#85: The Rockefeller Murder (Case of Clark Rockefeller)

"Ramble." "But it being better, boo." Welcome to this week's main episode. I'm just gonna drop you right into the middle of this crime in the nice town of San Marino in Los Angeles County. A family had recently purchased a very, very nice piece of property. But the problem is, huge first world problem. They don't have a pool. I mean, what's the point of living in California if you ain't got your own private pool, right? So they start, they hire contractors, they come out and they start digging. You're like, "What is this? Why is this HGTV?" No, this is true crime, okay? But then they hit something. What is that? Oh my god, it's a trash bag. Now the contractors at this point, they weren't that nervous. I mean, they had seen some stuff, okay? I mean, they weren't even alarmed. They had dug up cars. They had dug up full-on horse carcasses at one point, so truly, some trash, not a big deal for them. But when they went to go remove it, they realized there was hair sticking out with a human skull attached to the hair. Call the cops. So the police arrive, and at first they're like, "Wait, we think we know who this body is." There was a young couple that lived here about 10 years ago, and they went missing under very strange circumstances. They told everybody that they knew that they had this top secret government mission to go on. It was going to lead them to New York City, then to Paris, but they couldn't say anymore. They couldn't even keep in contact with their friends and family because they would jeopardize their new top secret government job. Police never really took it seriously. I mean, yeah, it's weird, but these are adults. But then things were looking weird, or once they found the body and the pool. They were like, "This has got to be at least one of the couple, right?" It was so weird, in fact, that they had an unsolved mysteries, aired an episode on this, about the body found in the California pool. The killer's on the run. He could be hiding near you. Guys, we need tips for unsolved mysteries. That's what they said. And a lot of people watched this episode, even some of the social elite of New York City watched this episode. But they had nothing to worry about. They were living their gossip girl lives, crime and murder, that's for the lower and middle class, okay? These are millionaires, if not billionaires. These people are rubbing shoulders with the Vanderbilts, former presidents, politicians. They only hung out in private clubs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get into. But that's if you're invited. Most people aren't even invited. They had mansions all around the world. All of them are Ivy League educated, there were those polos with the sweater striped over their shoulders. I mean, they came from families with more money than you could even spend. This isn't part of their world. So they had no idea that the gossip girl upper elite had a murder amongst them. And his name was Clark Rockefeller. Yes, from the billionaire family, the Rockefeller family. What? So, as always, full podcast notes will be available at rottenmangapodcast.com. But there's three really good books on this, okay, hear me out, hear me out, okay? So the first one is name dropper by Frank Gerardo, really good, but you can only get physical copies if you're a Kindle reader or like an ebook reader, you know, you're out of luck. Blood will out the true story of a murder, a mystery and a masquerade by Walter Kim. This is more of a memoir versus a deep dive on this case. He was actually close friends with Clark Rockefeller. What a lost name. Yeah, okay. And then is there only, is that the only family with that lost name? I'm assuming that there's other people with that surname, but I mean, it's really gotta be just them, right? I mean, it's such a crazy last name. What's your last name? Su. Su. And then the really good deep dive is the man in the Rockefeller suit, really good by Mark Seal. He actually, I remember reading a vanity fair article that was written by Mark Seal and I was like, okay, well, this is, it got me hooked on this case, right? I mean, probably the most out of the three, this is like your purest deep dive. The other ones are kind of, you know, he did almost 200 interviews with people, went all across the United States and even went to Germany, yeah, to Germany. So how does one become a Rockefeller? Because you're looking at me and you're like, why aren't you a Rockefeller? Like, how do you really become one? Because I'm not a Rockefeller. So either you're just born one or you marry one, right? Yeah. Okay. I mean, anyone can change their name. I could go down to the government office and say, you know what, from now on, I want to be referred to as Stephanie Rockefeller. There's gotta be other families that are maybe middle class, not a Rockefeller, but have the same last name, but in these latter situations, nobody actually treats you like a Rockefeller. No, you're just treated like a normal person. So what is the point of that Rockefeller name without the benefits? So if you aren't born one and you don't marry one, how do you become one and get treated like a true Rockefeller? Is there a way? You're thinking no, I mean, that doesn't make sense, but we're going to talk about a guy who went from a small town in Germany, from a middle class family to living on one of the richest streets of New York City with tens of millions of dollars in paintings, with the whole world bowing at its Rockefeller feet, but his whole life is filled with crime. Let me take you to a small town in Germany. That's where this all starts. The population of this tiny, tiny town was about 13,000 people, and amongst this small group was Christian. He was born into this really loving family. So his dad was this super outgoing painter, like an artist type, you know, he made beautiful landscape paintings and his mom, she was like a stay-at-home mom, a little bit more reserved, but I mean this whole family, if you're looking from the outside, just perfect. I mean, they were really loving parents from the get-go. Christian was really the only child for the first 12 years of his life, and he absolutely loved it. He got all the attention from his family, his parents, his extended family, just spoiled. Some might even go as far as to say that this little kid ran the house. He would watch whatever he wanted on TV. His favorite was sci-fi, which most parents of the time did not approve of. Also, the author, Mark Seel, went to Germany to ask around about Christian's childhood, and some fascinating stories came out of Germany, okay? So they would say that Christian just was not for the rules. So there's this dangerous river nearby. None of the parents wanted their kids to go, but Christian would not only go, but convince other kids to go with him. So he just did whatever he wanted. If these neighboring parents were like, "What's wrong with you Christian? Why would you convince our kids to go?" He would just look at them and say, "You can't tell me what to do. You're not my parent. You're just some random lady down the street. You can't tell me what to do." Which is kind of crazy, right? As he grew older, he just wanted to leave this town. He wanted to not only leave this tiny town, but the country of Germany. He felt like he was just too good for the place. Yeah, the whole country. He was just too good for the whole country. Always wanted to dress differently, even spoke differently. I mean, he was a huge advocate of learning Americanized English, so he wanted that American accent, which I'm like, "Oh, there's people out there." That's first time. He wanted that American accent. He was really smart. I will give it to him, but he wanted to impress people with how smart he was. So this guy is not humble. Just really not a likable person. He would go to school, dress up in a three-piece business suit, high school, like he's 13. Three-piece business suit. His mom loved it. I mean, she loved how proper he was, how fancy he was. She really encouraged it on top of that his dad loved it, too, because he's an artist, so he's like, "Wow. My son is so authentically himself." He just like marches to the beat of his own drum, you know? Like his parents were really encouraging this, and allegedly, this caused a lot of authority issues. He had hated this one teacher for the longest time. So what does Christian do? He comes into school with one of his fists just closed up in like a ball. He's just like, "What's in your hand? Why are you holding your fists like that?" I don't know. Give it to me. What's in your hand, Christian? And he opens up his fist inside, it's just a bunch of pepper powder. And he blows it straight into her face. Like imagine, just paprika, habanero powder, goes pepper powder, just blown into the teacher's face. Allegedly, he was really pissed off with a small town that he actually chose a hearse as his mode of transportation, you know, the one where they transport dead bodies like the coffins. Okay. And he would just park it in random streets, the people would- I mean, he owns one. Yeah, and he would just park it in random streets. People would come home and be like, "Oh my God, did my neighbor die? Why is the hearse parked out there?" No, it was just Christian. Fascinating. Allegedly, in his free time, I mean, what do you guys do in your free time? He would call up the local DMV, or whatever the version in Germany is, right? And he would say, "Listen, I'm a millionaire and I need to register my new cars." Yes, it's two Rolls-Royce's. I mean, just a really strange thing to do, right? It's one thing, you know, a lot of psychologists were saying it's one thing to lie to your friends and be like, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna get a Rolls-Royce from my 12th birthday." It's another thing. It's not even fun. You know what I mean? Like, you're calling the DMV. It seemed like he was testing to see if he could actually convince full-fledged adults who know what they're doing that he, this little high school kid, has two Rolls-Royce's. Mm-hmm. And he was successful. Successfully won. He doesn't have a car. Successfully contubed into paying for the titles that everyone just sent him. And every day he would just tell anyone who would listen. The only way to have a better life is to go to America. And they all laughed because, I mean, that's a big dream to go to America, you know? So a little bit after high school, he meets this nice little American couple. I mean, this was completely