Baldwin Park Police Chief Testifies in "Rockefeller" Case

In 1985, Lili Hadsell, the current chief and a former San Marino Police officer, wrote a missing persons report about a case that, to this day, she has not been able to extricate from her mind.

Linda and John Sohus went missing from their home at around the same time that Christian Gerhartsreiter, 50-year-old German-born man who lived for a period of time in Sohus' mother's home. Gerhartsreiter was accused 26 years later of brutally killing John Sohus after he went missing.

In 1994, the was found in pieces, with each one wrapped in plastic bags, when crews digging a swimming pool came across a fiberglass box that contained the remains. 

"It is a case that always stuck with me," Hadsell told Patch Latino, minutes after testifying in the second day of preliminary hearings, in an Alhambra courtroom.

"It is exciting to be a part of this case. We never knew what happened, and when I saw that someone from Boston was arrested, I knew exactly what they were talking about," she said.

During the preliminary hearing, both the prosecutors and the defense are presenting arguments. The judge must decide later if sufficient evidence exists for Gerhartsreiter to stand trial on murder charges.

The case of the so-called "False Rockefeller," dubbed as such by various media outlets because Gerhartsreiter claims to be a member of the historically prominent North American family, came to light after Gerhartsreiter was arrested for the kidnapping of his daughter in 2009.

That year, Gerhartsreiter was accused of taking his daughter without consent during a supervised visit. Upon his arrest, Boston police immediately realized that Clark Rockefeller, as he had called himself, wasn't who he said he was and was unable to produce a verifiable identification.

As investigators dug deeper, they discovered that the man was actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a man also known as "Christopher Chichester," the man sought in connection with the slaying of John Sohus.

Gerhartsreiter lived in a home behind the Sohus residence on the same property during the time the couple went missing. Linda Sohus' body was never found.

During the hearing, Baldwin Park Police Chief Lili Hadsell, who was San Marino Police Department Patrol Officer Lili Bryant in 1985, said she went to the Sohus home five to 10 times that year, when it is alleged the murder of John Sohus occurred. 

Hadsell described speaking with Didi Sohus numerous times that year about the disappearance of John and Linda and noted that Didi became “increasingly concerned” about the couple’s whereabouts. 

“It started out that she had reported they were gone but wasn’t super concerned since she believed they were doing some work unknown to her,” said Hadsell. 

As time went on and Didi got calls from collectors and people who knew the couple, she became worried because they were not contacting her.

“My position was to tell her the police department was doing everything to find them and let her know everything was going to be OK,” said Hadsell. “Each time I went out it escalated to the point that I finally went out there and took this report.”

The report, written in July 1985, was submitted to San Marino detectives, who were then responsible for the investigation.

When the defense again asked if Didi drank heavily, Hadsell remembered smelling alcohol on Didi’s breath on a few occasions and a couple of times when she was intoxicated but “not falling down drunk.”

Didi eventually shared that John and Linda were working for the parents of Christopher Chichester, the man who was renting the guesthouse behind the Lorain Road home, but Chichester had left town and disappeared a couple of months prior.

Hadsell said Didi also shared that she had sent letters to John and Linda through Chichester and received postcards from them, one of which said something to the effect of, “I guess we need a geography lesson.”

When defense attorney Denner pressed Hadsell as to whether Linda’s mother, Susan Mayfield, thought the handwriting was Linda’s, Hadsell could not recall, but said she thought a handwriting analysis showed it to not be Linda’s.

For , visit the San Marino Patch site.