The questions that remain open are the ones that belong to Linda Sohus, wherever she is. To Jonathan Sohus, who deserved better than what he got. To Ruth “Didi” Sohus, who died before her son’s killer was convicted. To Sandra Boss, who gave twelve years to a fiction. To a daughter who was seven years old when her father took her from a sidewalk in Boston’s Back Bay.
Those questions are not Clark Rockefeller’s story. They are the story of everyone he used.
—
## The Mechanics of a Quaker Ceremony and a Missing Paper Trail
One detail from the Gerhartsreiter case that is easy to overlook in favor of the more dramatic elements is the choice of a Quaker wedding ceremony for the 1995 Nantucket marriage to Sandra Boss.
Quaker ceremonies — often called “meeting weddings” — have a distinctive legal status that varies by jurisdiction. In many states, including Massachusetts, a Quaker marriage is legally recognized as long as the required number of witnesses sign the marriage certificate and the document is properly filed with the appropriate civil authority. The ceremony itself does not involve an officiant who would independently verify the identities of the people marrying.
This structural feature meant that a man who had no verifiable identity — whose name was an alias, whose history was fabricated, whose legal documents were either nonexistent or fraudulent — could participate in a legally recognized marriage ceremony with minimal scrutiny of his identity from an officiating party. The civil registration relied on what the parties reported.