All language subtitles for How It Really Happened s08e05 Gardner Art Heist.eng

[music playing]

RICK ABATH (VOICEOVER):
I was panicking.

I didn't realize
I was panicking,

but I was completely panicking.

I was afraid that they
were going to set the place

on fire after they were done.

That was my fear.

God, I hope they don't
burn the place down.

[suspenseful music]

Hello.

And welcome toHow It Really Happened.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

Boston's Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum

is known for its vibrant
art depicting picturesque

Dutch and Renaissance scenes.

But on one dark night in 1990,
the museum became the scene

of a horrifying crime.

Robbers swept in,
terrorizing the guards,

and taking 13 works of art now
worth half a billion dollars.

The sinister smash and grab left
the FBI with a mind boggling

mystery on their hands.

Where are the
missing masterpieces

and who were the masterminds
behind this audacious heist?

This is How It Really Happened .

[suspenseful music]

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
March 17th, 1990, is St.

Patrick's day,
which is practically

a national holiday in Boston.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER): There
are a lot of celebrations,

a lot of parties.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN: The
police are out en masse.

Every police officer who
wears a uniform is on duty.

But it was really what should
have been a typical night

at the Gardner Museum.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN (VOICEOVER):
There were two night watchmen

the museum had in place.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
At 1:24 AM, Rick Abath,

one of the security guards,
was at the security desk,

and the buzzer went off.

This is on Palace Road,
which is the service entrance

to the side of the museum.

He answered it and
saw two uniformed police

officers standing outside.

RICK ABATH: I could see
them on the outside camera.

I thought they were just
clearing drunks off the street.

I just kind of leaned over to
the intercom and said, yeah.

And they said, Boston police.

We got a report of a
disturbance on the premises.

So he buzzed them in.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
According to Rick Abath,

the two men at the
door were both white.

One was tall, about 6'1".

Another one, he said,
was shorter and wider.

Both had mustaches.

He seemed to think that
they were fake mustaches.

They just looked
like Boston cops.

ROB FISHER: Right
when they walk in,

they walk up to
the security desk.

They say, is there
anybody else here.

Rick says, yes,
there's another guard.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN (VOICEOVER):
The second guard, Randy,

was on the third floor.

They said, well,
can you call him down.

So Rick gets on the radio
and asks Randy to come down.

And as soon as he was there,
the cop that was dealing with me

turned to me and said, don't I
know you, don't I recognize you.

I think there's a warrant
out for your arrest.

Can you step out
from behind the desk?

So I came out from
behind the desk.

He said, up against the wall.

And so, I put my hands
up against the wall

and he handcuffed me.

There was one alarm
called the panic

button that you had to press
if something went wrong.

It was up on the
underside of the desk,

and that was the only alarm
that went outside the museum.

So by getting Rick away
from the panic button,

there's now no way for
either security guard

to send a signal of distress.

Randy and the other guard
had never spoken to the

press before.

And chasing him down was quite a
feat, but we went on the record.

RANDY (VOICEOVER): He told
Rick to stand against the wall

and put his arms up.

He does the pat down,
he puts the cuffs on,

and I'm just standing
there with my jaw open.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
Randy's really worried.

Then the cops say, you too.

And he's thinking,
what did I do.

RANDY (VOICEOVER): I kept
asking him over and over,

why are we being arrested.

Why are we being arrested?

And he wouldn't answer.

Very dramatically, he said,
gentlemen, this is a robbery.

And then all of a
sudden, Randy and Rick

are being led by these
two men who they now

realize are not
real police officers

to the basement of the museum.

They were both tied up.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER): Rick
was duct tape around his head.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
It's very peculiar

the way they were subdued.

If you look at
photos at the time,

the duct tape is just wrapped
right around the face,

which is kind of strange.

Randy thought he
was going to die.

RANDY (VOICEOVER): It was scary.

And I remember
feeling like I needed

to prepare myself for death.

[dramatic music]

REPORTER: The Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum stands as it

has for more than a century.

