Cops Call Dad Suspected of Kidnap a 'Ghost'

July 30, 2008 — -- No valid Social Security number. No wedding certificate. No work or school history.

Clark Rockefeller may have hobnobbed in high society with a name that fit the part, but authorities investigating the alleged abduction of his 7-year-old daughter have been unable to build an accurate profile of the kidnapping suspect.

"Nobody knows who this guy is," a high-ranking Boston police official assigned to the task force in charge of investigating Rockefeller's background told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "He is a ghost."

Some of the mystery of who Rockefeller really is may be answered Thursday, when ex-wife Sandra Boss is expected to make a public statement, two investigative sources told ABC News.

The police official said that investigators have not located a valid Social Security number for Clark Rockefeller. They have also found no wedding certificate documenting his marriage to Boss, the mother of the missing child who won custody of their daughter, Reigh, after their 2007 divorce, the official said.

The task force has not found any work history for Rockefeller, who told one former neighbor in New Hampshire that he was a "physicist" and fashioned himself as a "philanthropist" who sat on the boards of various nonprofits.

Investigators also are unclear about Rockefeller's education history, the official said, despite reports that he commonly told acquaintances he attended Yale and Harvard. Some people have told authorities that Rockefeller said that his parents died in a car crash when he was young; others were told he was homeschooled as a kid.

Rockefeller, 48, is the sole suspect in the alleged kidnapping of his daughter on Sunday in Boston. Authorities have traced a plan that began when a black SUV pulled up and Rockefeller allegedly lifted the child into the car, eluding a social worker who was overseeing the visitation with his daughter and tried to stop the vehicle. The child lost her doll and backpack in the commotion.

If you have any information about this case, click here to contact the Boston Police Department.

From there, police say, Rockefeller and the child, who goes by the nickname "Snooks," were dropped by an unwitting livery driver -- who since has cooperated with police -- at a Boston hospital where 30-year-old Aileen Ang, an acquaintance of Rockefeller's he met at a Boston sailing club, picked the father and daughter up and drove them to New York City.

Boston police have issued an arrest warrant for Rockefeller on charges of custodial kidnapping, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Ang's mother told ABC News that her daughter was offered $500 by Rockefeller for the ride to New York in Ang's Lexus. She expected he would be alone, she said in an interview with WBZ radio in Boston, but was not surprised that Reigh was with him. Ang said that she believed that Rockefeller had custody of the child, and she said the two traded affections throughout the roughly four-hour ride.

After Ang dropped them in New York, she said she got a phone call from a friend who told her that Rockefeller and his daughter were the subject of an Amber Alert in Massachusetts. Ang then called 911 herself.

The Boston Police Department last placed Rockefeller at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. He had told Ang that he was heading for a boat he had recently purchased, a 72-foot catamaran called "Serenity."

Boston police detectives have been sifting through stories that Rockefeller told friends in Boston about wanting to travel to Alaska, Peru and Bermuda on the yacht, according to a high-ranking police official with direct knowledge of the case. A Boston police official said Tuesday that Clark Rockefeller told one acquaintance that he used "$300,000 in gold bars" to buy the boat, and today officials confirmed that bank records show Rockefeller recently took out a large sum of money to exchange for gold.

Late Tuesday, Boston police released two photos of dresses they believe Rockefeller may have purchased Sunday before the alleged kidnapping.

A Delaware woman came forward Tuesday and reported seeing a well-dressed man who matched Rockefeller's description and was with a young girl at a car dealership. The sighting has not been confirmed, but authorities are investigating the claim.

Rockefeller, who has been connected to several aliases, is not a descendant of John D. Rockefeller, the wealthy New York industrialist, but he apparently did not dissuade other people from assuming they may be related.

When the Rev. Brian Marsh of Trinity Church in Cornish, N.H., where Rockefeller and Boss attended church until about two years ago, asked about Rockefeller's famous last name, he said Rockefeller didn't answer him directly.

Instead, he took out a pocketknife with the name "Nelson Rockefeller" on it, Marsh said. "He implied a connection."

Other neighbors in Cornish, a former artist's colony where Rockefeller and his wife Sandra purchased a historic property, described the kidnapping suspect as "elusive" and "vague" about personal details. They said he was a doting dad, but described him as paranoid, noting that he built a mote around the property and set up a security perimeter.

Rockefeller, known for his preppy attire, also boasted an extensive art collection that he said included several original works by Mark Rothko.

Rockefeller and Boss, who reportedly married in the early 1990s on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, divorced in 2007. A judge impounded the divorce case file at the couple's request.

Boss, an executive level consultant who attended Harvard Business School, was awarded custody of their daughter and successfully changed the child's name from Reigh Rockefeller to Reigh Boss.

Rockefeller was allowed supervised visits with his daughter. On Sunday afternoon, when the alleged kidnapping took place, the child and her mother were in Boston from their current home in London so that Rockefeller could see his daughter.

Ordinarily, Massachusetts authorities do not use the Amber Alert system for custodial kidnappings, but after the social worker was injured trying to stop the SUV that snatched up the child and her father, investigators agreed that there should be a statewide manhunt for Rockefeller and his daughter, said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

Rockefeller is a former board director of the Algonquin Club of Boston, a private dining club founded in 1888 that is just blocks from where the alleged kidnapping took place. Lassaad Riahi, the general manager at the Algonquin Club, told ABCNews.com that Rockefeller resigned his membership from the club three months ago "on his own terms."

Sandra Boss, the child's mother, is a senior partner in the London office of McKinsey & Company. She has done consultant work for New York Sen. Charles Schumer and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and has ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Reigh is 4 feet tall, weighs 50 pounds and has blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink-and-white sun dress and red shoes.

Clark Rockefeller is 5 feet 6 inches tall with a stocky build, thinning blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue Lacoste shirt and khaki pants.