Birthday Card That Says Farting Is an Art Inside Says Happy Birthday Rembrandt
Episode 7: 'I Was The One' 36:51 Copy the lawmaking below to embed the WBUR sound thespian on your site
Copy the lawmaking below to embed the WBUR sound thespian on your site
Play
The pieces that thieves stole from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 don't quite add upward. Some were masterpieces, some were sketches, and others were, well, not like the others. Two major outliers — the eagle finial and the Chinese bronze gu — are more probable to be "trophy steals."
Simply "trophy steals" for whom? Well, perhaps for infamous Boston art thief Myles Connor.
Connor was raised in Milton, Massachusetts, to a family mix of blue bloods and blue collar. Boggling smart, Connor chose to pursue a rock 'n' roll career instead of a Harvard degree. By the mid-'70s, Connor showed his prowess at outsmarting law enforcement. You lot might go as far to say he wrote the playbook for how to steal a Rembrandt, and — more importantly — what to do with it once you take it.
In 1974, he and associate Bobby Donati robbed a Maine mansion of a booty that included 5 Wyeth paintings. They stashed it and then waited a few weeks for a buyer. That buyer ended up existence an FBI amanuensis prepared with handcuffs for Connor. Out of jail and facing a long prison sentence, Connor stole a Rembrandt from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. While he was in jail, he arranged for a return of the artwork to authorities through a friend. Facing upwards to 13 years in prison house, he only served 28 months.
Now 73 years old, Connor says he started casing the Gardner Museum with Bobby Donati back in 1975. His plan looks a lot similar what actually happened — he wanted to go for the Vermeer and the Rembrandts, and selection up the gu every bit a present for himself and the finial for Donati. After stealing the art, he'd ransom it back for the reward money.
Only, Connor couldn't have been inside the Gardner in 1990. He was in prison at the time of the theft, serving a long federal sentence for drug trafficking. But, could he have served as inspiration for the heist? Was he the mastermind?
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates, join our Facebook group to discuss the investigation and if you accept a tip, theory or thought, we want to hear information technology.
This episode was adjusted for the spider web by Amy Gorel.
Transcript:
KELLY HORAN: Why did the Gardner thieves take those 13 pieces? The reply to that question could tell u.s.a. and so much. Two in item seem to make no sense: the twelfth century Chinese gu and the bronze eagle finial. They're not even i-of-a-kind. The museum's former director told us she always thought of them as "trophy steals." But trophies for whom? As information technology turns out, maybe this guy.
MYLES CONNOR: Back then at that place was a tree, where you could climb the tree and overlook and see into the Gardner. Get the routine of the guards and that sort of thing.
HORAN: At 73 years old, Myles Connor Jr. isn't climbing copse anymore. Just as a young man, he studied martial arts. He was the kind of thief who could — and did — shimmy up a bleed pipe in guild to rob a museum. Connor wanted to rob the Gardner Museum. He says he would have gone for the Vermeer and the Rembrandts, and his plan for doing it looks an awful lot like what actually happened.
CONNOR: And then, I figured, I knew that the paintings were uninsured, and I knew they would do annihilation to get their paintings back. So it made sense that they would come up with a substantial reward for a return of those things. And that, that was my plan for the Gardner.
HORAN: Steal the art. Ransom it back. Myles Connor says he started casing the Gardner Museum in 1975, a full xv years before the heist. And as he walked the galleries dorsum and then, he says he wasn't lonely. He was with another art thief, a guy named Bobby. Not a Bobby nosotros've told you about though. His name was Bobby Donati.
CONNOR: Bobby was a typical, Italian crook. I wouldn't phone call him a mobster because mobsters are what yous acquaintance with organized crime. He wasn't that kind of a crook. His specialty was rugs, oriental rugs. That's what he used to steal, deal with and collect.
HORAN: Connor and Donati had eclectic taste. Lucky for them, the Gardner has an eclectic drove. So after setting their minds on the museum's Dutch masterpieces, which Connor says they intended to bribe back for the reward, they window-shopped for a little something nice for themselves.
