You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Stephen Kirkton of the Boston Globe,
here to talk to us about his book Master Thieves, the Boston gangsters
who pulled off the world's greatest art heist, and we are talking about the
Isabella Stewart Gardner at Museum Art heist. Steve, thank you for joining us
today. We're sort of giving Bill palpitations because we got right to the sixty
four thousand dollars question before we started recording. So let me ask the sixty
four thousand dollars question now that we're on the air. Where do you think
the gardener artwork is now? And more importantly, can we get it back?
Because it is, as you said, it is Boston's legacy. Boston
deserves to have it. Everyone deserves to have it. So can we get
it? Yeah, let me go back to that word legacy, because I
think it's a great that we have Rembrandt's only sea skip that we Boston six
one seven area has. The only Verma that's missing was at this museum.
It made us special. We may not have treated that museum special, but
when you look now at the fullness of why that museum was and what it
meant to Boston, what she brought, what Missus Godda brought, husband had
built this museum and filled it with these masterpieces, it made us special.
Do we get it back? I think we will. I do think that
this artwork is extant. I've thought about it as it being destroyed, and
it's not hard to look at Donati having artwork, but they don't destroy something.
As one of my now late contacts, in fact, he's the topic
of my first chapter in the book, said to me, we don't destroy
the cork of that wine bottle that you're drinking out of. We keep everything.
And it's true. When they Robert Gentile, one of the main characters
in the book, and then the story the saga of this theft, when
they raid Amafioso's house, takes the two days to empty it out because they're
all They keep everything in. What they found when they raided his house was
they raided it in twenty ten, twenty sixty twelve, so that's twenty two
years after the theft. They find in his basement no paintings and little money.
They find a gun, which gave them the predicate to parade his house.
They find a list of all of the thirteen pieces, written in French,
with what each work would get on the on the black market now.
And thankfully, because Bobby Robert Gentile could barely speak very pigeon English, he
was able to convince him. I did not draw that up. I was
looking for the paintings because there was then a ten million dollars reward, but
I didn't draw that up. I didn't have any access to the paintings.
Other people believe otherwise. They written, when they raided his house, they
saw and he had a shed in the back. In the back. Oh
yeah, I watched some of these raids. It's amazing. They it pulled
up a false floor in the shed that had a false floor, and there
was a little ditch that he had dug. And the wittier investigators on this
case believe that gentile who was a best friend with the fellow up in Maine
who related to that he had buried the bigger pieces in those pits beneath the
false floor of his Did they take steps there to protect them? Putting a
master in the dirt under your shed is not he said. He did have
plastic, rubber made cylinders that he was able to put. That he'd been
able to put it. And I had three days of interviews with him,
a total of five hours of tapes. And I said to him, and
he told me about that, And I said, what did you have?
He said, there was. I never had paintings. I never had paintings,
I said. One of the one of the more interesting things about him.
A Hollywood director sent an emissary to Gentile's lawyer and said, tell gent
The lawyer says, he doesn't trust the FBI, he doesn't trust the museum.
He thinks if he tells them anything, he'll just get thrown into jail
for a longer period of time. But he says he doesn't have anything.
And the director says, tell them this, tell them, I'll give you
five million dollars. You give me whatever you have, and then and we'll
do a documentary, will do a movie about this. Right, Gentile said,
there ain't no paintings. There ain't no paintings. So but when I
asked him about what did you have in those cylinders? Should be those?
There was a rubber maid rubbermaid pails that you had down there. What did
you have in there? He said, stolen motors? But they don't tell
the truth. It's one story after about everything. The only thing I thought
I was able on all the gents. So we talked about the old days
in Boston. He had lived in Boston for a time, and he told
me some things about what the fans had done to set them up, blah
blah blah. But then he said, okay, you're done. I'm done
with you now. He said, I said, listen, what can I
bring you from Boston to have you open the door tomorrow. He said,
Regina's Pizza. There's a thin flice pizza in Boston. And I said,
I sure do. He said, bring me two pies. So the next
two interviews days of interviews were only he only agreed to do because I brought
two pies both days, facilitated by delicious pizza from Boston. But to get
to your cork question, Kristen, I think they are available. I think,
and I do think. While many of the main characters are dead,
I do think people still whisper and gad and wink in certain of these older
neighborhoods of Boston. North of Boston, there are some communities that had very
ethnic and very organized crime. They had their homes in. Their cousins and
their nieces and nephews are still around, their grandchildren are still around, and
they know a little bit more and they could help in the investigation. And
why should they help when they haven't helped before, is because what those paintings
were put on the walls for. They were to inspire and educate us,
us who counter our a straight line. But they exult that they live in
Boston, for the Bruins, for the Red Sox, for the medical institutions
where so many of our friends and family were. The Boston is an extraordinary
place, and the heaves and the have nots have that's even out a bit.
