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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. Huggy! Hey, Sachi. Have you ever had to invent a story for whatever reason, but the details get just so unwieldy and so out of hand that you literally have to keep notes so you can stay on track?
Honestly, I'm not that good of a liar. So the lie would just fall apart, right? It would fall apart real fast. Okay, well, my parents listen to this podcast ritualistically, so I have to say I have never lied, ever, for any reason at all. You're the most honest girl I know. Thanks, that's so nice. They're definitely going to believe that. Okay.
Well, this week, I have a story about someone who was really good at building crazy, complex, believable lies all the way until he wasn't. It's May of 1994 in San Marino, California. Jose Perez and his construction crew are renovating a house, including installing a swimming pool.
They're digging a 36-foot pit to ready the yard for the cement and the plumbing. But then, the tractor's blade crashes through something hard buried in the dirt. Jose stops digging, annoyed. He's found everything imaginable in people's yards, even a few cars. But this is unusual. When he looks closer, he realizes the tractor's metal claw has sliced open a big fiberglass box buried in the dirt.
And inside the box are a bunch of plastic shopping bags, including some with university logos on them. And there's a bad smell coming from them. Like, really bad. When Jose gets a better look at the bags, he starts screaming. Because he realizes that he's looking at human remains. The bones of an arm, a spine, and a skull. Neighbors come running. And then the police. And then, of course, the press.
Everyone wants to know whose dismembered body has been found. But it turns out this is so much more than a grisly crime scene. This is the clue that will unravel the decades-long con of one of the world's most manipulative and cunning liars. From Wondery, I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers.
Today, I'm going to tell you the story of Christian Karl Gerhardt's writer, a German con man who built an entire life on fake names, lies, and schemes. He was an immigrant to America, drawn to the idea that in this country, you can become anyone. You just have to want it bad enough. And Christian wanted it real bad. He lied, stole, seduced, and even killed, all to make his American dream come true.
This is Three Weddings and a Funeral, Part One.
Our story starts in Bergen, Germany, a village nestled deep in the Bavarian Alps. It's 1978, 15 years before any remains are discovered in California. And a teenage boy named Christian Karl Gerhardt's writer is walking through the tiny town on a warm summer day. Sarah, picture it with me. It's one of these pristine European mountain hamlets where the houses look like they're made of gingerbread. The place is almost painfully German. ♪
The town basically is a church and a beer garden. So, you know, our kind of town, obviously. Oh yeah, totally us, very us. Totally. Christian walks into the beer garden and spots his dad, Simon, across the room. He's holding court, telling a story, yelling to be heard over the laughter and the music. As a young man, Simon tried to make it as an artist in the big city. But now, he's settled into small-town life, painting houses and dabbling in art on the side.
And as Christian sits down at his dad's table, the differences between them couldn't be more clear. Where Simon is boisterous and brash, Christian is quiet and reserved. He's short and handsome. I actually have a photo of him from this time. Sarah, can you describe him for me? He's wearing a sweater with a collared shirt under. He has like that kind of longish, late 70s hair. And he's wearing those...
Jeffrey Dahmer-style murder glasses. Well, unlike his dad, Christian doesn't fit in here at all. He tries to impress his classmates by memorizing classic literature. And he pulls pranks, like blowing pepper in someone's face. Really hilarious stuff. And one time, he calls the German DMV and pretends to be a millionaire who needs to register his Rolls Royces. It seems like putting on airs of sophistication makes Christian feel important. Powerful.
But the other kids just think he's weird. Christian finds an escape from his painfully boring town by watching old American movies. He loves film noir especially, with its brash heroes and scandalous femme fatales. He wants to be in that world. He even wears classic American suits to school, like the ones Humphrey Bogart wore. I will say one thing about this guy. He sounds insufferable from a young age. There's nothing about this guy that seems normal. Well, yes.
