55: The Power of Suggestion & Con Man Clark Rockefeller

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In this episode, Brandi gives us part one of a two-part series that begins with the rape and murder of 68-year-old widow Helen Wilson. When investigators discovered Helen’s body, they were baffled. She had no enemies. Who in the tight-knit city of Beatrice, Nebraska, could have killed her? Investigators had a pretty solid lead, but blood analysis ruled out their top suspect. After that, the case went cold… that is, until a retired police officer and full-time hog farmer picked up the case.

Then Kristin tells us about con man Clark Rockefeller. Things seemed relatively normal in July of 2008, when Clark, his daughter, and a social worker walked through a posh area of Boston. But when a black SUV limo pulled up beside them, Clark shoved the social worker out of the way and pulled his daughter into the vehicle. The limo sped off, leaving the social worker behind. Boston police rushed to Clark’s ex-wife, Sandra Boss. If they were going to catch him, they needed all the information they could get. Therein lay the problem. Clark Rockefeller didn’t have an ID. He didn’t have a social security number. In fact, Clark Rockefeller wasn’t Clark Rockefeller at all.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“The Man in the Rockefeller Suit,” by Mark Seal for Vanity Fair
“Lawyer says ‘Rockefeller’ won’t get fair trial,” The Boston Globe.
“‘Rockefeller’ wins false name battle,” Associated Press
“11 jurors chosen in kidnap trial,” Boston Globe
“Rich deception,” Associated Press
“‘Rockefeller’ defense claims delusions,” Associated Press
“Ready-Made Rockefeller,” New York Times
Newspapers.com
|Wikipedia.com

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Presumed Guilty Part one: Murder in Apartment 4” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part two: The Search For a Killer” by Catharine Huddle, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part three: The Break” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part four: Pointing Fingers” by Catharine Huddle, Lincoln Journal Star
“Memories of a Murder” by Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker
“Even in 1989, forensics didn’t point to men and women who went to prison for crime” by Joe Duggan, Omaha World-Herald