The have nots. They've gone on to other things, and they've moved
to other neighborhoods, but they still know some secrets, and I think that
they have to be. There has to be an outreach to them to try
to convince them with, you know, just their goodness of their heart.
The paintings do no good wherever they're hid. The only way we can do
what they were meant to do, which is is to inspire and to exalt.
That you are in within ten feet of Rembrandt's greatest art that has to
be conveyed to the city at large to get the ball rolling. Let's see,
I've been a Red Sox fan for more than seventy five years, so
I know how it takes to get the ball rolling that this season is going
to be something different, and I think that to have an outreach that you
emphasize why she put these paintings, these masterpieces on the wall for us in
this beautiful museum within the Fenway area, within the Fenway district, and she,
of all things, cared, Missus Gardner, cared about the Red Sox.
You can put these loose ends together and come up with a theme that
says Boston will not be a world class city until we get our paintings back,
and you can help. You may know someone who knew something that was
real, but you can help get us back to the great place that we
all hope it will be for our grandchildren if the Boston Red Sox can break
the curse of the Vambino exactly and win the World Series. Even though it's
been thirty four years, you still are optimistic that these paintings will someday be
returned to the Isabella's. There's a way of doing it. I'm optimistic about
that way of doing it, and that's outreach to these communities and say,
help us to these families, help us get it back. You have an
obligation to help us get this paintings back. Why do you think when the
FBI announced several years ago that they believe they knew who had stolen the paintings
and they were low level mobsters, why do you think They didn't name them
at the time because it did no good to name them, and I don't
think they had the proof. I don't think they know who the second Bobby
Donatti was one, but I don't know if they know who the second guard
was. Excuse me, second the thief was who was with Donati that night.
All they wanted to do was to get people picking up and get one
person. Hey, did you see what the FBI did? And get them
and they'll pick it up, they'll get information. And did that happen?
I don't know. I don't know, but it did cause an explosion of
interest this case. Every year The New York Times had it on thirty fourth
Anniversal thirty fourth Anniversal, No new information, just a collection of odds and
ends on the front page. Why A one, I think it's because the
theft was pretty artful scheming. But second is the masterpieces that are in third
that not one piece has turned up, and also not one person has been
put in jail. So it's such a case for the ages, and I
think it'll be written about until we get them back because of the theft is
so important in the mystery is so steep, and I was familiar with the
theft already, But what really led me to your book was the Netflix documentary
This Is a Robbery. Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement
with the documentary? Thank you, chuse. The two men who were for
the main producers of it, Nick and Colin Barnacle, are sons of Michael
Mike Barnacle and and Fidukan and both pretty important people around Boston. Mike had
been a columnist for the Boston Globe, now has writes Call Right. Charlson
appears on Martin Joe on MSNBC. But Mike had reached out to me in
the late let me see, probably on two thousand and six, seventeen eighteen
after my book came out, and said, my boys, they both did
documentaries but on sports figures, and would you help the boys? And I
said sure, I'll give anything I can or whatever you need. Mike,
Mike does have four second row, second and third row tickets park seats right
next to the Red Sharks dug out speaking of Boston Legacy. So I've said,
whatever we worked out for payment to be helping your sons, I do
want those tickets for a Yankee game. Three grand children there are some things
that are worth more than that money can buy. That was a terrific night,
a terrific they gave. I have worked valiantly on this thing, but
I still think that there is a way of convincing people who know something to
step forward, to step up. In their four part series during the COVID
I think it was twenty twenty one, it was on That was the best
documentary that was done that year for Netflix. Everybody watched it. Yeah,
it was fantastical. They came into my they came here to my home,
elegant home in Plymouth, and spent a whole day interviewing me and never seen
so much equipment down in my room where I wrote my book, and they
we had a terrific time, and they knew a lot, and they had
just kept up that one thing I had asked them, don't try to solve
this case. Just present the mystery, the importance of the case, and
the characters that populate this case. And they did. Still I think a
favorite. Yeah, it's wonderful and it got into some areas that I had
not even considered. They did have a little a tangent in their about the
question of whether or not the paintings might have been the sell to someone in
exchange for arms for the IRA. Yeah, that kind of blew my mind.
I was like, oh, my gosh, we never considered that.
