Christian Gerhartsreiter
| Christian Gerhartsreiter | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter 21 February 1961 Siegsdorf, Bavaria, West Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Other names | Clark Rockefeller Chris C. Crowe Chris Chichester Charles Smith Chip Smith Christopher Chichester |
| Criminal penalty |
|
| Spouse(s) |
Amy Jersild Duhnke (m. 1981; div. 1992) Sandra Boss (m. 1995; div. 2007) |
| Children | Reigh Storrow Mills Boss (born 2001) |
| Parent(s) | Simon and Irmgard Gerhartsreiter |
| Conviction(s) |
|
| Killings | |
| Victims | Reigh Storrow Mills Boss (custodial kidnapping) Jonathan Sohus (first-degree murder) |
| Date | July 27, 2008 (kidnapping and assault) February 1985 (first-degree murder) |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Massachusetts, California |
| Location(s) |
Boston, Massachusetts (kidnapping and assault) San Marino, California first-degree murder |
| Killed | 1 |
|
Date apprehended
|
August 2, 2008 |
| Imprisoned at | San Quentin State Prison |
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (born February 21, 1961) is a convicted murderer and imposter born in Germany who is currently serving a prison sentence in the United States. In his late teens, Gerhartsreiter moved to the US where he lived under a succession of aliases while variously claiming to be an actor, director, art collector, a physicist, a ship's captain, a negotiator of international debt agreements, and an English aristocrat.
In 1995 while using the assumed identity "Clark Rockefeller", he married a successful businesswoman with whom he had a daughter. Gerhartsreiter lived a prosperous lifestyle solely on his wife's income. She became dissatisfied with his secretive, controlling behavior and sought a divorce. Inquiries on her behalf revealed that he had fabricated his name and his family background. The couple divorced and Gerhartsreiter agreed to limited access to his daughter on supervised visits. Gerhartsreiter was arrested on August 2, 2008, six days after he abducted his daughter while she was on a visit. He was subsequently convicted of the custodial kidnapping of his daughter.
In addition to Clark Rockefeller, Gerhartsreiter's aliases include Chris C. Crowe, Chris Chichester, Charles Smith, Chip Smith, and others. Gerhartsreiter's true identity was discovered after his arrest. Police had been seeking him since 1985 as a suspect in the disappearance of a married couple. He was subsequently convicted of the 1985 murder of a man in California and is now serving 27 years to life in a California prison.
According to his parents, Simon and Irmgard Gerhartsreiter, Christian was born on February 21, 1961 in Siegsdorf, Bavaria, Germany, although he maintains that he was born on February 29, 1960. Gerhartsreiter had told Boston police that his mother is Ann Carter, an American child actress of the 1940s, which Carter had denied before her passing in 2014.
In 1978, he met an American couple, Elmer and Jean Kelln, who were traveling through Germany. He later used their names to obtain permission to enter the US, falsely declaring that the Kellns had invited him to stay with them in California. He initially made his way to Berlin, Connecticut where he found a family (the Savios) willing to let him live with them and was accepted as a foreign exchange student at Berlin High School in 1979. He told the Savios that he was from a wealthy family in Germany. Eventually, he wore out his welcome with the Savios and was told to leave.
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