Within these walls is a
remarkable private collection,

some of the finest artwork
ever created, much of it

displayed here still
according to the will

of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
Isabella Stewart Gardner

was dubbed by a Boston
newspaper of her time

as one of the seven
wonders of Boston.

It was the Gilded Age.

Isabella was a Boston socialite.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER): She
had thought, as a young woman,

that what Boston
really needed was art.

And she began
collecting voraciously.

PATRICIA VIGDERMAN
(VOICEOVER): Titian's rape

of Europa, Rembrandt's,
in particular, the storm

on the Sea of Galilee.

She had a Vermeer.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER): Gardner
herself prized the concert

by Vermeer possibly more
than any other painting

in her museum.

This was a painting that she
bought at auction in Paris.

She beat out the Louvre Museum.

It's a masterpiece.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
At some time,

with this growing collection,
she decided, well,

this all belongs in a museum.

PATRICIA VIGDERMAN (VOICEOVER):
When she came to build it,

she modeled it on
a Venetian Palazzo.

All the artwork goes
up and down the walls.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN: When she
opened the museum in 1903,

she mandated that
it be free of charge

to gain the appreciation and
the attendance of all of Boston.

Her museum at that
point in time was

the largest collection of art by
a private individual in America.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
August 21st, 1911,

the Mona Lisa is found
to be missing from

the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Immediately, Isabella Stewart
Gardner gives her guards

a shoot to kill order.

Anybody tries to take
anything from this museum,

you shoot them dead.

I think she would have been
horrified to hear 80 something

years later that
neither security

guard on duty that night wanted
to risk their lives for her art.

[suspenseful music]

RICK ABATH: We talked
about it a lot,

how easy it would be
to rob the museum.

It seemed like a
foregone conclusion.

It was not at all inconceivable
that the place could get robbed.

Once Randy and Rick were
secured in the basement,

the thieves made a beeline
for the Dutch room.

Up there, these
scheming, cunning thieves

turned into werewolves.

The frames are broken,
the glass is shattered.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
They took down

Storm the Sea of Galilee,
Enormous, Rembrandt's

Only Seascape, they took
down Lady and Gentleman

in Black, also by Rembrandt.

They took down Tiny Postage
Stamp Size Rembrandt etching.

RANDI KAYE: They took
Vermeer's the Concert,

they took a piece of art
by Flinck called Landscape

with an Obelisk, and
then they take what's

really called a Chinese coup.

But it's sort of
a vase or an urn.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN
(VOICEOVER): Then they

moved to the short gallery.

RANDI KAYE: They took
five Degas sketches,

and they also took a
bronze eagle finial, which

was part of a Napoleonic flag.

Apparently, it seemed
to investigators

that they had tried to
get the flag itself,

but they weren't able to.

So they took the
finial off the flag.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
Also that night,

Manet's Shay Tortoni was taken.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
The thieves didn't protect

the paintings in any way.

They cut some of the
artwork out of the frames.

KELLY HORAN: To even leave
remnants of the painting

behind was savage.

In my mind, it's sort of like
slashing someone's throat.

Today, the value of what
was stolen, 13 pieces of art,

is placed at more
than $500 million,

probably well above that.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER): The
thieves didn't leave until

sometime after 2:00 AM, and
they exited through the very

same door that they came in.

[suspenseful music]

They tried to get buzzed
in from that same employee

entrance and nobody answered.

They immediately see
that things aren't right.

There are no guards at the desk.

They called the police.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
Police came, security came.

SHELLEY MURPHY (VOICEOVER): The
FBI was called in immediately.

They find the guards, luckily,
alive and well in the basement.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
And they saw

what turned out to be
the biggest art heist

in history on their hands.

REPORTER: Where the
artwork once hung

is now just empty space
inside this Boston Museum.

REPORTER: Paintings by Vermeer,
Rembrandt, and others stolen.

But so far, publicly
at least, authorities

have only these composite
sketches to go on.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER): The
thieves took the security camera

tapes and they took the
printouts of the motion

detectors, which
would have tracked

where they were in all of their
movements throughout the museum.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
Not knowing, however,

that there is backup.

