You're listening to the Mind Next Time and Mind over Murder. As we continue
are fascinating conversation. I'm a s writer, one time reporter from the Boston
Globe. I am now author of 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. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.
I'm Kristin Dilly, and I'm Bill Thomas as well. And Astor was
out with my partner Crime Master Thieves, the Boston gangsters who pulled off the
world's greatest art heist, and we are talking about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
art heist. Steve, thank you for joining us today. Pleasure to be.
We were laughing because the two of you immediately started getting into a fascinating
conversation and I was like time out. We got hit the record. But
because I do tend to carry on regarding this case and Kristen is I think
a new fan because I read the book several years ago. When you and
I first met, Kristin had just bought it and read it and loved it
and said, we got to get this guy on my nover Murder. I
know he'll sit up like a little puppy I do on this case. I
love the fact that almost as soon as I had said, oh, this
is a fascinating book, Bill immediately was like, I know that guy.
We're going to get him on the podcast, like immediately within seconds. Practically
he coming from the North Shore and be coming from Dochester, which is a
neighborhood of Boston. We will ate real well. Steve, start by telling
us a little bit about your career as a journalist in Boston. I guess
I should say your storied career as a journalist in Boston, because this is
a heck of a resume you've got. Yeah, I had been in a
reporter for the Washington Globe for forty years and late in my career, and
i'd been in Washington head of the Globes Political Bureau, which is a terrific
one. Still in Washington. Came back to Boston around ninety two and got
interested in this case, which had broken two years before. But while I
was in Washington, And what it really was is just two men had tricked
their way into the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, which at the time was fraying.
It had recently got a new director, and she was committed, younger
person, and she was committed to improving it and getting it back into the
limelight of Boston's cultural scene. And she succeeded, except she had this weight
on her that happened about six months after she took over as director. She
was improving so many other places, but hadn't attended to the security. And
the security at the time was they had put in a few improved bence as
far as equipment, but they hadn't really looked at the quality of their of
their guards or night watchmen. And as I learned, anyone who is in
the museum business told me that the most sensitive time, the most vulnerable time,
is at night. If someone is to pluck something off of the wall
during the day, sooner or later a museum, a visitor, or a
member of the security staff is going to realize that and is going to everything's
going to lock down. But at night you're at the whim of As it
turned out, in nineteen ninety two men who had very little interest in being
professional security that by the fact both were in music. And the one man
who had total responsibility was the man who was at the desk. And at
the time of around one o'clock in the morning on March eighteenth, nineteen ninety,
two men addressed as police officers came to the side door employees entrance and
rang the bell. And the man behind the security desk, his interest in
life was to a rock and roll bed. He had started two years before,
and he loved the job because it allowed him to be stoned or drunk
after his gig was over, to go over to the museum and just take
it easy. There's nothing going on. Nothing ever happened except this night when
two men dressed in police uniforms are announcing themselves Boston Police and we're here to
investigate a disturbance and the night watchman. This is in a few hours after
our holy holiday of Saint Patrick's Day, and on Saint Patrick's Day is a
big holiday, and every police officer who works at Boston or State Police or
even the colleges is in uniform on duty, working overtime. And I think
they chose that time to hit the museum, because they knew that if any
police officer was working the detail that night, they were going to be on
over. They were going to be on overtime, and they may not have
been as alert and on their toes as they would have been another day,
but be those may They say, we're here to investigate a disturbance. Now,
the night watchmen behind the desk. He knew there was no disturbance going
on at the museum. He had done the first tour, which he had
lasted about forty five minutes. He had walked through the three floors of galleries,
he had tested all the windows and got his key locks all processed,
and nothing was going on. So when the two men announcing themselves at the
side doors say they're here investigated disturbance, he thought maybe some kids had jumped
over the back gate. And he opens up and so he makes two very
stupid mistakes, and this is one of them his handbooks, and he's been
told you never let anybody in. To his defense, I had talked I
talked to him for about ten years after I got on the story, and
he told me sometimes trustees would come in or the director would come in after
midnight and he would let her in. These are police officers, but his
handbook says no one, not even police officers, are to be allowed in.
If they're ringing the doorbell, you call the police station and you tell
them there's police at the door, and they'll let them send a car,
but do not let anybody in. But he makes this fatal arra, unfortunate
error, and he rings them in and they come in and the first thing
they say to him is who else is here? And he says, only
one another night watchman. He's going to tour of the galleries. And they
said call him down, and he does. He has a two way radio.