CONNOR: When Bobby and I had gone through the Gardner, for some reason he was attracted to the finial. He said, "I like that." And sure enough information technology was taken. So at that place was a statuary — didn't they take a Chinese bronze urn?
HORAN: Connor is referring to the gu. He'south a self-taught aficionado of Asian art.
CONNOR: [Laughing.] That was something that I liked! I'm embarrassed to say! I never should take admitted that! Simply I'm damn certain he took that because I told him that I liked it. He liked the finial. I said I like that thing.
HORAN: Did Bobby Donati wind up with that finial? Were Bobby Donati and Myles Connor responsible for the heist? We put the question to the Gardner Museum'due south head of security, Anthony Amore.
ANTHONY AMORE: I don't like to speculate most who did it, where they are, just there are things I will throw out there. And i of my beliefs is that it's likely that Myles Connor was the inspiration for the heist. Right? Because it's hard to believe he wouldn't be given how prolific he was in the decades leading upwards to it.
HORAN: Amore describes Connor as the world's greatest art thief. He wrote the playbook for how to steal a Rembrandt, and — more important — what to exercise with information technology once you have information technology. The question is: Was Myles Connor more than just the inspiration for the Gardner heist? Was he the mastermind?
From WBUR Boston and The Boston Globe, this is Final Seen. I'grand Kelly Horan.
JACK RODOLICO: And I'm Jack Rodolico. This is Episode 7: "I Was The One."
Myles Connor was born in Milton, Massachusetts, a comfortable Boston suburb. His family stretches back to both sides of the city's oldest form divide: bluish collar and bluish blood.
CONNOR: My father was a Milton police officeholder. My female parent was a daughter of the Mayflower.
RODOLICO: By the way, Connor slurs his words a little — the result of major heart attack he suffered a few years ago. He traces his lineage on his mother'southward side to a founder of the Hudson River Schoolhouse of artists. He traces his criminality to his paternal grandfather, who fled Republic of ireland after he shot a constable. He says the first museum he e'er robbed was an act of revenge in the name of his father. Hither's what happened: A minor museum in his hometown accused Connor's father — the cop — of stealing from them, something his dad would never do.
CONNOR: And then my male parent who was as honest equally honest could exist. And he said, "Can you believe that these WASP sons of bitches? Yous know, I've never been then insulted in my life." And and so, I picked up on this.
RODOLICO: And past picked up on this, Connor ways he got even. He snuck into the museum at night and took enough antiques to make full the trunk of his car. He gave the museum just enough time to panic before all of it showed back up on their front end lawn.
CONNOR: The stuff was mysteriously returned to the museum! [Laughs.]
RODOLICO: This sort of I-can-practice-anything-at-any-time attitude, it stems from the fact that Connor pretty much could have done anything with his life. Before he became the best at a bad thing, he had the option of becoming actually good at skilful things. Connor was an exceptionally bright kid. He says he was offered a spot at Harvard, where he would have studied to become a surgeon.
CONNOR: That was a plow in my life that I regret. Looking back at it, I think I would have been a better surgeon than I was an art thief.
RODOLICO: Just he didn't give up on beingness a surgeon so he could exist a thief. He rejected higher to pursue another passion birthday. Myles Connor was a rockstar. Here he is, on phase, at a place called the Beachcomber in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1978.
[Music]
RODOLICO: His band was chosen Myles Connor & The Wild Ones. He headlined clubs around Boston, and opened for big names, similar Roy Orbison and Chuck Berry. He was a 5-foot, 2-inch forepart man with a leather jacket and fiery cherry pilus. Sometimes he drove his motorcycle right on stage. And he could impersonate rock legends. A local concatenation of gas stations hired him to record their commercials, where he'd imitate his heroes. Here'southward ane from 1963.
