The German national who called himself a Rockefeller and created an international sensation five years ago when he abducted his young daughter in Boston faces a far more serious charge of murder when his trial opens this week in a downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter fabricated much of his past, telling friends and romantic interests that he came from a life of wealth and privilege, tales that unraveled after he snatched his 7-year-old daughter from a Back Bay street and brought her to Baltimore, where he was arrested six days later. He was going by the name Clark Rockefeller at the time, passing himself off as a relative of the famous industrialist.