Christin the Bill has not taken you around some of our neighborhoods. Because back
in the day this chapter on this Whitey Bulger was a notorious criminal organized had
his own gang in South Boston. And the anybody, when you do a
talk in Boston about this, I said, isn't this Whitey? Didn't Whitey
do this? And the reason why is that Whitey Bulger had a sense of
sovereignty criminal gangs. I learned this that the if you headed a criminal gang
in a theft or a score as I call him, was pulled off in
your neighborhood, you as the crime leader in that neighborhood, you had the
sovereign right to either say yes or no on that theft. And if you
said yes, you expected to get a cut fifteen percent. And so Whitey
there had been a bank robbery in Boston, excuse me, Noshova of Boston
and the criminal white He hunted down the criminal because Whitey hadn't sanctioned that theft.
Whitey killed the robber, the head of that game that did that theft.
So as I thought, Jesus Whitey had to know. Whitey was on
the street, Whitey Bulger, He's so well was so well known, not
late. There's a terrific movie in twenty fifteen called Black Mass. Yeah,
that was written by two of my Globe colleagues, Dick Lair and Jerry O'Neill,
and they followed Whitey's trail and all of his criminal exploits. Whitey was
on the street. White He disappeared fro nineteen ninety five to twenty thirteen.
He was caught in twenty thirteen, convicted of multiple murders and sent to jail.
He wasn't in the prison for more than a month when he was assassinated,
because it turned out Whitey was an FBI informant. No one that really
knew about it, and was ever really proven until Black Mass was published.
Whitey was on the street from nineteen ninety to ninety five. He was for
five years. He was in Boston protected because of this FBI deal he had.
Wouldn't it make sense that Whitey would have known about the theft, wouldn't
have sanctioned it or known who did pull it off. The Feds. The
FBI reached out to his handler within the FBI, and they said to him,
call your friend Whitey and try to figure out where who did this and
where this artwork is. This is in nineteen ninety one, a year after
the theft, and the handle reached out to Whitey and was white He said
to him, don't you think I've already looked to find out who took this.
I didn't get my cut. I want my fifteen percent of whatever the
art work is valued. And he said, I tried. One of my
intermediate, one of my informants, told me the artwork is in Saudi Arabia,
and he said. The next guy came and said, no, somebody
named Sullivan in South Boston knows something. And he says, he said to
the FBI agent, he said, Sullivan in South Boston. There's more Sullivan's
in South Boston than there are grains of sand in Saudi Arabia. He's somebody
who knows something. Why from everything I know, Whitey couldn't figure this one
out. And so the case, like so much else in this saga,
remains a mystery. You're listening to Mind over Murder we'll be right back after
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Now back to Mind over Murder. I can't help but think if the
three of us made it our life's work to figure this out, we'd also
be risking our lives. I've been there, doctor, the lawyers, present
yourself. Just from the work that any reporter for the Boston Globe with the
Boston Herald who has covered the city and done it the right way for the
way the newsrooms mandate of them, we'll get some feedback. There was one
fellow I lived in a near the water near the Atlantic Ocean. Ten minute
walk and the next beach up who has had some Sedia characters in it,
and I went. I called the woman one time and I said, hey,
your husband won't talk to me. Why won't he talk to me?
And she's she saw the five oweight area code on my I was using my
phone. She said, where are you calling from? Five oweight And I
said, I'm calling from minimum it's the name of our beach. And she
said, oh, how are you and I get married in the next beach
up in white Horse Beach? So I said, She said, if you
care for miniment, you're a good enough guy. How do we get on
the phone and talk to this guy? Happy wife, happy life? How
are we going to He didn't have much, but he at least he took
my phot Do you still actively think about this case? And I actively thing.
I have a couple of other stories that I'm working on. During the
pandemic, I worked on three other stories, one of them I'm still working
on, but none of them came out. Just really me, I'm a
good judge of which stories will pan out. But is this a publishing issue
or a writing issue? Which I did? It didn't. I thought there
was a eureka at the end of it probable cause, and if I get
on it, I'll be able to get something about this one was this gentleman
felt he had recovered or bought off of eBay, of all things, a
Rembrant, and he saw my passion and my endurance on these stories. So
he called me up and he said, would you help me prove that I've
got a Rembrandt? And I there was good evidence, but what I wrote,
what I felt is it's just halfway there. So he wasn't willing to
go on the record, so I said, okay, fine, So trying
to figure out how you buy a Rembrandt on eBay. Don't forget there are
so many, so many copies that one of the ways I got dragged into
this. The Herald had a reporter who was on the story in ninety seven.
