FILE - In this July 8 2011 file photo, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German man who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears in an Alhambra, Calif. court. Gerhartsreiter faces a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 in the cold case murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif. in 1985. (AP Photo/Sarah Reingewirtz, Pool, File)
FILE - In this July 8 2011 file photo, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German man who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears in an Alhambra, Calif. court. Gerhartsreiter faces a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 in the cold case murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif. in 1985. (AP Photo/Sarah Reingewirtz, Pool, File)
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, center, a German immigrant who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears during a preliminary court hearing in Alhambra, Calif. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. Gerhartsreiter a convicted kidnapper faces a charge of murdering the son of his former landlady a quarter century ago, when he lived in California under one of his many pseudonyms. (AP Photo/Pasadena Star News, Walt Mancini, Pool)
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German immigrant who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, appears as he in handcuffed during a preliminary court hearing in Alhambra, Calif. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. Gerhartsreiter a convicted kidnapper facing a charge of murdering the son of his former landlady a quarter century ago, when he lived in California under one of his many pseudonyms. (AP Photo/Pasadena Star News, Walt Mancini, Pool)
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German immigrant who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, walks into to a preliminary court hearing in Alhambra, Calif. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. Gerhartsreiter a convicted kidnapper facing a charge of murdering the son of his former landlady a quarter century ago, when he lived in California under one of his many pseudonyms, is faced with the murder of John Sohus, 27, who disappeared from San Marino, Calif. in 1985. (AP Photo/Walt Mancini, Pool)
ALHAMBRA, Calif. (AP) ? When a newlywed couple disappeared in 1985, their families were initially unconcerned because they believed John and Linda Sohus were on a secret mission for the government, testimony showed Thursday at a preliminary hearing in the murder case against a man alleged to be the guesthouse tenant who also vanished.
The hearing for Christian Gerhartsreiter, who has a kidnapping conviction in Massachusetts where he posed as an heir to the Rockefeller fortune, will determine whether there is enough evidence to put him on trial for the apparent bludgeoning that only came to light when the husband's bones were dug up at the Sohuses' former home in 1994.
Gerhartsreiter is charged only with killing 27-year-old John Sohus; no sign of Linda Sohus has been found.
Witnesses called Thursday included former San Marino police officers who took reports about the disappearance at a time when it was uncertain whether a crime had occurred.
Thomas LeVeque said he interviewed John Sohus' mother, Ruth, and Linda Sohus' sister, Catherine Mayfield, and thought the disappearance "was rather unusual."
Ruth Sohus claimed to have a secret source that she could not reveal because it would endanger the couple, he said.
"She said that she had written to them and she could make contact with them," LeVeque said.
But as time went on and the couple did not reappear, Ruth Sohus repeatedly called police to ask for help, he said.
Lili Hadsell, now police chief of Baldwin Park, said she had many contacts with Ruth Sohus as a patrol officer in San Marino.
"Every time I went out there it escalated and escalated," she said. "It started out that she reported they were gone but wasn't super concerned. She believed they were working."
At one point, Hadsell said, Ruth Sohus stated that the couple was working for the parents of a man living in their guesthouse who was known as Christopher Chichester.
When bills arrived, she gave them to Chichester and he said he was forwarding them, the witness testified.
But then Chichester disappeared as well.
"She had become nervous and scared that something had happened to John and Linda," Hadsell testified.
The witnesses said the mother had problems with alcohol and was under the influence a few times during interviews.
Hadsell said she also interviewed Linda Sohus' mother, Susan Mayfield, who reported receiving postcards from her daughter from Paris. But the witness said later handwriting analysis suggested they were not written by Linda Sohus.
LeVeque said the missing woman's sister, Catherine Mayfield, also initially believed the couple was doing some secret work but was the first to report them as missing.
Earlier in the preliminary hearing, a construction worker described discovering the skull and bones in bags stuffed in a box while excavating a swimming pool.
A medical examiner testified that the skull had multiple fractures inflicted by a blunt object, possibly a baseball bat.
Gerhartsreiter has previously been exposed as a veteran impostor. On the East Coast he claimed to be "Clark Rockefeller," a member of the famous family, and married a woman with whom he had a daughter. She divorced him when she found out he had duped her.
Last year he was convicted of kidnapping his daughter in Boston during a custody dispute. Gerhartsreiter is serving a four- to five-year prison sentence for that crime. He would be eligible for parole this year if he was not facing the California charge, which could bring him 26 years to life in prison if he is convicted.
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