[Music]
HORAN: Connor'southward music career was bound to endure as crime took upward more than and more of his time. Martin Leppo is the defense attorney who'due south represented seven dissimilar men who accept been named in connection to the Gardner investigation. Myles Connor is one of them.
MARTIN LEPPO: Take I been out socially with Myles? Absolutely. Has he been to my house? Absolutely. Has my wife cooked dinner for him? Absolutely. Did I write to him while he was in jail? Absolutely. Did I defend his accolade in sure things? Absolutely. Practice I recollect he's a criminal? Admittedly. But a very bright criminal, and if he had washed things the right mode, he would have probably been some famous surgeon or pol.
HORAN: Connor was a Renaissance criminal. He'd kidnap drug dealers, stick up banks, sell cocaine — y'all name it. And he doesn't exactly look back on all his crimes with remorse.
CONNOR: Got picked upwardly with almost $100,000 cash on me! But information technology was unmarked cash. ... Bang! I hit the guy. [Laughing difficult.] And and then he goes downwardly. Now a fight breaks out. It'southward all of them against me. It's the unabridged goddamn football game team.
LEPPO: He was taking down Quaaludes from Canada. He was making around 20,000 bucks a calendar week.
CONNOR: And so the guy says, "I know who you are." And I say, "I don't think so. I don't know you." "Oh yes, you lot do. You piffling f----- punk, you female parent f-----." Blam! I characterization him right across the top of his skull. He was an off-duty Boston cop. He was the first cop I e'er nailed. ... A shotgun goes off. Ba-lam! Shoots himself right in the balls. So we're all stunned! "Oh! I shot myself!" Could not accept happened to a more deserving individual. [Laughs.]
HORAN: The crime Connor is all-time known for, though, is stealing art. And he says the question of who he would and wouldn't steal from was all downwards to a personal code. A kind of thief'due south honor system. Take the time he posed as a well-dressed gentleman, and talked his way into the storage surface area of a museum with vast holdings of Asian antiquities. Connor says he could have cleaned them out.
CONNOR: But I recognized their deep sense of affection towards the stuff that they, that they had. It was that sense of appreciation that kept me from violating the trust that they had.
HORAN: Connor felt no such attrition about the prospect of stealing from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
CONNOR: They were going to get the paintings back! I was gonna become money! And then in that location was no harm washed other than to the insurance company or the billionaire patrons.
HORAN: Myles Connor isn't just smart. He claims membership in Mensa, the high-IQ society. And his genius is best on brandish when he is getting himself into and out of trouble. That's his art. And it was a criminal offense spree in the mid-1970s that solidified his reputation as someone who could outfox law enforcement.
CONNOR: When you steal something from a major museum, and you don't take it out of storage, and it'due south going to be missed, and then the major purpose is to use that every bit a bargaining chip to help either oneself or somebody else out of a "jackpot."
RODOLICO: Here'south how Connor got himself into what he calls a "jackpot." In 1974, Connor says his quondam buddy who liked antique rugs, Bobby Donati, approached him well-nigh an estate he wanted to rob in Maine. It was owned by the Woolworth family, who had a private drove that rivaled an art museum.
CONNOR: I was not in the business of stealing some private collection from somebody who had a deep attachment to it. Merely somebody who had equally much money every bit those folks had, and could go away for half a year at a time, that really didn't bother me. So I went forth with Bobby.
RODOLICO: For a leisurely hour in the middle of a warm summertime dark, Connor and three other men — including, he says, Donati and a guy named David Houghton — combed through the empty mansion. They filled a panel truck with two Simon Willard granddad clocks, two paintings by Andrew Wyeth and three more by his father, N.C. Wyeth. One was an illustration the elder Wyeth had painted for the original comprehend of the book "Treasure Island." Connor says he stashed information technology all and waited weeks for Bobby Donati to announce he had found a heir-apparent for the paintings. Connor met up with that buyer on Cape Cod.