by chance. It was Almer and Jean from California, they went their rental car because it was just braining. I mean, they were desperately lost. They were trying to visit Adolf Hitler's country house in the Alps, which I'm wondering. I mean, I don't know. Do they do tours there? What's the purpose? I'm not really sure. It's just a little bit strange. But they're like, "Yeah, let's go to fucking Hitler's house." Okay? Last thing I would ever say, let's go to Hitler's house, what the fork? Okay, why would you have here in Germany? I'm sorry, I judge you a little bit if that's where you want to go. I'm sure there's a reason. So anyways, they get lost and they find this young man hitchhiking in the rain. Well, they're like, okay, this guy looks nice, let's pull over, give him a ride, and maybe he can point us in the direction of a safe hotel to stay out tonight. Okay, so they open up the door and in comes 18-year-old Christian. I mean, he was handsome. He was so well-mannered for his age, I mean, it seemed like he came from a family with pedigree. Do you know what I'm talking about? Sometimes you meet these kids and you're like, what do your parents do for a living because you have a better vocabulary than I do? Yeah. I mean, this is wild. Any kept insisting? No, I insist you random couple from California. Please stay at my home. So they drive him home, they get out, and they thought it was a little bit strange because Christian didn't even bother to tell his parents his plans. Just literally marched in with this, you know, couple from California saying, hey mom, hey dad. I have guests over today. Yeah, I have guests over today, like they're just gonna be spending the night. Make sure you feed them well. So they hang out, they watch movies, and you know, Christians like, oh yeah, one day I'm gonna go to America soon. I'm gonna become a filmmaker. Hollywood, that's where I'm gonna go. Oh, cool. So they have a great time, and they even gave Christian their contact info before leaving. They're like, if you ever find yourself in the US, especially California, let's grab lunch, you know, we owe you, you saved our lives. But they kind of really shake this strange feeling. This guy's just in his own little world. I mean, this guy, he's acting like he lives in LA, but he's living in this small town in Germany. There was just like a huge disconnect from even Christian and his own family members, but also the German culture. It just was a little bit strange, they said, you know, it's a little detached from reality. Then Christian, soon again, meets another American, Peter. Oh, man, I mean, this guy's American. Ruck up your array. Anyway, not important, he was about 18 years old, lived in Connecticut. He had graduated, wanted to do like a tour of Europe before he starts college, met Christian on a train, and Christian was just so nice. Shockingly nice, especially because Christian told him, you know, my dad, he's a higher up at Mercedes Benz. You have to need a discount on a, on a Benz, I got you. His life was filled with privilege, but this kid was somewhat humble. So they exchanged their contact information, promised to meet again one day, but really, I mean, are you going to probably not? So they part their ways. But Christian had exactly what he wanted. Not just American friends, but their names and their addresses, because when you apply for tourist visa in the US, he had to put their names and their addresses as his sponsors. Without them knowing. Oh, that's wild. So he lands in Boston, he calls up his mom, okay, and he's like, mom, I lost all my luggage, you need to send me more money for clothes. That's a lie. He didn't lose his luggage. Then he calls up Peter. Peter's like, what the heck? I didn't know you were coming this soon. Well, okay, well, I mean, I guess it makes sense, your dad. So Rich, you probably come to the States all the time. Yeah, my mom can pick you up from the airport. I'm a little bit busy right now, but we'd love to have you. So he goes to Peter's house. They even help him enroll in high school, which is strange, because he already graduated high school in Germany, okay? But all of his papers were in German. So nobody thought to call or get a translator or do anything. They were just like, you know what? I believe this child, okay? So he's a senior in high school and instead of just staying for that semester. Christian was looking for long-term solutions, looking for a host family for a foreign exchange student. And that is when Gwen Savio answered his ad, okay? His newspaper ad. She had already hosted a few other students. She's got four kids of her own. And it was just like a really enriching experience. Her kids got to be exposed to different cultures. She had a son around Christian's age. I mean, this was perfect. So they set up Christian in the living room. He started sleeping there. And almost immediately, he started flexing on his host family. Just full on. You know, my dad's a higher-up at Mercedes and he talked in this really strange. I mean, they knew that he was a foreign exchange student from Germany, but he talked in like an upper west side, New York City prep school. Like, okay, so for example, the son's name is Ed, Edward, but they call him Ed, right? So an American would say, "Oh, hey, Ed." He would say, "Hello, Ed. Where is my bed?" Okay, that was really bad. But he would just try to. It's not necessarily a California Valley girl accent, but he drags out like the middle of words. Okay. And that is typically known as a prep school accent. Got it. So he's trying hard to be that already. Yeah, like a think New York Connecticut, those types of people have this type of accent. So he starts going to school and everyone thought he was weird. I mean, he was so outgoing, he was so curious, was obsessed with American culture, and he was really, really confident. These all sound like great attributes, right? You're like, "Wow, that's a great personality." No, just pureed. I mean, he was really old for his age. He loved classical music, film noir, with his favorite movies. He would randomly wear cowboy boots with like swim trunks. Okay, that's his only unique style. Yeah, I think he thought it was very American. So he was like, "This is life." Americans like to wear swimming trunks. And they like cowboys, so this makes sense, right? And initially he got along really well with his host family. He could talk about anything, even for his age. I mean, he was well versed in stocks, bonds, banking, real estate, anything. You name it. Classical music, classic black and white movies. I mean, even history. He knew everything. Just not basic knowledge. He could have an in-depth conversation with professionals. And eventually, Christian starts fighting with his host family. I mean, he just had so much audacity. He would say things like, "My father wouldn't let me talk to such peasants like yourselves." They would serve him dinner, and he would say, "Well, we have servants bring out our food." He would say things like, "Oh, we're eating the same thing again." I would never live like this. I mean, that's just me. And my family, I would never live like this, you know? Okay. It was just weird, 'cause you are living like that right now. What's going on, right? Now the final straw came when Christian didn't answer the door for the little daughter of the family. He was home watching a movie. Did he hear? We don't know. Did he just not care? We don't know. She was standing outside in the front door in the freezing cold for hours. Okay. So the family was like, "You gotta get out of here. You're an asshole, okay?" So they kick him out, and he didn't even apologize. His last words to the family. He didn't even thank you, but was, you know what? I was in the mood for something better anyway. Oh my God. He just want to kick him in a little slap. So somehow, he gets accepted into the University of Wisconsin, and he starts studying political science. Now the guy's roommate, okay? Christian's roommate remembers his first impression with just bizarre. He walks in with a tiny little suitcase and a whole set of golf clubs. Like it's just weird. He would think that you would bring more clothes than like golf clubs. Oh man. And he started telling them how his dad is in the witness protection program. He was a higher up executive in the FBI. I mean, are they called executives? I don't know, okay? He was one of the higher ups of the FBI. Just did really, really hush, hush stuff. And then after a semester, he just vanished. He had moved to Wisconsin. But he didn't move under the name of Christian. He called himself Christopher Gerhardt. So he had shortened his last name and went by Christopher. So he started saying by the local college again, you know, and he says, "I am Christopher." And he says that he's really looking for a wife. That's what he's in town for. Not because he wanted to settle down, not because he wants to start a family, but you guessed it. He wants that green card. So one of his church friends, they got their sister to agree to it. I don't know how, but her name was Amy. And he told her that he needs citizenship because he's going to be sent and enlisted into the German army. And look at him. I mean, this guy just looks, looks like Prap Skool. He's going to die on the front lines. Look at him with his little sweater. I don't think he's worn any shoes besides those spares, like those boat shoes. This guy can't do it. Cowboy boots. And cowboy boots, you know? Like, that's just impossible. So what was in it for Amy? She never really said. I mean, she said she doesn't remember money being involved. Not even like $100. And at 20 years old, he marries Amy in the courthouse. They didn't even grab lunch after. They never saw each other again. Why? She just got legally married. He got his green card. And after he received the paper, she divorced him by putting an ad in the local newspaper. I don't know how that works, okay? Don't be asking me questions. Just check the local L.A. Times because I might be putting out an ad. And so immediately, he moves to California to meet the couple that he had met in Germany. Now, they were excited to see him. He had given them a ring before, but they didn't recognize him. He had went from, like, he was wearing leather jackets at one point in Germany. Then he went to, you know, because America was going through that hippie face. So he started dressing like a hippie, but now he's just throwing it. He looks like LeCost threw up on him. Just at their front door, just 100% Ivy League gift shop