So investigators were
able to track their steps.

ROB FISHER: There were
fingerprints recovered

in various points in the
museum, whether on frames

or on broken glass.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
But nothing

that allowed investigators to
link any of these fingerprints

to a particular suspect.

DNA wasn't around at the time.

And a lot of the forensic
capability that exists,

not even a fraction of
it existed at the time.

The security in museums at the
time, it was almost primitive.

So the investigators did what
they could with what they had.

I think initially, there was
a lot of speculation, a belief

that organized
crime was involved.

RANDI KAYE
(VOICEOVER): There was

talk of Whitey Bulger,
who was one of Boston's

most notorious gangsters.

Could he have been involved?

KELLY HORAN: But if you're in
Boston on the morning of March

18th, 1990, and you hear
that not one, not two,

but three Rembrandts
have been stolen,

you think of only one person.

You think of Myles Connor.

I collected art and antiques.

Later on, I learned that it
was not the hardest thing

in the world to rob museums.

Myles Connor-- he was a career
criminal known for stealing art.

He had stolen a
Rembrandt at one point.

KELLY HORAN: It was a Rembrandt
from the Museum of Fine Arts.

It was a very brazen
daylight robbery.

Myles had a specially made
oversized trench coat into which

he could put a painting.

It caught the attention
of a guard who gave chase.

And Myles goes to the waiting
van and they take off.

So Myles was the first
person that we know the FBI

looked at in the Gardner heist.

He would have been the number
one suspect if not for the fact

that he was in federal
prison at the time.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER): So
he couldn't have actually

been in the museum that night.

But there was still a
lot of questions about

whether or not he
orchestrated it.

The feeling is if they don't
explore all options to get

the paintings back,
they might be painting

themselves into a corner.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN
(VOICEOVER): William

Youngworth had an antique shop.

His importance in this
case begins in 1997.

REPORTER: William
Youngworth says

he knows where the paintings are
and will reveal it for a share

of the $5 million reward.

If I can produce on
what they're asking for,

then I deserve the reward
like any other citizen would.

RANDI KAYE: He claimed
that he had information

about the missing
artworks and that he could

provide more information about
them and maybe even access

to them.

Youngworth somehow
connected with a reporter

from the Boston Herald,
and they asked for proof.

Let's see the art.

And the scheme
that was arrived at

was showing me a painting
in its hidden location.

[suspenseful music]

STEPHEN KURKJIAN: Tom
Mashberg was picked up

at the Herald on 11
o'clock at night,

and they drove to Brooklyn.

They went up to a
warehouse and there

is a container with several
large roll-up cylindrical tubes.

And Youngworth takes a
Canvas out of the bin

and holds it over his head
and lets the Canvas roll down.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
This reporter thought

what he saw was Storm
on the Sea of Galilee,

one of the missing Rembrandts.

And The Herald was thrilled.

Ran with the story.

The big headline,
"We've Seen It."

But had they really?

[dramatic music]

REPORTER: Boston's
Isabella Stewart Gardner

Museum is an intimate
showcase of some

of the finest works of art.

But it's perhaps best
known for what was stolen.

William Youngworth,
who has a rap sheet

of some 60 convictions,
claims to know

where the Gardner art is.

[suspenseful music]

RANDI KAYE: William Youngworth
got in touch with a reporter

from the Boston Herald.

Youngworth took this reporter
to a warehouse of sorts.

And this reporter was shown a
Storm on the Sea of Galilee.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN
(VOICEOVER): He only

showed for a flash of a second.

Shortly thereafter, I
was also given photographs

and paint chips
which purported to be

indicative of the real art.

SHELLEY MURPHY: As soon as
the FBI sent the paint chips

to its lab for analysis, they
concluded that these were not

from the Storm on
Sea of Galilee,

and they just stopped all
negotiations with Youngworth.

It all comes to
nothing for the museum.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER): The
FBI was getting so many tips.

But then it went silent.

Even though there were these 13
works of art that were missing,

the information just
dried up, until 2005

when the FBI got a big tip.

