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The body of the 52-year-old was found in a junk-strewn suburban backyard eight days after he was reported missing.

While a missing person’s investigation into his business activities across Australia and New Zealand turned up nothing unusual, it’s believed detectives uncovered details of the Harvard graduate’s secret double life.

Police discovered Mr Rockefeller had been using erotic websites to find partners within Melbourne’s swingers’ network, sources close to the family have told AAP.

His relatives have been told of the development, with his brother Robert saying on Saturday that they were “devastated by Herman’s loss and deeply shocked by the circumstances surrounding his death”.

The development allegedly led police to a Hadfield home near Melbourne Airport, where Mr Rockefeller had met two residents who are now charged with his murder.

Mario Schembri, 57, of Wallan, and Bernadette Denny, 41, of Hadfield, will appear in court on Monday.

An out-of-sessions court hearing has been told Mr Rockefeller was killed at their home within hours of his return from an interstate business trip.

The property investor was last seen on CCTV footage at Melbourne Airport after 9pm (AEDT) on January 21.

Both Schembri and Denny have admitted to being involved in a fight with Mr Rockefeller, which led to his death, and have told police they assisted or had knowledge of the disposal of his body, the court heard.

Police were taken to a home in the neighbouring suburb of Glenroy on Friday evening and there they found human remains in a backyard cluttered with car and boat parts.

Neighbours said homicide detectives questioned them about any unusual activity in the area.

“They asked whether we had seen fire or smelled fire,” Marika Williams, 33, told AAP.

“And we did mention that on Australia Day we had smelled something about four o’clock in the afternoon.”

Forensic testing is under way to confirm if the human remains are those of Mr Rockefeller, but police have already told his family that they are those of their missing relative.

Mr Rockefeller allegedly died in a run-down home a world apart from his million-dollar lifestyle in East Malvern where he enjoyed a mortgage-free mansion, a home office and two teenage children – one who was recently accepted into medical school.

He could have retired at 40 after holding senior business positions with New Zealand’s Brierley Investments and the Pratt family’s Visy empire in Melbourne, but he kept working to keep busy, making millions off property investments in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW.

Friends say the American-born businessman and avid marathon runner had no hints of a secret life and was a devoted family man.

His wife heard virtually every phone call he made because of their shared office.

When Mr Rockefeller vanished, police considered a vast range of theories from kidnapping to a mid-life crisis as possible explanations.

Detectives followed those theories for days as unconfirmed sightings poured in across Victoria. All of those sightings have now been discounted.

After his 2007 Toyota Prius was found abandoned in rural Victoria four days after his last confirmed sighting his family stopped giving media interviews. Homicide detectives then became more involved in the investigation.

“I spent probably the best four days I’ve spent with my brother,” he said.

Herman Rockefeller disappeared on Thursday night after leaving Melbourne Airport following an interstate business trip.

His worried wife Vicky contacted police within two hours after he failed to arrive home, but detectives have been unable to find any trace of the property investor, who is due to turn 52 on Monday.

Mr Rockefeller, of Malvern East, was apparently in good health, and his family don’t believe he has any enemies.

“This is the most baffling case in 31 years of my career. I can’t understand where this person has gone,” Detective Leading Senior Constable Peter Towner told reporters on Sunday.

Central to the investigation is the whereabouts of Mr Rockefeller’s car, a blue 2007 Toyota Prius, which was seen exiting Melbourne airport about 9.30pm on Thursday.

Mr Rockefeller had been in NSW on a four-day business trip with his brother.

He flew from Newcastle to Brisbane on Thursday afternoon and contacted his wife and daughter just before boarding a Virgin flight to Melbourne.

Police say he landed in Melbourne about 9pm and was seen walking alone to the long-term car park. At 9.32pm his car, registration UUP-682, was seen on security vision leaving the pre-paid credit card exit.

The father of two never made it home.

Police say Mr Rockefeller’s bank account has not been touched and his mobile phone remained switched off after the flight.

His Citylink account had not been activated, although the tollways were his logical route home from the airport.

“It’s totally out of character,” a distraught Mrs Rockefeller said.

“It’s just absolutely baffling, there’s nothing. That’s why we just have to appeal to the public to look for that car and for him. We’ve got no other avenues to go down.

“You just can’t imagine what it’s like. It’s just unbearable.”

