Whitey Bulger<\/a>. <\/p>\nKelly followed one lead to France, where he watched through binoculars as FBI agents, posing as wealthy intermediaries, lounged on a yacht \u2014 drinking champagne and eating strawberries \u2014 in an effort to draw out suspected Corsican mob figures.<\/p>\n
Closer to home, agents searched houses across New England, relying heavily on informants. A triple murderer known as \u201cMeatball\u201d who was terminally ill secretly recorded conversations with suspected associates in hopes of earning money for his family.<\/p>\n
But none of the tips led to the paintings.<\/p>\n
In the decades since the robbery, several people believed to have ties to the heist were killed, and another died under suspicious circumstances.<\/p>\n
Robert \u201cBobby\u201d Donati, a Boston mob associate long suspected in the case, was found stabbed to death in 1991, his body left in the trunk of a car after his home had been ransacked.<\/p>\n
Years earlier, Donati has visited the Gardner with another known art thief, Myles Connor, to scope it out for a robbery and said that if he ever took the museum\u2019s Napoleonic finial, it would be his \u201ccalling card.\u201d Years later, a jeweler told investigators Donati tried to sell a finial from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum but backed off, saying it was \u201ctoo hot.\u201d<\/p>\n
A separate line of evidence centered on George Reissfelder, who investigators believe owned the getaway car.<\/p>\n
Kelly tracked down Reissfelder\u2019s brother, a retired military officer who had initially not believed his brother was involved. He broke down after being shown Manet\u2019s \u201cChez Tortoni,\u201d saying he recognized it as a painting he himself hung above his brother\u2019s bed.<\/p>\n
Reissfelder later died under suspicious circumstances. When investigators searched his home, the painting was gone.<\/p>\n
Both men had ties to TRC Auto Electric, a Dorchester shop linked to Charles \u201cChuck\u201d Merlino\u2019s crew. <\/p>\n
Though investigators believed they knew who was responsible, they had a difficult time finding definitive proof.<\/p>\n
In its early stages, the FBI assigned a single agent to the case, which Kelly said slowed progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to keep in mind when you\u2019re talking about investigations, they come down to dollars and cents,\u201d Kelly said. It was \u201clike pulling teeth\u201d to secure resources. At the time, federal investigators in Boston were heavily focused on violent crime, drug trafficking and organized crime cases.<\/p>\n
Kelly said a decision to release surveillance footage despite investigators\u2019 objections became a lasting distraction. With no usable video from the night of the robbery, prosecutors released footage from the night before that showed a museum employee entering the building after his car broke down. Kelly said he objected to the theory that the employee was casing the museum, since that possibility had already been reviewed and dismissed. The footage fueled years of misplaced suspicion, since the man was later determined not to be involved.<\/p>\n
Among the questions that linger is whether it was an inside job.<\/p>\n
In photos from that night, a museum guard is seen handcuffed in the basement, his head wrapped in duct tape.<\/p>\n
Investigators noted that shortly before the robbery, the guard opened a door against policy \u2014 one that faced the area where the thieves were later seen waiting \u2014 a move investigators considered highly unusual and suspicious. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the immutable laws of time and space,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI think that there was enough information back then that he could have been charged. Would it be enough to convict him? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time investigators examined those questions more closely, Kelly said, the statute of limitations had expired, leaving them with little leverage to compel cooperation.<\/p>\n
The museum guard, Rick Abath, denied any involvement in the theft. He died in 2024.<\/p>\n
Kelly personifies the missing artworks and describes them as \u201cperfect fugitives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t go to the doctor. They don\u2019t get stopped for speeding. They don\u2019t leave fingerprints,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can just disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike human fugitives, he said, artworks can also be copied.<\/p>\n
Over the years, that has meant chasing down false leads \u2014 including paintings spotted in a Reno antique market, hanging in private homes and even one that appeared in an episode of the TV show \u201cMonk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because the works are so recognizable, it’s nearly impossible to sell them publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cStealing the artwork from the museum, that\u2019s the easy part,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cProfiting from it, that\u2019s the difficult part.\u201d<\/p>\n
He imagines the paintings will surface one day \u2014 outliving those who carried out the heist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt they still exist,\u201d he said<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON — For decades, the 1990 theft of 13 artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum \u2014 now valued at more than $500 million \u2014 has remained unsolved. It remains the largest art theft in history \u2014 far surpassing more recent museum thefts, including a daylight heist at the Louvre that involved far fewer works […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}