Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 13, 2013

5

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 13, 2013 

PHONY ROCKEFELLER GUILTY:

What Other Choice Was There?

“What’s Going On?” 

News and Views from Joan Schmidt

SURVIVAL SKILLS

 By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive Anywhere,” and “Enter the 
Forest.” Information about his books and classes is available from Box 
41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, or from www.ChristopherNyerges.com.]


1985. My 
family 
and I had 
recently 
relocated 
to 
California 
and were 
renting a 
house on 
Walnut/
Holly, 
Arcadia. We were terrified to 
leave a window opened at night- 
the Night Stalker recently killed 
a couple on Lemon Avenue, a 
few blocks north of us. At that 
time, I also vaguely remember 
a young couple, John and Linda 
were missing in San Marino and 
that was was scary.

 Years passed, we bought 
our current home and were 
settled in Monrovia. In 1994, a 
pool was being built on Lorain 
Ave. in San Marino. Human 
remains were discovered. 
Questions arose. Could these 
remains belong to John or 
Linda Sohus? There was an 
initial problem with DNA 
because John was adopted and I 
believe the DNA testing wasn’t 
as advanced as today. I read 
of John’s mother Didi and her 
anguish over her missing son, 
even so far as believing he just 
abandoned her. 

 The next piece of 
this puzzle was the definite 
identification of the remains 
as being of John Sohus. Years 
pass, and there is publicity 
about a man who is posing as 
a Rockefeller back East and 
is wanted for kidnapping his 
daughter. This man had married 
a very intelligent Harvard/Yale 
graduate, Sandra Boss who was 
from high society. “Rockefeller” 
was caught, tried and convicted. 
A movie was made about the 
couple meeting, their marriage, 
the birth of their daughter and 
Sandra’s suspicions about her 
husband’s background and 
identity. Of course she planned 
to divorce him when she realized 
he was an imposter. Somehow 
during the trial, his daughter 
was kidnapped. After I watched 
the movie, I just wondered 
how such an intelligent woman 
could be duped by this man. But 
apparently she was just one of 
many. He had many aliases and 
each had quite a background-
one was even a descendent of an 
Earl in England!

 Eventually the Los 
Angeles County Sheriff’s 
Department contacted 
authorities in Massachusetts 
and this man, Christian 
Gerhartsreiter of Germany was 
extradited to California for 
trial. Frank Girardot, Editor of 
the Pasadena Star News began 
extensive coverage of the case 
and daily went to trial. Each 
morning I read his update and 
decided to attend. The Thursday 
I went I sat in front of Dan 
Banks who gave me quite an 
earful. Dan had known “Chris 
Chichester” from Church of 
Our Savior in San Gabriel 
and didn’t care for him at all, 
According to Dan, the twenty-
three year old Chichcester was 
going after Dan’s seventeen-
year old daughter. Dan also 
mentioned Chris never had any 
money and wanted Dan and 
Dan’s wife to preview a movie 
Chris made, but they never did. 
Lt. Dan Allen from Greenwich, 
CT, and Ralph Boyton, a Wall 
Street Veteran also testified. At 
the trial, I also met a woman 
from Northern California, who 
was staying in Santa Clarita and 
drove to the trial every day!

After the half-day court session, 
I went home, and learned 
that Girardot had written a 
book, Name Dropper about 
Chichester. Needless to say, I 
read it for more insight into the 
trail.

 At the time of the trial’s 
proceedings, my husband and 
I were in the midst of planning 
an eleven day trip to see the 
newest granddaughter! We were 
also working on a surprise 70th 
birthday party for my sister at a 
nursing home in Edison NJ! But 
in the midst of all the planning, 
I just had to go back to the trial! 
The day I attended-Wednesday-
was the second day Sandra 
Boss, the defendant’s former 
wife testified and she gave quite 
an account. Prior to the trial, I 
also spoke with Jan of Sweden 
and his wife, and they were sure 
the defendant was guilty! 

 My husband and I 
left California late Thursday 
evening. We arrived in Philly 
early Friday AM. In between 
all the visits/travels, I called my 
daughter back in CA for trial 
updates, and went online when 
internet was available. While 
visiting Meg Gardner, a retired 
psychiatric social worker/
counselor of thirty years and 
my buddy since College, I gave 
an account of the trial! Meg was 
beyond interested and joined 
my obsession with this trial. 

 On the day the verdict 
was due, I went on the Internet 
and was flabbergasted by 
the quick results. GUILTY! I 
immediately called Meg in NY 
and her comment was, “What 
else could they have done?” 
This perceptive woman had 
taken in all the facts and that 
was her opinion. I also read 
that John’s sister from Arizona 
was in tears and relieved it was 
over. But what about Linda? 
Meg thinks Linda is probably in 
one of the many wooded areas 
of Connecticut or New York. No 
one really knows. 

In the “First Aid” chapter of How to Survive Anywhere, we address 
specific simple ways of dealing with the common medical emergencies 
that one can expect in the aftermath of a major disaster, or if lost and 
hurt in the woods. What would you do if a major earthquake struck 
Sierra Madre tomorrow?

Here is something else to consider. 