Calls him down. But before he comes down, they say he's sitting
behind a desk. They say to him, you look familiar to us.
Are you wanted for anything yourself? Do we have a Have you not shown
up but failed to show up to court for something? And he says no,
I've got no one's looking for me, and they say, stand away,
come around that counter and come in front of us so we can get
a good look at you. Rick says to them the second and he acknowledged
me when I talked to him. Because if he steps away from that behind
that desk. There's only one way he can summon the outside world to the
if these guys are the robbers, and that's an alarm button right in front
of him, right where his stomach is, inside the security desk. But
he says, I knew what I was doing, and I walked away and
I went out front. And as he walks out front to show them who
he is, in fact, he gives him his license. There's his driver's
license. The second guard comes into the room. After the second guard comes
into the room, they push Herrick up against the wall, frisk him and
don't frisk him, put handcuffs on him. And at that moment, Rick
says, I knew even before they said to him this is a robbery.
Rick said, I knew that they were. And I said, why did
you step away from the war one button? The museum had one emergency button
to the outside. Why and you knew you were doing that? Why would
you do that? And he tapped his breast pocket and he says, because
I had a ticket for that night's performance in Hertford, Connecticut of The Grateful
Dead. And Rick was a sort of a very straightforward, but I think
smarter than you smarter than everybody else, had an attitude of a wise guy,
not a criminal, but just smarter than everybody else. And Rick wanted
to see Grateful Dead was his favorite group. He had a ticket and he
was going to drive an hour and a half to Hartford that night or later
that night the next night. And he did, even though in the interim
they had pulled off the largest theft in world history. We're talking thirteen pieces.
Some of the pieces are less than memorable. Of them, four of
them two masterpieces by the by Rembrant, including his only seascape and a vermire.
They're only thirty five vermires. He's said to be the most prolific great
master Vermire, and in all that one vermire, called the Concert, is
said to be worth more than three to four hundred million million dollars. The
Rembrandt is stunning because it's the only seascape Rembrandt ever and if you look,
you see it. It can be easily googled to be seen. It's donning,
it is it's Christ. It's a New Testament image Christ and the Storms
of the Sea Galilee, and it shows Christ in the in its skiff with
all of his disciples around him, I say the music. Rembrandt loved how
it came out so well. He painted himself the So it's a stunning painting.
But then there are some pieces that no one They stole another piece I
believed at the time people felt it was a Rembrandt too. It was done
by a disciple of Ussia, an understudy of Rembrandts. But they stole a
top of a flagpole. They could not get a They went to another room
and they tried to get a banner out of its glass encasement, and it
was held on a Napoleonic banner Napoleon. This banner was carried by Napoleon's forces
into Russia, so truly a historic piece. They couldn't get it out of
its they couldn't get it out of its encasement. So they took the top
of that banner, and that's called a finial, and it's a golden gilded
eagle. And the museum has first had a million, then five million,
now a ten million dollar offered in the ensuing years, now thirty four years
later. And understand, the men spent about anyone minutes more than an hour,
hour and twenty minutes inside the museum. They could have spent the entire
night there. They tied the two night watchmen up, put them down in
the basement, left them there, and then ransacked, totally ransacked the museum.
They left that The room where they stole they did the most of their
master's pieces from, was the Dutch Room on the second floor of the museum,
and they stole I think five or six, seven seven pieces out of
that room. But it's donning. They left the room in shambles, and
that gave me an inkling as to who did this. I could not believe,
and we were still looking for collectors who would try to sell this to
the highest bidder. No way, no. When I looked at the photographs
of the Dutch room where the big pieces were stolen, every frame is broken,
Every class in that fronts the frames is smash and the two large Rembrandts
were cut with box cutters out of their stretches. You don't do that if
you're planning to resell there. So I quickly gave up this belief that there
was a art collector who could not live without a rembrand or Overmere and commissioned
these goons to pull off this stuff. I just I never bought that,
and so as a result, I started my reporting and I got on the
story from in ninety seven, and in two thousand and four I was able
to convince the museum to allow me to see what they had come up with.
The FBI took over the case immediately and worked diligently and although not very
creatively on it, and they chased every lead, every phone call. There's
a ten million dollar reward. In the last decade, the US Attorneys session
of US attorneys who head the Boston office for the Justice Department to US Attorney's
office here in Boston, a succession of them, and said, we won't
prosecute you. If you bring in the masterpieces. We won't prosecute you.
