Resources for Missing Persons

According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day. Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends. Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.

Missing Person Case Updates with Photos

Linda Sohus







Linda, date, approximate 1985; Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter in the 1980s, as Christopher Chichester; Gerhartsreiter in 2008, as Clark Rockefeller
Date Missing 02/08/1985
Missing From
San Marino, California
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 09/17/1956 (66)
Age 28 years old
Height and Weight 6'0 - 6'1, 200 pounds
Associated Vehicle(s) White Nissan pickup truck (accounted for)
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Linda has a stocky, muscular build. She may use the last name Mayfield or the nickname Cody. She may color her hair blonde.
Details of Disappearance Linda and her husband, Jonathan Sohus (sometimes called "John" in media accounts), disappeared from their home in the 1900 block of Lorain Road in San Marino, California on February 8, 1985. They said they were going to Connecticut to look for employment. They never returned home.
The couple was reported missing on April 8, two months after they were last seen. They left behind their four cats, and Linda left her job at the science fiction/fantasy bookstore Dangerous Visions. Authorities stated they had a happy marriage and weren't having any problems in their lives in 1985. They lived with Jonathan's mother, who died three years later.
There is some evidence that Linda was alive in the years following her disappearance. Her boss also received calls from a credit card company and an employer, asking her to serve as a reference for Linda. Some of her friends and relatives received postcards supposedly written by her and mailed from France.
Authorities were unable to authenticate the writing on the cards; handwriting experts disagree as to whether they were in Linda's writing or not.
At the time of their disappearances, the Sohuses were renting out a guest house on their property. Their tenant, Christopher Chichester, told John and Linda's friends and coworkers that they'd gone to Paris for an extended honeymoon, then that they were on the East Coast doing secret government work. Chichester himself disappeared before the police could interview him.
Around the time of the Sohuses' disappearances, neighbors reported a foul smell coming from the guest house chimney, and investigators later found a sizeable amount of blood in the house. A few months later, a friend of Chichester noticed a patch of disturbed ground near the guest house. He accepted Chichester's explanation that the digging had been due to plumbing problems.
In 1988, Chichester resurfaced in Connecticut, using the name Christopher Mountbatten Crowe. He tried, without success, to sell a white Nissan pickup truck belonging to Jonathan. Again, he left the area before the police could question him.
The Sohuses's property was eventually sold. In 1994, when the new owners were putting in a swimming pool, they found the partial skeleton of a small adult Caucasian male wrapped in three plastic bags. The man had died of blunt force trauma to the head.
The skeleton matched Jonathan's characteristics, but authorities were unable to identify it for years because there was no jawbone or teeth, and they didn't have a DNA sample from Jonathan's biological relatives. The skeleton was finally conclusively identified as his in 2010. Investigators excavated the property and used ground-penetrating radar to look for a second body, but they found nothing of interest.
The Sohus received additional attention in 2008, when Clark Rockefeller kidnapped his young daughter during a custody dispute with his ex-wife. He assaulted the social worker supervising their visitation, fled and took the child from Massachusetts to Baltimore, Maryland, and was arrested there a week later.
Authorities determined that Clark Rockefeller and Christopher Chichester were the same person, and that his real identity was Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, born in West Germany in 1961.
Gerhartsreiter came to the United States as an exchange student when he was in his teens and subsequently took on a number of identities. He attended a high school in Connecticut and, for a short period, the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He married in Wisconsin in 1981, but his wife later said he left her the day after the wedding; she finally obtained a divorce in 1992.
Gerhartsreiter moved to California and started calling himself Christopher Chichester in 1983. He claimed he was a baronet, and gave the impression of being a wealthy, cultured individual. He adopted the Rockefeller identity in 1993 and posed as a member of the wealthy and prominent family of the same name.
His wife filed for divorce in 2006, after a twelve-year marriage. She moved to England with their daughter and her ex-husband was granted only three supervised visitations a year. It was during one of those visits that Gerhartsreiter abducted the child. He was sentenced to five years in prison for the kidnapping. Photos of him are posted with this summary.
In March 2011, Gerhartsreiter was charged with Jonathan's murder. He was still serving his sentence in Massachusetts for kidnapping at the time.
He has not been charged in connection with Linda's disappearance. His attorney stated Gerhartsreiter remembered little of his life before 1993, barely knew the Sohuses and was not involved in their s.
At his trial in 2013, Gerhartsreiter's defense admitted he had committed many crimes, but maintained he was innocent of murder. The defense suggested Linda had murdered her husband and then walked out of her life.
The prosecution's against Gerhartsreiter was almost wholly circumstantial, no motive for the murder was suggested, and he did not testify. He was convicted of Jonathan's murder in April 2013. The prosecution believes Gerhartsreiter murdered Linda as well.
Linda was very interested in science fiction and belonged to the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. She also enjoyed painting animals and fantasy creatures under the pseudonym "Cody," and sometimes took commissions for paintings. Linda's remains unsolved and foul play is suspected.
Investigating Agency
San Marino Police Department
626-300-0720
Other
The Doe Network
The Times-Argus
United Press International
The Pasadena Star-News
The Whittier Daily News
MSNBC
The San Bernardino County Sun
The New York Daily News
Zimbio
The Boston Globe
The Daily Mail

Missing Person Photos

A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe. By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends. A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.

Resources for Missing Persons

According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day. Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends. Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.

Missing Person Case Updates with Photos