FBI agents on Saturday arrested a man accused of abducting his seven-year-old daughter, sparking a national manhunt and fevered speculation over the flamboyant fugitive’s identity.
The FBI in Boston, where Clark Rockefeller allegedly abducted his daughter Reigh Storrow Boss from his ex-wife a week ago, said the fugitive was arrested in Baltimore, Maryland, and the girl freed.
Reigh, who was to be reunited with her mother Sandra Boss, was “ecstatic,” police said.
PHOTO: AP
Earlier, Sandra Boss, who works in London, made an emotional appeal on US television and YouTube for the return of her “princess,” whom she nicknamed “Snooks.”
The week-long hunt for Rockefeller and his blue-eyed daughter had gripped the US public’s imagination.
The Rockefeller dynasty, which originally made its fortune in oil, denied links, but Clark Rockefeller, 48, reportedly used the name to gain entry to high society.
A Wall Street Journal blog said the fugitive, who had reddish-blond hair, hobnobbed at top social clubs including Boston’s Algonquin and New York’s Knickerbocker.
New York tabloid newspapers unearthed photos of a carefree Rockefeller dressed in Roman garb for a theatrical production.
This could be the second case of so-called “Rockephony” in New York this decade. In 2000, a Frenchman named Christopher Rocancourt conned wealthy investors on swish Long Island under the identity of Christopher Rockefeller.
Police have reportedly failed to come up with even a social security number or tax record for the man.
When finally apprehended in Baltimore, just north of Washington, Rockefeller was “cooperative,” the FBI said.
The FBI’s chief special agent in Boston told a news conference that Rockefeller was cornered thanks to “a tip from the public, a concerned citizen.”
He was hiding in an apartment near a Baltimore yacht marina where he kept a small catamaran, the agent told the news conference, carried live on Fox News television.
To avoid risk of violence, police first tricked the suspect from the apartment, telling him that his boat was taking on water in the harbor.
“It was a safety factor. We wanted to make sure that he was outside, and to apprehend him outside, away from his child,” the FBI chief in Boston said.
Reigh was overjoyed that her ordeal was over, police said.
“Her first words were that she was very happy to see nice people. She was pleased with that and she was ecstatic about that,” the FBI agent said.
Rockefeller is now likely to face charges including kidnapping, assault and possibly identity theft.
However, police are no closer to resolving who the man they have in custody really is.
He has reportedly used a number of aliases, including J.P. Clark Rockefeller, Clark Mill Rockefeller, as well as plain Michael Brown.
The FBI said there was no indication that Rockefeller left the US, or disguised himself, but that many details remained unresolved.
Among these, the FBI said, were reports that he had bought US$300,000 in gold coins in preparation for life on the run.
The Wall Street Journal quoted the Rockefeller dynasty’s family historian as saying that about 10,000 people in the US use the famous name, but only half legally.
Of these, just 100 are direct descendants of family patriarch John Rockefeller.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS