt, a man identified as Alexander Gerhartstreiter said that he was shocked to learn that his brother had been found.