Sister says German suspect married in Wisconsin for green card
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
A Wisconsin woman said today that she suspects her younger sister and Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter got married in 1981 so he could get a green card.
 Clark Rockefeller (Boston Police Department photo) |
“It wasn’t like they dated,” said Beth Litza in a telephone interview today from Wisconsin. “To me, it seems like it was kind of on the quick side.”
Litza told the Globe last week that Gerhartsreiter -- who police suspect is the real name of accused kidnapper Clark Rockefeller -- married her sister, Amy Jersild Duhnke, to keep her away from another man. Today, Litza said she now believes that Gerhartsreiter married Duhnke to get a green card because the German-born man left town after the wedding.
Litza said her sister did not explicitly say that it was a green-card marriage, and Duhnke could not be reached for comment. Duhnke has since remarried and lives in Milwaukee. Her husband Eric Duhnke said on Friday that the family would issue a statement, but he has not returned telephone calls since then.
Litza said Duhnke was a kindhearted 22-year-old when she married 19-year-old Gerhartsreiter in a civil ceremony at the Dane County courthouse 27 years ago. Gerhartsreiter burst into their lives again last week after the Globe reported that he had married her sister.
Authorities are trying to determine whether Gerhartsreiter is Clark Rockefeller, who is in Suffolk County Jail for allegedly kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter on July 27 from a Boston street. Authorities are also investigating whether he is linked to the 1985 disappearance of a San Marino, Calif. couple who are presumed dead.
Gerhartsreiter's brother in Germany has identified photographs of Rockefeller as his brother. Litza said her sister Amy was shaken by the entire episode and is in hiding.
“This is very shattering to her,” Litza said. “She thought she was doing a good thing and obviously it hasn’t turned out to be what she intended. She didn’t intend on doing something that was wrong or mean.”
Litza would not elaborate on her sister's intentions but said, “We don’t always make the best decisions when we’re young.”
Duhnke and her husband live in a white two-story house with green trim on a dead-end street shaded by maple trees in a working-class neighborhood of Milwaukee.
Duhnke and her husband have a garden overflowing with corn, squash and wildflowers. She is a cook at a restaurant in Milwaukee’s upscale East End.
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