Aug 6, 2008 11:00 pm US/Eastern
Rockefeller Refuses To Talk To L.A. Detectives
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The man known as Clark Rockefeller is refusing to talk to Los Angeles County detectives about a missing persons case in California that dates back to the 1980s, the Suffolk County Sheriff's office said.
A spokesman for the Suffolk County Sheriff's office said Rockefeller is not accepting any communications or interviews at the Nashua Street Jail in Boston, where he is being held on charges he kidnapped his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh.
Rockefeller's attorney, Stephen Hrones, is advising his client not to talk to police about the investigation, but says his client has nothing to do with the case.
Rockefeller was arraigned in Boston Tuesday on charges stemming from his July 27 disappearance with this daughter. He was caught Saturday in Baltimore, and the girl was found safe.
Los Angeles authorities confirmed to KCBS-TV that they are looking into a possible connection between Rockefeller and the 1994 discovery of human remains in a southern California city.
A source tells WBZ California homicide detectives have been wanting to talk to Rockefeller for some time, but they didn't know him as Clark Rockefeller. According to the Pasadena Star News, they knew him as Christopher Chichester – yet another of his numerous aliases.
Pasadena Star News reporter Frank C. Girardot, said a growing number of investigators are convinced Rockefeller and Chichester are the same man.
WBZ's Jonathan Elias spoke with Girardot, who has been following the case of the missing California couple for years. He said detectives are in Massachusetts because they have a link between Rockefeller and that missing couple. "Law enforcement officials have been telling me that the fingerprint they have links Rockefeller to Chichester," said Girardot.
Chichester was being questioned in the disappearance of John and Linda Sohus -- a young couple he was renting a room from in San Marino, an upscale suburb of Los Angeles.
John and Linda vanished and Chichester told their families they were doing work for the government and were on a top secret mission. Linda's mother even got a letter supposedly from her daughter with a postmark from Paris, France.
Police were called in and they began questioning Chichester. And then, he vanished.
Four years later, in 1989, Chichester surfaced again. "He was stopped in Greenwich, Connecticut driving a car registered to Sohu... Police in Greenwich notified the police department that they had this truck linked to a missing person from Los Angeles County, but the case never went anywhere and Chichester disappeared again," said Giradot.
Then, five years later, in 1994, new homeowners of the Sohus' home started digging a pool and found bones. Investigators strongly believe they are the remains of John Sohus.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis confirmed that a fingerprint match places Rockefeller in California in the 1980s.
However, investigators in California told WBZ they actually recognized Rockefeller's picture.
KCBS-TV talked to a woman who dated Rockefeller in the 1980s, a man she knew as Christopher Chichester. The ex-girlfriend, who did not want to be named, said he claimed to be a TV producer from England, and even put on an accent. "The way he dressed, he would wear stuff like blue blazers and white pants. It was like he had just fallen off a yacht and he talked… I was telling my dad he was like another Thurston Howell III from 'Gilligan's Island.'
She said after dating him just a few times, she found him odd and a little frightening and then, he vanished.
Rockefeller has been ordered held without bail, and his attorney denies he had any involvement in the California case.
Rockefeller pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Boston Municipal Court Tuesday after being brought back from Baltimore.
Investigators have found Rockefeller used several aliases in the past, most recently using the name Chip Smith to buy a new home in Baltimore, where he was arrested Saturday.
Rockefeller's attorney, Stephen Hrones denied the report, which first appeared in the Boston Globe.
"Garbage, completely untrue," he told reporters.
According to the Globe, FBI agents and Baltimore police interviewed him for hours after his arrest, but came up with little about his past.
When asked where he was born or who his parents are, he's repeatedly told investigators he "doesn't remember," the Globe reported.
When asked about the multiple aliases, Hrones would only say his client's name is Clark Rockefeller.
Rockefeller and Sandra Boss married on Nantucket in 1995 and filed for divorce in January 2007, with the final decree coming in December. She was so concerned about her former husband's name changes that she asked a judge to restrict his access to their daughter. According to published reports, he refused to provide his true identity during the divorce proceedings and ended up losing any chance at custody of Reigh.
Rockefeller is charged with felony parental kidnapping, assault and battery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The real estate firm that sold Rockefeller his new home recognized him from news reports and tipped authorities to his whereabouts. But agents at the firm knew the man as Charles "Chip" Smith.
Rockefeller approached Baltimore's Obsidian Realty in late 2007. He asked real estate agents to help him find a two- or three-bedroom home for him and his daughter while he relocated from Chile, said Julie Gochar, a managing partner in the firm.
The firm helped him find temporary housing and gave him access to its offices to use the Internet until agents arranged the purchase of his home in mid-July.
Then, "We saw a bulletin on morning news with several photos of a Mr. Clark Rockefeller -- the man we knew as 'Chip,"' Gochar said.
In addition to using the Smith name, Rockefeller called himself Chip MacLaughlin early this summer when he bought the catamaran from a North Baltimore man, The (Baltimore) Sun reported Monday. Rockefeller told the boat's former owner Bruce Boswell that he owned Obsidian Realty, and Boswell saw him punch in the entry code to the company's offices, The Sun reported.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
