Crime & Safety

#Rockefeller Hearing: 'Chichester' Tried to Get Rid of Blood-Spotted Rug, Toxic Chemicals

A couple who knew the man charged with the 1985 San Marino murder of John Sohus told of the odd former San Marino resident and some items he tried to dispose of before leaving town.

Shortly after John and Linda Sohus disappeared from San Marino in 1985, the man who was renting a guesthouse on the Lorain Road property owned by John’s mother, Ruth “Didi” Sohus, also disappeared.

, whose bones were found in the backyard of the property in 1994.

Linda Sohus has never been found.

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San Marino resident Robert Brown, 85, sold Christopher Chichester his BMW and recalled at the Alhambra Courthouse Monday that Chichester had once asked him where to dispose of a drum or drums of toxic chemicals he had used at his job at USC film school.

“I thought it was a little strange but then Chris was unusual anyhow so it didn’t come as a big surprise,” Brown said of the request.

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Brown told Chichester, who he knew through Church of Our Savior in San Gabriel, that if he had to dispose of a large amount of chemicals he’d do so in a secluded area of the mountains.

Defense attorney Brad Bailey pointed out to Brown that he had never mentioned the chemicals in an initial interview with a San Marino police detective but had later mentioned it to Los Angeles Sherriff Department Detective Timothy Miley. Brown said the Miley interview was more in-depth and that detail hadn’t come to mind in the previous interview.  

Brown said that around the same time that Chichester asked about chemical disposal, he also came by Brown’s home to see if he and his wife wanted to buy some items, such as a new white shirt and an Oriental rug, since he was going out of town.

Bettie Brown testified that the rug had what appeared to be a dime or quarter-sized spot of blood. When she told Chichester about the blood, her husband said that Chichester rolled up the rug and left a few minutes later, never denying the spot was blood.

The defense questioned Brown’s ability to discern it was absolutely blood and she said though she did not have scientific training, she recognized what looked like blood from being a mother and washing clothes.

Chichester later showed up suddenly at the couple’s home on Halloween 1988, spinning a tale of how he had been in Hong Kong, but when Bettie Brown dismissed Chichester and accused him of embellishing, he left shortly after and the couple never saw him again.

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