WEBVTT - Christian Gerhartsreiter: The Man They Called 'Crockefeller' 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.560 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:16.320 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.479 This season, we were exploring the lives and motivations of 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.000 some of the most notorious impostors throughout history. I'm Maria 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.480 Trumarqui and I'm Holly Fry, and today we are talking 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:32.919 about Chris Gerhart, Christopher Chichester, Christopher Crowe, Clark Rockefeller, and 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.000 Chip Smith. We know that's a long list of people, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.320 but they're all actually one person. These are all aliases 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.640 of a man named Christian Gerharts, writer, and we're going 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.920 to have a quick aside here on names, because as 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.760 he assumed identities, he had some of his own affectation 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.640 based pronunciations of some of these names. For example, what 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.480 most people would call Chichester, which is how we are 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.240 pronouncing it, he put on the Bostonian by way of 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:09.800 england Ish as Chichester, which kind of cracks me up, because, 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.160 as I told Maria before this, it sounds like I'm 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.320 doing a comedy sketch if I try to pronounce it 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.840 that way. It's true, I feel like I'm trying I'm 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:21.959 talking about cheetos, so I can't do so, Also, we'll 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:26.040 get into his backstory. He was born in Germany, so 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.320 really his first name would probably be pronounced more like Christian, 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.920 but we're americanizing and making it Christian in part because 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.400 most of the news coverage about him would refer to 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.600 him that way, and also all of his story really 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.760 takes place in the US, and he never really seemed 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.800 to be using that name anyways, right, pronunciation of that 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:52.960 one matters, right, So Christian is probably the most recent 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:57.200 impostor that we'll talk about this season. But you can't 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.520 ignore him because for three decades he actually got away 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.680 with pretending to be someone else, or actually he pretended 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.560 to be a lot of someone else's. He he posed 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.920 as a variety of things, including a British baronet, a 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.360 cardiologist in Las Vegas, Hollywood producer, a bond broker in 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.640 New York. I mean, there's a shortlist. So perhaps his 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:25.799 most memorable ruse, though, was an astonishing two decade long 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.399 period where he posed as a member of a very 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.640 famous and very wealthy family. And his timeline has a 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.360 lot of ins and outs. It's actually very very hard 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.680 to kind of track some of it. So what we're 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:39.960 gonna do for simplicity sake, is take a look at 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.320 four of his larger than life identities, many of whom 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.519 go by the name Christopher. Some people knew Christian as 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.200 Chris Gerhardt, who was a University of Wisconsin film student 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.400 sort of. Others knew Christopher Chichester, who we mentioned a 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.560 descendant he claimed of British Royalty. Others knew him as 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.600 Christopher Crowe, of film and TV producer. We'll get to 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.080 why that's extra confusing in a moment, but most people 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:11.040 knew him as Clark Rockefeller, who in that guy's He 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.800 claimed to be heir to the Rockefeller dynasty, so he 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.000 pretended to be from a rich and powerful family, but 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.839 Christian actually was not. He was born on February one 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.080 in nineteen sixty one, and he grew up in a 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.200 small German town, so Christian had been short. He was 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.640 described as skinny and fantasy obsessed as a child, and 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.400 a friend of his family had told journalist Jessica van 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:36.840 Zack of the Boston Herald that, and we're going to 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.880 quote this, he was like Batman, always going into different rules, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:45.000 and he always had crazy ideas. It wasn't until he 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.920 was seventeen years old that he arrived in the US, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.880 and that was on a tourist or possibly a student 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.840 visa to Connecticut as an exchange student, and he had 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:56.880 told his parents that he had been hired as a 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.800 DJ at a New York radio station. That was a falsehood, 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.960 as pretty much everything he said. But what he really 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.440 did was just jump from host family to host family, 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.160 conning each of them with his good looks and charm, 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.160 but also kind of irritating them with his arrogance and 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.919 quirky behavior. And we actually have an example of that. 