Rockefeller Recalls Chichester, Hazy on Bavaria

BOSTON, Aug. 11, 2008 — -- Accused kidnapper Clark Rockefeller lived as an aspiring actor by the name of Charles Chichester with two California newlyweds who vanished in 1985, but he had nothing to do with their disappearance and has no memory of a childhood in Germany, his attorney said at a news conference today.

"He remembers that he did use the name Chichester in California and that he knew those people," Stephen Hrones said, referring to Jonathan and Linda Sohus.

Rockefeller faces custodial abduction and assault charges tied to the July 27 kidnapping of his 7-year-old daughter Reigh, but now has also been called a person of interest by California authorities in the Sohus cold case.

"He's not a violent person," Hrones said outside the Nashua Street Jail in Boston, Mass., after a meeting with his client. "There's no evidence of violence in his life, absolutely no record."

Authorities today said they believe that Rockefeller, 48, came to the United States from Germany using the name Christian Gerhartsreiter, and later became a person of interest in the disappearance of California newlyweds he lived with under the alias Charles Chichester.

An FBI official with knowledge of the investigation confirmed to ABC News that records and fingerprint matches have tied the man -- who now sits in a Boston jail cell on custodial kidnapping and assault charges -- to the California cold case and a childhood in Bavaria, where agents traveled last week in an attempt to confirm the mystery man's true identity.

ABC News first reported last Tuesday that Rockefeller's freshly taken fingerprints matched the print from a stockbroker's license application for Charles Chichester, as well as a print for a German man named Christian Gerhartsreiter. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office said today that they have confirmed the Rockefeller matches.

Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, which will prosecute Rockefeller on the kidnap charge, said he is "eager to review the evidence Los Angeles has used to positively connect Clark Rockefeller to Christian Gerhartsreiter.

"We are working with Los Angeles investigators to make the most conclusive indentification possible, because, as we know, in this case, appearances can be deceiving," said Wark.

Investigators from Los Angeles arrived last week in Boston to question Rockefeller, but he has steadfastly refused to answer their questions. The Sohus case was featured in an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" in 1995. The piece aired after unidentified bones were dug up from beneath the pool at the Sohus residence, and featured a photo of Chichester that bears a striking resemblance to Rockefeller. The bones have not been conclusively identified.

While Hrones said Rockefeller acknowledged the Chichester alias, as well as a second name, Christopher Crowe, which he used during a short Wall Street stint, he claimed the kidnapping suspect does not recall any German heritage.

"He just has no memory of that," Hrones said. "A lot of these things, he can't absolutely deny them, but he doesn't remember them."

Hrones also said there is nothing illegal about his client's desire to use aliases if he is not doing anything illegal under the assumed names.

Hrones previously had said that his client had few distinguishable memories prior to 1993, shortly before he married Sandra Boss, a business executive with whom he would have a daughter. After their 2007 divorce, Boss received "primary residential custody" of the child. Rockefeller was allowed to see his daughter under the condition that a social worker supervised the visits. It was during one of these visits in Boston on July 27 when Rockefeller allegedly executed the first part of his kidnap plan.

Rockefeller was arrested a week after the alleged abduction in Baltimore, where he kept a 26-foot catamaran and had purchased an apartment with the apparent intention of starting a new life with his daughter.

Hrones continues to challenge the charges Rockefeller faces in Boston. He said that, because there is no wedding certificate to document the Rockefeller-Boss marriage, there should not have been a legal divorce. Hrones continued to paint his client as a doting father who did nothing illegal when he took off with the couple's daughter, nicknamed "Snooks."

"According to authorities, he was never married, so how can you get divorced if he was never married?" Hrones said.

Rockefeller will not cooperate with investigators, Hrones said, adding that his client has been given articles about the case from American and European media outlets. Rockefeller also asked his attorney to bring him a "Star Trek" book to read in jail.

Authorities unraveling Rockefeller's back story believe he apparently arrived in Berlin, Conn., from Germany for an exchange program in 1978 under the name Christian Gerhartsreiter, police sources say.

A childhood friend in Bergen, Germany, the small German community where Gerhartsreiter grew up, described the former classmate to ABC News as bright and clever, but also as a spoiled loner who could have a violent temper. It came as no shock that Gerhartsreiter may be living in the United States under several aliases.

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

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

Gerhartsreiter said that his brother, Christian Gerhartsreiter, was born in Siegsdorf and raised in the same house in Bergen, where their mother continues to live today. He left for an exchange program at a Connecticut high school in 1978.

Gerhartsreiter said that before he cut off all communication with his family in 1986, his older brother told the family that he had changed his name to Christopher Chichester, the Herald reported.

ABC News' attempts to contact Alexander Gerhartsreiter and his mother during the weekend were unsuccessful.

A neighbor, Helga Hallweger, told ABC News that Christian and Alexander Gerhartsreiter's mother is a recluse, and that Christian did not make much of an impression on her during his youth.

She described Alexander as a nice man, and recalled that he did major research a few years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to track down his brother in the United States.

While the childhood friend from Germany does not think his former schoolmate was capable of planning a premeditated murder, despite his temper, he does remember Gerhartsreiter having an obsession with weaponry.

Gerhartsreiter owned air guns that he would aim and fire at a local church, the former friend said. The pellets would usually just bounce off the windows -- though once, the friend recalls, Gerhartsreiter used a more powerful air gun that actually smashed a window.

He claimed Gerhartsreiter continually bragged about an assortment of handguns and rifles that his father owned. The friend believed Gerhartsreiter was lying, because he was never able to produce any of the guns.

Information from ABC News' Allison Havey and Sarah Amos and The Associated Press was used in this report.