vibes, okay? Like, what is happening right now? Why are you dressed like that? Why are you wearing a red Yale baseball cap? Like, I don't understand. Nobody does that for fun. And he said, "Well, listen. I'm here because I want a new name." I'm going to make it in show business. Nobody uses their real name in show business. It's not cool enough. enough, so he starts going through the local phone bugs to find his next last knit. But he had heard of a fancy last name that he couldn't get out of his mind. Chee Chester. So you're thinking, "Wait a minute, I've heard of this last name before." The Chee Chester family is actually a very, very famous British family. They're like British nobility. They have a family crest. Do you know what that is? The coat of arms. It's pretty much a forking logo for your family. That's how bougie they are. You know? Like you can't just have a logo for your family unless you're somebody, right? Why can't we make a logo? For family. Yeah. I don't know. Why is that? So I mean, they're a family with rich history of being rich. They're rich history of being rich, okay? So they had medieval bishops. The Bishop of Exeter was part of the family. You know, all of the women in the family were called lady of blah, blah, blah. Like they weren't just, "Oh, that's freaking Stephanie over there." "Lady Stephanie of Rotten Mango." That was a nice ring to it actually. That was nice, yeah. They had barons in the ranks, which was a nobility rank that is considered like a Lord. That's what they're called, right? But lower than a count. There's levels to this. Even through in a middle name, Mount Baton. You're thinking, "Oh my God, I know that name too, right?" The last name of some of the British dynasty before they changed their last name to Windsor. So for example, Prince Harry and Meghan, they named their son Archie Mount Baton, Hyphen Windsor. So, I mean, these are some crazy names that you're throwing out there. So his official name was Christopher Mount Baton, Chi Chester, which I mean, what a name. So fancy. For what? Imagine I had just changed my name. Like Stephanie Kardashian Bezos from the House of Versailles. Like just putting together random ass names to make something fancy. Yeah, you just picked the most classy name, don't you? I did. So Christopher Mount Baton, Chi Chester. He moves to the outskirts of LA in this beautiful town called San Marino, California. He claimed that his dad as a lawyer and his mom is an architect, but also a world-renowned actress. Primarily in Europe, you wouldn't know her because you're not cultured in the States. Christopher had this very strong English accent as if he was from England, you know. Nobody ever suspected that he had any German blood in him. Even fellow Germans in San Marino. That's how, I mean, that's how great he was at language, to be honest. He would introduce himself, kiss the hands of every woman that he meant. And they all just thought, wow, this guy really must be something for his parents and school to teach him these things. I mean, this is a real gentleman. He would tell everyone that he was a nephew or direct descendant of the Mount Batons. But he was obviously in poor relation with British nobility, you know. So his mom is living in Switzerland and the rest of the family is England and he just thought, why don't I come to the US? Why don't I come to one of the former colonies, America, and see what I can do here in this small community? So he starts going to church, city council meetings, really becoming part of the town. I mean, everybody was stoked to have him. Think of San Marino as like an extension of Beverly Hills, okay? You're talking about a lot of board housewives who are competitive within our parties. So to get Christopher Mount Baton Cheechester on your dinner party list, listen, you could flex on all your haters for the next year. I mean, he spent most of his time at libraries reading rare books. The Huntington Library was his favorite spot to go. It's a botanical garden we've been before. It was so hot. That's all I remember. That's it. That's my only memory, okay? They have a lot of rare books over there. And he claimed he just moved into his family's property. 1405 Circle Drive. This is one of the biggest houses on the street just filled with mansions. Imagine being the biggest mansion amongst mansions. What a life, okay? Were he bought the house? No, but he claimed he lived there. Zillow estimates it's around $14 million. Jesus! Yeah, though nobody was ever invited over. And the ladies of the church who dropped him off, I mean, they always stopped at the end of the street. And they thought, well, you know, that's how private and weird and eccentric rich people are. See, if you're middle class and you do something weird, you're known as weird or creepy. But if you're rich and you do something weird, you're known as eccentric. Did you know rich people? Yeah. Like, it's just ridiculous. So he starts going to that local church scamming housewives into giving him loans. He even got a local newspaper to cover his arrival, descendant of Sir Francis Cheachaster, knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. You know, like it was, wow, can you guys believe it? We have a celebrity. So you're thinking this guy's walking on thin ice. I mean, this is just like two Google searches away from being exposed. But the lies only got bolder. He told a woman that he was trying to date, trying to court, that he produced a very classic British series called The Prisoner. Now she looked it up. She would have realized that that came out when he was seven years old. How is he a producer for that? At seven years old. A very prominent member of the town begged Christopher, please take my daughter out on a date. Carol is lonely. So he picks her up for a date, and Carol was super excited, but she was shocked. I mean, she thought it was going to be a lunch date. He'd pick her up in a beat down car. His clothes up close just looked so old, and he had to run errands with her. Never even got lunch with her. And then just dropped her off. And allegedly inside of his car, they were post-it notes everywhere. Now, it wasn't post-it notes like this guy has dementia needs to remember these things, or like he has a bad memory. He needs to do lists, right? No, these were like random things that allegedly looked like he was writing down what he had told people to keep his lies in check. Oh my gosh. So looking at it in my car, it says Stephanie, 25 years old. Like it's weird. So why is he showing up with all these? I don't know. So afterwards she tries to tell everyone like this guy's creepy. This guy's weird, I don't know. But everyone just said, "You know rich people." I mean, the really rich people, they don't like showing up. Of course they drive these down cars. Yeah. The richest people of the building. Did you know Mark Zuckerberg drives a Honda? Did you know, Warren Buffett still live at the $400,000 house that he owned since 50 years ago. And he only eats McDonald's, which he owns this much shares of. And he also has up. Oh yeah. Many private properties elsewhere. And he also owns a private jet to get there. And anytime he wants. But you know, he drives a Honda. He's just like you and me. I'm like these people are doing propaganda for rich people, okay? Rich people are obnoxious. Let's just keep it that way. Now, and they would always say listen, listen, listen, Carol. That's the difference between old money and new money. He's a cheatchester. He's a Mountbatten. That's old money. They will drive Lamborghinis. That's some Kardashian, okay? So, I'm just saying. Now, one of the people that not only really truly believed Christopher, but really liked him was a woman by the name of Dee Dee Sohu. Now, she, her life, has been rough. She had went through multiple different husbands. They were all somewhat wealthy, but they, um, she had an adopted son by the name of John. They lived in Dee Dee's childhood house in San Marino. But eventually, her relationships didn't work. So Dee Dee was left a single mom to John. She decided she's got a, you know, get a job. She's got this nice property worth quite a bit. But she needs to live there. I mean, Ellie is really one of those places where, yeah, okay. You could sell your property for a lot of money, but then where you're going to live, everything's so expensive, right? Yeah. She starts working out like an auto shop part time, and the guest house was available. So she brands it out. And Christopher, a cheatchester. Honestly, I don't know what kind of reason he gave Dee Dee. Probably that his massive house is having some interior work done. Or he wants to be hashtag relatable and trying to live like the normal people for once. So the whole setup of Dee Dee's house was you got the main house where Dee Dee lived with John, her adoptive son, and his new wife Linda, right? And then in the guest house was Christopher cheatchester. Now, John did not really get along with Christopher in the sense like they really didn't know each other. And he of John's friends knew of Christopher as the guy in the guest house. They had no idea that he was a cheatchester, allegedly, or like a mountain, nothing. Just the guy in the guest house. Now, John, for example, I mean, he was just really smart. Like, that's what people describe him as. It's a bit shy, really smart, very trusting of a person. Bit of a mama's boy. I mean, this man loved his computer. So it was his main passion in life. He was good at them. Hung out with the nerdy group of people in high school, played Dungeons and Dragons. And that's where he met Linda Mayfield. She was the opposite. Strawberry blonde hair, six feet tall. John is only five foot five, okay? She was outgoing, fun, loving person. It worked at a bookstore, her priorities were Star Trek, her six cats. And she wanted to buy a horse. She's saving up money to buy a horse. Now, they're living in DD's house and they're like, we got to get out of here. We got to keep saving money so we can get our own place. Because they're new leaflets. Come on. Now, one day Linda approaches her best friend Sue. Sue Kaufman and says, yeah. And says, hey, John just got offered the job of a lifetime. Like, it's crazy. It's a top secret government job. He's going to be programming. Well, I don't want to drop names but like, think like, you know, three letter agencies. What? KFC. Precisely. So in New York City, we have to leave soon, okay? But we can't tell people where we're going or what we're doing or even who we're working for. So I'm going