Woman recalls pit in Rockefeller's yard
Says he blamed plumbing woes
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One of Clark Rockefeller's former friends said yesterday that she saw a freshly dug pit in the backyard of his house in San Marino, Calif., in the summer of 1985, but that he casually dismissed the gaping hole, telling her he was "having plumbing problems."
Nine years later, workers digging a pool for the property's new owners found human remains in the backyard, believed to be those of one of Rockefeller's landlords, John Sohus, who had gone missing with his wife, Linda, in spring 1985.
Yesterday, Los Angeles County coroners stepped up their efforts to conclusively identify the remains, seeking relatives of John Sohus to compare DNA.
But the task is not simple: The coroners acknowledged that some of the remains were cremated or disposed of years ago for reasons that are unclear. In addition, they pointed out, John Sohus was adopted.
"It is a huge challenge to see if there are any family members," said Ed Winter, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner, who took part in a meeting about the case yesterday. "We are trying."
Los Angeles authorites have said they are also planning to conduct tests on blood that was found on a rug in Rockefeller's house in 1994.
Rockefeller's former friend, Dana Farrar, said she was introduced to him in early 1984 by an aunt, who met him at a fund-raiser for the San Marino Public Library. At the time, he was using the alias Christopher Chichester, and he told Farrar, then a student at the University of Southern California, that he was wealthy and from South Africa.
Rockefeller wanted to break into the movie business as a producer but was more of a "gadfly at USC film school who gave the impression that he was a [teaching assistant] or that he worked there," Farrar said.
"We didn't believe he was rich because he would literally show up at my apartment hungry at dinnertime and he would drive this old clunker car, like a brown hatchback Datsun or
Nevertheless, years before Rockefeller was charged with kidnapping his daughter in Boston, he and Farrar became friends.
"He was very brilliant and charming, and we would see these old films at vintage art houses," Farrar said. "He made a big point that he wanted to go see 'Double Indemnity.'. . . That's how I knew that was his favorite movie, which now creeps me out." The film noir classic tells the story of a wife and her lover who murder her husband to collect on his insurance policy.
In the summer of 1985, after the April disappearance of John and Linda Sohus, Rockefeller invited Farrar and friends to the Sohuses' guesthouse, where he lived, she said. The group sat outside on a porch, drinking iced tea and playing Trivial Pursuit. Farrar said she noticed the pit occupying a "very large area" in the backyard.
"I commented, 'Why is your yard all dug up?' " Farrar said. "And he said, 'Oh, I'm having plumbing problems.' He didn't say what kind."
Farrar said Rockefeller also made repeated trips into the Sohuses' house to get sugar and spoons for the iced tea.
"I said, 'Chris, why are you going in your landlords' house to get stuff?' " Farrar said. "He said: 'They're away. They will not mind.' "
Rockefeller's lawyer, Stephen B. Hrones, did not return phone calls yesterday but has repeatedly said his client denies any involvement with the presumed slayings.
In late spring of 1985, a few weeks after John and Linda Sohus went missing, some of their relatives and friends received postcards from Paris with brief, handwritten messages, such as, "Not quite New York, but not bad - See you later, John + Linda."
Authorities never determined whether the Sohuses wrote the postcards. But in the fall of 1985, Farrar said, her aunt, who is now 92, received a telephone call from Rockefeller. He said he was in Paris.
"I've gotten married and am blissfully happy, and I just want you to know where I am," he said, according to Farrar.
LA authorities now say that Rockefeller's true identity is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 47, a con man who came to the United States from Germany in the late 1970s and who is a "person of interest" in the Sohus case.
Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the LA County sheriff's office, said homicide detectives plan to try to question Rockefeller again in Boston, where he is being held on kidnapping charges. He turned away two LA detectives last week.
Material from Associated Press was used in this report.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in yesterday's City & Region section about the recollections of one of Clark Rockefeller's former friends incorrectly described what she saw in his backyard in California in 1985. Dana Farrar said the yard had been dug up and filled in again, with the dirt freshly turned over.
