BREAKING NEWS: ‘Rockefeller’ Returning to CA to Face San Marino Murder Charge

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter—a German national charged in March with a 1985 San Marino murder—is returning to California to face the charge, according to the Associated Press. He faces 26 years to life if convicted.

Gerhartsreiter is currently serving a four- to five- year sentence in Massachusetts for the 2009 conviction of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter.

A man of many aliases, including “Clark Rockefeller”, Gerhartsreiter called himself Christopher Chichester when he lived with San Marino couple John and Linda Sohus at their Lorrain Road home in the 1980s before the couple disappeared in Feb. 1985.

Unidentified bones were dug up at the property in 1994, and investigators previously said they were unable to definitely link them to the Sohuses.

But the bones were identified in March as those of John Sohus, and an investigation determined that he died from blunt force trauma to the head, according to authorities.

"The DNA identifies the remains as John Sohus," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore , adding that the DNA evidence was a turning point in the case. "The recent DNA evidence certainly turned it," he said.

The criminal complaint, filed in Alhambra Superior Court, alleges that John Sohus was murdered sometime between Feb. 1 and 28, 1985, and that Gerhartsreiter personally wielded a "blunt object" while commiting the crime, according to City News Service.

, to confirm claims that Gerhartsreiter had told his lawyer he was innocent.

“It was not a new conversation between us,” said Jeffrey Denner, who is a founding partner of the law firm Denner Pelligrino LLP in Boston. “But, yes, he reiterated to me today that he knows he didn’t do it, and he says he’s innocent.”

Whitmore declined to provide specifics on the murder case against Gerhartsreiter.

"Even though he's been charged with murder, it's still an ongoing investigation," Whitmore said.

Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, also declined to elaborate on the charges.

"We're not discussing facts of case until we get to court," Robison said in an email in March.

Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts, said that his office has kept in touch with Los Angeles prosecutors about the case.

"We’ve been in contact with California authorities for quite some time now," Wark said. "We’re ready to assist them in any way possible as they request."

--since he cut Gerhartsreiter's hair and conversed with him regularly in the 80s--to get more details about Gerhartsreiter's San Marino life and persona.

Patch will report more on this story as it develops.