to drop my cats off at a cat hotel. And yeah, we're going to be back in a couple of weeks. But they never came back. We saw Linda and husband John left. They just vanished. They left their truck. They left their cats. They left everything. And just vanished. So Sue and all of Linda's friends and John's friends were calling up D.D. Like, what happened to them? Now, to give you some perspective, D.D. had a bit of a drinking problem. So she just kept telling them, I can't tell you. I promise not to tell. They're on a mission. I can't jeopardize the mission. And around that time, Christopher had asked and said, neighbor to borrow a chain saw. Strange, 'cause he's not really the type to do yard work. And soon his chimney was pumping out some of the nastiest smells that you could ever think. So they're like, "Oh my god, Christopher, what's going on with your chimney in the guest house?" Oh, you know, I had this rug that had a bunch of bugs in it, so I had a burn it so that the bugs would live there in the larvae. You get it. Fascinating. Another neighbor saw a fresh hole in the ground. You're like, "Wow, how do these neighbors see everything? Um, just go like Google Street Maps of LA. The houses are pretty much on top of each other so you could just peer on over, right? So they see a fresh hole in the ground. What's going on?" Oh, just some plumbing issues. Around the same time of the couple's disappearance. So finally, police were called two months after they disappeared, but they said there's no foul play. I mean, yeah, it's a bizarre story to say that the couple had a top secret government job, but maybe they just, "Hey, you guys, maybe they just want to start fresh. Maybe they just want to be left alone." Nothing would really be done for another decade, but in the meantime, Christopher was the king of the house. I mean, D.D. was too drunk, too busy to notice that he was slowly taking over, and eventually he too vanished. And D.D. broke down to the police, told them I was told that my son and his wife were, you know, doing a top secret government job. Who told you that? Christopher. Christopher cheat-chester. But I can't find him anywhere to ask him more questions, and he moved out. And she soon after that died of a heart attack. It's speculated by locals later that Christopher was stealing money from D.D., or maybe John and Linda had found out the real truth behind Christopher cheat-chester, and he had tried to kill John, so that his secret wouldn't be out. And Linda had always just been this protector of John. I mean, she was the one that always shielded him from things. He was a little bit paranoid, right? So she was the one that, like, she was the stable one. I mean, she kept everything in check for the couple. She was really his rock, so maybe in the process, he had to kill Linda to get her out of the way. Before that speculation, though, locals would just sit there and speculate, what before it happened at John and Linda, but more importantly, what happened to our wonderful dinner guest, Christopher cheat-chester. Around this same time, in Greenwich, Connecticut, a new man arrived in town, Christopher Crow. So he just kept changing the names. Oh, yeah, and then it was going to get crazy, OK? So he had drove John and Linda's truck to Connecticut, claimed that he was Christopher Crow. You're thinking, well, who the fork is that? OK? It's an acclaimed writer/director/producer who was working on a new series with Alfred Hitchcock. OK, this is like a, like, think, I guess, of our time. This would be, I don't know any really good directors. Wait, so it's a real person. Yeah, it's a real person. He stole their identity. Just stole their identity. Starts going to the local church. Super famous. This is a wealthy area. This is where George, senior, George Bush senior's mom went to this church. A bunch of Rockefellers had passed through this church when they were living in Greenwich, Connecticut, which by the way, Greenwich, Connecticut, is in the suburbs of New York, essentially. I mean, it's in Connecticut, but you can easily get to New York City, which is why it is the home of a lot of hedge fund managers, investment bankers. It's the 12th highest income in the nation, home to 12 of the richest men in the world. All these single girls are like, yeah, I'm going, I'm going, don't ask me why I'm going to Greenwich, but I'm going. I heard they have really good food, OK? The medium home price was $2.5 million. I mean, this is a gnarly of a place. Gnarly, like there's billionaires just live in here. It's crazy. So you rent a room from an elderly couple in a really nice place. OK, how does he afford these? They rented out for cheap. So this rich people are weird. So this rich people, they have this, like, I don't know. I think I was like 16 bedroom house. All their kids moved out doing big things. They're bored. So they put up a little bullet in that church room for rent, just so they can have some extra liveliness in the house, but it was super cheap. So Christopher Crowe moves on in, right? He even gets pictures with George Bush's brother, Prescott Bush. That's a name, right? He got it. What? He gets pictures with Prescott Bush, like he's just hanging out rubbing shoulders with all these rich people in Connecticut. He becomes a prominent member of that prestigious church and starts hanging out with people just saying, yeah, I'm a producer. Every single piece of clothing that he wore had a monogram. It could be his socks. They had a monogram. C, C, C Christopher, Cheechester Crowe. That was his new name. I mean, just bizarre, right? He meets all these other fellow film students, you know, that are sons and daughters of these really, really well-off families. They go to Columbia University. They're studying film. And they're like, wow, that's so cool. You're working on this Alfred Hitchcock series. They would drop him off to set and sure enough, there would be people working on this set. And they would just run up to them and start barking orders. And they would drive away. Like, wow, this guy really is who he says he is. Bizarre. Bizarre. Then he gets freaking kicked out of there. They're like, wait, who are you? That's what I always wondered. I wonder like the idea of if you put on one of those orange vests and you just go into a middle of a street and start directing traffic. And no one's going to question it, right? No one's going to try to bump into you and be like, you know what? I think you're an imposter. True. Until the cars start crashing into each other. They're like, wait a minute. I don't think this guy knows what he's doing. So then he gets a new job, a part time job. He says, you know what? Yeah, I'm a world-renowned producer. I work with, you know, the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, but it's truly boring. I want to get it into like investment businesses. So he gets a job as a techie for a Phelps in Company run by Stan Phelps. This guy is freaking loaded, okay? So the way that he gets introduced is he met an employee at a yacht club. He was like, oh, yeah, you work for a Phelps in Company. I would love to work them so good with computers gets hired immediately. And on his application, his social security number, guess what he put? What? They did not check it, okay? Because if they had checked it immediately, they would realize that is the social security number for David Berkowitz, the son of Sam Cyril killer in New York City. Literally what? I mean, just bizarre. So he starts work in there. He's always wearing the newest Burberry Brooks Brothers. Now it's suspected that he was stealing half a cent in volume off of the client's portfolios. Half a cent? Yeah. So he was stealing like half a cent off of all of these rich people. And Phelps in Company is like a huge firm. Half a cent. Yeah. So in volume, he was stealing a lot, like a per trade or something like that. Like he was suspected of stealing half a cent, like a bajillion times. I see. Yeah, because he's shaving every, like a little bit off the top front every transaction. So little that you wouldn't even really, especially when you're dealing with like millions of dollars of investments. It's not like, you know, people are penny pinching and coming to Phelps in Company, right? So he was always wearing the newest Burberry Brooks Brothers, which people thought was weird because even most of them, I mean, they came from money. They're working at this place. They're getting paid more than him. And he's dressed like he runs this town. So then one day Stan Phelps wanted access to his computer. This is a big boss in town. He says, okay, like show me how to log in because you have this new little security system going on. And Christopher wouldn't let him. He said, I can log in for you, but I don't think you should have access. Now Stan Phelps is like, what the fuck are you doing? You're making it feel like you want to be irreplaceable because without you, I can't access my company. That doesn't make sense. No one but me should have that type of power. So he fires Christopher on the spot. They would not know until later about his social security number. This is important later, okay? Somehow Christopher gets another job at Nico Securities, a Japanese brokerage firm not only did he get a job, but he became the vice president of their new department. The minimum sale price that he would be working with was $1 million and he would be bringing home close to $300,000 a year, not including bonuses. And on Wall Street bonuses are everything, right? So he's so excited. Everyone's stoked to have him even made the news that he was a new vice president, a cheat tester. He was non-stop working over time, all the time in his office just talking to a bunch of people. He knew like five different languages. So he'd be speaking him French. He'd be speaking in German on the phone just doing the most, but he never closed his sale. Not one. So I mean, it's hard to bullsh*t people that have been doing this for years, you know? Even though he knows a lot is just too much, he would tell all of his co-workers that he had a fleet of cars for Rory's, Alfa Romeo's, Lamborghini's. But anytime he went out to meet them, he would drive in his broken down maids car, you would say. That's my maids car. Where's your Ferrari, Christopher? Oh, you know, we're having electrical problems and so my garage door has been stuck for months. You know, rich people think. You know. So he starts, you know, showing his weird side at work, yelling at people when they pick up small things on his