CONNOR: I ended upwards taking the paintings downwardly at that place, and met these FBI agents. It was a sting functioning and I got arrested for interstate transportation of stolen goods.
RODOLICO: Connor was staring at a long prison sentence — possibly 10 years for trafficking the fine art, 3 more for violating parole. He was 31 years old. For the FBI, arresting Connor reddish-handed — that was the jackpot. Considering he'd ever managed to get away. Similar the time he was on the lam when his mother died. Martin Leppo says Connor knew the police would stake out the funeral home looking for him, and he was adamant to run into his mother one last time.
LEPPO: He actually rented a hearse, got into a bury transported to the funeral parlor. Got out, kissed his mother goodbye, got back in the bury into the vehicle and left.
HORAN: Which, brings united states back to that parking lot in Cape Cod, where Connor was nabbed with the 5 stolen Wyeth paintings. The FBI had him. He knew information technology. They knew it. And, according to Connor, the agent who arrested him rubbed it in his face.
CONNOR: And he said, "Nosotros've got yous now, Connors. Information technology'll take a Rembrandt to get you out of this." I said, "Yous know, you're right." And then then I prepare my heart on getting a Rembrandt.
HORAN: Myles Connor, out of jail and awaiting trial for trafficking the stolen Wyeths, heeded the Rembrandt communication. He just had to find one. He settled on one that was on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: "Portrait of Elisabeth van Rijn," Rembrandt's sister. At the time — 1975 — it was said to be worth upwards of a meg dollars.
CONNOR: That particular painting was virtually the back entrance to the place and then you lot could go a quick access, and a quick egress.
HORAN: Connor hatched a broad daylight robbery. This posed a few issues, not least of which was Connor's budding notoriety equally an art thief — his name was all over the papers for the Wyeth arrest. Plus, that red hair.
CONNOR: I believe I had a tan trench coat, a wig and sunglasses. And I believe I also had a false mustache.
HORAN: On a sleepy Mon — April 14, 1975 — Connor launched what sounds similar a paramilitary strike on Boston'southward MFA. Connor says there were 3 vehicles with viii armed men, one with a machine gun. Vi men positioned themselves almost the entrance while Connor and another thief, also bearded, bought access tickets, and walked up to the gallery on the second floor. They pulled the Rembrandt off the wall and ran.
CONNOR: Equally the leave was fabricated down the front steps in that location was a phalanx of guards that came rushing down.
HORAN: Connor says every bit he ran through the turnstile with the painting, the corner of the portrait'due south frame jammed between the bars. Information technology wouldn't budge. Connor was stuck. The guards closed in. An accomplice opened burn.
CONNOR: And there was a guy with a automobile gun, brrrrr. Let the machine gun become off. They went right back.
HORAN: The guards stood down. Connor, with the help of one of his men, pushed all of his weight confronting the turnstile. As he freed himself, the corner of the Rembrandt'south frame cracked and splintered. The thieves ran with information technology to the van. One baby-sit chased them.
CONNOR: The guy would non allow go of the painting. The guy ran up to the back of the van and latched onto the painting.
HORAN: "Don't shoot the guard," Connor said. One of them smashed him in the caput with the butt of a gun. The baby-sit, a retired cop, complanate in the street every bit they sped away with the Rembrandt.
RODOLICO: Imagine the pressure level the Boston police and the FBI were under to catch the thieves who stole a Rembrandt in the centre of the twenty-four hours. The investigation dragged on for months without a break. But there was one person who knew exactly what happened.
AL DOTOLI: So when I woke up and found that information technology was gone, I knew right away. I said that'due south what's been going on. He stole the damn Rembrandt.
RODOLICO: Al Dotoli is Myles Connor's oldest and best friend. He is non a criminal. Dotoli is a law-abiding music product director. The ii met as teenagers when Connor was a music legend in their neighborhood. At xv years one-time, Dotoli knocked on Connor'southward door and asked for a guitar lesson. Almost 60 years later, Dotoli is still loyal to his friend but that doesn't hateful he understands his choices.
