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Fake Rockefeller Extradited to Calif. to Face Murder Rap

Gerhartsreiter will faces charges he murdered his landlord in 1985

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 7, 2011 3:42 AM CDT

(Newser) – Christian Gerhartsreiter, the German immigrant whose many fake identities included blueblood heir Clark Rockefeller, has a new role this week: murder defendant. The 50-year-old has been taken from the Massachusetts prison where he was serving time for kidnapping his daughter and moved to California for trial on charges that he murdered his landlord in 1985, reports the Boston Herald.

Gerhartsreiter, who came to the US as an exchange student in the late '70s, was living with John Sohus and his wife, Linda—and pretending to be a British nobleman—when the couple disappeared. John's body was found in the backyard of the home a decade later. No trace of Linda was ever discovered. The German disappeared a few weeks after the couple did, resurfacing briefly as a Wall Street trader before finding his way into Boston high society as a "Rockefeller."

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter is seen at his sentencing in Boston in 2009. (AP Photo/Pool)

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Fake Rockefeller Extradited to Calif. to Face Murder Rap

Gerhartsreiter will faces charges he murdered his landlord in 1985

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