desk, offering random girls that he liked, jobs, like he'd walk into Starbucks and he'd see a priest and he'd be like, you want to work on Wall Street? Let's go. They're like, you can't just do that. That's not okay. And then one day Stan Phelps calls the manager of Niko Securities. Yeah, Niko Securities and says, hey, I heard this guy's working for you. Let me tell you about his social security number. You know, David Berkowitz. So he tells him the whole thing. I don't know who that guy is. So that's when he found out. Oh, yeah. Yeah, after months, you know, and he's already moved on to his new firm Stan Phelps is like, run the social security of this motherfucker. They run it. It's David Berkowitz. they call it the new place they think this guy is David no they're just like what's wrong with this guy oh they're just like you probably shouldn't hire a guy like this because I mean what kind of person uses a serial killer social security number so you guys didn't do something so he wasn't thinking this is the serial killer's kid who was just thinking something special about that dude and as like a fellow rich person you know I'm gonna give you the lowdown yeah so he gets fired and hired immediately at a prestigious securities firm called Kidder Peabody and Company which it's no longer around but at the time it was like one of the biggest divisions in the world okay he starts working in the investment banking section selling Euro bonds which apparently selling bonds is like the easier job in the industry because bonds kind of sell themselves is what they say I don't know it doesn't take a rocket scientist that's what they said okay but he never really sold anything meanwhile California starts taking a look at cold cases and they reopen that cold case of John and Linda especially because their truck had been reported in Connecticut why is their truck in Connecticut someone had tried to register for new plates so they track that person down the Connecticut police department and it was a guy who went to the same church as Christopher Crow and said oh this Christopher Crow person he gave me his truck he said that he had already paid it off didn't need it anymore and just gave it to me all I had to do was transfer the title to my name and play for the registration fees and I like well it's actually the truck of a missing couple where's Christopher Crow he's like well last time I heard he got a job at Stan Phelps then they went to Stan Phelps then they went to Niko Securities then they ended up at Keter Kidder Peabody and Company I love the name yeah these names are so better Peabody Kidder Peabody and the worst part is they didn't have a warrant so unless Christopher Crow wanted to talk to them they had no proof of crime was committed they had no proof that Christopher was guilty they couldn't even interrogate him but they tried to talk to him and that scared Christopher and he left he told everybody at work that he's got to go his parents were kidnapped in Japan he had to go save them so he vanished from the face of the earth for four years nobody really knew where he was now around the same time something big was happening in New York City I mean maybe not big big but exciting a Rockefeller with socializing at the biggest church in New York City on Fifth Avenue called St. Thomas Church if you've been a tourist in New York City I've seen this church as a tourist you know it's massive it's huge it looks like a cathedral it's the type of place you go if you want to be somebody or if you already are someone so he starts introducing himself not as Christopher Crow but as Clark Rockefeller now let me give you a little brief history lesson on the Rockefeller's okay this is one of the richest families in America they are in the industrial political banking industries I mean I believe fortune no Forbes named it like the 43rd richest family in America which what's not even top 30 with so sad do better Rockefellers come on it all started with a poor man by the name of John D Rockefeller and his brother David he would actually John D Rockefeller would actually become the world's first billionaire to exist he grew up in poverty his parents moved him to New York when he was 14 and ever since then he started working did some bookkeeping jobs then he started noticing that oil was booming in the US so he bought up a refinery within two years became the largest in the region and he was actually standard oil company his company was one of the first to create a monopoly just bought out everybody else it was so bad that Congress even introduced the Sherman antitrust act of 1890 because of this motherfucker he was too powerful I mean it's just scary to have that much power this is a straight up villain story in the making right he was dominating the industry bought up lands so competitors couldn't even transfer oil to different regions like he was doing the absolute most but then you could say on the other side the Rockefellers have been and still are very philanthropic okay they are the Rockefeller Foundation helps promote education science arts this is my little tidbit so I don't get sued by a Rockefeller okay they're like really giving charitable people they do social research around the globe you know they get back a lot you know you might know them from the Rockefeller Center that was once owned by them before being sold to a Japanese company in New York City you know the big one they donated the land that was used for the United Nations headquarters like they're they're just huge family they did big things one of the sons David became CEO of Chase Bank and here's how quirky he is he would ride the subway to work every day you know to show everyone I didn't get here because of my connections I got here because I worked I got here by subway subway you know Chase Bank was actually one of the first western banks to open locations in China and Russia under David Rockefeller they called him the banker of all bankers this Rockefeller dude okay they have a crap ton of money about 11 billion dollars is the estimated worth of the Rockefeller Rockefeller family fortune today they also have 170 errors to the Rockefeller fortune and growing now John Rockefeller alone gave away close to 540 million dollars throughout his life which is you know quite a bit but I'm just going to tell you they're still pretty freaking ruthless okay so maybe let's not put them on the highest horse of all now you can't talk about the Rockefeller and true crime without mentioning Michael Rockefeller I'm going to lead you down a side alley but I promise it's going to be interesting okay so did you know one of the Rockefellers was actually a vice president Nelson Rockefeller was a vice president under president Ford yeah and this is very important to today's case because his son his youngest child of the family his fifth son was named Michael Clark Rockefeller so that's where the idea came from yes but he vanished and it's suspected that he was eaten by cannibals okay let me explain how the Rockefeller ended up there okay so Nelson Rockefeller the vice president I mean he was really pressuring his son Michael you got to carry on the family name look at the rest of us chase bank politics which one do you want you want to get into investment banking I got connections you want to get into politics I got connections what do you want so for most of his life he goes along with it graduates Harvard but then he realizes so I really want to do that no the only thing that gets me excited is art and his dad Nelson had opened up this museum of what they called at the time primitive art which is really like a bad thing to say because anything that they considered primitive was anything that wasn't made in the western world so it could be like the newest thing out of the career and they'd be like oh yeah primitive because it just wasn't western okay and a lot of the art was from the continent of Africa and Michael was just fascinated wanted to do something with this so his friend asked him hey I'm going to New Guinea to film a documentary do you want to go with me they're the American thing to do so they're like yeah let's go film a documentary in New Guinea so they get on a boat they get on a plane then a boat get to New Guinea and he was ecstatic at the time that he went there was a huge territory war between the Dutch and the Indonesians and they were just harassing the indigenous people of New Guinea so this was just like a really situation the documentary filming went well they go back home but he decides I want to go back and I want to study Azmat art so Azmat's were the indigenous people in New Guinea at the time and he just wanted to buy up their art really just get assimilated with their culture and he goes back to New Guinea with a Dutch anthropologist by the name of Renee now mainly Renee was his shrap around because the Dutch didn't like that Michael was doing the most like he was going into restricted areas he was acting like he owned the place not in like a not in like a colonizer way but in the sense of like he genuinely had the best of intentions like he thought that the Azmat indigenous people would just see that his intentions were pure you know and all of that so in order to get to Dutch New Guinea you have to go on a boat but their boat flipped the waters were rough they're about 12 miles from shore and they don't know what to do they're stuck so they're holding onto this boat they wait for 24 hours but Michael can't wait anymore now side note Michael rock fellers like super fit like the dude's ripped so he's thinking himself I'm just gonna swim the 12 miles to the island and get you help okay so he tells Renee the last words he said was I think I can make it and he started swimming off now Renee gets rescued the next day so he spent like a total of 48 hours out in the waters and Michael literally went missing was never seen since so after three days the Dutch finally tell the Rockefeller family oh yeah by the way we lost your billionaire son so I mean this was a historic search they had land see prided investigators just helicopters just the whole nine yards they searched for close to two weeks and the government said well you know maybe he was eaten by a shark because there's a lot of sharks in the water but they're really docile like they were never known for attacking humans so nobody believed that they kept searching and then you know the Dutch said well maybe he drowned because you know that doesn't make sense but if he had drowned then why didn't his body or his clothes wash