And in the beer garden, I imagine Christian's dad throwing his arm around his son because he really wants him to belong. But Christian doesn't want a seat at that table. I picture him looking around at his dad and his friends here in the same bar with the same guys in the same town where they were all born and where they will all die. Christian needs more, a bigger life, and he'll do anything to get it.
Later that summer, a middle-aged American couple, Elmer and Jean Kelln, are traveling through Bergen while on vacation in Germany. Jean is tall, with short hair and big, friendly energy. Elmer, a dentist, is shorter and bald. And the couple have left their kids back in California to enjoy a trip through Europe, just the two of them. But the trip has taken a turn. It's dark and pouring rain, and they're lost on the Autobahn.
And then, through the downpour, they spot this young guy standing on the side of the road. Jeanne's immediately worried for him, as she explains later in a documentary called The Great Pretender. Of course, being a mother and seeing a young kid standing by the side of the road, I guess, you know, just you don't leave somebody standing by the side of the road and don't pick them up.
Okay, she is the sweetest woman on earth. And this is also how a lot of horror movies start. It's great intentions and terrible instincts, for sure. But in any case, Gene and Elmer stop the car and they let the kid in. His light brown hair is soaking wet, and he introduces himself as Christian. He says he's a tour guide for English-speaking tourists, but now he's finally heading home to a small town.
He's handsome and chatty, and he insists that they spend the night at his family's house just a few miles down the road. Jean and Elmer are grateful for a place to stay, for free, with friendly locals. But when they get to Christian's house and they meet his parents and his little brother, they can't shake the feeling that something is just off. They realize that Christian has set up all of his stuff in the living room, including his own film projector, which he uses to watch old movies.
He seems to rule over the household. And later on, Jean would say that she got the feeling that Christian was living in a fantasy world, one his parents and brother were not a part of. But in the moment, they don't think much of it. They're just glad that Christian helped them out of a tough spot. I mean, this is a nightmare. Yeah. Going into someone's home and being like immediately disturbed. Immediately bad vibes, red flags all around. Yeah.
Well, then Christian takes them to a local restaurant and over beer and bratwurst, he tells them how much he wants to go to the U.S. And the next morning, Elmer and Jean say goodbye and they leave Christian their contact information. But they have no idea that they've just handed Christian a key to finally getting out and starting his real life in America. ♪
A few months after meeting Elmer and Jean, Christian's walking along yet another highway. Only this time, it's not the Audubon. It's a tree-lined stretch of road in Connecticut. It's 1978, and thanks to his first big lie, Christian has finally made it to the States. He managed to get a tourist visa by using Elmer and Jean's contact information without them even knowing about it.
Christian told the U.S. government that the California couple had agreed to sponsor him. And not long after arriving in Connecticut, Christian places an ad in the local paper claiming to be an exchange student who needs a place to stay.
And Gwen Savio, a librarian at the local high school, responds. She loves hosting exchange students and welcomes Christian into her home with her husband and her four kids. They're a big, warm Italian-American family. And there's an eight-year-old girl that the family calls Snooks, 10-year-old twin boys, and a 15-year-old named Edward. Oh, no. This poor family. They are opening their hearts and it will go wrong. Yeah.
Yeah. So even though he already graduated from high school back in Germany, Christian enrolls as a senior at the same high school as Ed. He's trying to fit in with all these American teens. So he wears white frame sunglasses and tight jeans. He tries to get his hair to do the windblown Farrah Fawcett thing. You know, it's the late 70s. It's the time.
But as Ed remembers it, he just isn't pulling it off. It all feels like an act. He tells people that he's the son of a high-powered German executive and that he's a member of the bourgeoisie. When interviewed about Christian later in the documentary The Great Pretender, Ed says that his transformation was all about trying to impress. From the beginning, it was, of course, we come from this money. Of course, we have maids and people to take care of us. And it was almost like if he had had money, he would have been throwing it.
And even though it seems like Christian is into the finer things in life, he actually spends most of his free time doing something pretty basic, watching TV. Specifically, he loves Gilligan's Island. Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.