DOTOLI: You know, I was never scolding him, but I said, "For Christ's sake, don't you ever stop?"
RODOLICO: Of course, Connor didn't stop. And every bit criminal offense derailed his music career, Dotoli moved on with his ain, producing bigger and bigger acts. He's gear up audio systems for Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, the Dalai Lama and Super Basin halftime shows.
DOTOLI: I came off a plane. I was with Dionne Warwick. And nosotros're walking off the airplane. He had just been shot robbing a freaking bank a couple weeks before. And he's in a wheelchair with a bandage on up to his hip, from the pes to the hip. I'm coming downward, and I go, "Oh, my god."
RODOLICO: Here's the kind of friend Al Dotoli is: When Connor would go to prison, Dotoli arranged concerts backside bars, Johnny Cash-way. Similar in 1977, when he got blues legend James Cotton to perform with Connor in Walpole Land Prison. Here's that recording.
[Music]
RODOLICO: It was this friendship and loyalty that made Al Dotoli the obvious person to shake down for information most the Boston MFA's missing Rembrandt. Boston police, the FBI, even insurance agents were knocking on his door. I evening, a black limousine pulled up. Out stepped a nightclub owner, conveying a briefcase.
DOTOLI: He sits down and goes, "Well yous know, the guys — the guys on the hill thought maybe Myles would consider letting us bargain this Rembrandt that he seems to have absconded."
RODOLICO: "The Guys on the Hill" — that was the underworld euphemism for the dominant Patriarca crime family.
DOTOLI: And he takes the briefcase, and he opens it upwardly, and it'due south jammed total of money. And then I see that. He thinks information technology'southward gonna jolt me to become something washed. Well, that'southward most as close every bit I always came to wetting my pants. So I went to Myles and I said, "OK, this south--- has to stop. Right now. This is it."
RODOLICO: Dotoli had no thought where the Rembrandt was. No i knew that except for Myles Connor — and a friend of his, a guy they referred to equally Charlie, who didn't ask a lot of questions.
CONNOR: In this case information technology went under the bed of a friend of mine'due south grandmother. [Laughs.] And so she never knew what was underneath her bed. In that location it stayed, rubber and sound, safe and audio.
RODOLICO: Non then much for Connor. Less than two weeks after the Boston MFA heist, he was due in courtroom for trafficking the Wyeth paintings. He skipped the trial, which fabricated him a fugitive. Through the summer of 1975, Connor was in hiding — until the FBI caught him. Once again. But this fourth dimension, Connor had his get-out-jail-gratis menu: the Rembrandt. Except, now that he was in prison, he couldn't bargain that card himself. Plus, would the FBI play?
CONNOR: FBI will say, "No. Nosotros're non going to deal with that guy. Nosotros don't care what we --- nosotros are not going to deal with that guy." And so that is always the position of the FBI. And so you simply go beyond the FBI.
HORAN: What — who — is across the FBI? From his cell, Connor started with an old friend of his begetter's — a state police major named John Regan.
CONNOR: The major distinction between an FBI agent and a state police officer is a sense of humor.
HORAN: Deliberately cutting out the FBI, Connor, through the state constabulary, offered the federal prosecutor a deal.
CONNOR: And they went to a federal prosecutor who wanted the publicity. So he said, "Oh, you can get the painting back? We'll exercise whatever he wants." And and then I negotiated the return from Charles Street Jail.
HORAN: In a sense, that was the piece of cake part. Merely for the prosecutor to reduce his sentence, Connor had to return the Rembrandt. To do that, he needed someone he could trust. Enter Al Dotoli.
DOTOLI: Myles being Myles, he starts with all this cloak and dagger shit on how he wants it washed. "Use firecrackers. Let them think they're machine guns," and I said, "Listen, listen, listen, I'll go this matter dorsum to — you're sitting here. I'm exterior. Information technology's going down my way."
