Depending on whom you ask, Clark Rockefeller is either a psychopathic con man and a cold-blooded killer or erudite art lover and doting father.

I've heard all of these descriptions from police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, friends and acquaintances of the man whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter.

A German national who came to the United States on a student visa in the late 1970s, Rockefeller's rise to near aristocracy led him to prominence some of the nation's most elite communities -- Wall Street, Greenwich, San Marino and Boston's Beacon Hill.

Gerhartsreiter's fall put him squarely in the cross-hairs of a decades old homicide case and landed a man who fancied himself an international man of mystery in the country's toughest, most populated jail; a place where the wrong glance at the wrong person can lead to a shiv in the rib cage.

I began following Rockefeller's story in 2008, about the time he was arrested for abducting his daughter. As a journalist, I wrote several newspaper articles and was the first to report his connections to a forgotten San Marino couple that vanished in 1985.

Gerhartsreiter, known then as Christopher Chichester, the XIII baronet of Chichester, was the last person to see John and Linda Sohus alive. Nine years later, when John Sohus bones were dug up in the backyard of a home the three shared, Chichester became a person of interest in a possible homicide.

Upon his arrest as Rockefeller and subsequent unmasking as Gerhartsreiter, I began piecing together the story in a series of articles for my newspaper, The Pasadena Star-News.

The result of my research resulted in my new book, “Name Dropper: Investigating The Clark Rockefeller Mystery.” In 25 years as a journalist, the tale is one of the most fantastic I’ve ever seen unfold. I’m sure you, the reader, will agree.

Happy Sleuthing!