On the 35th anniversary of the Gardner Museum heist, retired FBI agent offers theory on whodunnit

Boston Globe

18-03-2025

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'And then they wake up on March 19 to realize that they've committed the heist of the century,' said Kelly, 57, who spearheaded the investigation from 2002 through last April and is now a partner at Argus Cultural Property Consultants.
Kelly said he searched until the day he retired and cautions that, typically, stolen artwork is often not recovered until generations have gone by.
'Someone is going to be looking in an attic and find these pieces,' he said. 'There's always hope.'
No one has been charged with the theft and none of the artwork has been recovered, despite a $10 million reward.
After scrutinizing d
Two suspects in the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft are: Leonard DiMuzio (left), who was shot to death in 1991, and George Reissfelder, who was found dead of a cocaine overdose in 1991.
Handout/Joe Runci
Early that morning on March 18, petty thief George Reissfelder parked his red Dodge Daytona near the Gardner Museum's Palace Road entrance, with Leonard DiMuzio, an associate implicated in home invasions, in the passenger seat. Dressed as police officers, they rang the museum buzzer and claimed to be investigating a disturbance. Th
The thieves tied up Abath and a second guard and spent 81 minutes in the museum, slicing some masterpieces from their frames. They stole 13 pieces: Rembrandt's only seascape, 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,' 'A Lady and Gentleman in Black,' and a stamp-sized self-portrait; Vermeer's 'The Concert'; Flinck's 'Landscape with an Obelisk'; five Degas sketches; Manet's 'Chez Tortoni'; an ancient Chinese vase; and a finial of a gilded bronze eagle from atop a Napoleonic flag.
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Before leaving, they snatched computer printouts from a motion sensor that had tracked their movements.
But their steps were preserved on a hard drive, which showed the thieves hadn't entered the first floor Blue Room, where Manet's 'Chez Tortoni' was taken. Only Abath's steps, as he made his
rounds before the thieves arrived, were picked up there. And Abath had briefly opened a side door minutes before letting the thieves inside, which Kelly said he suspects was a signal he was ready for them.
Former Gardner Museum night watchman Rick Abath is pictured in 2013. (Matthew Cavanaugh for The Boston Globe)
Matthew Cavanaugh
Abath,
Kelly is convinced he did.
He said Abath had given his two-week notice around the time of the theft, and must have taken the Manet since he was the only one who entered that gallery. He speculated Abath left the painting for the thieves, hoping they would save it for him. Instead, they left the empty frame on the security director's chair.
'The Storm' and other pieces were too big to fit in Reissfelder's car, suggesting they had accomplices with a truck or
van, Kelly said.
Kelly's theory is that the mastermind of the theft was Carmello Merlino, a mob associate who ran a repair shop in Dorchester and likely sent the thieves inside the museum with a 'shopping list.'
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'It didn't require a master thief to go in there,' Kelly said. The job was 'basically pull the stuff off the wall and carry it out.'
The Manet was likely not on the list, according to Kelly. Years later, Reissfelder's relatives told authorities they saw a distinctive painting of a man in a tall hat — just as in 'Chez Tortoni' — on the bedroom wall of Reissfelder's Quincy apartment months after the heist.
The painting was gone when Reissfelder, 51, was found dead inside his apartment in March 1991 of a cocaine overdose.
'It was a suspicious death,' said Kelly, noting Reissfelder died of an intravenous overdose, which was 'very strange, considering his family said he was scared of needles.'
The painting "Chez Tortoni," by Edouard Manet, was one of the paintings stolen from the Isabella Gardner Museum in 1990.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Two weeks after Reissfelder's death, DiMuzio, 43, of Rockland, disappeared. His body was found in the trunk of a car in East Boston in June 1991. No one has been charged with his death.
Kelly said he believes DiMuzio and Reissfelder were killed 'for the paintings or to keep them quiet.'
Two other men linked to the Gardner artwork were mob associates:
Marks, 50,
was shot to death outside his Lynn home in February 1991, and Donati was stabbed to death outside his Revere home seven months later.
The deaths of Reissfelder, DiMuzio, Marks, and Donati within 18 months of the heist had 'a chilling effect' on the investigation, Kelly said.
Kelly said Donati's home was broken into at the time of his slaying, fueling the theory his killers were after the stolen artwork.
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Paul Colantropo, a friend of Donati's who had appraised jewelry and other items for him, told the FBI Donati
'My opinion is that some of those pieces were under Donati's control and he died, and the secret of where he hid them went with him,' Kelly said.
The FBI's
heavy focus on Merlino has been well known.
He boasted to two FBI
informants he planned to recover the artwork and collect the reward. Instead, he was caught in an FBI sting in 1999 and convicted of trying to rob an armored car depot. Despite offers of leniency in return for the stolen artwork, Merlino never produced them and died in prison in 2005.
Robert Gentile, 81, arrived at federal court in Hartford on Feb. 27, 2018. Federal prosecutors said they believed he had information about the whereabouts of the stolen Gardner Museum paintings.
Patrick Raycraft/Hartford Courant via AP
The FBI believes some artwork ended up with Robert Guarente, a convicted bank robber with mob ties who died in 2004. Six years later, Guarente's widow told the FBI he gave two of the stolen paintings to
During a 2012 search of Gentile's home in Manchester, Conn., agents found a list of the stolen artwork, with their black market value, tucked inside a March 1990
copy of the
Boston Herald reporting the theft. They also found weapons, police hats, handcuffs, drugs, and explosives in the house and an empty Rubbermaid tub buried under the floorboards of a backyard shed.
'What was so important that he had to bury it under the ground in the backyard?' said Kelly, who remains convinced the tub once contained some stolen pieces.
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A law enforcement agent searched a shed behind the home of reputed Connecticut mobster Robert Gentile in Manchester, Conn., on May 10, 2012.
AP/Associated Press
In 2013, the FBI said
it believed some of the stolen artwork, including 'The Storm,' was moved through organized crime circles to Philadelphia, where the trail went cold around 2003.
Gentile insisted he never had access to the paintings and didn't know where they were, even after he was offered freedom on gun and drug charges if he could produce the artwork. He died in 2021.
Kelly, who partnered on the investigation with Gardner security director Anthony Amore, said they relentlessly pursued leads across the United States and overseas.
'I couldn't even count the number of hot dirty attics and moldy basements I've been pawing through in my career,' Kelly said.
There have been credible sightings of the Vermeer, Rembrandt's 'The Storm' and the tiny self portrait, the Manet, and the finial. But, none for the remainder, he said.
On Friday, Jodi Cohen, special agent-in-charge of the FBI's Boston office, said the FBI continues to seek the public's help to recover the artwork. She urged people to 'refamiliarize themselves' with the works.
Kelly said the pieces could be 'anywhere on Earth,' buried underground or hidden under a mattress or behind a wall. And the challenge is, 'You have to find them.'
An empty frame for Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 2009.
Globe staff photo David L. Ryan
Shelley Murphy can be reached at