Yes, and he was shown what he was Oh, I remember this.
This was a fascinating story, and he went a warehouse in New York
went to he said, forty five minutes away from Boston. We didn't I
didn't know until I got on. This is how I got on the story.
The one of the end of the skates me. He said, see
help us out here. The Herald's way ahead of us on this. I
did not think, knowing the reporter and knowing whom he was speaking with,
that there was credibility here. But I said, listen, the Herald's got
a fun page story. We've seen it. Yeah, I remember that,
we've seen story. So you got to jump in on that. And what
it turned out was the reporter himself, he's the Herald's never ever acted it.
But I did interview the reporter from my book in a whole chapter on
that. This case of this, this saga, is that when the guy
whom he was dealing with, the na do Well, let me say,
took the painting out of its cylindrical where it was being contained container and he
held it over his head. What the reporter said is that the painting the
canvas unfurled, and when he later spoke to the museum, convinced him that
Rembrandt was too lacquered, too schillact. I could not you couldn't fold it,
you couldn't bend it. It would be too stiff. From all in
one, I don't think I've ever used it, but I have the nadowell
who showed it to him. What he wanted to do was to get the
Herald to buy into that he had the Rembrandt, and as a result he
would let another name had to well out of jail, and here we go
again with here you go get out of jail free card. And the Feds
never would let the second one out of jail. They said, no,
you got to give us up. If you got something, show it to
us. But I had that first, that first guy's telephone book, and
in the telephone book of the small telephone book that he put in his pocket,
in it was the name of a Manhattan of company that made up paintings.
And I'm thinking he had approached them, and if I called them,
they said they didn't have anything. They hadn't done this Rembrandt. But I'm
thinking he went to someone else and had had the brant. Must have been
a good job, because the Herald reporter said, I saw it for a
moment and it looked like the real thing. That's why he reported, we've
seen another dead end. But still mastery. You couldn't make the stuff up.
As someone said to my book, here a cast of characters that would
make Martin Scorsese swooned in admiration. That's true. That's true. With the
success of Master Thieves, are you tempted to write another book? I know
what it takes to write a book when it's an anatomy, and that's not
the kind of book I want to write again. I want to write a
book that and I don't want to write a book that leaves the reader in
anticipation hanging. I want to write. I want that last chapter written,
and I don't have that yet. I don't have it for Master Thieves,
and I don't have it for this other case. I still working the not
the not the faull re brand, but another case that I'm working. Steve,
if someone has information or thinks they have information about the stolen paintings from
the gardener, who should they be contacting? I doubt you want them reaching
out to you, Stephen Kirchen at gmail dot com. I respond, But
the FBI Boston office, the gentleman named Jeff with a G. Jeff Kelly,
who will take every call in Anthony Maury, who's the security director at
the museum. I asked, I think it's dot com. Excuse me,
dot com? You'll you'll, they will take your call, they will engage
you, but please, they will all of us have gone down rabbit holes.
Here. We'll listen to you, but please, if you're calling,
have something that leads somewhere, and don't let us have another worthless pursuit.
The deal the FBI made with Bulger was that he was snitch on the Italian
mar but he and they would let him off on his criminality. They would
do. And let me tell you, he didn't give up anything. I
know who gave the Feds the information to let them break into the end Julos
and they were the crime gang, Imparson, And it wasn't Bulger, it
was this other guy. But she said, I won't talk to any Irish
so wow, Polish of a Polish prosecutor who had prosecuted Bulger. And he
called her and he said to her. I don't know what he said to
her. She doesn't return my phone calls. They never refer turned my phone
calls. Just the sister. How the game is played? And do you
think David Turner's still out there right? Do you think he's been released?
David certainly knows something, probably knows where those two paintings were sold, let's
say two or three. The way I figure the one hinge led to a
door that led to an alley that led to the Eureka, is that Donadi
in Guarente, even though a generation apart an age they were pals in effett
like this, they belonged to different games. Garente belonged to the Frank Slemmi
gang and Donati belonged to the Ferrara game. But since they were from the
same neighborhood, they were bom they could talk. When Donati stole the paintings
and Ferrara didn't want him use to get out of jail. I think Donadi
went to Guarante because he knew Guaranty was o g was an old and could
help him, and so he went to Guarente and maybe he sold, gave
whatever two of the big paintings to Garenty on the promise Garenti would sell them
and money back to Donadi. Donadi was known to have gone during the year
and a half that he was alive after the theft. He was known to
have gone to Florida and spent a lot of money at the race track I
sent and I think the FEDS know all about this, but they won't give
it up. Spent money at the racetrack when he came back, he said
to Garanty, I want more money. I want more money, and Garante
had him killed or killed him himself. Turner was brought up by Guarante.