Sarah, did you ever watch Gilligan's Island when you were younger or when you saw it on reruns on TV? No, because I'm 31 years old. I am also 31 years old. I watched Gilligan's Island.
Which is a show about a bunch of people who get stranded on an island. I am obviously a ginger, who was the hot one. I'm sure you are. Thank you. But Christian's favorite character in the show is Thurston Howell III, otherwise known as the millionaire, who's this tony country club guy. Well, you haven't got the knack of being idly rich, you see. You should do like me, just snooze and dream, dream and snooze. The pleasures are unlimited.
Christian adopts his accent, asking Ed to pass the salt at the dinner table. So not only is he faking an upper crust accent, Christian is also turning into a total snob with the Savio's.
When Gwen serves him dinner, Christian rolls his eyes and says, this is what we're having again? Or we would never eat like this. He stays up too late watching TV, and then he yells at Ed to be quiet when he gets up to get ready for school. Even Mrs. Savio, famously a friend to exchange students, is getting sick of him. One night, Ed tells Christian that he dreams of going to Los Angeles to make movies. And Christian's confused. He thought New York was the American city —
When Ed explains that California is where they make the movies, the wheels in Christian's mind begin to turn. On a cold night that winter, Christian's at home watching TV. He's so absorbed in whatever show he's watching that he probably doesn't hear Ed's little sister Snooks come home. She knocks and knocks, but Christian never lets her in. And when Gwen comes home and discovers that Christian has left Snooks outside in the freezing cold for hours, she's furious and she kicks Christian out.
Christian is running out of allies, and he knows that his tourist visa will expire soon. But he'll do anything to stay in America and get to his new destination, California. So Christian finds a new path to citizenship, marriage. About two years later in Milwaukee, Elaine Gerseld notices a new guy in her church group. Elaine is 22 years old, friendly and energetic, and she's drawn to the young man with short blonde hair, big glasses, and a German accent.
He introduces himself as Christian. He says he's new to the University of Wisconsin and he's here to study film. He's handsome and intriguing. And Christian tells her that he's worried about things back in Germany. The Cold War has been escalating, you know, and the country is divided. ♪
He tells her that he fears being sent back to Germany and being drafted into the army. His life would be wasted on the front lines fighting the Russians. So the thing about the Cold War is that people weren't really fighting in it that way. No, they weren't. That's why it was called the Cold War. I mean, like, what, he's going to be drafted to be, like, a spy? Like, I don't understand. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's...
It was a different time. There was no internet back then. Elaine was probably reading more of her Bible than the news. She didn't know. But Elaine's freaking out, and she's worried about Christian. But then he suggests a solution. He says that if someone married him, he could stay in America. They'd maybe even save his life. And Sarah, Elaine is moved, but not moved enough to agree to a green card marriage.
But she tells Christian that she has a sister. That is crazy. Hey, dude, I don't want to marry you, but my sister might be desperate enough to marry your ass. It's a very sisterly favor, I think. So Elaine introduces Christian to her older sister, Amy. And...
And apparently it takes Christian and Elaine only a single hour to convince Amy to marry him. Yeah, this is one of those scenarios where you don't need to have a sister to realize this is crazy. Maybe he's a catch. There's nothing any of my sisters could do to convince me to do anything in an hour. There'd have to be some hypnotism involved or some sort of monetary reward. Yeah.
Well, there is no hypnotism so far as I know. And Christian and Amy later make it official in a Milwaukee courthouse. But after the paperwork for Christian's green card is all filled out, Christian completely ghosts. Amy never sees him again. Cool. Yeah, that's what I want to happen to me one day. Yeah, it's dope.
She and her sister Elaine haven't said much about their experience with Christian, and we don't know Amy's reasons for agreeing to marry him in the first place. It certainly seems like it wasn't for love. It could have been for money. Or it could have been the fact that Elaine and Amy knew people who were drafted in the Vietnam War, so they were feeling sympathetic. And maybe they were just young and he was convincing and cute. Who knows? But this next part we know for sure. Christian is not done reinventing himself.
