It wasn't that long ago that the NYT reporter Corey Kilgannon wrote a terrific recap of the heist, 55 years after the 1964 burglary that basically revealed threadbare museum security and a thief and his accomplice who were more daring than clever in covering their tails.
I was in high school in 1964 when the story of the heist was splashed over the New York City dailies, when there were many NYC newspapers. Photos galore of windows left open, and display cases smashed that set off no alarms. Nothing creates a legend faster than thieves who get away with it, even if they are arrested within days of the heist. A caper is a caper. Just watch George Clooney plan a casino heist with a PowerPoint presentation. We love it.
Mr. Kilgannon's piece spawned my own reminiscences of the heist. In the 2019 posting, in the opening paragraph, I correctly predicted that Murph would get a bylined obit when he passed. And of course that's what happened, as we are treated to the inevitable Robert McFadden updated (by Mr. Kilgannon) advance obit, retrieved from the morgue.
Murph didn't make the front page like Tom Seaver, but he did hit the lower front page teaser portion of the paper that told us of the passing of: 'Jewel Heist Mastermind."
'Mastermind' is an inflated title given to someone who pulled off the biggest jewel theft on record, but was caught within days. The guys who pulled off the Isabella Gardner museum and stole Rembrandts and a Vermeer are "masterminds," because after 30 years the paintings are still not recovered and the perps are still out there, albeit possibly dead.
The Boston gangster Whitey Bulger has always been mentioned as someone who had something to do with the Gardner Museum heist. But when they finally caught up with Whitey in a Santa Monica condo, all he had inside his walls was $800,000 is cash, but no paintings. Whitey met his end in prison, killed by someone for being a snitch who cooperated with the Feds.
With a week of Mr. Kilgannon's October 2019 piece on Murph, Maurice Nadjari passed away. Maurice was a young assistant Manhattan DA who was dispatched with a NYPD detective to retrieve the stolen gems from under a boat in Miami.
A good heist is memorable. But like a lot of things, they just don't make them like they used to.
Take the Malaysian theft of billions in Bitcoin. You might think stealing Bitcoin would be romantically portrayed. No? Not when you realize that Bitcoin is virtual money that only exists on servers. The billions were taken by electronically redirecting the bitcoin to another account. Electrons are no fun.
It wasn't a heist, but consider the obit just written for Forrest Fenn, 90, an art dealer who sent thousands of adults on a treasure hunt.
Turns out Mr. Fenn wrote a 24-verse poem in 2010 that gave cryptic clues to a literal treasure chest of gold coins, rare gems, sculptures and other jewelry worth perhaps $2 million that he stashed somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Find it, it's yours.
Apparently plenty of people looked, and since the Rocky Mountains are in several states and an opening clue that went "where warm waters halt, and take it in the canyon down," the treasure was only just found, three months before Mr. Fenn passed away. The location of the treasure chest was not disclosed, and the finder's name was not made public. My guess is taxes are involved somehow.
They found the gems Murph stole; they found the money Whitey hid, but they still haven't found the Rembrandts and the Vermeer. The true mastermind is still out there. Come on down.
http://www.onofframp.blgospot.com
Murph didn't make the front page like Tom Seaver, but he did hit the lower front page teaser portion of the paper that told us of the passing of: 'Jewel Heist Mastermind."
'Mastermind' is an inflated title given to someone who pulled off the biggest jewel theft on record, but was caught within days. The guys who pulled off the Isabella Gardner museum and stole Rembrandts and a Vermeer are "masterminds," because after 30 years the paintings are still not recovered and the perps are still out there, albeit possibly dead.
The Boston gangster Whitey Bulger has always been mentioned as someone who had something to do with the Gardner Museum heist. But when they finally caught up with Whitey in a Santa Monica condo, all he had inside his walls was $800,000 is cash, but no paintings. Whitey met his end in prison, killed by someone for being a snitch who cooperated with the Feds.
With a week of Mr. Kilgannon's October 2019 piece on Murph, Maurice Nadjari passed away. Maurice was a young assistant Manhattan DA who was dispatched with a NYPD detective to retrieve the stolen gems from under a boat in Miami.
A good heist is memorable. But like a lot of things, they just don't make them like they used to.
Take the Malaysian theft of billions in Bitcoin. You might think stealing Bitcoin would be romantically portrayed. No? Not when you realize that Bitcoin is virtual money that only exists on servers. The billions were taken by electronically redirecting the bitcoin to another account. Electrons are no fun.
It wasn't a heist, but consider the obit just written for Forrest Fenn, 90, an art dealer who sent thousands of adults on a treasure hunt.
Turns out Mr. Fenn wrote a 24-verse poem in 2010 that gave cryptic clues to a literal treasure chest of gold coins, rare gems, sculptures and other jewelry worth perhaps $2 million that he stashed somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Find it, it's yours.
Apparently plenty of people looked, and since the Rocky Mountains are in several states and an opening clue that went "where warm waters halt, and take it in the canyon down," the treasure was only just found, three months before Mr. Fenn passed away. The location of the treasure chest was not disclosed, and the finder's name was not made public. My guess is taxes are involved somehow.
They found the gems Murph stole; they found the money Whitey hid, but they still haven't found the Rembrandts and the Vermeer. The true mastermind is still out there. Come on down.
http://www.onofframp.blgospot.com
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