SAN MARINO, Calif., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A preliminary hearing took place Wednesday for a former Rockefeller impersonator accused of the murder of a San Marino, Calif., man, police say.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 50, is accused of killing John Sohus, who was 27 when he disappeared in 1985. His dismembered remains were found nine years later buried in the backyard of a home his mother owned.
Gerharstreiter is serving a four- to five-year Massachusetts sentence for kidnapping his daughter in 2008. He is currently being held without bail, and denies involvement in the Sohus case.
He rented a guesthouse in San Marino, Calif. from Didi Sohus, John's mother, under the assumed identity of Christopher Chichester, CNN reported. Didi reported John missing in July 1985. The whereabouts of John's wife Linda are still a mystery.
CNN reports the guesthouse was later canvassed by investigators, who found what appeared to be large amounts of blood. A neighbor told Vanity Fair that Gerharstreiter borrowed a chainsaw around the time Sohus went missing. Dana Farrar, an acquaintance, told the Pasadena Star-News that she saw an area of dirt that appeared to be dug up in the back yard.
Gerharstreiter later assumed the identity of Clark Rockefeller, who surfaced in Manhattan in 1993. The Boston Globe reports he took the name to make friends with socialites in New York and elsewhere. When he was arrested in 2008 for kidnapping, he told police: "If you're born short, you want to be bigger."
