Rockefeller impostor found guilty of 1985 San Marino murder
A German native who consorted for years with New England’s social elite by pretending to be a Rockefeller was convicted Wednesday in Los Angeles of first-degree murder, capping a nearly three-decade-old mystery involving a missing couple and a body buried in a San Marino backyard.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 52, was accused of bludgeoning his landlady’s adult son with a blunt object and then digging a 3-foot-deep grave in the backyard of the victim’s home. The body was buried behind a guest house where Gerhartsreiter had been living.
FULL COVERAGE: Rockefeller imposter on trial
The victim, John Sohus, 27, vanished in early 1985 along with his wife, Linda, who has never been found. Gerhartsreiter, who in San Marino introduced himself as British aristocrat Christopher Chichester, disappeared soon afterward, resurfacing on the East Coast under a series of ever more elaborate false identities.
-- Jack Leonard and Hailey Branson Potts