HORAN: After the black limo left his driveway, Al Dotoli was eager to run into the Rembrandt returned. He reluctantly agreed to do it.
DOTOLI: I just wanted to run across that picture of that Rembrandt on the front folio of The Boston Earth saying it'southward been returned, and then I could get rid of all those fools that were jumping in on my — y'all know, the insurance agents, and the FBI, and quite honestly, the underworld, and the mafia, and all those people would have no more than reason to be, to be looking for me if, in fact, it was returned.
HORAN: I accept to say you are a very tolerant friend.
DOTOLI: Yeah. You know, in that location's some tolerance, sprinkle in a little stupidity, and stone 'due north' roll. It'south non a expert — information technology'southward not a practiced match.
HORAN: Connor says he wrote 2 letters with instructions on how the handoff should go. A friendly prison house guard manus-delivered them both — ane to Charlie, who hid the painting, the other to Dotoli. Connor wrote to his friend: "This operation is vital and must be carried out successfully; no mob, no insurance men, no FBI or police force, and no failure." No force per unit area.
CONNOR: Make sure it goes smooth, and make sure the right people are involved, and the wrong people aren't listening. Plus there's a sense of romance associated with the chance. So all of that plays into it.
HORAN: Jan. 2, 1976 was a cold, clear Friday. From jail, Connor made the call that set his high-stakes scheme in motion. He called Dotoli and said, "Tonight is the night." Connor gave his friend a code name: Kevin.
DOTOLI: And I called Major Regan at his habitation, and he answered, and I said, "This is Kevin and we're on." And I said, "Get in your car and drive to the Pepsi distributor, which is down the street. At that place's a payphone at that place. Pull upwards and expect for the telephone to ring and you'll get your next marching order."
RODOLICO: It was merely later on 7 p.m. From a room at the Holiday Inn, Dotoli called State Police Major Regan and gave him directions to the hotel. When Regan pulled in, Dotoli was waiting for him, in the shadows. He approached the car and used the lawmaking language Connor had given him.
DOTOLI: I was to say to John Regan, "It'south a squeamish night out tonight." And the answer was going to be, "Yes, there's plenty of stars." So I said, "Yeah, it'due south a squeamish night..." I'm standing there all in blackness with a freaking ski mask on. So, OK. Then, I opened the door and I get in back. And this other admirer is in the car. So I said, "IDs" And that's when I'm saying, "You lot know, you're in pretty deep here now."
RODOLICO: The guy in the car with Major Regan was the federal prosecutor who had the ability to permit Connor off the hook in the Wyeth case. Dotoli sent them beyond the street into a disco. Through his ski mask, he told them to wait for the bartender to announce a telephone call for a Paul Greeter. They went into the bar. A few minutes afterwards, Charlie pulled upwardly with the Rembrandt in his torso.
DOTOLI: Myles had bundled, I had a photograph. Charlie had a photo. And it was a photo of what's on the dorsum.
HORAN: Of the Rembrandt?
DOTOLI: The Rembrandt, itself, merely as importantly and fifty-fifty more importantly a bunch of numbers and things that were on the back.
HORAN: During whatever of this, did you have a moment to pause when you were holding this Rembrandt in your easily and kind of behold what it was?
DOTOLI: If you're asking me if the creative value of it ran through my veins, no it didn't. What ran through my veins was, "Holy shit, this affair is finally here, and hopefully before long information technology'll finally be gone."
RODOLICO: Dotoli put the Rembrandt in the trunk of Major Regan's car. He bolted up three flights of stairs to his room at the Holiday Inn, and called the disco.
DOTOLI: And the bartender goes, "Is there a Paul Greeter here?" I hear him go, "Yeah, yep, yeah. I'grand correct here. I'm right here." So he takes the phone and I said, "OK guys, you walk out the front of that lounge. Walk, practise not run." I said, "If what you want is in that torso and then turn, face the building, and put your hands into your chugalug." Earlier I said, "Nobody's armed, right?" They said, "Oh, no, no, nobody's armed." And then they open up upwards the body and they're flashlighting all over the identify. So they open their trench coats, they put their hands in there. And what I observed was: I went, "The sons of bitches." They both had a guns stuck in there.