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In the spring of 1981, Elmer and Jean Cald are relaxing at home in Loma Linda. It's a sleepy suburb 60 miles east of Los Angeles, and they live on a quiet, sunny Southern California street. There's a knock at the door. Jean answers, delighted to see their old friend, Christian, on their porch.
He looks so different from the shaggy teenager they met on the Autobahn in the rain. Christian is now a young man, clean cut, with a business-like wardrobe and attitude. But he's still as confident and talkative as ever. And he's a newlywed. His quickie wedding was only three months earlier. But Elmer and Jean probably have no idea about the marriage or that Christian has been lying to people about his background.
And they likely still don't know that he used their information to get into America in the first place. I am so disappointed in this man. I know. Why suck this innocent couple into his scheme? Why come back? Well, because Christian is there to tell them about his plans. He's off to Los Angeles to make it in Hollywood.
The only problem, he says, is his name. It's just too German. He wants to change it. And Elmer totally gets it. He knows that everybody in Hollywood has a fake name anyway. That is true. Elmer and Jean flip through the phone book with Christian, trying out different names. And ultimately, Christian settles on the British-sounding Chichester for his last name.
And if you don't know, because I didn't know, Sir Francis Chichester was a very, very famous and very fancy English sailor. Sir Francis Chichester came ashore from the gallant 53-foot catch, which had brought him alone but safely full circle around the world to home. First of all, dumb name, Chichester. No offense to the Chichester family.
But also, like, out of all the British-sounding Anglo names, that's the one you settle with, you know? Yeah. But Sarah, hold on. He's not done. Because he goes with Christopher for his first name because, you know, alliteration is always really nice. And he decides to include a fancy middle name to really fill out his new identity. So the fancy cherry on top of this whole Sunday of lies, he goes with, ready? Christopher.
Mountbatten. As in Lord Mountbatten, which is an extremely notable member of the British royal family. I've watched The Crown. I've heard Mountbatten many times. Yeah. So now his name is Christopher Mountbatten Chichester. Don't you think it rolls right off the tongue? That's so stupid. It's like being like, my name is...
Mountbatten banana. Like, that's how it sounds to me. Well, Elmer and Jean are really happy for their quirky little German friend. And they wish him luck as he sets off for Hollywood. But Christian's sights are actually set for the suburbs, somewhere where he can complete his evolution from small-town German outsider to wannabe wealthy social climber. Finally, he's going to live the life of luxury he's always felt he deserves. ♪
San Marino is a wealthy enclave 20 minutes northeast of L.A., nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It's a picture-perfect, Rockwellian town with wide boulevards and fancy estates. And here is where Christopher arrives in 1981, in his Plymouth Arrow. He's been living in his car and eating whatever he can find. He tries to keep his preppy clothes clean, probably to hide the fact that, essentially, he's unhoused.
According to a woman he once went on a date with, the inside of the car is covered in little yellow post-it notes. And looking back, she thinks he might have been using each one to remember all of the details about his made-up new persona. His name, his work, his education, where his parents are from, where they live now. It really seems like he needs to keep his story straight.
He joins a rotary club in town and he tries out his new persona at church. Where else, you know? Could you imagine one of your friends saying to you like, yeah, so I wanted to date with this German guy.
And his car was covered in post-it notes that just had details of his life on every single note. And I'm pretty sure he was living in that car. Honestly, this could happen to me anytime. We're not that far off. Well, living in his car, early on a Sunday morning, Chris struts up to the church of our Savior. And the church is a small white building with a bell tower. And he's like,
And Christopher makes himself at home in the first pew, and no one really pays him much attention. At least not yet. He peeks over his Bible at his fellow parishioners, and he zeroes in on all the older women. And when the service ends, he makes his way to the patio. He starts introducing himself to the women, catching up over coffee and tea. He kisses their hands, tells them how pleased he is to meet them. And then he hands them a literal calling card.