INTERVIEWER: Recently,
you took a trip

to France in tracking down
potential evidence in this case.

You can confirm that you did go?

Yes, we did go to France.

I can't get specific on what
we were doing over there.

But in broad terms, I can tell
you that we were covering yet

another lead that's come up.

RANDI KAYE: Around 2005-2006,
the FBI gets a big tip that two

Frenchmen living
in Miami are trying

to broker a deal
regarding two paintings,

a Rembrandt and Vermeer.

What was really interesting
about that statement,

the Vermeer-- there
is only 34 verifiable

Vermeers in the world.

And the only one that
was missing at that time

is The Concert that was stolen
from the Gardner Museum.

[suspenseful music]

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
Bob Wittman

is an undercover agent with
the art heist unit for the FBI.

It was formed after the
theft at the Gardner Museum.

So Bob Wittman goes
undercover as an art buyer.

I was acting as a shady
dealer, so to speak,

who was representing clients
around the United States

who had a lot of
money, and they would

be very interested in
buying stolen artworks.

We were able to make an
arrangement to go meet

with these people in Miami.

Bob Wittman really
gets in close undercover

with two criminals,
Sonny and Loronze.

BOB WITTMAN: So Sonny
was working with groups

that stole paintings.

He had information about
two paintings that had been

stolen from the
United States back

in the early '90s, late '80s.

Bob Wittman is told that the
two paintings are in the hands

of Corsican mobsters.

Corsica is an island
in the Mediterranean.

And it's a French territory.

What's interesting
is that this finial

was stolen from an Napoleonic
flag the night of the robbery.

It was sort of an odd choice
for the thieves to take.

But it turns out that
Corsica is essentially

the Homeland of Napoleon.

KELLY HORAN: It's a
very compelling notion

that a Corsican
band of gangsters

might have tried to
steal back their flag

and pull off the entire rest
of the heist in the process.

BOB WITTMAN: So
Sonny said that he

had access to these paintings.

They were in the
South of France.

And he told me that
they wanted $30 million

for the two paintings.

So we started the investigation.

At that point, we called
it Operation Masterpiece.

And this was an
undercover operation

to try to do a buy bust to
get these two paintings back

to the United States.

We contacted the OCBC,
which is the French art

crime team in Paris.

They became our partners
in the investigation.

And they set up wiretaps,
and listening in,

and they heard
Sonny using a code.

They were talking about the
Rembrandt and the Vermeer

being streets.

So the idea was my person
in the United States

wants to buy something
from Rembrandt street

or Vermeer street.

And that was the
code they were using,

thinking that no
one could figure

out what they were saying.

[suspenseful music]

Sonny said that they
had four paintings.

These paintings
had all been stolen

in an armed robbery
for the Museum

of Fine Arts in Nice, France.

So Sonny said we needed
to buy those first.

So we set up a
meeting in Marseille.

They brought the paintings
and they were arrested.

All four paintings
were recovered,

but my cover was shot.

They knew not to
try to sell any more

paintings to Bob, the dealer
from the United States.

The whole operation
falls apart.

BOB WITTMAN (VOICEOVER): And
as a result of my cover being

blown, the leads vanished.

There was a lot of
time and energy spent

on investigating whether
the paintings were in

or could be in Southern France.

Could that be a viable theory?

I think it would have
been difficult to get

these paintings out of the
country and over there.

If you had a
professional crew that

was going to be able to get them
to a foreign country in Europe,

they probably would have
got more than 13 pieces

and gotten them over
to Europe right away.

But I could be totally wrong.

[suspenseful music]

Welcome back toHow It Really Happened.

Art selling for millions of
dollars used to be unheard of.

But then in the '70s and
'80s, for more people,

art became an asset
and prices skyrocketed.

Van Gogh's Irises shattered
auction records in 1987,

going for $53.9 million.

Suddenly, everyone,
including criminals,

wanted to get their
hands on big name pieces.

All of that set the stage
for what happened in Boston's

Gardner Museum in 1990.

BOB WITTMAN: In
the Gardner case,

it's really interesting because
three of the pieces that

were stolen were Rembrandt's.

