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The Rockefeller dynasty, which originally made its fortune in oil, denied links, but Clark Rockefeller, 48, reportedly used the name to gain entry to high society.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.
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