Name: Linda Sohus
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: February 8, 1985
Location Last Seen: San Marino, California
Date of Birth: September 17, 1956
Age: 28 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 200 lbs.
Hair Color: Auburn/blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Nickname/Alias: Linda Mayfield; Cody
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Stocky build.
Dentals: Not available.
Fingerprints: Unknown
DNA: Unknown
Clothing: Unknown
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
Newlyweds Linda and Jonathan Sohus were reported missing on April 8, 1985. Sohus told relatives they were going on a job-hunting trip to Connecticut. But they never returned to their San Marino home. Linda Sohus abandoned her job at a bookstore as well as her four cats.
Police never found the couple, and never tracked down a tenant - Christopher Chichester - who had been staying at the guest house on the property.
Friends and coworkers were told by Christopher Chichester that the couple had gone to Paris on a delayed honeymoon and then later that they were doing secret government work on the East Coast.
Before police could interview Chichester, he disappeared and nothing was heard of him again until a Christopher Crowe tried to sell Jonathan Sohus’s car in New Hampshire in 1989, but disappeared before police tipped off by a suspicious buyer could interview him.
In 2008, Boston police and FBI agents arrested a man who fit Chichester's description, Clark Rockefeller. Investigators have since said the two names are aliases used by the same man, whom they identified through fingerprints as Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German national who came to Connecticut as a student in the 1970s. Rockefeller's attorney confirmed that his client lived in the guest house. But he stressed that Rockefeller barely knew the couple and had nothing to do with their disappearance.
John Sohus' body was unearthed from the backyard of the house in 1994 when the new owners of the property were having a swimming pool built. At the time, investigators were unable to prove the remains were those of John Sohus because he was adopted and they had no known biological relatives to compare a DNA sample to. In 2011 investigators used new technology to conclusively identify Sohus' remains. The body of Linda Sohus has never been found. Foul play is suspected.
Agency Name: San Marino Police Department
Agency Contact Person: N/A
Agency Phone Number: 626-300-0720
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: 85-0843
All News
Added: 5-17-2010; Last Updated: 05-18-2022 - By: Htmlcnvtr
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information is from the time of disappearance.
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