Police say there is nothing to suggest foul play but have no leads into the mysterious disappearance.

Mr Rockefeller’s brother Robert said the pair had had meetings in Sydney, Bowral and Maitland regarding their family-run property investment business and Herman had been in good spirits.

“Why this is so out of character and so baffling and any family’s worst nightmare (is because) I spent probably the best four days I’ve ever had with my brother,” Robert Rockefeller said.

“Business is going great, a lot of opportunities for our business going forward, we had a strategy and we had a plan. He was thrilled about his daughter getting into Monash medicine, in fact when he heard the news on Monday afternoon he started crying.”

“We’re deeply disappointed in the judge’s ruling,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “This ruling robs innocent telecom customers of their privacy rights without due process of law. Setting limits on Executive power is one of the most important elements of America’s system of government, and judicial oversight is a critical part of that.”

In the ruling, issued late Thursday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker held that the privacy harm to millions of Americans from the illegal spying dragnet was not a “particularized injury” but instead a “generalized grievance” because almost everyone in the United States has a phone and Internet service.

“The alarming upshot of the court’s decision is that so long as the government spies on all Americans, the courts have no power to review or halt such mass surveillance even when it is flatly illegal and unconstitutional,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “With new revelations of illegal spying being reported practically every other week — just this week, we learned that the FBI has been unlawfully obtaining Americans’ phone records using Post-It notes rather than proper legal process — the need for judicial oversight when it comes to government surveillance has never been clearer.”

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

“It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.

A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California.

Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.
Light – who e-mailed an identical missive to this reporter on Jan. 16 without listing a hometown – would not answer e-mailed questions about the address discrepancies in newspapers that ran her letter, or her identity, although she did say she wasn’t a former co-worker of this reporter’s who had a similar name.

“I do not write as a representative of any organization,” she said in an e-mail. “The letter I wrote was motivated by surprise and wonderment at the absence of any media support for our President, who won a record-breaking election by a landslide less than 18 months ago, and now, seems to be abandoned by all, supposedly for the infantile reason that he couldn’t make all of Bush’s errors disappear in one day.”

University of Missouri journalism professor Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of a textbook on journalistic values titled “The Elements of Journalism,” reacted with surprise and wonderment upon learning of Light’s widespread publication under multiple addresses.

He said newspapers might be able to avoid similar situations in the future by requesting street addresses and home telephone numbers from would-be correspondents, and verifying that those addresses and phone numbers exist.

“Just because it is inconvenient for us in the news business to find out who people are doesn’t mean it isn’t important anymore,” Rosenstiel said. “It is not OK for people to have multiple identities. This is something that people in the news business and in the business of printing “letters to the editor” need to be aware of.”

“We have documented let’s say around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals, and not with their own family at the time,” UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand said.

One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.

According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.

…

It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.

If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books. (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)

If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.

…

These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.

When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.

The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.

Chairman Sen. John F. Kerry warns in the report that Al Qaeda and affiliated movements seek “to recruit American citizens to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. These Americans are not necessarily of Arab or South Asian descent; they include individuals who converted to Islam in prison or elsewhere and were radicalized.”

The committee produced the report after interviewing American counterterrorism officials in Yemen and surrounding countries, even before the botched Christmas Day attack directed attention to the terrorist threat emanating from Yemen. The report focuses on three separate groups of American citizens that have traveled to Yemen and Somalia.

Counterterrorism officials told the committee that possibly three dozen American ex-convicts moved to Yemen, ostensibly to study Arabic, and have intermittently “dropped off the radar.” The officials fear these individuals may have traveled to terrorist training camps.

Credit-default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment-Grade Index Series 13, which is linked to 125 companies and used to speculate on creditworthiness or to hedge against losses, climbed 12.7 basis points this week to 96.2 basis points, according to CMA DataVision prices. An increase in the index signals a decline in investor confidence.

Chiang, the elected Democrat who pays the government’s expenses, said in a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders today that California faces another potential “cash crisis” in July if lawmakers can’t reach a budget agreement before the fiscal year ends June 30. By July 29, California will have $1.1 billion less than it needs to pay its bills should lawmakers stall, he said.

“If solutions are slow to emerge and if they are neither credible nor sustainable, California will once again be unable to timely meet all of its payment obligations and my office will be forced to seek costly emergency financing, or conserve cash by delaying payments or issuing IOUs,” Chiang wrote.