Clark Rockefeller Trial Hears Even More Tales, Aliases
Kidnap suspect told people he was mute as a child, was an astronomist.
May 29, 2009— -- The man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller seemingly never ran out of aliases or whoppers.
During testimony in his trial today for allegedly kidnapping his daughter, witnesses recounted a string of stories they say Rockefeller told them, which ranged from having a secret second family to arriving from Chile on a boat and that his daughter's mother was a Swedish surrogate.
The defendant, who is actually a German immigrant named Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, has lived since 1993 as Clark Rockefeller. He was arrested last year after abducting his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh "Snooks" Boss, during a visit supervised by a social worker.
Psychologist Liza Brooks told the court today that she had been hired after Rockefeller's divorce from Sandra Boss to help him cope with not having custody of Reigh.
"He talked about having another family other than Sandra and Reigh," Brooks testified. "He said he had a family and said he was expecting twins."
Rockefeller also claimed that his parents were deceased and that he was raised by an "older gentleman," Brooks testified.
Aileen Ang, a friend of Rockefeller who was recruited to drive him and Reigh to New York after the kidnapping, also testified that Rockefeller told outlandish stories about growing up, particularly that he had been mute as a child. Ang went to police after discovering that Rockefeller was wanted by police.
Rockefeller has told other people that his parents died in a car crash when he was a teenager and that he attended a program for gifted children at Yale University when he was 14, according to police reports.
Ang also said today that Rockefeller claimed to be a Harvard doctoral student getting his Ph.D. in astronomy. In previous stories, Rockefeller has claimed to be a physicist, an art dealer and a mathematician. When he first met Boss, Rockefeller told her he restructured debt for developing nations but didn't have the heart to charge them, court papers have revealed.
Rockefeller told even more stories to Baltimore real estate broker Julie Gochar while on the lam with his daughter.
Rockefeller Claimed His Daughter's Mother Was a Swedish Surrogate
Calling himself Chip Smith, Gochar said Rockefeller told her that he was a builder of catamarans and would be arriving by boat from Chile with his daughter Muffy. Gochar recalled Rockefeller telling her that Muffy's mother was a Swedish surrogate, and that Muffy lived with him aboard his boat and was home-schooled.
It was Gochar who alerted police to Rockefeller's location that ended the manhunt.
Rockefeller's lawyer, Jeffrey Denner, has called his client a "lunatic savant" and argued that he was insane when he kidnapped his daughter.
In his opening statement, Denner told the jury of six men and five women that Rockefeller believed he was communicating telepathically with his daughter and she was telling him she needed to be rescued.
Denner refers to his cllient as Rockefeller. Prosecutor David Deakin calls him Gerhartsreiter. Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano sticks to "the defendant."
If Rockefeller is not insane, he is certainly odd. FBI profilers noted he does not use metal utensils, will not eat bread unless it is white Pepperidge Farm with the crusts cut off, and that he met Boss at a Clue party where she was dressed as Scarlett O'Hara and he was Colonel Mustard. The two fell for each other while speaking Klingon, the language spoken by some on the TV series "Star Trek."
While in jail, sources told ABC News, Rockefeller tried to send messages to a Boston detective by telling his jailers to read certain pages from the novel "Brideshead Revisted," his favorite book.
Rockefeller is also a person of interest in the slayings of a newlywed couple he once lived with at their home in California; that he married a Wisconsin woman and then later fled the state; that he was an exchange student who lived with families in Connecticut; and that he applied for a broker's license using the name Christopher Chichester.
There is currently a grand jury investigation into the unsolved slayings. Denner has asked a judge not to allow jurors to hear about that case or about Rockefeller's other aliases.
The Associated Press contributed to this report