Adeptus Ridiculous - The Greatest Unsolved Art Heist in History (Was Terribly Planned)

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousToday on Detective Ridiculous, Bricky and DK dive into the single-greatest art heist in history. It’s a $500 million mystery that remains unsolved to this day. In the early hours of St. Patrick's Day in 1990, two men dressed as Boston police officers talked their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. What followed was 81 minutes of pure, unadulterated chaos. The thieves tied the two night watchmen up in the basement—one of whom was on LSD. Despite having all the time in the world, the thieves bizarrely passed up priceless masterpieces by Raphael and Michelangelo. Instead, they haphazardly sliced 13 random paintings out of their frames, rolled them up, and vanished into the night never to be found.Support the show

Welcome everybody to the realm of Ridiculous, where we talk about all kinds of Warhammer fantasy stuff, including how to take your bones. Before we get started on this, if you enjoy this podcast, handover to patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, the awesome brand new possum back end, back alley, back room editing bonanza where possum talks a decent bit about how they go about script writing. if you want a little bit of a peek into the back end there. And also a ton of billion a bagillion posters, all available in Krispy HD format. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. Also, don't forget to check out Orchidate.com and the amazing things there for the Adeptus Ridiculous merchandise site.

We have shirts. We have dice. We have very big drink coasters. Boy, I sure do love that. More news about that next week. Hi, D.K. Mouse pad even, right? Yeah, a little cubicle mask pat.

That's pretty good, you know. Just a little mouse pad. How the fuck are you doing, D.K.? I'm doing great. It sounds like maybe ever so slightly better than you, but we have a special episode of Realm of Ridiculous today. It's going to be fantastic. I think you're going to love it.

I'm going to start us off with a quote. I don't think I'm going to make you guess this one because it's kind of, I want to say abstract. a little bit, which will make sense in a second when we start this episode. So here's our quote to start the day. Here in Nolne, art is not just decor. It's an expression of one's commitment to beauty and the finer things. Even the poor keeps something in their hovel, some design or image that evokes the imagination and takes the mind beyond the circumstances of their station. In my opinion, art is intense.

to understanding the human experience. And this was said by Luigi Marcoso. So, Oh, wait, this is not related to, wait, is it the gnome? You said noon, no. Noam. N-U-L-N? Yeah.

Oh, that's where the Nolnoll-O-N-O-C comes from. Yeah, that is where the Nome oil comes from. Nome has been the capital of the empire several times, because depending on the empire, I think it's like, depending on the emperor, you can change where the capital. city of the empire is and null city is a big one that's that's i see i i i sort of um i sort of faded out after you said nullton city um but because i was like oh because i kind of soy jacked a little bit and i was like oh that's the no it's the oil liquid talent yay i dropped it oh no um wait so it's a lot

about art also very um very topical timing for that kind of quote i've been i've been really kind of going on a little bit of a journey and figuring out things like that lately. But the, um, uh, Luigi Marco Polo? Marcoso. Luigi Marcoso.

Okay. Crap. Is this like a Cities of Sigma type thing? Well, so this is, I, this is a tough one to guess because this is sort of just, this is like the artwork of the old world, right? It's,

it's kind of just a, broad reaching thing. So I wanted to give you the quote. I wasn't going to really make you go too hard into guessing it because it's kind of like, you know, it's such a broad brush, if you will, right?

So I figured we could just kind of, you know, dive into the episode, give you a little time to ruminate on the quote a little bit and, you know, we'll just dive into her. Okay, okay. I'm a little sauce, but I'll let it roll.

Okay. So this is the artwork of the old. world. Art is a significant factor when it comes to the old world, and there are a lot of great theories around artistic expression and what that means to the world, around like most humans. The art of the world and the natural beauty of it is viewed as paying tribute to the work of the gods. However, sometimes art is made to encompass something new, new ideas, imaginative landscapes, and unusual vistas. These pieces of art, though creative, are sometimes accused of being influenced by the forces of chaos.

Most of these pieces of art are rare, mostly taken by members of the cult in the empire or the witch hunters. But these aren't the only pieces of art that are stolen. Known, like we said, is a great electoral capital known for its art and beauty. There is another town with a storied history of art along the coast that you may, you may be familiar with. You might have another little like soy jack known moment. Okay. Specifically, there is one of these towns has, is the location to one of the single greatest art heists in history, one that to this day remains basically unsolved. the name of this town is Boston

and today Bricky we are actually doing an episode of Detective Ridiculous Oh son of a bitch I was like I was like It's April 1st Who the first I was at first I was like Who the fucks Luigi something or another

in the in in Singmar stuff And I was like well as Games Workshop So Luigi Marcoso actually does exist in Oh he does camera fantasy. He actually exists. I believe literally he is used to like describe the state of art in the old world. Like, is the old world Boston?

