The “mystery man” known as Clark Rockefeller was named a “person of interest” yesterday by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in a 24-year-old murder investigation.

Two detectives from Los Angeles have arrived in Boston to investigate possible links between the disappearance of the newlywed Jonathan and Linda Sohus in 1985 and the accused kidnapper police arrested on Saturday in Baltimore.

Mr Rockefeller, 48, who is not thought to be part of the billionaire Rockefeller oil dynasty, became the subject of a global search last month after allegedly abducting his seven-year-old daughter from the streets of Boston.

His estranged wife, Sandra Boss, is a financial consultant in London.

The murder case, which remains unsolved, was opened in 1994 when three plastic bags containing human bones were found by construction workers as they dug a hole for a swimming pool in the wealthy “old money” Californian town of San Marino.

At the time of the discovery police said the bones might have belonged to a man named Jonathan Sohus, who disappeared with his wife Linda in 1985.

Authorities were unable to identify the remains positively but forensic science investigators determined that the subject was struck one to three times on the head before death.

Several US news agencies are now citing police sources as linking Mr Rockefeller's fingerprints to a stock brokerage licence application filed under the name Christopher Chichester, who appears on a list of “persons of interest” in connection with the San Marino case.

Mr Chichester was a tenant in the guest house of the Sohus's home in the mid-1980s and claimed to be a wealthy investor and descendent of British royalty.

Mr Rockefeller's, lawyer, Stephen Hrones, denied that his client had any link to the San Marino case. He added that Clark Rockefeller was his legal name.

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