ashore yet that does not make sense so in order to understand this let me tell you about asthma death culture okay so they practiced cannibalism after death the indigenous people of New Guinea their death culture was very different from what we practice here right and they practiced cannibalism not in the sense that we know it in true crime but in the sense of they believed cannibalizing the remains of their ancestors was important because it meant that they continued to live on within you and they had a process for it this was strong in their beliefs I mean can you really say it's stranger than putting your dead loved ones into a giant oven and baking them until they turn into a powder and then what you put the powder in front of your TV and you just watch keeping up with the Kardashians just all day every day and that's what your grandma I got to listen to now or sometimes you sprinkle them in the ocean for the little poop poop like I don't know what's weirder right and they were huge on balance if you die your spirit has to go to a spiritual figure that they believe in but if you don't go then you're gonna cause bad balance on the island okay so four years before Michael gets there a lot of their leaders of the indigenous people because there's different tribes and they were kind of like rivals at one point were murdered by the Dutch like straight up just mass occurred by this white man and this is important I'm not just saying like white man to say it like this white man keep this in mind and the indigenous people believed that there was this huge in balance on the island spiritually speaking so the theory is that Michael died and he was cannibalized some say that Michael was killed upon getting onto the island because they felt like they had to fix the imbalance some of these people not all of the indigenous but maybe like a select couple of men decided well if we eat a white man after a white man killed us maybe that'll fix the imbalance some thought that he was the murderer he was the son of the murderer that white Dutch man right so they're like well we got to kill him and it's alleged that they made spears out of his bones eat his brains we don't know that for sure there's another theory that he was not murdered nor was he killed but he had you know he drowned and he had washed ashore and because of their huge idea of imbalance they're like well we can't let this body just rot because he's not gonna pass on spiritually and then after they cannibalized him they realized we just ate a Rockefeller imagine telling the Rockefeller family that like guys it's just in our tradition like you're not gonna get away with that and then there's one other theory there was a video that came out recently well not recently but a little while after of a very Caucasian-looking man with the Azmat tribe and people thought well maybe it's Michael Rockefeller he just hated being a Rockefeller wanted to live a very different life and he was accepted by the indigenous people a lot of theories yeah so that was the story of Michael Clark Rockefeller and now let's get back to Clark Rockefeller so is he trying to beat that person or no okay but just borrow part of the name yeah but Clark Rockefeller doesn't exist so he starts making his rounds with the elite of New York City nobody had a reason to doubt him I mean he had the Rockefeller chin and the nose some may even say that his eyes were beaty looking which is a staple in the Rockefeller jeans okay those beaty little eyes what's beating like yeah it's not really a compliment like little eyes that just dart back and forth you know those little beaty eyes but Clark's story wasn't as glamorous as most Rockefellers he said no no no I wasn't from I wasn't from John's side that's the ultra-rich part of the clan I am from Percy Rockefeller so we're less rich his parents were killed in a car accident when he was young but you know what he persevered he got accepted into Yale at 14 years old he works heavily with business in Asia so at one point he was a nuclear physicist for Asian countries and then he became a debt advisor so what would he do he would sit in his New York City office and advise third world countries in Asia on how to handle their debt debt consolidation just bizarre but he would never charge for it because these are third world countries and he's a Rockefeller he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart whenever he would go out and meet people he would not talk on and on about the Rockefellers like he did with his other identities because Rockefellers the type of name that has much more power if you drop it casually drop the name step back shut up and let the name do the talking and that's what he did but everything else he talked about I mean it sounded like he knew what he was doing he was a world-class sailor had many sailing boats knew a lot about sailing boats recently sold one of his boats to Mariah Carey hated her hated her because she's gonna use it as a pleasure but what kind of new money type of fool uses a world-class sailing boat to throw parties disgusting he would take people to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and he knew everything about every single piece he would take them to the Metins I oh this is Michael Clark Rockefeller collection that's my cousin who disappeared in New Guinea you'd say that people would be invited to his nice apartment and inside was just all law and furniture like you know once that you would put in your porch like the wicker chairs not like real furniture but they thought well he's rich he's eccentric wait why why does he do that I don't know because it's cheap you might be thinking well Stephanie I would never fall for that because if I saw law and furniture I'd be like you know what that's not eccentric that's that's some serial killer vibes but I mean everything else this guy did was really strange he would only eat white food what's that it wasn't a YouTube challenge he would just really only eat white food just white bread with cucumbers on there and if he were eating cookies they could only be like the white sugar cookies he only ate white food white color food yeah okay weird weird hit an art collection he would show off he had originals he had a Rothko original worth about 30 million dollars and he started becoming you know he started being courted by the art dealers in the area including the infamous no learned company do you remember no learned company we did a case on them 80 million dollars of art fraud went through no learned company yeah they were sold and resold and turns out bunch of fakes they wanted to help Clark Rockefeller sell his Rothko's but it's obviously a fake great they said it looked real a lot of our dealers said it looked real but he didn't want to sell it because art should be appreciated not monetized which honestly they said it's on brand for a Rockefeller they're all obsessed with art the whole family so it makes sense and that is when someone from church introduced him to Sandra boss she was a well-respected daughter of a Boeing engineer worked really hard super ambitious I'm talking Harvard business school works for huge companies I mean she was a career driven woman right love it for a site I mean they hit it off so strong it was it obviously helped that he was a Rockefeller but not too bad looking respectable man just one of the most intelligent people that she had ever met in her entire life never doubted a single thing that he said he wasn't obsessed with material stuff which everyone thought well that's just how the really rich are that's old money class you know long furniture in your living room that's old money vibes he was respectable of her being a career driven woman he wasn't like the type that's like oh my god you make so much money because he's a Rockefeller he's not intimidated by money he knows money more than anybody else does and they just I mean it was true true love he was so sweet brought her gifts romance to her to the depths of hell and back and soon he proposed and they had this tiny little ceremony where none of Clark's friends or family attended and the only problem that they had was before getting married there were some huge legal battles because Clark claimed he had to settle a lawsuit with the U.S. Navy so his parents were arms dealers so they sold weapons to the U.S. government and some of those well weapons malfunctioned killing a bunch of U.S. soldiers so then he was sued for 50 million dollars he had to cough it up that was most of his inheritance and he had to pay it off otherwise you know if he gets married to Sandra Sandra could be targeted Sandra's money could be targeted so he gave up his entire inheritance for Sandra for love so he came into the marriage with no Rockefeller money and she was okay with it he is really good at making up these stories yeah who even thinks of that and it's crazy because everyone points out if he didn't spend all this time I mean this guy smart yeah this guy could easily truly make it on Wall Street or really any industry that he wanted I mean that's I mean that's kind of what he's way of making it right now like just kind of finding opportunities here and there and just keep going at it but what I think a lot of people pointed out is that if he had actually used this smart to to do really do something good he would actually make more money yeah but I feel like he's too big of a like yeah or like yeah just looking for any loopholes that he can yeah I don't think he can help himself like if he just worked at like a you know one of these banking companies and seems like he's been doing this ever since he was what 14 you said yeah super young that's so weird what a what a weird character I mean Sandra truly believed him even when her friends started questioning her she would stand up for her husband so they just all assumed maybe there's like this big story that she knows but we don't really need to know right meanwhile in California Sue Kaufman was being haunted Sue is Linda's best friend remember and she vanished with her husband on the secret mission in her dreams Linda would come and she would say hey I'm back and she'd be so happy and she would wake up and realize it was just a dream and Linda isn't back and she felt like Linda is telling her don't give up on me so she reached out to the and harass the police they kept pushing her off she even wrote to unsolved mysteries but they said we're not really interested thank you not too long after that the new owner of DD's house wanted to put in a pool so they