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.599 So Christian was not necessarily the best house guest. He 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.760 met a young man like himself who was hitchhiking, and 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.120 he was offered a night at this guy's house in Connecticut, 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.160 you know, for a fellow traveler. And it didn't take 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.359 him long to take them up on that offer, but 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:40.839 he overstayed his welcome by months and not eight months. 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.880 Each day he spent there, he expected his hosts to 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.400 prepare his breakfast and maybe launder his clothing as well. 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:50.920 That would be nice. Eventually, though, the family said they 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.880 kicked him out. Can you imagine, Yeah, you can crash 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.479 on my couch tonight and then like three months later, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:01.360 you're like, it's Q three. I'm I'm folding your socks. 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:06.640 I don't know how this happened. Once he started to 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.080 become established in the United States, Christian claimed to be 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:14.600 from Boston, Massachusetts. There is actually an apocryphal story that 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.400 floats around out there that he was known to eat 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.440 Boston cream pie every day in an effort to prove 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:22.920 that he truly came from there. I have a lot 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:24.800 of friends from Boston. I don't know any of them 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:31.040 that eat Boston cream pie every day or maybe even frequently. Unfortunately, 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.520 we obviously cannot confirm that dessert story, but it is 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.000 an indicator of maybe some of his his proclivity towards peccadillos. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.520 Uh So, after he hopped from couch to couch, he 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.520 moved to Wisconsin to study film at the University of 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.200 Wisconsin Milwaukee, and it was also the first time that 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.919 he transformed himself. He became a man named Chris Gerhard. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:01.680 Some records suggest that Christian actually didn't attend officially as 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.760 a student at the university, that he did go to 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.440 some classes film classes, but a degree was not really 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.440 his motive for attending school. Anyway, he was looking for 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.120 a relationship that would make him eligible to get a 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.240 green card, so that's known officially as a permanent resident card, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.360 and it would grant Christian permanent residency in the United States. 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.680 And he did find a woman in Wisconsin who would 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.120 and did marry him, thus enabling this whole plan. That 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.960 was a woman named Amy Dunk and they married in 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.800 nineteen eight one. Chris got his green card as Chris Gerhardt, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.240 and the two of them eventually divorced. All but one 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.760 of one account of their marriage reported that they didn't 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.839 divorce until that seems like a long, quickie marriage of convenience. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.840 But you know, we all let stuff slide now and 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:53.080 again um. Following his divorce from eighty though, Christian transformed 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:58.120 himself once again, Yes, and this time Christian became Christopher T. 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:02.960 Chester with an R. The alleged nephew of Lord Mountbatten, 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.400 who by the way, was actually a real person, and 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.600 the second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth. The second 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.760 Christian now had made himself into royalty and also he 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:19.040 was a self proclaimed computer expert and stockbroker. He wore 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.320 Ivy League clothes and was practiced enough to have impeccable 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.000 manners and an aristocratic accent. He asked people to call 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:31.200 him a baronet. One woman recalled him as Christopher chichesterte 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.440 Baronet of England. He had business cards that read thirteenth 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.080 Baronet of Chichester, which also featured his family crust of 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.960 a huron with its wings spread and an eel in 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:46.520 its beak to complete this ruse. He wore ascots, and 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.680 he liked to talk about the Mount Batton family foundation 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.400 that incidentally didn't actually exist. He claimed he was good 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.400 friends with author J. D. Salinger, and through his charm only, 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.520 he was offered no fewer the three jobs in the 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.120 securities field. You know, it's funny. When we were doing research, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:06.960 I saw that he claimed to have had a visit 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.760 from Brutney Spears and I couldn't find another source but 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.720 but mentioned that. But because it was Christian, I was like, 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:15.640 I'm sure he said it. I'm sure he didn't have 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:20.440 a visit, but I'm sure he said. But okay. So 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.680 according to his friends, there was actually