Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft
The stolen works were originally procured by art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) and were intended for permanent display at the museum with the rest of her collection.
Other paintings and sketches by Rembrandt, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Govert Flinck were stolen, along with a relatively valueless eagle finial and Chinese gu.
As the collection and its layout are intended to be permanent, empty frames remain hanging both in homage to the missing works and as placeholders for their return.
Other accounts suggest that the paintings were stolen by a gang in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, although these suspects deny involvement despite the fact that a sting operation resulted in several prison sentences.
[3] This financial strain left the museum in poor condition; it lacked a climate control system and an insurance policy and was in need of basic building maintenance.
Other area museums had fail-safe systems that required night watchmen to place hourly phone calls with the police to indicate that conditions were normal.
[27][23] They removed The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black from the wall and threw them on the marble floor, shattering their glass frames.
[34] At 1:51 a.m., while one thief continued working in the Dutch Room, the other entered a narrow hallway dubbed the Short Gallery on the other end of the second floor.
[36] The thieves then moved to the security director's office, where they took the video cassettes that contained evidence of their entrance from the closed-circuit cameras as well as the data printouts from the motion-detecting equipment.
[32] The thieves may have taken Landscape with Obelisk believing that it was a Rembrandt; it was long attributed to him until it was quietly credited to his pupil Govert Flinck (1615–1660) a few years before the heist.
Traditionally used for serving wine in ancient China, the beaker was one of the oldest works in the museum, dating to the Shang Dynasty in the 12th century BC.
As Gardner's will decreed that nothing in her collection should be moved, the empty frames for the stolen paintings remain hanging in their respective locations in the museum as placeholders for their potential return.
[58] Because of the museum's low funds and lack of an insurance policy, the director solicited help from Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses to post a reward of $1 million within three days.
[80] McShane identified the act of tripping the fire alarm before the heist as a "calling card" of the IRA and of its rival Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
[82] According to Charley Hill, a retired art and antiquities investigator for Scotland Yard, Bulger gave the Gardner works to the IRA and they are most likely in Ireland.
[90] Hawley received a second letter a few days later in which the writer acknowledged the museum was interested in negotiating, but that they had become fearful of what they perceived was a massive investigation by federal and state authorities to determine their identity.
They reported "with a high degree of confidence" that they had identified the thieves, which they believed were members of a criminal organization based in the mid-Atlantic and New England.
[95] The gang was loyal to Boston Mafia boss Frank Salemme and ran their operations out of an automobile repair shop run by criminal Carmello Merlino.
[122] He also explained that the list found in his basement was written up by a criminal trying to broker return of the works from Guarente and was talking to Gentile as an intermediary.
[131][132] Evidence indicates that he went to Florida to pick up a cocaine order just days before the heist,[133] and credit card records suggest he remained there through the night of the robbery,[134][135] but some investigators believe this may have been Turner's attempt at creating an alibi.
[137] No clues were found in his apartment or the homes of friends and relatives,[132][137] but his siblings recall a painting similar to Chez Tortoni in his bedroom.
[138] In 1999, the FBI arrested Turner, Merlino, Rossetti, and others in a sting operation the day they planned to rob a Loomis Fargo vault.
[151] Even though Donati's and Houghton's appearances did not fit the witness descriptions, Connor suggested they probably hired lower-level gangsters to carry out the robbery.
[149] Acting on Connor's lead, the FBI opened a case on Youngworth and conducted raids on his home and antique store properties in the 1990s.
[158] He reported that his "informant" (presumably Youngworth) told him the robbery was pulled off by five men and identified two: Donati was one of the robbers, and Houghton was responsible for moving the art to a safe house.
[161] Youngworth supplied paint chips to Mashberg, and federal authorities reported that they were indeed from Rembrandt's era but did not match oils used for The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.
[163] The United States attorney overseeing the case eventually ceased talks with Youngworth unless he could provide more reliable evidence that he had access to the Gardner works.
[164] A joint statement from the museum and federal investigators announced that the chips were not from the stolen Rembrandts, though they did test as being from 17th century paintings and could potentially be from The Concert.
[165] In 2014, investigative reporter Stephen Kurkjian wrote to gangster Vincent Ferrara, Donati's superior during the gang war, inquiring if he had information about the Gardner theft.
[166][167] He received a call back from an associate of Ferrara who explained the FBI was wrong in suspecting the Merlino gang's involvement and claimed that Donati organized the robbery.