start digging you get the drift they find John's body they never find Linda's body so they air that unsolved mysteries episode they say we're looking for Christopher Chi Chester could be also going under the alias of Christopher Crow they luminalled the inside of the guest house showed a ton of blood the thing was filled with blood right so they're like we got to find this person but it didn't matter because you know the people who saw it in New York City they would never think that it was Clark Rockefeller he was untouchable even his wife I mean he was the one in charge of that relationship he would walk her to work hated her having friends turned into a completely different person after marriage called all of her friends tacky spent hours berating her every single day meanwhile she didn't even have time to figure out what was wrong with her relationship because she was so busy working she worked for a huge consulting company and and had ties with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, like these were her clients. - To be fair, the Rockefeller last name did open doors for her as well, right? And she had asked him. - Oh wait, she's at Rockefeller too. - Yeah. - Oh wow. - She had asked him, "Listen, you're not making any money doing debt stuff for third world countries, we get it, you're a philanthropist or whatever." But why don't we sell a painting? Just one. Just one. You don't even like 'em that much, right? We just have them up in our apartment, like donate it even to a museum. Let's do something with them. And he said, "Well, I can't, the paintings are owned by a trust, and I can't sell it for the next 10 years." - You know, rich people should. - Trust, stuff, you know. And so slowly Clark started taking over everything. She would deposit the checks. He would pay the bills, take care of the house, and honestly, it got to a point. If she wanted to spend her own hard-earned money because she was the sole money maker in the house, she would practically have to ask him. Meanwhile, her career is popping off. She was gonna be named a partner at McKinsey and Company, huge consulting firm. One of the youngest partners in the firm's history. This is a smart woman we're talking about. And he started isolating her even further. No friends, no family. Would even scream at her friends and family. Just scream at them. He would deprive her of sleep. 'Cause, you know, she's getting lack of sleep from work. She's getting lack of sleep 'cause they're always fighting at home. He would feed her like very little amounts of food. She would be starving a lot of the times. I mean, it was truly such an emotionally, mentally abusive relationship. And he was just so upset. So then he decided that they're gonna move from New York City to Nantucket, which is South of Cape Cod, which means that she would have to commute on the weekends and on weekdays she would have to stay at a hotel in New York City. And the relationship was just falling apart. She was also financially frustrated. Like, what is going on? And he would tell her, don't worry. Because of my great work with Third World Countries, I'm gonna be named as one of the board of directors on the board of the federal reserve. Do you guys know what that is? That's the people in the country that control our money. Like how much money is printed, monetary, you know, policies, they do all of that. There's less than 10 people on the board. I think it's like a seven member board. Which side note, that's very scary. That seven people are just controlling all of our stuff, right? But he was like, yeah, I'm gonna be named one of the board of directors there. So they move and eventually they find their way into Cornish, New Hampshire, which is a population of about 1500 people at the time. Small, small town. They buy this huge house with Sandra's money, but it needed the whole place needed to be gutted. Starts as Renault Projects, I mean, just HGTV, House Husband, Sandra's working all the time. He threatened to literally sue everyone in the town. I mean, this guy was just horrendous. The worst neighbor, the worst person to be around. On top of that, he was having a affairs. So she didn't know this at the time, but Sandra was done. She wanted a divorce, you know, she had been named partner. She's done with this, whatever, okay? I'm leaving you. I don't care that you're a Rockefeller, we're done. And he instantly changed. Suddenly, he was the guy that she was dating before, you know, attentive, giving her gifts, just romancing her, but she wasn't feeling it. They had sex once or twice, always use condoms, and she thinks that he did something to them because she got pregnant. She decides to stay together, and she's like, well, we gotta move though, because I hate Cornish, New Hampshire, you know, let's move to at least Boston. So they moved to Boston, and a lot of good questions popped up. In Boston, a lot of people are pretentious. Not all, but a lot. I mean, you've got like some major Ivy League and amazing prestigious prep schools over there, right? So these are smart people that he's rubbing shoulders with, not that they weren't smart in New York, right? But a lot of them were like, Clark Rockefeller, you're not listed as a Rockefeller. Like, we looked you up. He said, well, that's not my real first name. I changed it for anonymity. If you were like, well, why wouldn't you just change the Rockefeller instead? 'Cause if you were Clark, I don't know, Clark, or Clark Smith, no one's, that's anonymity for sure. But nobody really cared that much, I guess. He became members of the Algonquin Club. It's a private club. You can only really be invited in. Initiation costs are about like $100,000, and $10,000 a year just to maintain your membership. It's actually currently undergoing remodel and they're rebranding themselves to call themselves the Quinn House. It's been a gathering place for US politicians, governors, socialized, powerful attorneys, judges. I mean, this is truly the last place you wanna be if you're gonna try to have fun, okay? It's country club on steroids. They have museum quality art everywhere. And every day that he walked in, they'd say, good morning, Mr. Rockefeller, all of the staff in their uniforms. I mean, it was insane, right? So he's living that bastonian life and soon their daughter, Ray Rockefeller, was born. Now, Clark immediately controlled this little baby's life, forced her to read books, she's like two years old, and she was smart, just like her mom, super smart, after like an adult rather than a child. Sandra wanted her to socialize, but Clark felt like it was beneath her to hang out with some crusty drooling kids. He saw Ray as his real project. This is how he's gonna make money. This is how he's gonna make a name for himself. He would tell her constantly since she was like one year old, you're gonna be the first female president. You're gonna be somebody. And honestly, she probably will be because by the time she was three, she was reading like science magazines. - Oh, what in the world? - And he tried to keep mom and daughter apart. I mean, Sandra was making millions of dollars a year. He never saved a penny, spent it all, never fed Sandra enough while she was home, just evil, right? Would tell her constantly, if you even think about leaving, I'm gonna get full custody of Ray. She knew this, he knew this. But the real final straw came when he refused to let her come to parent teacher conferences. He gave the school the wrong number first, Sandra's phone. She was pissed. Finds out that Ray needs therapy. She just wasn't socialized enough for her age. If it was recess time, all the kids that would hang out, but Ray would calmly walk up to the teacher and say, what should I play with? Which, okay, well, what am I doing with these block toys? Am I trying to make something? I mean, she was so micromanaged by Clark that she couldn't even be a kid. So things, bad things were gonna happen if it kept proceeding this way, progressing this way. So finally, after 12 years, Sandra boss filed for divorce and she had to pay for his attorney too. So she hired a bunch of PIs to do some digging 'cause she realized, listen, he had saved no money. I was making millions a year. That I didn't see the money. I wasn't spending millions a year. What's going on with the money? So that PIs were mainly hired to do something called acid recovery, which is to find out if you hit away money in secret places. Meanwhile, Clark's going around telling everyone, trying to sell random stuff, telling them, Sandra took him for every penny that he's worth. She had always been a gold digger. She had always been after the Rockefeller money. He had to trade in his entire $50 million art collection just so he could even have partial custody of his daughter, evil woman. He can't even spend $200 for, you know, what do you call them? Lawn mowers, like a gardener's, without Sandra signing off on it because this divorce is just so bitter. I mean, he was really playing into that whole Beverly Hills rich man divorce combo. Like that's what he was giving. Meanwhile, the private investigators telling Sandra something weird's going on. But because we can't find a single thing about this guy. He has never felt taxes before. We can't find his name in any trust. We can't even find a social security number. There's no, you know, pedigree. There's no diplomas from anywhere. There's nothing. There's no even former job employment. Like this guy's never had a job. How is that possible? - Okay, imagine 12 years into a marriage and then you find out. - Exactly. And so she threatened to take him to court with this. Like she was going to subpoena him to come up with his real identity. And that is when he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Let's settle this out of court. So Sandra, she was terrified for her life. She wanted to transfer over to the London location, London branch of her company, right? She said, I want to take Ray to London and get away from you. He said, okay, okay. You can take her to London, whatever, who cares about her? Just give me a million dollars. Eventually they set all down $800,000. And Sandra would get full custody of Ray. And she's still until the trials never found out who this guy was. - Until the trial she found out. - Yeah. - Wow. - Or when he was arrested, yeah. - Wow. (upbeat music) - And so they would have supervised visits three times a year with a chaperone. And with that settlement, Clark Rockefeller, he bought a place in Baltimore, Maryland, right? Meanwhile, she moves