a more down 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.000 to earth ch Chester. He was interested in film noir 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.680 and his favorite movie director was Alfred Hitchcock. He said 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.560 his favorite TV show was Gilligan's Island, and he would 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.679 actually mimic the accent of millionaire castaway Thurston Howell. The 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.240 third which, um, I don't know if you remember this 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.320 was a character who was known as the Wizard of 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.320 Wall Street. He believed that this was a religious show. Actually, 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.760 and that will quote from a press interview. The characters 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.559 represent the seven deadly sins. Gilligan is slow, the Skipper 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.280 is anger, the Professor is pride, Mary Anne is envy, 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.200 Ginger is lust, and the millionaires wife is gluttony, which 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.760 leaves the millionaire as greed. I have heard that analysis before. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:11.240 I had never heard that before, to which I go, mate, Right, coconuts, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.760 how did they fit in? We talked about that later. 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:20.199 Like Chichester, mostly bragged about his wealth, including a cathedral 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.600 that he claimed he had inherited, and that he was 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.200 willing to have moved to the US there would be 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.280 no mean feat also claimed to live only in the 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.679 most affluent neighborhoods. Some people, though, were a little surprised 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.360 that someone of such high ranking royalty would drive a 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.720 tam Dotson with an interior that was covered with yellow 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.320 post it notes. I can't handle that I drove a 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.560 Dotson when I was a knowledge. It's not a luxury vehicle. 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.600 No it is not, but I have in my hand 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.080 now I love it. Right. But if you're also sort 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.720 of painting yourself as a little bit of an eccentric 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.240 like you can get away with something like that. Other 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:02.840 people that spent time with him noticed that, for example, 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.280 when they all went out to eat, he never once 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:09.840 picked up a check. Chichester lived rent free in a 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.640 guesthouse of a woman named Ruth d d. Sohu's Legally 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.320 she wasn't allowed to rent the space out to anyone, 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.920 but that worked out just fine for her new tenant. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.360 D D's son, John was in his twenties and he 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.920 worked at a low level job in the computer department 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:30.040 of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. John's wife, Linda, 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.400 was a clerk at the Dangerous Vision science fiction bookstore, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.440 and the couple lived with d D in the upscale 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.199 community of San Marino, California, And that's just outside Los Angeles, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.240 and their plan was to save money for their own place, 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.600 and everything it seemed was pretty good between the family 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:52.760 and they're not quite really a tenant tenants. Mr Chichester room, 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:58.080 guesthouse roommate um. When John and Linda went missing in 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.319 early February night five, it was more than two years 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.920 after Chichester had moved. Indeed, was naturally growing concerned as 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.760 the days passed. The couple had told friends and family 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:10.520 they were going to New York for some sort of 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.360 top secret work for John, but it was all very 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.360 unclear um. Some stories also suggested that the couple went 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.880 to Europe. There were a few postcards sent to d 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.959 D and friends, but they stopped coming, and d D 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.120 called the police to report them as missing. Her tenant 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:33.720 slash roommate confusion. There, Christopher Chichester was also missing, she reported. 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.720 Despite John's mother's concern, investigators treated the couple's disappearance as 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.480 a voluntary missing person's case, but John and Linda were 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.199 never heard from again. So right now we're going to 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.960 take a quick break for our sponsor, and when we're back, 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.640 we're going to talk about how it was possible to 0:11:51.800 --> 0:12:05.360 pretend to be a Rockefeller for twenty years. Welcome back 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:10.960 to Criminalia. Let's talk about when Christian made his first mistake. 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.720 Christian moved away from San Marino the same year John 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.559 Linda went missing and the police began asking questions. He 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.319 went back to the East Coast and moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.520 where he transformed himself into Christopher Crowe, a Hollywood TV 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.520 and film producer. He claimed to be the producer and 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.040 director of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which actually was a TV 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.000 show for real, and it did have a director named 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:40.200 Christopher Crowe, but this was not, of course, the Christopher 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.480 Crowe that we are talking about. I always feel so 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:48.120 bad for people who someone just decides to use their 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.400 name and resume as their own. What a mess, you see. 