We'll drive you to the museum and there's a ten million dollars reward waiting for
you. By the time I was really into my reporting, I retired from
The Globe in two thousand and eight and started my work on master thieves.
I was convinced that to find who did this, it was so long later
after the theft, and the FBI was not getting good tips on the whereabouts
of the material. So I said, there's another way of trying to solve
this, and that's calling on Boston, in its generosity, in its sense
of a new Boston, to try to reach out to those people who may
know something, to say, help the FBI, help the museum get this
material back. We survived the Marathon bombing in twenty thirteen, killed five p
that event, and I think more than a dozen amputees. Yet we came
back from that, and that sense of resurgence, that sense making our shelves
hole, should be applied to this case, because no world class city allows
these masterpieces to be missing for so long without outreaching to the public saying these
paintings belonged to the museum, They belonged to the public. Missus Gardner put
them on the walls for us and our grandchildren get them back. You don't
know if your grand daughter could be the next Michelangelo bring them back and had
let her, like all of us, enjoy these masterpieces. So I made
it into a little bit, a little bit of a tale of good and
evil in hopes of doing the right thing and getting the artwork back to Boston.
One of the things that was most striking to me, Steve, when
you and I met several years ago, was you were kind enough to take
me on a private tour of the gardener I'd read about and seen photographs of
the missing paintings and artwork, the paintings, drawings, the finial, but
I was so shocked to actually walk into those rooms with you and the empty
frames are still sitting there on the wall. Is this part of missus Gardner's
will that we have to leave the legacy? Yeah? Her will. Her
will required she passed in the mid twenties, and her will required that the
museum stay as it were, that the galleries couldn't change, that it had
to stay as it were at the time of her death. As a result,
the museum doesn't change the same notepads and it depends that are on her
desk. They are still there in the same place. It was determined.
The will is probated every year they trustees activities are viewed and regarded or considered
in light of what her will said. So it was determined that even though
the paintings weren't there, that nothing could be on those center places, those
places of centerpiece in the Dutch room, which is on the second floor,
and I a kin it when you walk into the room from its main entrance,
as you walk up the steps from the first floor. You walk right
into the room and you see the two empty frames. One was the Storm
of the Sea Galilee, and within twenty feet is the empty frame of the
Vermeire. No indication that it was the Vermire. Maybe there's a little sign
of little notepad there. And there are the masterpieces, the master works in
emptiness. I akin it to walking into her awake, being the first person
to walk into a wake. When you watch something important to you and important
to the community, it's just it's stunning, how heavy the feeling here.
You are in a place of great magistry, of great accomplishment. And she
did it for us. That's why she and her husband wanted to build a
museum. She wanted Boston in America, which was becoming a world power in
the late eight nineteenth century. She wanted us to be able to be inspired
by art, and she had been. She came from a both her she
and her husband were Brahmins. They were well born people. They knew art,
and she during her life with Jack Gardner, who was one of our
wealthier entrepreneurs here in Massachusetts, they traveled the world over to collect this art,
and after he died twenty thirty years before she did. She hired Bernard
Berenson, who was a famous collector or art historian, and he traveled the
world over for her as she put together plans and then built the museum,
which opened in nineteen oh three. She's a very cool lady. Oh yes,
I like to see hers. Mydonna and Julia Child was a Brahman who
held usself that way. In a new biography just came out on her.
Because I had just read your book, I was like, I want to
learn more about this lady. So I'm glad you do. Yeah, read
that book. Read that there's shovel biographies on her, but I think I
was told that this latest one is a terrific work. You're listening to Mind
over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're
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As always, thanks for your support. Now back to mind over Murder.
But I'm really curious about this idea that she wanted the museum to remain.
On the one hand, why you would want your museum to stay the
exact same way as it was when you designed it, because I get that.
But at the same time, she had to have thought at some point
or another that the museum's going to need upgrades over time, especially if you're
going to have lots of visitors to come in and see it. Things are
going to change. Why didn't she make provisions for that in her will that
I don't want the art to change, but you can upgrade the restrooms or
the fire suppression system or oh, I don't know, the security system.
Yeah, I don't know. I think that was presumed. Now now I'm
going to speculate on this. I don't know this. The museum had begun
to let me call it Frey, And the reason why was that the trustees
who took after her death. The trustees who took over the steering, the
operation, the guidance of the museum, they didn't really have the need to
raise money. There wasn't a sense that we have to buy the latest in
order to keep the museum modern. She did not want a modern museum.
