Neighbor testifies about friend’s disappearance in murder case
Sue Coffman was surprised to receive a postcard from Paris in April 1985. After all, she thought her friend Linda Sohus was going to New York with her husband, John Sohus, for a prospective job.
“Kinda missed New York (oops) - but this can be lived with – John and Linda” read the postcard bearing a picture of the Eiffel Tower.
Coffman never heard from Linda again. Nor has anyone else.. John Sohus’ bones were found in his San Marino backyard nine years later.
On Monday afternoon, Coffman testified in the fourth day of a preliminary hearing for Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who lived in the Sohuses’ guesthouse in early 1985 and is accused of killing John Sohus.
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian asked Coffman about her suspicions, which grew over the years, that the postcard was not from her childhood friend.
“This isn’t right. She wouldn’t take off, wouldn’t disappear,” Coffman said. “She was having a great time in her life. She wouldn’t be leaving.”
More than 23 years after getting the card, Coffman compared the writing to a birthday card Linda Sohus had penned. Before that moment, Coffman testified, she believed Linda wrote the Paris card under duress. But she was no longer sure, she said.
“I thought it wasn’t her writing on the postcard,” Coffman said. “I couldn’t believe I had gone so many years without making a comparison.”
The postcard is now one of the pieces of evidence in the case against Gerhartsreiter, who used famous aliases to ingratiate himself with San Marino residents and others, and who left the town at the same time Linda and John Sohus disappeared.
Gerhartsreiter’s attorney, Brad Bailey, asked Coffman if she had any background in comparing handwriting.
“No,” Coffman said.
Prosecutors brought in Winslow Reitnouer, a San Marino resident, in an attempt to place Gerhartsreiter abroad at the time the postcard was sent. Reitnouer had worked with Gerhartsreiter in a town play.
Balian asked Reitnouer questions about a phone call she received from Gerhartsreiter, where he told her he was in Stockholm, Sweden, and flying to Paris next.
“He was just calling to say hello and said he was there on business for family and going on to Paris,” Reitnouer said. “It was similar to maybe a long distance call.”
The preliminary hearing is expected to wrap up Wednesday
-- Adolfo Flores, Times Community News
Twitter: @AdolfoFlores3