It's printed on thick paper and it says Christopher Mountbatten Chichester, the 13th baronet. He's not a 13th anything. He's not a baronet, but nobody knows that or they just don't care enough to check. Yeah, the 13th baronet is a thing. That certainly is not him. Yes.
When I just Googled it, it's a guy named Sir Edmund Bacon, who was the 13th and 14th baronet. Also, if someone came up to me and said that, I'd be like, oh my God, I met the 13th baronet. Don't know what that means or what it is. Yeah, his car was covered in Post-its, but I think we're going to go out again. It's a baronet thing you wouldn't understand. Yeah.
Well, now that he has their attention, Chris tells the town just a whole boatload of wild-ass lies. Like that he's related to that Sir Francis Chichester, the first person to sail across the world alone, making only one stop. And that he recently inherited an 11th century cathedral in England and is considering relocating it to the United States.
The older women of San Marino embrace him. It seems like these are the kinds of women who wear pearls and scarves indoors, the kind of ladies who love talking about theater and using the word dapper. They're quick to offer him a ride, a meal, a room. He's young, smart, charming, and he's a royal. Any questions about his identity seem to be overshadowed by excitement. The town just seems so happy to have him there. ♪
At some point, Christopher winds up taking film courses at the University of Southern California. There are no records of him ever being enrolled as a student there. And to this day, his teachers have no idea how he ended up in their classes. But if there's one thing we know about Christopher, it's that you shouldn't underestimate him or his ability to pull a scam. He even talks his way into a party at USC where the guest list includes George Lucas and Steven Spielberg —
He's rubbing shoulders with the world's most famous storytellers. Okay, I'm trying to understand where he's going with this. Well, here's what I can tell you, Sarah. Three years after he arrives in San Marino, Christopher parlays his studies at USC into his own local cable show called Inside San Marino.
It debuts in 1984, and he's finally getting the chance to be behind the camera. Everything is working out better than he ever dreamed. This town is eating out of the palm of his hand. But he's about to meet his toughest audience yet.
Naturally, everyone in San Marino tries to set their daughters up with this quote-unquote eligible bachelor. Now, you will remember, technically, Christopher is married, but that's not stopping him. Why should he bother leeching off these old women when the town has so many young women, probably with trust funds? Can I just say, it is so easy to be an eligible bachelor compared to how easy it is to be an eligible bachelorette.
Yeah, you got to have all your teeth. You got to not be like full slime, but a little slime will work. Literally, all you have to do is look women in the eye and listen when they speak. And everyone's like, OK, most eligible bachelor right here in town. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, Christopher's charm, it just doesn't quite work on them. He tells one woman that he produced the British TV series The Prisoner. And she hasn't heard of it, though. So that doesn't really work.
He talks another woman's ear off about musicals, mansplains the romantic history of Godiva chocolate, and he gets the worst possible seats for a date at the Philharmonic. He takes one woman on a lunch date that consists entirely of watching him run errands from the passenger seat of his dumpy car. She later says that she gets a good look at the assortment of yellow post-it notes stuck all over the inside of his car, the ones that she thinks Christopher uses to keep track of his lies.
She never calls him back, telling her parents that he is creepy. Clearly, none of these women are interested in becoming Mrs. 13th Baronet.
And good for them. No one wants to be lectured by some loser with a weird accent and a superiority complex. That makes me so happy that these young women were smart enough to be like, no, this guy sucks and he's gross and he's not fun to be around. Well, at this point, Chris realizes that he has a problem. His car keeps breaking down and his blazers are starting to look worn. He needs a new plan. He needs a permanent source of money.
Then, through members of his church, he hears about an old, lonely woman with a guest house and a broken heart. Christopher has just found his next mark, and he's going to take her for everything she's worth. At the edge of San Marino, Ruth Didi Sojas lives in the same Spanish-style rambler that she's lived in almost all her life. Didi was once a dark-haired beauty. She went to prestigious schools, including USC, before working at a newspaper.
