BOSTON —  Investigators looking into the mysterious past of a man accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter in Boston are trying to determine if he was once a German exchange student to Connecticut.

The Boston Herald reports that authorities have contacted two families in Berlin, Conn. who housed an exchange student named Christian Gerhart Reiter almost three decades ago. The are trying to determine if he and the man calling himself Clark Rockefeller are the same person.

Edward Savio of Berlin tells the newspaper that Reiter lived with his family and eventually moved to California.

The Savios said they were later contacted by the FBI, who were investigating the attempted sale a pickup truck in Connecticut belonging to a missing man, John Sohus of San Marino, Calif.

Investigators have been looking into whether Rockefeller was Christopher Chichester of California, a tenant of Sohus.