A man who claimed to be an heir to the Rockefeller fortune — but whom police believe is actually a con man with a checkered past — says he just wanted to spend time with his young daughter and really didn't have a concrete plan when he snatched her during a supervised visit in July.
The alleged abduction touched off an international manhunt for “Clark Rockefeller,” whom police have since identified as Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German man who adopted a number of aliases while posing as an aspiring actor, a stockbroker and a member of one of the country's wealthiest families.
“I wanted to change my life altogether,” Gerhartsreiter, 48, told NBC News’ Natalie Morales during an exclusive jailhouse interview airing Monday and Tuesday on TODAY. “I just wanted to live an obscure life.”
When investigators in Boston caught up to Gerhartsreiter in Baltimore on Aug. 2, he was calling himself “Chip Smith.” His daughter Reigh, 7, was fine at the end of what he called “six days of intense fun,” but Gerhartsreiter nonetheless found himself neck-deep in criminal charges and questions about his real identity and past.
During the interview with Morales, Gerhartsreiter suggested he suffered from partial amnesia —remembering only snippets of his life before 1993 — and blamed it for causing the mass confusion over details of his colorful life.
Now in prison grays and awaiting trial on kidnapping charges, Gerhartsreiter revealed to Morales that he had wanted to start all over in Baltimore but put little advance effort into his new “Chip Smith” persona.
“I wanted to,” he said when Morales asked if he planned to set up a new life in Baltimore. “I could no longer really afford to live in Boston. I always loved Baltimore. I wanted to have a boat so I can sail.”
He remained carefully measured when Morales asked if he had planned to return Reigh — known affectionately as Snooks — to her mother, Sandra Boss, or if he planned to have the girl remain with him.
“I don’t really know. I hadn’t really thought about it. Just being together with her was almost like a drug,” Gerhartsreiter said.
Story unravels
In the first hours after Gerhartsreiter’s arrest, the sensational story seemed to be another heartbreaking tale of loss of parental rights. He received a lump sum cash settlement of $800,000 in his divorce, but Boss won full custody of Reigh.