She zipped around Southern California in the convertible her parents gave her, or sometimes even on a small plane she piloted herself. She married three times, and she raised a son. But now she's all alone. Her renter just moved out of the back house on her property, and she reportedly spends her days in a tattered old housecoat, drinking sherry and smoking. Old newspapers and other random shit have started stacking up and collecting dust.
But one day, around 1982, a stranger knocks on the door. It's Christopher Chichester. And Sarah, we don't know exactly what he says to Dee Dee, but I imagine he introduces himself with a smile and kisses her hand. And shortly after, Chris moves into the guest house out back. This is not going to be good. Yeah, it's pretty fast. And right around the time that Dee Dee meets Chris, she also finds out that her son, John, is in love.
John's in his late 20s. He's short. And there's really no better way for me to say this, Sarah. He's a huge nerd.
When he discovered computers in high school, he found his passion. And now he's found another lifelong love, Linda, a six-foot-tall woman with feathered red hair who works at a sci-fi bookstore and is obsessed with Star Trek. They met playing Dungeons and Dragons. They're like a king and queen geek duo. They have the kind of love that you can see and feel in their photos together. I actually have a photo of them together. Sarah, can you describe it for us? Yeah.
Yeah, it's a really sweet photo. It's really sweet. You know, they look genuinely really happy. They're standing in like a bookstore or something and he has like a hood on and she's leaning over him. And, you know, they both have these very sweet smiles. Like it definitely is something that translates in a photo. Yeah, I mean, they look very sweet together. And John was crazy about Linda. Her friends later described their relationship in a documentary series for Oxygen.
He was so devoted to her and so friendly with her and, you know, liked everything that she did and they enjoyed each other's company. They wanted to be together and that just made me happy for them. But when Dee Dee meets Linda, she isn't impressed. She thinks her son can do better.
And then, a year after John and Linda meet, John tells Dee Dee that they're getting married and they want to move into Dee Dee's back guest house. Well, there's no way that's happening because Chris lives there and Dee Dee loves having her suave, young, handsome friend around. So John and Linda, and their six cats, move into the main house instead. Now Chris, John, and Linda are all dependent on Dee Dee, who's drinking and losing her grip on reality.
Tension in the house is building, and this family conflict is about to come to a head in a way that will shatter their lives forever.
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Go to quince.com slash scampod for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash scampod for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash scampod. John knows that his mom doesn't like his fiancée Linda. But he and Linda are in a bind. They don't have much money or many options.
It's uncomfortable, but it's temporary. They'll just have to stick it out while they save up for their own place. But John and Linda quickly notice things with Dee Dee and her mysterious houseguest are strange. First of all, Christopher takes Dee Dee to all her doctor's appointments and gets her groceries, which might seem really sweet, except that Christopher really seems to have a hold over Dee Dee.
Linda tells John and their friends that he's creepy. And meanwhile, Dee Dee is spiraling. According to journalist Mark Seal, who literally wrote the book about Christopher, she's showing signs of dementia. She drinks heavily and bangs on John and Linda's door incessantly. It's so bad that they have to put a padlock on the door. Oh, man. It is so sad to hear about someone taking advantage of, like, an old person. Yeah. Yeah.
But John and Linda are distracting themselves by planning their wedding. It's an intimate affair in a friend's backyard on Halloween night. Some people even come in costume. John wears a gray suit, and Linda, never one to be conventional, wears a purple dress. But Dee Dee doesn't go. She stays at home, probably with Christopher.
Oh, my God. You know, it makes sense if he was like, oh, I'll go to the wedding with you, Dee Dee, but he doesn't even do that. Yeah. Well, John and Linda can't afford to go on a honeymoon, so they return to the house. And Dee Dee's behavior does not get any better. But then, shortly after their first anniversary, Christopher offers them the chance to change their lives. ♪
He reportedly tells John that his family owns a large stake in a French aerospace company and that they'd like to interview him and Linda for exciting jobs in New York City. John is excellent with computers, and he's always loved space. And then Christopher says, well, there's a caveat. The job is government-related, and it has to be kept top secret.
