Becoming Clark Rockefeller

Murder, Love, Deception, and the Con Man Behind It All

Non-Fiction - True Crime
308 Pages
Reviewed on 12/16/2023
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    Book Review

Reviewed by Philip Zozzaro for Readers' Favorite

The desire to build a pool led to the fateful decision to dig up the backyard. The activity disinterred human remains in the spring of 1994. The small city of San Marino, California would be rocked by the discovery, yet the details surrounding the identity of the body wouldn’t be confirmed until 2010. The body would be identified as John Sohus, missing since 1985. He wasn’t the sole disappearance from that house in 1985. His wife Linda hadn’t been seen since February 1985 and the young man who lived in a guest house on the property also vanished after the couple’s disappearance. Things changed drastically by 2010 as the missing renter had been located. He was known as Clark Rockefeller and he was imprisoned for kidnapping, but the story ran much deeper and darker.

Becoming Clark Rockefeller is a riveting look at the chameleon conman, born Christian Gerhartstreiter, who adopted a variety of identities while living in the United States before emerging as Clark Rockefeller. Author Frank C. Girardot devotes a good deal of attention to John and Linda Sohus as well as Gerhartstreiter. The Sohus couple's world revolved around a love of science fiction, art, and imagination. The foundation of Gerhartstreiter’s world stood on nothing but lies, half-truths, and evasions. Whether he was Christopher Chichester in San Marino or Clark Rockefeller in New York, a contrived story was always in the offing. Girardot’s powerful narrative plots the trio toward an inevitable collision course ending in murder(s), disappearances, and lingering questions. Girardot has written an unforgettable true-crime thriller for fans of the genre in Becoming Clark Rockefeller: Murder, Love, Deception, and the Con Man Behind It All.