on to London with their daughter. But he doesn't stay there at the new place all the time. Instead, he stays at the Algonquin Club. What a weird name, okay? So he starts staying there. And all the staff would be whispering. I mean, he's just going through such a rough time. Mr. Rockefeller is going through one of the nastiest, bitter divorces we've ever seen. He seemed truly miserable. So the day rolls around. And this day he wasn't miserable. So they asked him, "Why so happy, Mr. Rockefeller? Any good news?" Well, my little seven-year-old daughter is going to be visiting. It's going to be a supervised visit. But still, a visit nonetheless, I haven't seen her all year. So that Sunday, he wakes up, gets stressed in his little prep school outfit, khakis, Lakasha, red, yellow baseball cap. And he meets up with his supervised chaperone, his little daughter. And he says, "Well, we're going to go around town and go explore all these areas. Let's go to my driver." So there's this black SUV parked. It really is Clark's driver, OK? But before they can get inside, at this point, raise inside, and he's about to get in, and he tells the chaperone, "Hey, look over there at that building." And pushes him on the ground, jumps into the car, and the SUV just speeds off. Well, he just pushed the driver off the car. No, the chaperone. The chaperone. - So at this point, this is. - He's trying to kidnap his own daughter. - We're in the world. - Yeah. Uh-huh, he already filled his driver in. Now, the driver thought that this guy was just a clingy friend. Like, this shaperone is not a shaperone. He had no idea about this, like, you know, shaperone visits, none of the divorce ideas. He just thought this guy was just annoying. And Clark Rockefeller was offering to pay him $2,500 to get rid of his clingy friend. So that's what they did. They get into the SUV. Clark is yelling, "Go, go, go!" The shaperone tried to hang on to the car, but they drove off, causing him to slam onto the pavement and start bleeding. I mean, this is, like, full-on, vehicular assault, right? According to the driver, Clark said the OG plan was to go sailing. They're gonna go sailing for the day. But instead, can you just drop us off at, like, a whole foods? Because I think I'm just gonna catch a cab, and I'm gonna take my baby to get medical attention. She looks a little shaken up. So he drops him off at whole foods. Then he gets into a cab, gets to the hospital. Now, instead of going inside, he gets into another car, Alexis, a 30-year-old piano teacher friend of his. And he told her, "I'm gonna go around and sail the world with my daughter." "Can you drive us to New York City, where our boat is docked?" She said, "Okay, fine. So they make that three to four-hour drive, but with traffic seven-hour drive, from Boston to New York City." And once I get there, he throws an envelope of cash in the front and just leaves. It's like, "Okay, bye." Right after he leaves, she turns on her phone and her friends are blowing it up. Like, are you with Clark Rockefeller? Isn't your friend Clark Rockefeller? He has kidnapped his daughter. What, it became local news? Yeah, it's an amber alert. You know, the daughter's on the local news. What's going on? Police rushed to Sandra, and she's freaking out, and she keeps screaming, "You're never gonna find them. I knew this was gonna happen." And they're like, "What do you mean we're never gonna find them?" We usually do. This is a high-profile guy. Because he's not who he says he is. He's not even Clark Rockefeller. So the police run his name. Sure enough, he doesn't exist, not even a driver's license, okay? Then the FBI gets involved. There's no tax returns. There's no expensive property deeds. Things you would expect in a Rockefeller. Or even just like a super elite rich person. They call it the Rockefeller family spokesman. Yeah, this is gonna happen. And they had never heard of a Clark Rockefeller. So the police start talking to witnesses. All of his friends said, "Oh, you had mentioned you wanted to go to Peru. Oh, Turks and Kicos, Bermuda and Antarctica. This guy could be anywhere." Now, it stated in the book that most parental kidnappings, it's not for the child, but it's for the spouse. It's usually parents trying to get revenge on each other. So kidnapping your own child will never benefit your child. It will only traumatize them more. Obviously, there's the rare cases you're trying to get your child away from an abuser, but statistically speaking, it's very scary for law enforcement. Because if it's for revenge, you only one step away from the kidnapper killing the child and possibly offing themselves as well. So Clark had been at a friend's house earlier that day. Drank from a glass of water. And that friend hadn't done the dishes. So they turned in that cup to the FBI, send it to Quantico for DNA and fingerprint testing. Turns out Clark Rockefeller is Christian Carl. Yeah, you get it. The 47-year-old immigrant from Germany. They put two and two together and they realize this guy might be also Christopher, Chi-chester, and Christopher Crow. - The killer. - The killer. - Wow. - So they finally find him the next week in Baltimore because all of the locals were like, yeah, we're gonna call the FBI on you. Okay, so they arrest him and they ask him straight up. Who is Christopher Chi-chester? Doesn't exist. Who's Christopher Crow? Doesn't exist. Who's Clark Rockefeller? Doesn't exist. Then who are we talking to? I don't know. So they charged him with fraud, murder, kidnapping, and vehicular assault, but he had to have two different trials. So the California trial is for murder. He'd be extradited later. He lawyered up and instantly it was like a insanity plea. The lawyer was like, this guy's crazy. Listen, we can't deny that he didn't do these things, but who in the right mind would do these type of things? Who would impersonate a Rockefeller? Who would even have the balls to do that, unless you're crazy? - Or unless you're trying to scam people? - Yeah. - Like what? - And the only reason he kidnapped his daughter is because she telepathically communicated to him while she was in London that her mom was abusive. So he believed it. The sky is struggling with narcissistic personality disorder, delusional disorder, granddaughters disorders, lives in a magical insane world. Now the jury didn't believe him, and he was sentenced to four to five years for kidnapping and two to three years. - Or four to five years? - Yeah. - Okay. - For assault with an SUV served concurrently. So then in 2013, the murder trial came around and he was found guilty, very circumstantial evidence, but I think he just did not have a good track record with his identities. It was just really bizarre, right? I don't know if maybe a normal person on trial that didn't have all these aliases would have gotten the same result. So very fascinating. Set into sentence to 27 years to life. But the whole time he tried to victim blame, tried to blame Linda for killing John because she hasn't been found. So she's probably off, you know, doing her own little thing after killing her husband. - Okay, what? - And the crazy thing is he is up for parole December of 2029 and he will be 68 years old. I wanna end this podcast with one thing that Mark sealed the author found, okay? So he was invited to see all of Christopher and Christian's things, Christian Christopher Clark's things. I don't know where. - What do you mean, things? - Like he had left behind a bunch of stuff at like the California and a couple that he met in Germany. He had left a bunch of boxes in storage with them. - Okay. - So he was invited to come see his stuff. He found his real birth certificate from Germany, pictures from Germany and inside one of his perfectly tailored monogrammed blazers. Mark Seal found in the pocket a tiny little glass dildo. - Tiny little glass dildo. - Yeah, and I don't know where that takes us, but that is the crazy story of Clark Rockefeller, the man that never existed. - Wow. - It's, I mean-- - It also scares me how easy for someone to lie there way all the way to the top. - That's what they say. The bigger the lie, the easier. - That's true. - Because like imagine, I can't know. - Like who would even lie about that is what most people think, right? - And it's so unbelievable. It's like, well, logically no one would. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like if you tell me you're the next CEO for SpaceX, I'm not gonna really question as much. Yeah, maybe I'll, maybe I am. - I mean, it does, like, you know what the-- - Yeah, we call. - I don't know if you know what happened to Nicola, the electric car company. They are just getting arrested at the CEO. He just lied about the whole thing. He said his truck is better than Tesla, and turned out the truck was just being pulled down the street. And he's pretending the car drives itself. It's like, and there's so many people. Everybody bought into it. Everybody, people invest millions and millions of dollars in it, and because nobody would think people would lie about such blunt thing, just like Elizabeth. - Oh my God, with the blood company. - Yes, it's just who lies about things like this. - Yeah. - It's kind of scary. - It's crazy. - Yeah. - I guess confidence really is key. And it's scary because most of these people are genuinely, probably smart people. - Yeah. - That could do good. - Exactly. - And that could make, honestly, they could make a lot of money not scamming people. - Yeah, but I feel like these people they just can't help it. Imagine telling them, just make an honest living using your brain. - Yeah. - I don't think they can do it. - That's insane. You'd rather risk getting arrested and just feeling guilty and dirty versus making an honest living, which in this situation I think Christian had a really, honestly, I think he would make more money going the proper honest way. - Yeah. - Just joining a firm, putting in the work, making the connections. I think he wouldn't be a Rockefeller. He wouldn't be that well respected, but he'd easily become a billionaire on Wall Street, with how smart everyone says yes. What are your thoughts on this case? Let me know in the comments. And next time someone shakes your hand and says hi, I'm Rockefeller, blah, blah, blah. - And hi, I am. - Stephanie Kardashian Bezos. You slap them in the face, okay? You do it. Just kidding. Don't be arrested for assault. That's the lesson of the day, and I hope you guys enjoyed, and I will be seeing you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye.