The heist became a legend, even more so when the robbers were caught six days after. Their ring leader was a colorfully named guy, Murph the Surf, who appeared to be a benign, but ineffectual thief. He later did time for murder, and his story was revisited by The New York Times reporter Corey Kilgannon. Murph has passed away.
There of course have been all kinds of heist movies, some involving casinos, and some involving museums. But those are fiction. The real heists are what send the imagination soaring.
And no heist does this more that the theft of 13 pieces of priceless artworks by numerous artists cut out of their frames at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in the early hours of March 18, 1990. The pieces have never been found.
I used to have a list of three things I wanted to know about before I died. Who was Carly Simon singing about in her song "You're So Vain;" who was Watergate's Deep Throat; and is there life anywhere in the universe other than on Earth?
My interest in Carly's inspiration for "You're So Vain" has waned. It was or wasn't Warren Beatty, or some other guy who screwed her over. Or it was a composite of guys who screwed her over when she was "quite naïve." I know it wasn't me, despite the fact that at Saratoga my horse naturally won. Having your horse win doesn't mean you own the horse. It can mean that you chose to bet on it and it won. And I've made bets at Saratoga where the horse "naturally won." That's why I go back every year.
As for Deep Throat, the identity was revealed for certain to be an Assistant Director of the F.B.I., W. Mark Felt. Mark has also passed away.
Life somewhere other than on Earth? Okay, that's still on the list, but it's lost a bit of its steam when you think that the definition of life might be bacteria swimming in a crater on Mars that has some moisture in it. It doesn't by the definition of life have to be Sci-Fi Martians, or Robin Williams playing Mork on "Mork and Mindy."
The current mystery getting all the media attention right now is where is Kate Middleton, Prince William's wife? She's in line to sit on the throne when her father-in-law King Charles III passes away. Where's Kate? gets daily media speculation, but I'm not interested. She's alive somewhere, in some state of health that so far keeps the Royals from planning another funeral.
No, at the top of my list right now is where are the 13 pieces of art so brazenly lifted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum?
The heist has been in the news again lately. The guard who was fooled into letting two guys at the door in the early hours of March 18, 1990 dressed as Boston policemen into the museum's lobby has just passed away, Richard Abath.
Richard was an immediate suspect to be in on it, but that speculation never came to be true. The death of Richard Abath lead to an article in this past Wednesday's NYT by Tom Mashberg on the artworks stolen and the lack of progress identifying who might have engineered the heist, and where the artworks are.
From Mr. Mashberg's reporting, I learned that in 2015 the F.B.I. identified two long-dead Boston area criminals, George Reissfelder and Lenny DiMuzio. The Bureau doesn't add any details as to why these two might have been involved. The Gardner Museum heist remains the largest art theft in history. And it remains unsolved.
Google entries for George Reissfelder and Lenny DiMuzio shed light on who the F.B.I. believe committed the crime, whose crew they were part of, but not where the paintings can be found.
Are they in some tax haven warehouse on an off-shore island? It seems anyone's guess is as good and anyone's.
I will wager however that we will find out about Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, before the paintings are ever found.
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