Actual Luigi Marcoso. I don't know. It's not actual Boston. But since, you know, back in the day, Detective Ridiculous started off as an April Fool's Day joke. It seemed only appropriate that we bring it back again and hit you with an April Fool's Day episode of Detective Ridiculous, where we. we will be covering, as we said,

one of the single greatest art heists in history still unsolved to this day. It is the heist at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum. Oh, I thought we were going to do something light like the Boston bombing. Oh, yeah.

Oh, so light. Fun, not fun fact, because it's the Boston Marathon bombing. I cannot listen to Davy Punks get lucky song because the first time I heard it immediately, the news of the Boston Marathon

bomb came on the news, and I forever associate the two. And so every time I hear that song, the first thing I think about is the headline. That's unfortunate, yet very funny. Yeah, it's a great song, too. It sucks.

But anyway, we're going to go over the art that was stolen, the strange cast of suspects that range from hippies, add to the most infamous mobsters in history, and we'll see if we can't piece this thing together. All right. So where was this again?

This is in Boston. This is sort of by... I got that part. This is sort of the Fenway area of Boston, Massachusetts. So sort of by Fenway Park-ish. I don't think you're supposed to accentuate your A-Hs that much. Normally you drop the eyes. Oh, well, I've never been to Boston.

I'm just, you know. I've been to Boston like a, like a lot of. 11 times. Normally you drop, maybe they say it like that. Normally you drop the eyes. You know, that's why it's always like over and like pot the cat, you know. Okay. That's right.

Didn't you say you love going to Boston for PACs? Yeah. Well, the PACs was normally last weekend. I didn't go this time because I have a convention. I have to go to upcoming and I want to plan for it. But yeah, no, I've been like 11 times. It's a very cool city. Yeah.

Hell yeah. Anywhoot. Our story starts. in 1990 on St. Patrick's Day in the Fenway area of Boston, Massachusetts. Famously, at this time of the year, Fenway area, St. Patty's Day, oh, it's just so peaceful, so quiet, not busy at all. Yeah, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, yeah. Exactly.

Late in the day, Rick Abbott, at the time 23 years old, is getting ready for his shift as a night watchman at the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum, which, sits about 15 minutes away from Fenway Park. Normally, he works just before midnight and his shift ends just before the sun comes up. In his own words, Rick said that sometimes I like to smoke a bit of weed. I like to do a little LSD before work because, you know, there's not much to do on the graveyard shift of security detail at a museum. I'd like to point out that the two of those are wildly different choices before work.

Smoking a bit of weed before work, who hasn't? The other one, LSD. It's a little more hardcore, brother. Stated with the exact same inflection on both. I'm just, all right, sounds good, man. But tonight was a different night. He needed to be on his A game for two reasons. First off, there was a new night shift security guard named Randy Heston.

25 years old at the time, and he was going to be starting. And he needed to be showing him the roast because Rick had put in his notice. He wasn't going to be around for long. I don't know if it was his two weeks notice, two months, whatever. He wasn't going to be there much longer. And the second reason was he had something very important to do later that day. He needed to get ready to drive all the way to Connecticut as soon as he was done with work because he had tickets to see the grateful dead.

Hartford. What a baller, I think. I was like, oh, needs to go see a Grateful Dead thing. Yeah, the LSD and We'd suddenly check out. This makes a hell of a lot more sense now. Also, Night Watchman Rich Abbottes

looks like a dude who would take LSD and Wee before a Grateful Dead concerts. Yep, Rick, that's him. And hell, if the show was good, he might stay for the second night of their two-day run. Hopefully, leads, just a normal shift, I go see the Grateful Dead, I go find a new job somewhere else,

do some weed, do some LSD, it is what it is. The protocol for the museum's overnight security was simple. One guard would be sitting at the security desk, while the other one was to walk around the length of the museum to watch over the gallery. They weren't supposed to be in the same spot because, unfortunately, the security system in this museum at this time is really dated. And we will get into these details a bit later. But essentially, the guard at the front desk has the only direct connection to the outside authorities because that guard is sitting on like a panic button at the front desk.

And so one person needs to sit on the panic button and the other one who is walking the gallery has a walkie-talkie. If there's an issue, person with the walkie-talkie, butroop butroop calls it in person at the desk hits the button police come in everything is hopefully saved i i can't get over the fact that night watchman rick uh rich abbott would really like to go see fish i've been waiting to say specifically that look i've been waiting to say specifically that for the next like last like five minutes like i think he would really like fish it's just something about it man i don't know there's some some vibe.

As soon as you see Rick, you instantly know everything you need to know about him. I mean, the white goatee, the curly hair, the button up, like, I'm just like, Rick,

Rick would be the kind of dude that I would absolutely, I would absolutely want to know what, what he did in the 70s. Oh, yeah, he would have some crazy stories.

I don't think he's, I don't think he's that old, but yeah, you get the point. Yeah. Uh, since Hestan was, the new guy, he was going to sit at the desk first, while Abith would take the first patrol.

