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Boston cops recover SUV allegedly used in Sunday kidnap; driver interviewedAssociated Press July 29,2008 WASHINGTON -- Boston police are interviewing the driver of an SUV they say was used by a father in an elaborate kidnap plan that has the Coast Guard scouring New York marinas for a 72-foot yacht that may be the fugitive's next stop. "Federal, state and local authorities are doing a sweep of the marinas, trying to find a matching description on the vessel," Patrick Montgomery, a Coast Guard spokesman in New York City, told ABCNews.com. Clark Rockefeller, 48, was last seen in New York City's Grand Central Station on Sunday night, about seven hours after he allegedly executed a plan to kidnap his daughter, 7-year-old Reigh, during a visit supervised by a social worker, according to police. Rockefeller's plan allegedly involved an unidentified male driver stopping a black SUV with Massachusetts tags in traffic near the Boston Public Gardens. When the car stopped, Boston police said, Rockefeller opened the door, hoisted the child, who goes by the nickname "Snooks," into the vehicle and climbed in. As Rockefeller and his accomplice sped off with the girl in the car, the social worker was mildly injured in an attempt to hold onto the fleeing vehicle. Police recovered the SUV Tuesday, according a Boston Police news release. Authorities are interviewing the driver of the vehicle but are not identifying him. Rockefeller, who police say uses a range of aliases, may have been heading from the city to Long Island to pick up a recently purchased boat called "Serenity," according to Boston police, one of several law enforcement agencies in two states working to catch Rockefeller and safely reunite the child with her mother, Sandra Boss. Boston police detectives are sorting through stories that Rockefeller told friends in Boston about wanting to travel to Alaska, Peru, and Bermuda on the yacht, according to a high-ranking police official with direct knowledge of the case. Police issued an arrest warrant for Rockefeller on charges of custodial kidnapping, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Montgomery, the Coast Guard spokesman, declined to offer additional details about the search for the catamaran, which would be capable of long trips, including to Bermuda or the Caribbean. Even if Rockefeller succeeds in leaving port to make a run for a foreign country by sea, local authorities may be waiting for his arrival. Douglas McNabb, a criminal defense lawyer who specializes in international extradition, told ABCNews.com that local authorities in foreign countries typically cooperate with U.S. law enforcement to track down, arrest and extradite fugitives. Police in Boston and New York told ABCNews.com that there was no new information on the case Tuesday, as a puzzling profile of Clark Rockefeller continued to evolve. Though Rockefeller is not a descendant of John D. Rockefeller, the wealthy New York industrialist, he apparently did not deny other people's impressions that they may be related. When the Rev. Brian Marsh of Trinity Church in Cornish, N.H., where Rockefeller and Boss attended church until about two years ago, asked about Rockefeller's famous last name, he said Rockefeller didn't answer him directly. Instead, he took out a pocketknife with the name "Nelson Rockefeller" on it, Marsh said. "He implied a connection." Fraser Seitel, a spokesman for the John D. Rockefeller family, told ABCNews.com that Clark Rockefeller is not a descendant of the wealthy industrialist family of New York. Boston police say the kidnapping suspect has used several names in the past, including J.P. Clark Rockefeller, James Frederick, Clark Mill Rockefeller and Michael Brown. Detectives are working on trying to determine the work history and identity of Rockefeller. "We have a team assigned to work 'Who is Clark Rockefeller?' No one seems to know who this guy really is,'' said the official with knowledge of the case. Clark Rockefeller and Boss, who reportedly married in the early 1990s on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, divorced in 2007. A judge impounded the divorce case file at the couple's request. Boss, an executive level consultant who attended Harvard Business School, was awarded custody of their daughter and successfully changed the child's name from Reigh Rockefeller to Reigh Boss. Rockefeller was allowed supervised visits with his daughter. On Sunday afternoon, when the alleged kidnapping took place, the child and her mother were in Boston from their current home in London so Rockefeller could see his daughter. Rev. Marsh said that Rockefeller was "very involved and loving toward his daughter." "The Clark that I knew was very affable and friendly," he said in an interview with ABCNews.com. "There was nothing that was evident that would have been considered terribly unusual. He was very solicitous toward his daughter." Marsh described Reigh as "an extremely bright, engaging child." "She was friendly, very curious; really a wonderful little girl," he said. In the hours after the alleged kidnapping, Sandra Boss did not request an Amber Alert, telling Boston police that her ex-husband "wouldn't hurt a fly,'' and added that she did not think 7-year-old Reigh "was in any danger," said the Boston Police official. But State Police officials broadcast an Amber Alert for the girl after her mother admitted that Rockefeller "had a tendency to be mean to the girl when she was bad,'' the source said. Ordinarily, Massachusetts officials do not use the Amber Alert system for custodial kidnappings, but after the social worker was injured trying to stop the SUV that snatched up the child and her father, investigators agreed that there should be a statewide manhunt for Rockefeller and his daughter, said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. "There was someone injured, and there was obviously a very elaborate plan, so we thought it was appropriate to use the Amber Alert system,'' Driscoll said. New York City Police declined to broadcast an Amber Alert, even after Rockefeller was reportedly spotted at Grand Central Terminal. Boston Police, along with FBI agents and State Police investigators, have set up a command center in the BRIC intelligence unit at BPD headquarters to handle the phone calls that have flooded in from tipsters, Driscoll said. Rockefeller is a former board director of the Algonquin Club of Boston, a private dining club founded in 1888 that is just blocks from where the alleged kidnapping took place. Lassaad Riahi, the general manager at the Algonquin Club, told ABCNews.com that Rockefeller resigned his membership from the club three months ago "on his own terms." Sandra Boss, the child's mother, is a senior partner in the London office of McKinsey & Company. She has done consultant work for New York Sen. Charles Schumer and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and has ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. A message left by ABCNews.com at the Four Seasons hotel, where police say Boss and her daughter were guests, was not returned Monday. Boss has since checked out of the hotel. Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Child Welfare Agency, told ABCNews.com that the department has had previous interactions with the Rockefeller family. Reigh is 4 feet tall, weighs 50 pounds and has blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink and white sun dress and red shoes. Clark Rockefeller is 5 feet 6 inches tall with a stocky build, thinning blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue Lacoste shirt and khaki pants. | |