One of the Rembrandts that
was taken was an etching.

Not worth a whole lot of money.

The other two were
very, very valuable.

The Storm Over
the Sea of Galilee

is the only seascape
Rembrandt ever did.

So in some respects,
you could almost

think that they were targeted.

What is so intriguing about
this is if in fact someone

went in there to
steal Rembrandt,

why are they stealing a coup
like a Chinese beak, right?

Why are they stealing
sketches of jockeys on horses?

In the majority
of major art heists,

thieves go to a
museum looking for big

name well-known artists
because of the value

ascribed to such art.

ROB FISHER: The Gardner heist
doesn't really fit a profile

of your typical art robbery.

And if you had the means
to pull this robbery off,

you would have hired
a professional crew,

somebody who understood
how to handle this art.

I think from all the
evidence we've seen,

this crew didn't know
how to handle this art.

I can't imagine some rich
collector of fine art

would be happy they were cut
out of the frames and damaged.

At the FBI, we found
about 89% of museum

and institutional
heists are inside jobs.

That's how these
things get stolen.

When you look at
the Gardner heist,

you can't help
but wonder if this

was some sort of inside job.

ROBERT SIKELLIS (VOICEOVER):
First and foremost

was the fact that the robbers
knew that they had to pull

the guard out of the
booth because that's

where there was panic buttons.

And we know that
the thieves were

in the museum for 81 minutes.

81 minutes is an
awful long time.

A robbery like this,
seemingly without a care,

suggests to me that they were
very, very comfortable that they

had a good understanding of
how the security system works,

how the police
could be notified,

and that no one
had been notified.

SHELLEY MURPHY: Another
thing is that where

the Storm on the Sea
of Galilee was hanging,

there was a secret door.

It was a jar that thieves
knew about that door.

ROB FISHER: The robbers
also, before they left,

they did have access to the
guard supervisor's office.

And that's where
there was a VHS system

that was recording
what was happening

on the security cameras.

The way that system worked,
it was a 24 hour loop

tape for every day of the week.

And they must have known
that because if they

took the VHS tape for
the night of the robbery.

I will tell you that to
find it does speak to some--

maybe some insider information,
not necessarily complicity,

but just information.

RICK ABATH: I knew there
obviously have to be

looking at me as a suspect.

I'm the guy who opened the door.

I assumed that I was a suspect.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN: The
responsibility of the two night

watchmen was one was to
stay at the security desk

and one was to do
touring the galleries.

So that night, Rick
had done the first tour

and Randy had been at the desk.

RICK ABATH: There
were motion detectors.

And so, while one person was
walking through the museum,

they'd be setting off
the motion detector

alarms and stuff like that.

KELLY HORAN: Edouard Manet's
painting, Shay Tortoni,

was in a room called the
Blue room at the museum

on the first floor.

It was about 8 by 10 and it
was in a gold gilded frame,

and it was here.

And they didn't
take the frame.

They left the frame behind.
- They left the frame behind.

And it was curious
because all of the frames

were left behind in the room
from which the paintings

were taken, except this one.

This frame was left in the
security director's chair.

This part of the theft is
different from the rest of it.

KELLY HORAN
(VOICEOVER): When you

look at the motion
sensor readouts

from the night of the theft--

The motion sensors do not
show the thieves steps on

the first floor of the museum.

There's no activity
in that room.

The only person we know to
have stepped into that room

is Rick Abath.

Rick went through the room
on his tour of the gallery

at midnight, an hour before
the bad guys show up.

RANDI KAYE: So how was that
Manet removed from the blue room

Did it happen
earlier in the night

when only the guards
were in the museum?

This casts a lot of
suspicion on one person.

[suspenseful music]

Once I say-- you know,
sat down with the FBI,

I think the first thing I said
was, what do you want to know?

And there's one
more thing we know,

which we learned many
years after the heist--

RANDI KAYE: The night of the
heist at the Gardner Museum,

Rick Abath was coming down
to take over at the security

guard desk and let
his partner then

go do his rounds in the museum.

