Arrest reopens mystery of missing Calif. couple

[August 28, 2008]  SAN MARINO, Calif. (AP) -- Linda Sohus was a towering blonde fantasy buff who liked to paint unicorns. Her husband, Jonathan, was a diminutive computer programmer working at a NASA lab who shared his wife's passion for science fiction.

The young newlyweds disappeared from this upscale Los Angeles suburb in February 1985, leaving behind their home, their cat and their perplexed families. There was talk that Jonathan had taken a secret government job and postcards suggesting that Linda was in Europe, but a darker possibility emerged nine years later when work on a swimming pool at the home uncovered a skeleton.

The still-unsolved mystery of the couple's disappearance, dormant for years, was reignited this month with the arrest of a German man who had lived in a guest house on the Sohuses' property.

Christian Gerhartsreiter, who was known as Christopher Chichester to the Sohuses and in recent years called himself Clark Rockefeller, is accused of kidnapping his daughter on a Boston street last month after losing custody of her in his divorce. He had been living a lavish lifestyle and authorities had feared he had fled the country by yacht, but he was captured in Baltimore living under an alias after about a week.

His arrest has investigators re-examining the Sohuses' property and friends of the couple and Gerhartsreiter unearthing old memories.

The mystery has haunted Lydia Marano since the day Linda Sohus, her trusty employee, failed to open up her sci-fi and fantasy bookstore, Dangerous Visions.

"I thought they were very much in love," Marano said of the couple. "I feel sad that I don't know what happened to her. I am sure her family would love to have some closure. So would I."

Gerhartsreiter has refused to speak with Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators. His lawyer originally said his client had no memory of his past before 1993 but later said he recalled living in California and vaguely remembered the Sohuses, but had nothing to do with their disappearance.

Those who knew the couple said there was no reason for them to leave this orderly city of sweeping boulevards, gated mansions and handsome lawns. The only tension appeared to be over Jonathan's overbearing mother, Ruth, whom the couple lived with. She died three years later thinking the couple had abandoned her.

Marano, other friends and relatives, received postcards ostensibly written by Linda and purportedly mailed from France, but investigators never authenticated the signatures.

Marano always assumed Linda was alive, but may have fled after seeing a terrible thing happen to her husband.

Marano has received calls from a credit card company and an employer to serve as a reference for a Linda Sohus in the years after her disappearance.

"It's never dawned on me that she might be dead," Marano said. "I always thought she might be in trouble. I think I have always believed that she ran for her life."

Jonathan Sohus, 26, was a computer programmer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. His wife was a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society who attended the group's Thursday night meetings most weeks.

Charles Lee Jackson II, 58, who curates the club's video collection, recalled Sohus as an attractive young woman who painted horses and unicorns with flowing manes.

Gerhartsreiter, meanwhile, swept into town as Christopher Chichester in the early 1980s, ingratiating himself in society circles, the Rotary Club and a local church as a British aristocrat.

"He was a smooth talker, especially with the ladies," said hairdresser Yann Eldnor, remembering how Chichester would kiss women on the hand when he met them. "But there was something wrong with the guy, his stories often changed."

Authorities never interviewed Chichester about the case. In 1988, they tried but failed to track down someone using yet another of the man's aliases -- Christopher Crowe -- who was in Connecticut trying to sell a pickup truck belonging to the Sohuses.

Tricia Gough, a detective with the San Marino Police Department at the time, said neighbors had complained of a foul smell coming from the guest house's chimney around the time of the disappearance and a blood stain was later found on the floor of the little house.

"There was some conjecture that he tried to burn the body," Gough said.

Dana Farar, a friend of Chichester's when he lived at the guest house, said he was knowledgeable about movies and well connected at the University of Southern California film school, where they went to parties and he seemed to know many professors.

A few months after the Sohuses disappeared, Farar recalls going with a friend to Chichester's home to play Trivial Pursuit. A 5-foot by 8-foot patch of lawn appeared to have been dug up to one side of the guest house.

"It looked like as if you had dug a hole and filled it up," said Farar, 43. Gerhartsreiter told her there had been some plumbing problems, and for nine years she believed him.

In 1994, the new owners of the Sohus property were having a swimming pool built when contractors unearthed bones belonging to a small white man.

Gough said the skeleton was found in an area to the side of the guest house.

"There was a lot to point to it being John," she said. "The physical similarities were very striking."

Authorities, however, have been unable to prove the remains are those of Jonathan Sohus because he was adopted and they had no known biological relatives to compare a DNA sample to. They are conducting further tests.

Investigators are planning on using ground-penetrating radar to re-examine the backyard and see if any other remains are buried there. They have re-interviewed many of those they spoke to when the skeleton was uncovered, and may also send in a forensic archaeologist or a cadaver-sniffing dog.

Gough was disappointed that investigators at the time didn't do more to check the property for a female skeleton. Because no trace of Linda was ever found, Gough wondered if she was still alive and had something to with her husband's presumed death.

She was especially curious about Linda's cats, which had been left in a shelter. An unknown woman arrived a few weeks after the couple's disappearance and adopted all four.

"Out of the blue, a strange woman shows up and says she wanted to adopt only those cats," Gough recalled. "That is very weird."

Linda's half sister, Kathy Jacoby, was the first to file a missing persons report after the couple's disappearance. She spent 10 years looking for her sister, taking a second look whenever she'd pass a tall blond woman.

"After the remains were found, I stopped doing that," Jacoby, 47, said. "I decided at that point they were both dead."

[Associated Press; By THOMAS WATKINS]

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