February 21

This Day in History

Also on This Day

Lead Story
Malcolm X assassinated, 1965
American Revolution
George Weedon is promoted to brigadier general, 1777
Automotive
NASCAR founded, 1948
Civil War
North and South clash at the Battle of Valverde, 1862
Cold War
Nixon arrives in China for talks, 1972
Crime
Rockefeller imposter and convicted felon born, 1961
Double agent Aldrich Ames is arrested, 1994
Disaster
Tornadoes move across Mississippi River Delta, 1971
General Interest
Marx publishes Manifesto, 1848
Washington Monument dedicated, 1885
Nixon in China, 1972
Hollywood
Garbo’s first U.S. film opens, 1926
Literary
Erma Bombeck is born, 1927
Music
Dolly Parton cements her crossover success as "9 to 5" hits #1, 1981
Old West
Cherokee receive their first printing press, 1828
Presidential
John Quincy Adams suffers a stroke, 1848
Sports
Dick Button wins second Olympic figure skating gold, 1952
Vietnam War
Bernard Fall killed by mine in South Vietnam, 1967
Kissinger begins secret negotiations with North Vietnamese, 1970
Nixon visits China, 1972
World War I
Battle of Verdun begins, 1916
Allied troops capture Jericho, 1918
World War II
Tojo makes himself "military czar", 1944

Crime

Feb 21, 1961:

Rockefeller imposter and convicted felon born

Previous Day February 21 Calendar Next Day

On this day in 1961, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a con man who went by the alias Clark Rockefeller and passed himself off as an American blueblood, is born in Germany. Gerhartsreiter gained the public spotlight in 2008, when he kidnapped his young daughter and became the target of an international manhunt. The attention the case sparked helped lead to Gerhartsreiter being charged two years later with the murder of a California man in the 1980s.

Gerhartsreiter, the son of a landscape painter and seamstress, was raised in Bergen, Germany, and came to America as a teenager on a tourist visa in 1978. By the early 1980s, he was living in San Marino, California, where he went by the name Christopher Mountbatten Chichester and claimed to be a movie producer, among other occupations, as well as a relative of Lord Mountbatten, the British statesman. He rented a small guesthouse from Didi Sohus, whose son and daughter-in-law, John and Linda Sohus, lived with her. In 1985, John and Linda Sohus disappeared. Soon after, Gerhartsreiter moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, where he presented himself as a wealthy individual named Christopher Crowe and used a fake social security number to land jobs with several firms on Wall Street.

By the early 1990s, he was passing himself off as Clark Rockefeller, a member of one of America’s most famous families, who made their fortune in the oil business. Living in New York City as Clark Rockefeller, Gerhartsreiter owned an impressive (but later believed to be fake) art collection, dined at private clubs, wore silk ascots and told people that he worked helping Third World countries manage their debt. He was described as intelligent and eccentric by those who knew him. In 1995, he married Sandra Boss, a Harvard-educated executive at a management consulting firm. After moving to Boston, the couple purchased a multi-million-dollar town house there, as well as an estate in Cornish, New Hampshire. When their daughter Reigh was born in 2001, Gerhartsreiter stayed home to raise her while Boss supported the family. After filing for divorce in 2007, Boss (who later stated she was unaware her husband was a fraud during their marriage) paid Gerhartsreiter an $800,000 settlement and gained custody of Reigh.

On July 27, 2008, during a court-supervised visit in Boston, Gerhartsreiter abducted his 7-year-old daughter and took her to Baltimore, Maryland, where he had already found a home and established a new identity as Chip Smith, a yacht captain. Following a highly publicized manhunt, Gerhartsreiter was captured by police on August 2 outside his Baltimore residence. His daughter was unharmed.

In June 2009, Gerhartsreiter was convicted of kidnapping his daughter and sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison; he also received up to three years behind bars for injuring a social worker during the 2008 abduction. The spotlight on Gerhartsreiter brought renewed attention to the case of John Sohus, whose remains were found buried in the backyard of his former house in San Marino in 1994. Sohus’ wife’s body has never been found. In March 2011, Gerhartsreiter was charged in John Sohus’ murder. The serial imposter and accused murderer remains in prison awaiting trial.

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Previous Day February 21 Calendar Next Day

This Week in History, Feb 21 - Feb 27

Feb 21, 1961
Rockefeller imposter and convicted felon born
Feb 21, 1994
Double agent Aldrich Ames is arrested
Feb 22, 2006
Gang commits largest robbery in British history
Feb 23, 1885
A remarkable reprieve for a man sent to the gallows
Feb 24, 1981
Harris is convicted of murdering Scarsdale Diet doctor
Feb 25, 1949
Actor Robert Mitchum is released after serving time for marijuana possession
Feb 26, 1993
World Trade Center is bombed
Feb 27, 1991
Video recreates the crime

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