But before he did that,
he went over to that door

that the thieves came through.

And he opened and closed
the door before taking

his seat at the desk.

And I questioned
Rick about it.

And he said that he did it
because he wanted to make

sure the door was locked.

KELLY HORAN (VOICEOVER):
Why would he have done that?

That was not part
of his rounds, that

was not part of the
typical security protocol?

I thought it was unusual.

The supposition has been that
he was signaling the thieves

who were waiting outside.

ROB FISHER: Rick said, well,
I did that every night.

I was trained to do it that way.

I'm not sure why you would open
an outside locked door a little

past 1 o'clock in the morning
shortly before, coincidentally,

two robbers show up.

KELLY HORAN: Rob Fisher wants to
know, OK, if you say that this

was what you did as
a matter of course,

show me the tape from
the night before.

If what I see there is Rick
Abath opening the closing

the door, I will believe him.

And that'll be
good enough for me.

ROB FISHER: It was a
24 hour loop system.

There were seven tapes.

It didn't appear anybody
had focused on those.

[dramatic music]

REPORTER: On this never
before seen video,

a man who may have
pulled off the biggest

art heist in history.

Take a good look.

The grainy video is from March
17th, 1990, the night before,

two men broke into Boston's
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

[suspenseful music]

What we now know, the person
Rick Abath led in the night

before was the deputy
director of security

at the Gardner museum,
who reportedly had

left his wallet at the museum.

INTERVIEWER: Was it ruled
out that the guards didn't

have anything to do with this?

I can't really say.

I can tell you that the guards
are no longer considered

suspects at this point.

Rick Abath has
always said that he had

nothing to do with this heist.

ROB FISHER (VOICEOVER):
Rick has never been charged.

If you look at how he
lived his life subsequent to

the heist, he led a quiet life.

He led a simple life.

He certainly didn't
lead the kind of life

that you would attribute
to someone who could

have been involved in the
greatest art heist of all time.

[suspenseful music]

About four miles from
the Gardner Museum

is TRC Auto Electric.

You would just think
it's a place where you

go to have your car repaired.

What turns out to
be is the nucleus

for a criminal organization.

The FBI, for years, had
been looking at this group

that hung out at TRC Auto.

One of the guys who
ran the shop, his name

was Carmelo Merlino.

Carmelo Merlino doesn't know
anything about fixing cars,

but he was very skilled
at planning heists,

and selling drugs, and he's got
a whole network of criminals

under him.

He stood out as a
real person of interest,

as did his two underlings, David
Turner and Stephen Rossetti.

ROBERT SIKELLIS: This was an
extraordinarily dangerous group.

They'd been involved
in armed robberies.

So we were on
investigation wholly

unrelated to preceding the
Gardner heist of this group.

I had an informant
that confided

his suspicions of who
might have been involved

in this particular robbery.

And his suspicions
were Carmelo Merlino,

David Turner, Stephen Rossetti.

Rossetti and Turner, supposedly
they were home invaders.

They would crash into a house
of a person who was rich,

tie them up, get
the money and leave.

That's kind of like what
happened there at the museum.

It wouldn't surprise me at
all if they had been involved.

ROBERT SIKELLIS: In
one surveillance,

we saw David Turner
taking a vase,

a Chinese Ming
vase out of his car

and brought into
his lawyer's office.

Then we started to suspect,
could it possibly have something

to do with the museum.

If you look at one of the
sketches by the guards,

it has a resemblance
to David Turner.

Carmelo Merlino, David
Turner, and Stephen Rossetti

were all arrested
by me and my squad

when they were coming together
to rob a vault facility.

We took them all in to the
office after the arrest,

and I interviewed
them individually.

And the first thing I asked
them about was the Gardner

and whether they
were involved in it.

And all three of them
completely denied

any knowledge of that crime.

SHELLEY MURPHY:
Some of these people

went to prison for a long time.

Are you really going
to die in prison

and spend years in prison if
you know where the Rembrandt is?

I don't think so.

BOB WITTMAN
(VOICEOVER): Well, one

of the other things that led
us to thinking maybe there's

a connection here--

if you look at one of the
sketches by the guards,

one has a resemblance
to David Turner.

And the other one
has a resemblance

to George Reissfelder, who was
one of the other individuals

that was part of this TRC gang.

Not only is he a
dead ringer, curiously

close to the first anniversary
of the heist in 1991,

he turns up dead, and
it's a cocaine overdose,

but it was injected.

And various people close to
George said, he didn't inject.

He was afraid of needles.

It raises a question,
was Reissfelder murdered.

His name is floated as a
suspect in the Gardner heist.

And his brother,
after George's death,

really wants to clear his name.

His brother comes to Anthony
Morais, head of security

at the Gardner.

And Anthony says, have a
look at some of the paintings

that were stolen.

Have you seen any of these?

He goes down through the
line of the 11 pieces.

When he gets to
Shay Tortoni, George

Reissfelder's brother jumps
in his seat and he says,

I've seen that.

My brother had that painting.

They go to
Reissfelder's apartment.

There's no Manet
in that apartment.

SHELLEY MURPHY: Merlino
had been at the house right

around when Reissfelder died.

Did Merlino take the painting
off the wall after he died?

There were just so many
questions, but unresolved.

[suspenseful music]

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER): And the
FBI said that they were going

to make a big announcement.

Something's here,
something's breaking.

With today's announcement,
we begin the final chapter.

The FBI tells us they now
know who the thieves are.

[dramatic music]

[suspenseful music]

OK, good afternoon, everybody.

Great to have each
of you here today.

My name is Rick Deslauriers, and
I'm the Special Agent in charge

of the FBI'S Boston division.

On March 18th, 2013,
the FBI said that they

were going to hold
a press conference

and make a big announcement.

23 years ago, 13 culturally
significant pieces of art

were stolen from Boston's
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

We are pleased to
announce the FBI has made

significant investigative
progress in the search

for the stolen art.

They announced, they
believed they had solved it.

It's the first break in years.

SHELLEY MURPHY (VOICEOVER):
They were confident they knew

the identities of the thieves.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN: Two thieves,
but they're both dead.

And the FBI have decided, for
investigative reasons, not

to make their identities known.

And they say, we can tell
you with a reasonable degree

of certainty that these
paintings, these stolen

artworks, traveled from
Boston through Connecticut

to Philadelphia.

GEOFFREY KELLY: About
a dozen years ago,

at least a number
of these paintings

were offered for sale down
in the Philadelphia area.

And we don't know whether
these paintings were actually--

whether the deal
was consummated,

if they left the Philadelphia
area, and where they are now.

[suspenseful music]

We had a significant
break in the case

a few years ago
when we developed

some information as
to who was actually

responsible for the heist.

David Turner, from TRC
Auto, ended up getting years

shaved off his sentence,
fueling the belief that he

had provided some information.

Do you have any knowledge
of the Gardner heist?

Please get away from me.

ROBERT SIKELLIS: The
reduction took place in 2013.

What I think happened there
is that Turner gave him

the details of what happened in
the steps up until what he knew.

[suspenseful music]

The prime theory
is that it was

local sort of petty criminals
that committed the heist.

My reporting on it would
say the thief is Bobby Donati.

Bobby Donati was
this sort of what

I would characterize as a mob
associate, notorious art thief.

Myles Connor has said
Bobby Donati did it.

We went there on
several occasions

and went through the place,
sat outside the place,

got an idea of the
comings and goings

and the security
within the place.

Bobby Donati and Myles--

Myles told me, went
to the Gardner Museum

and kind of cased the place.

INTERVIEWER: You
thought the security

was fairly lax at the time--
- Yes.

And I felt that it was a target
that could be taken down.

KELLY HORAN: Myles claims
that as they walked through,

Myles said, what would
you take if you could?

And Donati really
liked the finial.

We felt that they would come
up with a substantial amount

of money to get them back.

And I went away
to federal prison.

Initially, the plan, as
it happened, was my plan,

was my friends that did it.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN
(VOICEOVER): And then

Bobby Donati gives the
art to his great friend,

Bobby Guarente.

