Police struggle to validate father's ID

Authorities mine scores of tips on Rockefeller, child

Boston police said yesterday that they are looking for anyone who knew Clark Rockefeller before the early 1990s as they continued to field scores of unconfirmed tips about where he may have taken his 7-year-old daughter after allegedly kidnapping her Sunday.

Police are searching for any kind of documentation, including a Social Security number or birth certificate, that will give them an idea about who Rockefeller really is.

"They're having a hard time authenticating his identity," said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department.

Police have been flooded with reports of sightings of Rockefeller, 48, and his daughter, Reigh, a 4-foot-tall blonde with glasses and a British accent, who goes by the nickname Snooks. Tipsters have included psychics and people who said they have had dreams about where the father and daughter may be.

None of the reports has been verified, Driscoll said. The two were last seen Sunday night at Grand Central Terminal in New York, where Aileen Ang, a friend of Rockefeller's, dropped them off after driving them there from Boston, police said.

Police said Ang, who lives in Ipswich, was paid $500 to drive Rockefeller and Reigh to New York. Police initially believed that Rockefeller planned to flee on a 72-foot yacht with his daughter to Bermuda or Peru, but investigators have been unable to learn if he even purchased a boat.

A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said that investigators had confirmed that Rockefeller recently bought gold with cash.

Ang's lawyer, Stuart Gardner, said his client had no idea that she was helping in an alleged kidnapping when she drove Reigh and Rockefeller.

Gardner described their friendship as casual and based on a mutual love of sailing.

Ang had met Reigh several times before Sunday and did not think it was unusual that her father would want to take her on a boat trip, Gardner said yesterday in a prepared statement he read to reporters outside Ang's home.

"During the events in question that my client was privy to, there were no signs whatsoever from either Mr. Rockefeller or his daughter that things were amiss," the statement said.

"In fact, his daughter was quite excited about any potential boat trips."

But the instant that Ang learned that an Amber Alert had been issued for Reigh, she contacted police, Gardner said.

Ang declined to comment through her attorney, but earlier yesterday she told WBZ-AM radio that the child was happy with her father as she drove them.

"She was actually saying . . . I can't quote exactly, but it was kind of like, 'I love you too much, Daddy,' " Ang said in the interview. "He would respond, 'I love you even more.' "

Police have not arrested either Ang or Darryl Hopkins, the 54-year-old livery driver who picked up Rockefeller and Reigh from Marlborough Street on Sunday afternoon and drove them to another part of Boston.

Both drivers have been cooperating with investigators, police said.

Yesterday, in a brief interview with WHDH-TV, Hopkins declined to recount what happened Sunday, but, like Ang, described a loving relationship between Reigh and Rockefeller.

"It's a happy smiling girl and a happy dad," he said.

While police and some acquaintances have portrayed Rockefeller as a duplicitous, eccentric man, his friends have defended him as a doting father who was almost a full-time parent to Reigh, while her mother, Sandra Boss, worked.

Boss, 41, a senior partner based in London for McKinsey & Co., is still in Boston at the Four Seasons Hotel, police said, and has not spoken with reporters.

"He's a caring, decent, charitable individual," said Sandy Schuele, a money manager who became friends with Rockefeller when they both lived in Cornish, N.H.

"He's a wonderful father and is primarily responsible for raising his daughter."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.