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.920 It occasionally happened just with confusion over names on social media. 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.840 So when it's something nefarious, it's got to be like 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.120 a whole extra layer. And it was in Greenwich where 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:07.360 Christopher Crow made that first real mistake. So Greenwich is 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:12.520 on Connecticut's Gold Coast, which Greenwich was and is known 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.199 for its mansions and its wealth, and it's many large 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.199 financial service companies and hedge funds. So while he was 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.560 living there, Crow met a lot of very wealthy people. 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.000 He also met Chris Bishop, who was a minister's son 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.679 and also an aspiring filmmaker, which drew him to Crow. 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.840 The two met at an Episcopal church in town, which 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.439 was considered to be an elite church to attend. We're 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:38.760 getting a little bit ahead of where we need to be. 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.199 But at this point, no one would have guessed that 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.480 twenty seven years after their meeting, Bishop would be called 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:47.960 to the stand at a murder trial to describe the 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.720 man he knew almost three decades before. He did go 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.360 on at that trial to testify that actually, no one 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.040 had ever questioned Crow's stories back in Greenwich, and there 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.240 was no reason to and why he had decided to 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.000 trade his celebrity studied career to become a bonds trader um. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.959 But like I said, it's a little bit more information 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.760 than we need right now. It was in Greenwich where 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.480 Christian began to work at financial institutions to prepare himself 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.720 for his next role and his biggest fake yet, which 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.520 was pretending to be a Rockefeller Under his Crow alias, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.720 he conned the brokerage firm S N. Phelps in Company 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:29.120 into hiring him to work with the firm's computers. Here's 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.080 the rub a social security number to get a job, 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.800 and Crow was not a real person and thus did 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.680 not have one, so he was fired when the company 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.240 discovered that the social Security number that he had provided 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.960 when he was hired actually belonged to serial killer and 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:51.360 self proclaimed son of Sam David Berkowitz. Yep, yeah, he 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.560 really can't sometimes make this stuff up. I'm presuming his 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.920 logic was like, this guy isn't outlooking for jobs, so 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:04.160 there won't be any problem with this. He's very dizzy, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:10.600 so without a social Security number, he surprisingly was employed 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.000 by other companies. He was hired by Nico Securities Limited 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.280 in the corporate bonds department until he was fired for 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:22.040 not selling any bonds, like none, not at all. He 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.920 also worked for Kidder, Peabody and Company, but quit his 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.960 job abruptly when he heard the investigators were looking for 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.720 him in connection with the disappearance of John and Linda. 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.960 Investigators did visit him at his workplace to question him, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.600 but he had vanished. One key reason they made that 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.680 visit was because Crow had made a pretty big mistake. 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.880 He had given a white Nissan pickup that was the 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.440 same truck that had belonged to John and Linda, sohus 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.320 to Chris Bishop, who we mentioned just a moment ago. 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.000 The problem was that when Bishop tried to register it. 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.760 It was discovered that the truck actually belonged to the 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:01.640 missing couple. Within days of discovering this whole missing truck situation, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.720 Detective Allen of the Greenwich Police Department also discovered that 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.560 Christopher Crowe was also known as Christopher Chichester of California, 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.040 and that he had already fled Greenwich. For the next 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.160 three and a half years, Christian really did disappear. There's 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.720 no record of where he was, or what he was doing, 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.200 or who he was with. But when he resurfaced in 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.240 the mid early to mid nineties, it was as Clark Rockefeller. 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.000 Influential and powerful people were taken in by this man. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.400 He claimed to have a master key to Rockefeller Center, 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.200 and he was adamant that he was, in fact Clark Rockefeller. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.160 Can you imagine a master key to that? It's just 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.240 one key. I keep it in my pocket. Well, it's 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.440 also one of those things. Were kind of like, I'm 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.640 from Boston and I'll prove it by eating a Boston 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:53.560 cream pie every day. He might like two obvious connections. 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.920 I'm a Rockefeller, I have a key to Rockefeller Center. 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:02.840 Like it's just so strange, clunky, and it works somehow 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.480 because of eccentricities. I don't know, um, But what we 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.000 do know is that as a Rockefeller Christian was a 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.960 khakis and cost shirt wearing kind of guy who was 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.719 well known and well liked in his Beacon Hill neighborhood 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.880 in Boston. He had an estimated sixty million dollars worth 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.359 of artwork from masters including Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:30.400 But while Rockefeller like to brag about his art collection, 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.040 he couldn't actually pronounce all of the names of the 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.560 artists and works that hung on his walls, and actually 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.280 even wouldn't be until years later that everyone would learn 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:45.040 that those paintings were actually forged. I mean, I will say, 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.360 I bet there are plenty of people with a lot 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.440 of money to throw around that don't know the names 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.840 of all the artists whose work they may be in 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.400 possession of. I don't think you're wrong. I'm just buying. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.640 I'm not into art, I'm just into possession. Um. One 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.560 for recalled that Rockefeller once implied he was from the 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.320 Percy Rockefeller line of the family. That was significant because 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.679 Percy's uncle was John D. Rockefeller. Of course, the family 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:16.040 was still obscenely wealthy, right you wouldn't wanna. I think 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.120 that one line wasn't necessarily as wealthy as the other. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:26.800 They were like um In Rockefeller under the name James 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.560 Frederick Mills Clark. Rockefeller married a woman named Sandra Boss, 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.159 who was a Harvard Business School graduate and a senior 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.080 partner at McKenzie and Company, which was is a global 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.679 management consulting firm. Rockefeller said he lived off of his 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:45.960 family's money. Sandra later testified that Rockefeller was quote charming, 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:48.479 and that she believed all of the stories he had 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.280 told her at the beginning of their relationship, because why 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.560 wouldn't she. She stated that she thought Rockefeller was quote 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.600 the most intelligent man she had ever met, and the 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.080 couple had a daughter together in two thousand one. In 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.440 and they lived in Cornish, New Hampshire, where Rockefeller bragged 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.080 his friends and neighbors that he was a wealthy Yale 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:10.159 graduate who owned a business abroad. He went to great 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:15.760 lengths to hide his actual identity from everyone, even his wife, Sandra, insisting, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.359 for example, that she filed her tax returns as a 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.400 single person. Although she earned all of the family income, 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.200 she stated it was her husband who controlled the family's finances. 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.280 When her father dug into who his daughter had married, 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.480 he learned that Rockefeller wasn't really telling the truth in 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.679 many ways and on several topics, including the claim that 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.000 his mother had passed away, and after going down a 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.879 few more rabbit holes her her family began to wonder 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:50.000 if their daughter was being conned. He eventually growing suspicious herself. 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.920 Sandra hired a private investigator to investigate this whole thing, 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.080 and that person discovered that her husband was definitely not 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.320 who he claimed to be, but they still weren't actually 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:05.320 sure who he was. After discovering that her husband had 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.320 lied about his identity throughout their twelve year marriage, Sandra, 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.040 who had truly believed he was a Rockefeller, divorced him 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.800 and legally changed their daughter's last name to her own. 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.360 Sandra testified about the divorce and how her husband had 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.640 agreed to give her full custody of their daughter following 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:28.080 that divorce. He also had agreed to supervised visits three 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.479 times a year with their daughter in return for an 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.800 eight hundred thousand dollars settlement, two cars, her engagement ring, 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.840 and address that he had given to her. He confided 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.639 in friends that Sandra had emptied his accounts over the years, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.359 and that she was only interested in him for his money. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:44.760 He told one of his art dealers that, and we 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:47.959 quote this, she only married me because I'm a Rockefeller. 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.240 It also turned out, unsurprisingly that this alleged Rockefeller didn't 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.480 have any sort of identification. According to Sandra's testimony, he 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.880 didn't have a Social Security number, he was, as we mentioned, 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.680 on her tax returns, and their credit cards were all 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.320 in her name. Even his cell phone was under a 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:11.199 friend's account. So to say that the divorce wasn't the 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.199 agreement that Rockefeller had had in mind would be to 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:19.400 put it really lightly. He was, above all, above everything 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.080 known to dote on his seven year old daughter, who 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.320 was named Ray He had nicknamed her Snooks. But after 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:28.840 the bitter and humiliating divorce that he had just gone through, 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.600 he not only lost his homes, his art, and now 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.320 he also lost custody of his daughter, and he decided 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:38.880 that the best thing to do would be to take her, 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.200 which is exactly what you're thinking. Uh. And on the 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.840 day of the kidnapping, Rockefeller told his driver that he 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.160 and his daughter had a lunch date that was scheduled 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.160 with a senator's son in Newport, Rhode Island. It's about 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.960 an hour and a half drive from Boston. But he 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:56.399 also said that he was concerned that there was a 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.960 quote clingy person with him who might try to get 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.359 into the limo, and he did not want that to happen. 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.600 That allegedly clingey person was in fact a court appointed 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.240 social worker, but of course he did not mention that 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:15.600 to his driver. Not important information, I don't. Yeah, So 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.600 he was assured that no one would enter the limo 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:24.959 without permission, and Rockefeller himself actually shoved aside the social worker, 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.679 grabbed his daughter and jumped into the car so quickly 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.560 that she banged her head on the limo's door jam. 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.320 The social worker, the story goes, was actually dragged several 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.879 yards while holding onto the back door handle. I have 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.800 to give that social worker credit for like trying, no kidding, 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:45.399 that would be terrifying. I'm sure that did not feel good. No. 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:49.239 According to Rockefeller's later indictment, he claimed that he had 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.720 told the driver to pull over. He actually exited the 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:55.520 limo and hailed a cab, explaining to the driver that 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:58.360 while lunch in Newport was still on, he wanted to 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.480 switch over to this cab to his daughter to Massachusetts 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.480 General Hospital to have that bump on her head looked 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.359 at and make sure it wasn't serious. That driver of 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.000 the limo waited two hours for him to return, but 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:14.520 Rockefeller never did. Instead of hailing a taxi to go 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:17.640 to the hospital, Rockefeller met a friend at the Boston 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.880 Sailing Center who drove him and his daughter to New York. 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:23.080 He told her that he and his daughter had to 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:25.440 catch a train to Long Island and that train left 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:28.359 at eight pm. But as soon as traffic began to 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:30.080 back up, he jumped out of the car with his 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:32.919 daughter at they were real close to Grand Central station, 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.440 and the story goes that his helpful friend saw an 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:41.479 Amber alert concerning Rockefeller's daughter's disappearance just minutes after they 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.440 got in the car, and she realized what was happening. 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:47.879 Because of the kidnapping and because he was at this 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.320 point on the run, Rockefeller's face was ever present in 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.560 the media, but not everyone agreed who they were looking 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:57.560 at who was on the run exactly. I mean, people 0:23:57.600 --> 0:23:59.760 on the East Coast had known him at this point 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:02.919 for sometimes Clark Rockefeller, but people who knew him in 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:07.719 California were like Hey, that's Christopher Chichester, right, um, so 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:12.960 Christian As Rockefeller had smartly devised an escape plan. He 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:15.119 told all of his friends where he was headed, but 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:20.080 from sailing to Peru to traveling to Alaska, he actually 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.400 told each friend a different destination, and because of that, 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:28.200