 It is not only the physical accidents that we need to be concerned about, whether in a wilderness 
accident, or the result of an urban disaster (major earthquake, etc.). In studies that have been 
done of the survivors of major disasters, the following conclusions have been made about the mental 
state of the survivors. Approximately 15% made quick, appropriate, and efficient choices and actions 
which were well-suited to their safety and security. Another 15% “went crazy,” making wild irrational 
choices and even getting hurt as a result of their “losing it.” 

The rest, about 70% of the survivors – a full majority – neither went crazy nor did they make wise 
and efficient choices and actions, but rather wandered about somewhat zombie-like, spaced-out, in a 
state of stupor and shock, simply not knowing what to do, where to go, what to think. This shocked 
majority tends to be passive, but will take orders from someone who seems to be in control and who 
seems to know what they are doing and why.

The point: None of us wants to be a part of that majority, and definitely we don’t want to be a part of 
that “crazy 15.” No one would want to be wandering around Sierra Madre Blvd. in a dazed state of 
mind. 

What can we do to ensure that in a time of disaster, we find ourselves in that 15% category of wise, 
appropriate, efficient actions? None of us really knows what we will do until we are actually tested 
in difficult, stressful real life conditions. It is impossible to predict what you might do when you are 
seated comfortably in your home drinking a warm beverage. The only way to expand our mental and 
physical limits is to actually put ourselves into situations where we can discover more about ourselves 
during situations of less sleep, less food, more work. People in the military often get that experience. 
Some survival schools offer these experiences. And anyone (with a group of friends and supporters) 
can regularly plan such trips with the express purpose of expanding limits, learning how you will 
react in times of stress, and 
attempting to make the 
right choices when it is not 
easy to do so.

 TAKE CLASSES

I encourage everyone to 
take the Red Cross Emergency 
First Aid course, and 
learn how to deal with everyday 
first aid problems. 

Consider enrolling in some 
of my classes where we 
learn about wild foods and 
very basic survival skills 
The schedule of our classes 
can be seen at www.ChristopherNyerges.
com, , or 
write to Box 41834, Eagle 
Rock, CA 90041.


A METEORITE MYSTERY: First Meteorite From Mercury Found?

 Early in 2012, someone in Southern Morocco picked up 35 greenish stones. Purchased by a dealer 
in Erfoud, Morocco, one of them was then resold to Stefan Ralew, a meteorite collector from Berlin.

 The dealer was demanding a high price, and Ralew may have hesitated. But the wrinkled glassy 
coating on one face of the rock was clearly a fusion crust, a kind of glaze that forms when a meteorite 
is heated as it passes through the atmosphere.

 Looking at other faces, he would have recognized it as a type of meteorite called an achondrite, 
says Randy Korotev, a meteorite 
expert at Washington University 
in Saint Louis (WUSTL). That 
meant it was an exceptional 
stone.

 Most meteorites are stony, 
he explains, and of the stony 
meteorites, almost all (90 
percent) are what are called 
ordinary chondrites. These 
are pieces of small, unmelted 
asteroids that are uniform in 
composition throughout.

 The achondrites, on the other 
hand are pieces of large asteroids 
or planets, ones at least 200 
kilometers in diameter. These 
produced enough internal heat 
early in their history to partially 
melt and segregate into a metal 
core surrounded by a rocky 
exterior. Achondrites, which 
come from the crust or mantle of 
these differentiated bodies, make 
up only 5 percent of the stony 
meteorites that have been found.

 So already this find was 
looking very interesting. Where 
might it be from? About half of 
the achondrites come from the 
large asteroid 4 Vesta. Others 
come from Mars, the Moon, or 
other asteroids.

 To answer the question of 
origin, the stone’s chemistry had 
to be analyzed. Ralew shipped it to Tony Irving at the University of Washington. “Tony is where all 
the serious collectors go when they find strange meteorites,” says Korotev, to whom Irving sends the 
“lunars” (possible lunar meteorites), which is what Korotev mainly studies.

 Both the iron/manganese ratio of an asteroid and the ratios of its oxygen isotopes (variants of the 
oxygen atom) are thought to serve as “fingerprints” of its body of origin.

 At the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March, Irving said that the stone, now 
officially designated Northwest Africa 
7325 (NWA 7325), had highly unusual 
chemistry. What’s more, he said, the 
chemistry was suspiciously similar to 
that measured by NASA’s Messenger 
probe, which is currently surveying the 
surface of Mercury from orbit.

 “It is high in magnesium and very low 
in iron, which is what they’re seeing on 
the surface of Mercury,” Korotev, who 
attended Irving’s talk, says. 

 Some chemical ratios didn’t match, 
but Irving said that might be because the 
stone had been “excavated from depth,” 
that is, blasted into space by a collision 
that left a deep scar in Mercury.

 Although Korotev can’t say for certain 
where the meteorite comes from, he 
can say why it is such a peculiar green. 
The green comes from a silicate mineral 
laced with chromium.

 “I once analyzed bottles to see what 
made them blue or green,” Korotev 
says. The greenest bottle had 660 parts 
per million chromium, but some of 
the mineral components of NWA 7325 
have 7,000 parts per million chromium. 
That’s why it’s green.”

 But the bigger mystery—where did it 
come from—is as yet unsolved.

You can contact Bob Eklund at: 
b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.


One of 35 meteorites of mysterious origin found in the Moroccan desert. This piece weighs 100 grams. The alphabet 
block to the right is a centimeter on a side. Stefan Ralew