American fare, he would say, “Oh, this is what we’re having, again ?”
“I’d never marry an Italian,” he said once. “They’re just too emotional.”
“Well, thank God for that!” Mrs. Savio shot back. “Lucky for Italian girls.”
Time and again, Gerhartsreiter said, “I would never live like this,” meaning in a modest house in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
“But Chris, you are ! You are living like this,” Edward reminded him.
The German teen’s transformation extended to his name. “He was Christian Gerhartsreiter when he arrived in our house,” explained Savio. “Then it was Chris Gerhart. Then it was Christopher Kenneth Gerhart.” He must have liked the sound of that—very American. And how easy it was to take a new name! As with so much in America, all you had to do was assume it, grab it, and no questions would be asked.
Still, Chris Gerhart behaved much like Christian Gerhartsreiter, commandeering the Savios’ living room, where he watched television day and night from the couch on which he slept.
“Quiet, please!” he would say in the morning as his hosts were preparing for the day and he was still trying to sleep, having been up until all hours watching TV. He needed his rest, and when he awoke he expected his laundry to be done and his meal prepared.
A couple of months into his stay at the Savios’, he was reclining on the couch, watching TV, perhaps Gilligan —maybe laughing at the way Lovey sucked up to Thurston, or practicing the way Thurston said his lines. He was so engrossed that either he didn’t hear a knocking on the door or he heard it and ignored it. Whatever the case, he didn’t get off the couch to open the door for Snooks as she stood outside for hours in the cold.
Gwen Savio returned home to find her young daughter shivering on the doorstep. “You’re going to have to find somewhere else to live,” she told Gerhartsreiter.
“My mom is very polite, even when she is angry, but she was pissed off,” Savio recalled. “She told me the story, and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s unacceptable. But what are you going to do? It’s wintertime. Are you going to kick him out on the street?’”
“I need him to leave,” she said.
Gwen called around, and Mia McMahon, the school librarian who had made many of Gerhartsreiter’s early introductions, offered to let him stay at her house. Christian unceremoniously left the Savio residence.
“I’m ready for something better anyway,” he said as he left.
I attempted to reach Mia McMahon, but she declined to speak with me, preferring to keep her memories to herself. However, I found a brief synopsis of an interview she had given to the police years after the young man left her home:
She related: that Chris Gerhartsreiter appeared at her residence back in 78/79, after staying with the Savio family. That Chris indicated to her then that he was from Germany but had left the country to avoid being drafted into the army. That his father was an engineer, with his mother being a South African citizen. That Chris made several lengthy calls to Germany and South Africa during the time he stayed at her residence. That Chris and her departed on bad terms, due to Chris’s attitude about paying for overseas telephone calls.
Having left (or been kicked out of) three different homes in less than a year, he was finished with Connecticut altogether. He didn’t bother waiting until the school year ended, for he was off to bigger and better things: college. He’d been accepted as a foreign student at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, an extension of the school’s main campus in Madison and thus easier to get into.
I studied the application forms that Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the name he still went by for official purposes, had filled out. It wasn’t clear how he managed to get into the college—he was intelligent and well educated, having spent much of his time reading and studying in the Berlin public
“I’d never marry an Italian,” he said once. “They’re just too emotional.”
“Well, thank God for that!” Mrs. Savio shot back. “Lucky for Italian girls.”
Time and again, Gerhartsreiter said, “I would never live like this,” meaning in a modest house in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
“But Chris, you are ! You are living like this,” Edward reminded him.
The German teen’s transformation extended to his name. “He was Christian Gerhartsreiter when he arrived in our house,” explained Savio. “Then it was Chris Gerhart. Then it was Christopher Kenneth Gerhart.” He must have liked the sound of that—very American. And how easy it was to take a new name! As with so much in America, all you had to do was assume it, grab it, and no questions would be asked.
Still, Chris Gerhart behaved much like Christian Gerhartsreiter, commandeering the Savios’ living room, where he watched television day and night from the couch on which he slept.
“Quiet, please!” he would say in the morning as his hosts were preparing for the day and he was still trying to sleep, having been up until all hours watching TV. He needed his rest, and when he awoke he expected his laundry to be done and his meal prepared.
A couple of months into his stay at the Savios’, he was reclining on the couch, watching TV, perhaps Gilligan —maybe laughing at the way Lovey sucked up to Thurston, or practicing the way Thurston said his lines. He was so engrossed that either he didn’t hear a knocking on the door or he heard it and ignored it. Whatever the case, he didn’t get off the couch to open the door for Snooks as she stood outside for hours in the cold.
Gwen Savio returned home to find her young daughter shivering on the doorstep. “You’re going to have to find somewhere else to live,” she told Gerhartsreiter.
“My mom is very polite, even when she is angry, but she was pissed off,” Savio recalled. “She told me the story, and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s unacceptable. But what are you going to do? It’s wintertime. Are you going to kick him out on the street?’”
“I need him to leave,” she said.
Gwen called around, and Mia McMahon, the school librarian who had made many of Gerhartsreiter’s early introductions, offered to let him stay at her house. Christian unceremoniously left the Savio residence.
“I’m ready for something better anyway,” he said as he left.
I attempted to reach Mia McMahon, but she declined to speak with me, preferring to keep her memories to herself. However, I found a brief synopsis of an interview she had given to the police years after the young man left her home:
She related: that Chris Gerhartsreiter appeared at her residence back in 78/79, after staying with the Savio family. That Chris indicated to her then that he was from Germany but had left the country to avoid being drafted into the army. That his father was an engineer, with his mother being a South African citizen. That Chris made several lengthy calls to Germany and South Africa during the time he stayed at her residence. That Chris and her departed on bad terms, due to Chris’s attitude about paying for overseas telephone calls.
Having left (or been kicked out of) three different homes in less than a year, he was finished with Connecticut altogether. He didn’t bother waiting until the school year ended, for he was off to bigger and better things: college. He’d been accepted as a foreign student at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, an extension of the school’s main campus in Madison and thus easier to get into.
I studied the application forms that Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the name he still went by for official purposes, had filled out. It wasn’t clear how he managed to get into the college—he was intelligent and well educated, having spent much of his time reading and studying in the Berlin public
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