Turner even though not Italian, he came from Becomp and he's a kid.
He's in his forties when he was hanging out with he was a teenager when
he was hanging out with Guarante. That Garente took him under his wing.
Turner turned out to be a very capable killer, drug dealer, whatever.
And I think he learned from Garente what Garente did with the artwork. That's
what I think garrent When Garenty finally gave information to the Feds, he gave
them what he heard or will learn about what Garente did with that Karenti killed
Donati and what he did with the artwork that he got from Donati. And
I've reached out to now garent Turner has been released. His sentence was cut
by seven years. Yeah, I saw that in the documentary. That was
after the book came out of focusing more on him. I've approached Turner sense
to sit for an interview, but it took Crafty of a reporter, and
I don't think they used that word. Where is Turner? Is he in
Massachusetts? He's probably home and and Brantry and especially back to his own old
neighborhood. But I think he's The Feds know about a couple of murders,
so they've got him on a short leash. Yeah, he salutes, and
it doesn't give interviews to reporters. The Feds want to get it the only
way they're going to get it, which is somebody picks up the phone.
I think Turner has told them everything that he knows, but he doesn't know
where Guarente did with the artwork. And of course one of the things we
all have to remember is the artwork could have been dispersed. It could have
easily gone to a different place. I hear you, Billy, and I
agree it could have been. Oh we didn't get back to Bulger Bulger head
and then Bulger was It's crazy social passion. He had an enduring alliance with
the IRA, So that's why we would have done anything. These jerks,
they have this belief, oh, Ira, get rid of, get rid
of the nineteenth county. There ridiculous killing people. I have yet to come
up to Boston to see the Gardener Museum, but to come up. I
would love to Bill. It's beautiful. When I met it wasn't a guy
that we just walked through. But no, it was very and I didn't
mention it on the air. Remember you and I were walking up the stairs
to the second floor and ANTHONYA. Moorey came right stairs. Anthony, I
was my book had just come out. Anthony was not pleased with the book.
Yeah, he gave you the once over and kept right on going.
I don't know if I told you this. During that same time I saw
you, I went and listened to him speak. He was doing one of
his stop sets at a library on the South Shore. It wasn't Plymouth.
He came to Plymouth, I think with Jeff, with Jeff Kelly, but
I don't think they said much. This was him by himself, but his
wife or girlfriend was with him. Very attractive Asian American moment, and they
were selling copies of his books, and he spoke. I chatted with him
afterwards and I name dropped you, but it didn't see get me much.
Yeah, he said if books should have been written in two thousand and one,
nineteen ninety five, should not have been twenty fifteen, but I'm really
glad that it came out because it really does get I got a real good
what do they call that offer with option from Sony TV, And they had
hired a director of Adila and we were all going. But my great friend's
movie Black Mass didn't do well, even though it had Johnny Depp. Yeah,
and it's very was so scary in that movie. Yeah, it's creepy
as hell. Ally would wash ardor for Boston Crime Books in twenty fifteen when
mine was Sony pulled away. They gave me two big contracts, a lot
of money, had some fun, and I kept saying him, fly meet
who's who won't play? Who won't play? Fly me to Los Angeles,
have them take a meeting with me. We'll get to him. Yeah exactly,
Yeah I fish. He said, listen, we're right now with DiCaprio
in DiCaprio's Best Friend is Oh Cide, the House rules. What's the name
Tobby maguire, Toby McGuire. They played big Poker, so agent I said,
get me to that game in my elements, Oh my gosh. And
they would have loved you because you're the real deal. Right, but he
said, Steve, they make four four digit bets. Wow. Please tell
Sony to back the bets. Yeah. Hey, trip, terrific time.
Let me know if you hear anything. Bill, please come up. Hey,
I have every intention of coming up at some point or another. I
would love to go to the museum summer waits come on all right? Absolutely,
Thank you, take care of Thanks Steve. The book is Master Thieves,
the Boston Gangster who pulled off the World's Greatest art heist, and the
documentary is This Is a Robbery available on Netflix. Stephen, thank you so
much for joining us today. This was a real pleasure. Bill, Kristen,
thank you very much for having me. Great to chat. That is
going to do it for this episode of mind Ever Murder. Thank you so
much for listening. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a
production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas
and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music
is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space
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can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway murders on Facebook, and finally,
you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas. Five six.
Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder.