The novelist and the murderer

[Jazzy]

In his new book "Blood Will Out: The True Story of Murder, a Mystery and a Masquerade," Walter Kirn tells the tale of his 10-year friendship with a man he knew as Clark Rockefeller, but whose real name was Christian Gerhartsreiter, a German-born con artist who last year was convicted of murdering, dismembering and burying his landlady's son in a California backyard in 1985.

From the beginning, it was an unlikely association. Kirn, a self-deprecating Midwestern native and Princeton graduate who wears cowboy boots with his sport coat and has a successful career as a journalist and novelist, writes that his first impression of Rockefeller was that he was a "twee, diminutive hobbit of a fellow whose level of self-amusement seemed almost delusional."

That impression never changed, exactly, but the two struck up a kind of friendship. Clark told Kirn strange stories - he'd never eaten a hamburger, he'd gone to Yale at 14, he was friends with Britney Spears. And though Kirn writes that he found much of what his friend said somewhat incredible (and hated his habit of "forgetting" his wallet when they dined out), he stuck around, in part, because he liked the idea of being friends with a Rockefeller.

Kirn, who appears in Saturday's episode of 48 Hours "aka Rockefeller," spoke with CBS News' Crimesider about the the con man, the cold case, and how to spot a sociopath.

Crimesider: Once he was unmasked, did you ever doubt that the man you knew as Clark had murdered John Sohus?

Walter Kirn: I was convinced the moment I heard about the crime in 2008 that he was guilty, and it was for a very simple reason. When they described the murder, they said that the suspect was living in the guest house by the garage of the murder victim's mother. And I remembered back to 1998 when he'd called me and asked if he could come stay with me in Montana. I'd said, I don't have room for you, and he said, well do you have a garage or a little guest apartment? I said, yeah. He said, well that's all I need, I used to live in a little guest house and I've never been happier in all my life. And when a Rockefeller tells you that he was never happier in all this life staying in a little guest apartment or over a garage, it sticks in your brain. That was one of the first details that came out in the description of the murder case, and when I heard that I thought, oh my God, he did it.

Read the rest of the questions and answers

If you befriended a murderer, would you know it?

 

[DrLeftover]

I did.

Several in fact.

But I had an advantage of knowing who was what when I walked in.