John and Linda agree. They can't tell their friends much, but they put their cats in a cat hotel and prepay for two weeks. And John asks his boss at his low-level programming job for two weeks' advanced pay. It's easy to imagine that John and Linda are thrilled. This is the break they've been waiting for. John is sure that this is just the beginning of their new life. But he couldn't have been more wrong.
After John and Linda take off for this new opportunity, their friends and colleagues start to wonder about them. When they call the house, Dee Dee has to explain to them over and over that John and Linda are on a secret mission. She can't tell anyone anything. And the truth is, she doesn't know much herself.
John's new job is so sensitive, he can't even contact her directly. She can only communicate through his contact, Christopher. But weeks turn into months, and still, nobody has heard a peep from the newlyweds.
Meanwhile, Christopher has free reign over the house again. He invites friends over to play board games and even starts driving John's new Nissan pickup around. Oh, my God. The way this guy has weaseled his way into the— Yeah. It's like, you know, he was kind of jumping from place to place, and it really feels like now he finally found the people he could manipulate the most.
It's really upsetting to me. I know, it's a little single white female, isn't it? Oh my God. Well, a few months after John and Linda leave, Dee Dee wakes up and discovers that Christopher Mountbatten Chichester is gone. And actually, so is John's truck. So finally, Dee Dee calls the police. She tells them the whole story.
It's been months since she last saw John and Linda. Dee Dee asks to file a missing persons report, but the police don't pursue the investigation. They reportedly tell her that her son and his wife are adults. They can disappear if they want. Shortly after that, Dee Dee suffers a stroke. And with mounting medical bills, Dee Dee is forced to sell her home and move into a trailer park. And during this time, she writes John and her granddaughters out of her will, and she replaces them with the people who sold her the trailer —
We're not really sure why she did this, but what we do know is that when she dies of a heart attack a few years later, they inherit everything that John probably would have. This is so depressing. It is shocking that there are new lows in this story, but yeah, it's so sad. And meanwhile, John and Linda's friends are haunted by what might have become of the happy couple.
The mystery remains unsolved for years and years. And when the case finally cracks wide open, it'll confirm their worst nightmares. After he disappears from San Marino, Christopher sets his sights on much bigger targets. Believe it or not, Sarah, the story only gets crazier from here. He's leaving a trail that will lead investigators to some of the most exclusive addresses and influential social circles in the country —
There's no amount of money that can protect them from a good suit and a great last name. But what even Christopher doesn't know is that every lie he tells is slowly drawing him towards his spectacular downfall. There's some truths you just can't shake, and every secret he left in Dee Dee's yard will be unearthed eventually. ♪
For Christopher, it'll happen years later, when the new owners of Dee Dee's house decide to put in a swimming pool. And the construction crew makes the gruesome discovery. A bag of dismembered body parts shoved into a box. But by then, Christopher will be long gone. ♪
This is episode one of our two-part series, Three Weddings and a Funeral. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencersatwondery.com.
We used many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Mark Steele's book, "The Man in the Rockefeller Suit," the 48-hours episode "A.K.A. Rockefeller," and the Oxygen documentary series, "A Wedding and a Murder: Vanishing Vows."
Special thanks to court reporters Richard and Faye LaRue. Colleen Scriven wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagge. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary. Our producer and story editor is Sarah Enney. Our story editor is Allison Weintraub. Sound design is by Sam Ada. Fact-checking by Gabrielle Drolet. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrienne Tapia.
Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Our senior managing producer is Tanja Thigpen. Our managing producer is Matt Gant. Kate Young and Olivia Richard are our series producers. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marsha Louis for Wondery. Wondery.
If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
