US News

NO VERDICT FROM ‘ROCKEFELLER’ JURY AFTER 2 DAYS

Jurors in the kidnapping trial of the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller on Tuesday finished a second day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.

The jury of eight women and four men started deliberating shortly after noon Monday and spent all day Tuesday discussing the case. Deliberations were to resume Wednesday.

Defense lawyers say Rockefeller, whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, was delusional and legally insane when he fled with his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh, during a supervised visit in Boston last July. Father and daughter were found in Baltimore six days later. The girl was unharmed.

Prosecutors call his insanity claim “preposterous” and say he planned the kidnapping for months after losing custody of the girl to his ex-wife in their divorce.

The trial featured testimony from people who recounted elaborate tales the German-born Gerhartsreiter told about himself during the three decades he has lived in the United States. Besides pretending to be a member of the famous Rockefeller clan, he claimed to be a physicist, ship’s captain, art collector and debt negotiator for small countries.

After his arrest in his daughter’s kidnapping, authorities in California identified Gerhartsreiter as a “person of interest” in the disappearance and presumed slayings of Jonathan and Linda Sohus, a newlywed couple from San Marino, Calif. Gerhartsreiter, who was then using the name Christopher Chichester, was staying in a guest house on the couple’s property when they disappeared. He has not been charged in that case and has denied any role in the couple’s disappearance.