The Man in the Rockefeller Suit (47 page)

During the trial, the prosecutor, David Deakin, grilled witness after witness on Rockefeller’s state of mind at the time of the kidnapping. Here, Deakin presents a chart showing the expert witnesses’ findings about the defendant’s mental state.

Throughout her testimony, Rockefeller’s wife of twelve years, the extremely poised and ever collected Sandra Boss, spelled out how she could have been duped by someone like Rockefeller, de spite her being an undoubtedly highly intelligent career woman. “One can be brilliant and amazing in one area of one’s life and really stupid in another,” she said. Although repeatedly grilled by the defense on how she could believe the monstrous lies her ex-husband had told her, she held firm to her convictions while also making clear the pain she had endured after her daughter’s kidnapping.

As his trial came to a close, the Clark Rockefeller who had greeted investigators and reporters as a gentleman of wealth and taste—holding forth as if he were hosting a party even while incarcerated—turned mute, pale, and ghostly in court. It was as if after a lifetime of lies, he had finally run out of stories to tell.