She had already purchased and was already displaying classics of all ages. And there's
a and there. To give you an example, there is a large statue
in front of the Boston Public Library, and it has the names of eight
artists of the ages Donatello Rembrandt. Six of those eight artists have their works
on display at the Isabella Store Gardens. She and her husband paid for this
work to be on display to Boston because she wanted us to experience it.
She wanted she as she traveled the world over in the late nineteenth century,
she got a transcendent belief that art indoors everything else passes art indoors, and
she wanted us to be inspired by art. I like to say that the
one person who I know was proof of that is my father. My father
came to the came to Boston in the early nineteen twenties. He was a
refugee from the Armenian genocide. He was raised and went to high school in
the twenties, and they started he could draw, and they sent him off
to art school, and he became a very successful portrait artist and was and
raised his family on that and was pretty well loomed as a portrait artist.
And after he told me, after I started my work on this case,
he said to me, Stephen, I would leave school. He went to
art school for two years, and I would walk over to the museum.
It was free, that's what she mandated, free of charge, even for
the earliest days. But by the time he was there, the students were
still free of charge. He said, I could go in and look at
the paint I could. It was my own little workshop. You look so
close at who the painting, who the painter was, study his work,
and see their artwork so close. He said. It was just a terrificy.
And that's what it was. But the trustees didn't have to raise money.
When they didn't have to raise money, the museum began to fray,
and the security director told me who was in charge the night of the theft.
He later said to me, they just were not doing enough to modernize
the museumant. Not many were. Not many museums were, but the Garden
Museum got caught in that omission. And after the theft at the Gardener,
every museum in the country put in reforms for their security system. Unfortunately as
too later for the museum. As I see it, it was a wake
up call for museums around the country and even private collectors who owned beautiful pieces
of art that they needed to do a lot more to protect themselves from this
kind of theft. The other grand theme that I came up with is I
was dealing with a man in the mid nineteen eighties. There was a theft
of Pressionists from a smaller museum in Paris. They solved it about eight years
later, and I was in touch with the head of their artsquad and I
said to him, his name is in the book. I said the detective,
what are we missing here? How come you? And the theft was
about ten years old that I said, you solved yours in eight years.
We're at ten years unsolved. Now, how are you able to solve this
and we're not able to solve ours? And he's said, there's one big
difference your people. Art here in France is considered the public's position. You
don't have that, you don't have people feeling that they took it from me.
And he said, that's how we got ours. We got tips from
the public all the time. It never stopped. But I don't think we
the bad guys who know something see that as their responsibility or their obligation to
help in this stuff. It's the old world, and it's difficult to me
to convey this, but I'll say the words Boston in nineteen ninety when this
stuff took place, it still had major influence of organized crime. The snitches
get stitches. That was the code of silence, that was an operating credo
in many neighborhoods of Boston. That's gone. That's no longer Boston. That
is no Boston is playing by the rules. There's no big organized crime hold
controlling of bedding or whatever. That's all gone. But I still think there
are people who know things about where this artwork was taken, if it wasn't
destroyed. And let's I don't know that somebody people still know of who knew
what, and they're still refusing to pick up the phone and give a tip,
to give the information to the museum. Or the FBI because they feel
that they will be breaking the code the old World cup, give me a
break. The code that prevails is that this is being denied our citizens,
our people, our grand children. In that sense, that imperative needs to
be stated and restated. I've even reached out to the card O'Malley, who
was a grand great man. We've recovered from the clergy abuse scandal of the
twenty years ago that The Boston Glow wrote about and Spotlight Team wrote about because
of Cardinal O'Malley was put in place. But he could get in front of
these empty frames which are so evocative, and say we have to bring these
paintings back to Boston. Each of us has an obligation to do what we
can to get them back. So are any of the people that would be
in a position to know, all these years later, and we are talking
about a lot of years of lapsing since nineteen ninety, are any of them
still alive and in a position to steer law enforcement to where these paintings might
be found, either some of them or all of them. Let me see
if I can answer that I believe they are. I believe, but it's
not I know where I know where they hit them, where they hit some.
I think what they know is that my uncle, my late brother in
law, or the guy who I used to run bets for he knew something
about this. It's those people who don't want to get involved. They still
say it's Omerica. Don't say anything old world. And who are you helping?
You're helping the haves. We're have notts. The criminal element is the
have nots. Who are you helping? And I would sit in the few
organized crime people who whom I would sit with and talk with get blue in
the face. They don't go by the information that we do the haves do.
