It is every divorced mother’s nightmare: that her ex-husband might kidnap their child. That’s exactly what happened on Sunday to Sandra L. Boss, a sophisticated and youthful looking 41-year-old. Her 7-year-old daughter, Reigh (pronounced Ray), was snatched while on a supervised visit with her father in Boston.

Boss had married Clark Rockefeller in the early 90s. It turns out that the Rockefeller name, as with many things about the man, was a ruse.

He was a faker, a well educated con man, and definitely a liar.

Even their wedding date – 1994, 1995 -- and place (Nantucket?) seems hard to verify.

Police say they have his date of birth, February 29, 1960, but the fact that it is Leap Year’s Day makes even that suspicious.

The New York Post, in fact, said the FBI put his age at 58, not 48.

His social security number, obtained only three years ago in Connecticut, where as far as anyone knows he has never lived, is apparently false.

The father has not, as far as anyone knows, ever worked.

The mother, meanwhile, was by all accounts a superbly educated and hard working career woman at the international management consultant McKinsey & Co.

But even a Harvard education, which she had, and a deep analytical mind don't prepare someone for a con man like “Rockefeller.”

In fact, the more well-educated and intelligent, the easier a person is to deceive.

As the magician James Randi says, scientists are easy for magicians to fool, because they think so logically. They make assumptions that turn out not to be true.

Scientists, Randi says, “think they’re smarter than the con man, not recognizing that such deception is the strength of the con man, his only profession.”

The Amazing Randi goes on to say, “The conjuror or con man is a very good provider of information. He supplies lots of data, by inference or direct statement, but it’s false data.”

In 2001 their blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter was born.

They lived a life of great luxury: a multi-million-dollar townhouse in Boston, a “cottage” in New Hampshire, a place in Nantucket, memberships in elite clubs. But all of the property was in her name. They had positions of responsibility in cultural organizations in Boston, New Hampshire, the Berkshires, and New York.

But Boss became suspicious of her husband’s background. She sued for divorce on January 17, 2007.

The records of the case were impounded, at the couple’s request, but it is known that Boss was awarded custody and took her daughter to live with her in London, where she was a highly regarded director at McKinsey.

Further distancing herself from her ex, last November Boss petitioned the family court in Massachusetts to legally change her daughter’s name from Reigh Storrow Rockefeller to Reigh Storrow Mills Boss.

The father signed off as "J. Clark Rockefeller," which the Rockefeller archives say is not anyone related to the wealthy Rockefeller clan.

The divorce was made final in December, and by that time Boss knew of her husband’s aliases – which have included Michael Brown, J. P. Clark Rockefeller, James Frederick, and Clark Mills.

That information led the court to severely restrict “Rockefeller’s” visitation with his daughter, because of the fear of abduction.

When Boss brought her daughter to Boston to visit her father, apparently the first since the divorce was final, she paid for a male social-service worker to supervise the visits, perhaps as an extra margin of protection.

That didn’t stop a black SUV from pulling up next to “Rockefeller” and his daughter. He lifted Reigh into the SUV and jumped in after her as it pulled away.

The social-service worker grabbed a door handle and was dragged a few feet before letting go.

(The livery driver was tracked down later on Sunday, and said that he had no awareness of what was going on.)

Boss was told of the abduction, which took place at 12:44, but at first decided not to call the police.

She said her ex-husband would never do anything to harm their daughter.

Five hours later she changed her mind. The police in Boston issued an Amber Alert at 5:15 pm.

Meanwhile, “Rockefeller” switched cars. He paid a female acquaintance from Ipswich, Massachusetts, someone he met in a sailing club, $500 to drive him and his daughter to New York.

His Ipswich friend dropped them off at Grand Central Terminal around 7:30 Sunday night.

After learning of the police hunt, the woman went to the 114th Precinct in Queens to report what had happened.
Again, she said she had no idea she was being used as a getaway driver. She did tell police that “Rockefeller” said he was going on a six-month cruise, and invited her to come along.

That, apparently, was another conjurer’s trick. "Rockefeller" certainly would guess that the woman couldn’t suddenly take off for six months.

But he assumed that she would go to the police and tell them he was headed to a marina on Long Island with his daughter for a long cruide.

Various "Rockefeller" acquaintances spread the word that he, an excellent sailor, had bought a 72-foot catamaran named Serenity for $300,000 in gold bars, and that he had moored the yacht on Long Island.

Apparently in an effort to mislead everyone, he told different acquaintances that he was going to sail to Alaska, Peru, or the Bahamas.

The authorities now believe all of those were, like a magician’s slight of hand, just more deceptions.

Nonetheless, an international land-and-sea search for “Rockefeller” and Reigh Boss has begun.

Meanwhile, it is disturbing to look at the readers’ comments on various newspaper web sites about the abduction.

One man speculated that the ex-wife must be unattractive. Another man, commenting on “The Boston Herald” site that, “I can’t help but root for this guy!”

Many men complained that the laws “always” favor the mother, and that a father has a right to see his child.

And one was bothered by the fact that the child no longer had her father’s last name.

Taking the side of the father, in this case, seems to be a mistake, guys.