Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (born 21 February 1961) is a German convicted murderer and impostor. Born in West Germany, he is currently serving a prison sentence in the U.S. state of California. After moving to the U.S. in his late teens, Gerhartsreiter lived under a succession of aliases while variously claiming to be an actor, a director, an art collector, a physicist, a ship's captain, a negotiator of international debt agreements, and an English aristocrat.
In 1995, while assuming the identity of Clark Rockefeller, claiming to be part of the noted Rockefeller family, Gerhartsreiter married a successful businesswoman named Sandra Boss; they had a daughter together. Gerhartsreiter lived well solely on his wife's income. However, 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 accept limited access to his daughter on supervised visits. Gerhartsreiter was arrested on 2 August 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 Christopher Kenneth Gerhart, Christopher Chichester, Christopher C. Crowe, Christopher Mountbatten and Charles "Chip" Smith. Gerhartsreiter's true identity was revealed after author Edward Savio – with whom Gerhartsreiter briefly lived upon arriving in the U.S. – contacted the FBI during the manhunt after seeing a photo of "Clark Rockefeller" on the news. Police had been seeking Gerhartsreiter as a suspect in the 1985 disappearance of a married couple, Jonathan and Linda Sohus, in California. He was convicted in 2013 of Jonathan Sohus's murder and is serving 27 years to life in a California prison.
Early life
Christian Gerhartsreiter was born to Simon and Irmgard Gerhartsreiter on 21 February 1961, in Siegsdorf, Bavaria, West Germany; his parents gave his birthdate as 21 February 1961, while Christian himself has claimed to have been born on 29 February 1960. He has a brother, Alexander Gerhartsreiter. After being arrested by Boston police in 2007, Gerhartsreiter claimed that his mother was Ann Carter, an American child actress of the 1940s, and claimed that she had died. Carter was in fact still alive and denied this claim in August 2007.
Arrival in the U.S. In 1978, Gerhartsreiter met an American couple, Elmer and Jean Kelln, who were traveling in West Germany. He later used their names to obtain permission to enter the U.S., falsely declaring that the Kellns had invited him to stay with them in California. After entering the country in New York City, Gerhartsreiter went to Berlin, Connecticut, where he found the family of author Edward Savio, telling them that he was from a wealthy family in West Germany. The family allowed Gerhartsreiter to live with them, and in 1979 he was accepted as a foreign exchange student at Berlin High School. Eventually he wore out his welcome with the Savios and was told to leave.
Gerhartsreiter decided to move to California to pursue a career in acting. By the time he reached Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he had started calling himself "Christopher Kenneth Gerhart." While there, he enrolled in a class at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Deciding that he wanted to become a U.S. citizen, he married 22-year-old Amy Jersild Duhnke in 1981 in Madison, Wisconsin, in order to obtain a green card. To persuade Duhnke to marry him, Gerhartsreiter falsely claimed that if he had gone back to West Germany, he would have to go into the military and be sent to fight in the Cold War on the Russian front line. The day after the wedding, Gerhartsreiter left his wife and headed for California. Duhnke filed for divorce in 1992.