How do we make up our mind on big decisions? We weigh,
we talk to experts, we read the paper, We find a lawyer who
may know something and in this field, and we consult with them. It's
not how the bad guys did their work. They were all on rumor,
on suspicion, on word of the wink in the art. That's how they
did their business. And you know that, you know that with the theme
of your podcast, you know how criminal information among criminals is considered so valuable.
Like when I came up with this idea that had to be done for
another reason than to fence the artwork. There had to be another reason.
And I went just went to the few sources I had, and I said,
what's why would you do this if you're going to treat the artwork so
bad? And I said, it wasn't done to fence. It was done
to get somebody out of jail. And that's where this idea, this coda
of get out of jail free cot, this was going to be used as
a bargaining chip the return of Summer, all the artwork in exchange for getting
a key mobster out of jail. And it's there was one guy here in
Boston who had been arrested for doing a theft up in Maine. He had
stolen Wyath paintings, allegedly with Robert Donatti, the main character in this case.
And when he got caught, not Donati, but this pretty well known
art thief. When he got caught, he came up with the idea that
the only way they'll give me a break is if I steal something else,
and he at a gang with guns. They went and they stole a remprant
out of the MFA in the early seventies, and he hid it underneath the
bed of one of his pals. It's insane. Two years sitting this valuable,
incredibly valuable painting is sitting under the bed, under the bed, left
leisure there for two years. Then calls his lawyer and the remarkable thing is.
The more remarkable thing is, as he's being arraigned for the stealing of
the Wyeth paintings, some steak caught yellswim as he's being walked up the steps
of the courthouse. His name is Miles Connor. First name, Miles.
You're going to need a Rembrant to get you out of this. Miles stole
guns his gang, They break into the MFA, they steal a large Rembrandt
off of the wall, and they hide it for two years. And then
Miles calls his a lawyer and says, to the lawyer, tell the FEDS,
if they give me a deal, I'll give them their Rembrandt back,
but I need to get a deal on that other case involving the stolen Wyath
paintings. And his lawyer says, I don't think the FBI deals that way,
but I'll tell them, And the FBI says, listen, he can
tell it. Give us stuff Rembrandt back, he can tell it to the
judge, and he tells it to that he does, he gives him the
Rembrant pack. No one knew what the hell is Back in the seventies,
no one knew what the hell happened. But all of a sudden, the
mfa's got the Rembrandt pack and Miles goes into court. He tells the judge
what he had done, and the judge says, that's all well and good
Miles, but I'm giving you eight years for the main theft, in another
eight years for the for the for the MFA, for the museum fine arce
theft of the Rembrandt. But he allows him to serve the one eight year
sentence co terminously current and out of that case, Miles has to serve eight
years. Every bad guy in Boston that I went to and says, hey,
to get out of jail free, cut, I said, he didn't
get out of jail free yet to serve eight year. Don't you read the
papers? Now you're steal something this big it to get out of jail free.
But I followed the bouncing ball on that motto get out of jail free
card, and the next thing I know. I'm being called by a lawyer
who says his client wants to talk to me. Because when the client was
in jail on a fifteen year sentence, his underling had come to him and
said, we're going to steal something so valuable that the Feds will have to
leave you a get you out of jail. And when the guy said to
him, don't involve me, he knew this Donati was not the smartest,
not the brightest ball in the house. He said to him, Bob,
do not involve me in any of your crazy schemes. Donati had already done
the theft, but he had these paintings in his house and he didn't know
what to do with them. Not knowing what to do with them, the
other bad guys hear about him having this artwork, and they start to follow
him around and they start to threaten him, and when he doesn't give up
the paintings, he suffers a very brutal death. He was almost beheaded.
Rude, and these guys did tough guys, and they played for keeps.
And when Donadi, who was a member of the ball, when he wouldn't
give up these paintings, he suffered a terrible, tragic, terrible. His
sister said to me, they could have killed him with just a bullet.
I knew he was in a criminal world. Why would they have to be
so brutal to him? That's why I think that this artwork, these masterpieces
that he stole, were in his house for a period of time, and
they became almost targets on him. A year and half after the theft,
he was brutally assassinated. Join us next time on Mind Over Murder as we
continue our fascinating conversation with Steve Kirchen, longtime reporter for The Boston Globe and
author of Master Thieves. The book is Master Thieves, the Boston Gangsters who
pulled off the world's greatest art heist, and the documentary is This is a
Robbery, available on Netflix. Stephen, thank you some thanuch for joining us
today. This was a real pleasure. Bill Kristin, 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
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