Forensic Scientist Recalls Bone-Filled Shirt With Cuts in ‘Rockefeller’ Murder

The remains of John Sohus were found in bags in the backyard of a Lorain Road home in San Marino in 1994, and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department criminalist and forensic scientist Lynne Harold testified Friday morning that the shirt filled with John Sohus’s bones that was found in one of the bags in the San Marino backyard showed several cuts made by “sharp force.”

Defendant Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter went by the alias Christopher Chichester when he lived in a guesthouse at 1920 Lorain Road in San Marino in the 1980s.

While Harold could not say what exact tool was used to cut the shirt, she opined it was not something that made cuts from both sides, like a pair of scissors, but could be one prong of scissors or a sharper knife.

Harold said the shirt cuts were made before the body decomposed and did not rule out that the cuts could have indicated that the person wearing the shirt took a defensive stance, but said the shirt also could have been cut from behind.

If blood was on the shirt, Harold said decomposition stains would have made it impossible for her to identify it.

USC Connection

While one of the bags found in the backyard was clearly marked with a University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee logo, Harold said, she discovered a USC Trojan bookstore logo on the other bag after further examination with specialized lights and tools.

The USC bag logo was consistent with a logo Harold knew as that of the Trojan Stores when she attended USC from 1974-82 to receive her doctorate.

Trojan Stores are now University stores, Harold said.

Harold shared her findings after witness Stanford Phelps testified earlier Friday that a man he hired at his Connecticut real estate brokerage firm in 1986 named Christopher Crowe—an alias also associated with Gerhartsreiter— claimed he had attended USC when applying for Phelps’s firm.

While Phelps touted his identification skills and identified a photograph of Crowe—aka Christopher Chichester/Clark Rockefeller/Gerhartsreiter—he said he did not see him in the courtroom Friday.

The photo shown in court Friday morning is shown in the far right of the Wanted poster attached to this article.

Phelps said he fired Crowe in 1987 when he asked Crowe for information on the computer and he refused to give it to Phelps.

Harold will continue her testimony Friday afternoon about possible blood findings at the San Marino guesthouse occupied by “Christopher Chichester” in the 1980s.

Jann of Sweden

Updated Friday 4:37 p.m.

, was scheduled to take the stand Friday afternoon, but his testimoney has been delayed. For two years, Eldnor regularly cut the hair of the man who claimed to be Chichester.