RODOLICO: The country cop and the prosecutor left with the painting. Dotoli drove to the airport and flew straight to New York Urban center for a gig. The side by side day, he picked up the paper.
DOTOLI: I read The New York Times. It wasn't on Page 1, but it was on Page 2. And I was quite relieved.
RODOLICO: At a press conference announcing the return of the Rembrandt, the FBI was notably absent. Instead, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the State Police proudly detailed the clandestine handoff. They stated manifestly that they didn't make any deals with prisoners in order to get the painting dorsum. Myles Connor, who was facing 13 years in prison, only served 28 months.
HORAN: If Myles Connor could orchestrate the return of i Rembrandt from within prison, wasn't it possible he could organize the theft of some other?
LEPPO: When the Gardner was hitting, Myles became the No. i suspect. Did he orchestrate it? And then forth then on. Then that was number one.
HORAN: There was just ane problem, as Martin Leppo recalls. On March 18, 1990, Connor was serving a long federal sentence for drug trafficking. He was in prison house in Lompoc, California. So, Myles Connor didn't rob the Gardner Museum. But he says he knows who did. His quondam friend and sometime criminal cohort, Bobby Donati.
CONNOR: He was a pragmatist as far as being a thief goes. So if somebody wanted to cutting the paintings out of the frame, he'd practice it.
HORAN: Remember, Connor says he and Donati cased the Gardner together in the 1970s. The 2 had gone so far, Connor says, as to pick out what they'd steal. And Connor'southward feat with the Boston MFA's Rembrandt had shown the entire criminal world that stealing fine art — especially a Rembrandt — was not simply possible, it could get you out of prison house. Connor says Bobby Donati had an accomplice in the Gardner heist: David Houghton.
CONNOR: How I'm 100 pct sure that they did it was considering David Houghton, who was longtime friend of mine, flew all the fashion from Logan Aerodrome to California simply to tell me: "We've done with. Nosotros did it. And we got a bunch paintings, and nosotros're gonna apply a couple of these paintings to bargain you into a reduced sentence."
HORAN: If David Houghton were involved in the Gardner heist, he would have had to been waiting exterior — he weighed at to the lowest degree 300 pounds and bore no resemblance whatever to the police force sketches of the thieves. What about Bobby Donati? With his round face and dark features, peradventure. Just Connor is convinced that it was Donati and Houghton who stole the Rembrandts and the Vermeer as currency to leap him from prison. And the smaller items they took ...
HORAN: And then it sounds like the finial was a gift for Donati.
CONNOR: Beyond a doubt.
HORAN: The gu was perchance a gift for you.
CONNOR: [Laughs.] I'k quite sure. Yes.
HORAN: If his friend took that gu as a souvenir for Connor, he says he never got information technology. That might be because Houghton and Donati died the year after the Gardner heist. Houghton had a heart attack; Donati was found brutally murdered in the trunk of his car. The Boston FBI has said they know who robbed the Gardner Museum — and that the thieves are expressionless. They haven't identified them. That could hateful that the secrets of the Gardner heist died with Donati and Houghton — or with any of the other dead men whose names have been floated in connection with the robbery.
Next week, 1 more dead doubtable. His fingerprints were among the commencement sent to FBI headquarters later the heist. And some who knew him all-time believe he's yet alive — and that he did it.
Last Seenis a production from WBUR and The Boston Globe. Digital content was produced in partnership with The Artery, WBUR's arts and culture team. Read more on the Gardner heist from The ARTery.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/lastseen/2018/10/29/i-was-the-one
0 Response to "Birthday Card That Says Farting Is an Art Inside Says Happy Birthday Rembrandt"
Post a Comment