Bobby Guarente
claims to be a made man

with the Philadelphia mafia.

SHELLEY MURPHY
(VOICEOVER): Guarente,

who was very well known
and had a lot of ties

to different people, had
ties to David Turner.

He was very good friends
with Carmelo Merlino.

Guarente in my view
was behind a lot of this.

And I think he was the one that
was going to be the middleman.

The paintings were
going to go to him.

For selling, does
Donati give all of them?

I'm not sure.

But some of them.

After Bobby Guarente died, his
wife told the FBI, oh, yes, he

had at least two of the
Gardner Museum stolen paintings

and that he gave
them, before he died,

to a man named
Bobby, Bobby Gentile.

So now the focus shifts
to Bobby Gentile.

A dramatic search
in Connecticut

linked to one of the greatest
unsolved art heists ever.

The FBI have raided
75-year-old Robert

Gentile's home in Connecticut.

[suspenseful music]

Bobby Gentile is a
Connecticut criminal

with connections to mob groups
and other criminal enterprises.

They have ground
penetrating radar.

They have a few bloodhounds.

They've got a ferret back there.

They got everything
that you could

possibly use to try to find
what they're looking for.

They searched
Gentile's house and came

up with a couple of pieces of
evidence that are suspicious.

They find police caps.

They also find a Boston Herald
from the day after the heist.

Inside is a handwritten list
of all the pieces of art

that were stolen with prices--

STEPHEN KURKJIAN (VOICEOVER):
They get a tip that it's maybe

in the shed in his back yard.

[intense music]

Under the shed, there were
some type of secret compartment.

And they thought,
maybe this was it.

There was a huge kind of
plastic, oversized, Tupperware

thing, which would
have been ideal place

to hide the paintings.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER):
But when they opened it,

there was nothing there.

STEPHEN KURKJIAN: After
my interviewing Gentile,

he said, no artwork?

And he said, no.

I had nothing to do with it.

A lie?

Who knows.

REPORTER: They say they
turned up four guns, ammo,

homemade dynamite,
a stun gun, $20,000

stuffed into a grandfather clock
with a set of brass knuckles.

But they did not
find any stolen art.

The artworks were not there.

Doesn't mean they
were never there.

That's the key.

But they weren't there when the
FBI finally searched that house.

Looking for stolen art is
sort of like trying to find,

in this case, 13
needles in a haystack.

RANDI KAYE (VOICEOVER): I don't
know if we're ever going to find

out where these paintings are.

I can't believe
that in Boston, we

haven't figured it out already.

BOB WITTMAN: It
might take 30 or 40

years to recover these pieces.

The oldest case I ever had
involved an original copy

of the Bill of Rights
that was stolen

in 1865 by a union trooper.

And we were able to
recover that from the state

of North Carolina in 2003.

So it was 138 years
that it was missing.

KELLY HORAN: Every
single person you

talk to has their own theory.

They're in a basement,
they're in an attic,

they're under a bed,
they're in Europe.

Everybody will
tell you something

different because nobody knows.

BOB WITTMAN: As an investigator
doing these cases for 30 years,

I think the art is
in different places.

I don't think all 13 pieces
are still in one spot.

But then again, I could be
wrong because, you know,

we don't know.

They might all be
sitting in an attic

two blocks from the museum.

It's certainly something
that haunts everybody who

attaches themself in some way.

This became so much more
than an assignment for me.

This became a
complete obsession.

To this day, my 17-year-old
son uses against me to say,

why should I listen to
you, you couldn't even

find the paintings.

[laughs]

[upbeat music]

The statute of limitations
on the Gardner Museum robbery

has expired.

And prosecutors
have said, they'd

be willing to make
a deal with anyone

who steps forward in
possession of the stolen art.

Look in your attics,
search the flea markets.

And if you know anything
about the whereabouts

of the 13 pieces, call
the FBI at 1800-call-FBI.

The current reward
for information

that leads to the recovery of
the paintings is $10 million.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.

Repair and Synchronization by
Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0