Aug 24, 2008 6:57 pm US/Eastern
Rockefeller Says Days With Daughter 'Glorious'
BOSTON (AP) ―
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Christian Gerhartsreiter during a jailhouse interview with The Boston Globe.
John Tlumacki, Boston Globe Staff photographer
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Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter
John Tlumacki, Boston Globe Staff photographer
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Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 1978 INS photo
WBZ
The man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller and is accused of kidnapping his young daughter says he spent "six glorious and wonderful days" with the girl while evading authorities, but he still isn't talking about his life before 1993.
Police say Rockefeller is really a German immigrant named Christian Gerhartsreiter. California authorities want to question him about a couple who disappeared in 1985.
Gerhartsreiter has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping his daughter, Reigh Boss, on a Boston street during a supervised visit in July after losing custody of her to his ex-wife, Sandra Boss. A Berlin, Conn. family says they believe Gerhartsreiter lived with them in 1980 as a visiting student from Germany.
In a jail interview with The Boston Globe, Gerhartsreiter said he decided to take Reigh the day before the supervised visit, but police say he spent months planning the alleged kidnapping. He was captured in early August in Baltimore, where police said was hoping to start a new life.
"We had such a wonderful time," Gerhartsreiter, 48, said in the interview in the Globe's Sunday editions. "It was my six days of being -- well, it was like a trance. It was so wonderful. It was so great to be with my daughter again."
During the interview, supervised by his attorney Stephen Hrones, Gerhartsreiter insisted his name was Clark Rockefeller. He portrayed himself as a doting father who read poetry to his daughter and taught her to read newspapers and scientific journals before she was 3.
Representatives of the Rockefeller family say Gerhartsreiter is not related to the descendants of John D. Rockefeller. He said his Rockefeller name was given to him by a man named Harry Copeland, who he described as his godfather from New York who died in the late 1990s.
Hrones deflected any questions about Gerhartsreiter's life before 1993, including the time authorities say he spent renting a guesthouse in San Marino, a wealthy Los Angeles suburb.
California authorities want to question Gerhartsreiter about the 1985 disappearance of newlyweds Jonathan and Linda Sohus. The guesthouse was owned by the mother of Jonathan Sohus.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has labeled Gerhartsreiter a "person of interest," but he has refused to talk to their investigators.
Gerhartsreiter declined to go into detail about the alleged kidnapping, saying only that he loved his daughter and that "you know, I lost, I lost big time in Boston."
Click here to listen to the audio from The Boston Globe's interview with Gerhartsreiter.
View photos from the Globe's interview.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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