During this patrol, however, the firearms, fire alarms randomly went off in some of the rooms in the museum. He would go to the control panel for the fire alarm, and he would disable them because obviously they were malfunctioning. There was no fire. After this, Abbott would keep up his patrol, and after checking the side entrance like he normally would, by opening it and closing it, He would get back to the front desk at around 1 a.m. allowing Hestan to do his first lap around the galleries. And at 1.20 a.m., someone would ring the buzzer at the side door, and Abbotth would answer it. Two police officers on the other end of the buzzer would say,

were here about the disturbance. Of course, being the early hours after St. Patrick's Day in the Fenway area, this sounded more than reasonable. Maybe they saw some kids hop in the fence. Maybe they saw some shady people walking around. Whatever. There must have been something that happened where he couldn't see it. Plus, judging by the CCTV feed outside, they look like legit cops.

There was no reason to suspect these guys. So, Abbath would buzz them in a few minutes later, and they would come to the front desk. The officers would ask if anyone else was in the museum, and if they were, they needed to get to the front desk immediately for questioning. It was around this time that... Abbott would notice something. He noticed that, like, yeah, the uniforms, they look kind of legit, but, God, they're one of these taller officers. The mustache on him looked weird and, like, exaggerated and kind of like it was fake.

And before he could react, the shorter officer asked Abbott to step outside behind the desk so they could get a better look at him. It kind of looked like someone they had a warrant for, someone that they, he was a person of interest and they needed to get a good look at him and see if he matched the description. Abbott just wanted to get this shit over with. Like he had a concert in the next state over to get to

and if this took any longer than it needed to, he was going to miss the Grateful Dead. So he doesn't really think too much about it, steps out from behind the desk, leaves the panic button behind. All right, officer, let's get this over. Do what you got to do. I know I'm innocent. The shorter officer

would have Abboth stand facing the wall and would handcuff him. as this was happening Hestand would round the corner and the officers would pin him to the wall to handcuffing him. They would turn the two around and say this is a robbery, gentlemen,

don't give us any problems and you won't get hurt. Abith would quip that he didn't get paid enough to get hurt before the thieves would wrap their faces with duct tape and haul them to the basement, taking their wallets and saying that now we know where you live. So if you try anything funny,

And this is, apparently this is what they said. This is what possum said they said. They'd have a reward in about a year. Okay. So, yeah. Weird, but I mean, a little weird, but I guess they're doing the whole like, hey, don't try nothing. I know where you are type of thing. So, okay.

So now that the guards are completely immobilized, their faces wrapped in duct tape, they're handcuffed to the wall. The thieves had free rein over the museum, and they could basically just take whatever they wanted. They could stay there all night if they wanted to. And as Abath is sort of handcuffed to the wall, he would go through sort of the mental anxiety, ranging from like, oh, yeah, this will be fine,

I just got to wait it out, to, oh, my God, they're going to burn the whole building down when they're done, and I'm going to die handcuffed to this wall. but one of the thieves kept coming in he kept coming in being like hey are you guys okay do you need anything like do you need any water everything good like obviously i can't loosen your restraints but are we all okay down here you know um and so abboth and hestan would be put in the basement at one thirty five a m and the thieves would finally leave the museum at two forty five a m a few hours later the two morning security guards would arrive and they couldn't get in because, you know, the guards wouldn't let them in.

They couldn't. They were handcuffed to a wall. They had to call the director of the museum to get entry. And naturally, they saw something was very wrong. The director would tell everyone to not touch anything and to call the police. They would find that both, they would find both night watchmen in the basement and naturally the interviews would begin. A bath would be interviewed for a few hours and eventually be released. He would rush home to get dressed up so he could still drive down to see the Grateful Dead after all of that. And apparently, he had a great night. The whole being basically kidnapped, handcuffed, and restrained didn't dower his mood. He did a bunch of acid, smoked a lot of weed.

I mean, honestly, richly, is the best character so in all of this because he's just like gets handcuffed and he's like dude I don't care man just take the stuff

yeah I don't give me enough for this do what you gotta do I got a grateful dead concert to be to if you don't get in if you don't interrupt that you take whatever fuck you want

and he had so much fun at the Grateful Dead concert that he wanted to stay the next night but unfortunately the next morning in his hotel

he would learn the true extent to the robbery that occurred that night. And out of fear that he would be viewed as like an accomplice or something, he rushed his ass back to Boston because the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is the highest value robbery in museum history, clocking it at somewhere in the ballpark of $500 million accounting for inflation. That's actually insane. I had no idea it was over half a billion dollars.

So much money. So Rich is like, oh, fuck. Like, that's so much money that there's so much stuff. I got to get back there. Otherwise, they're going to think that I fled because I had something to do with it. I got to get back to Boston. I'm shipping off to Boston right now. Within three days of the heist, with the support of auction houses, Sotheby's, and Christie's, the museum would post a reward of $1 million for the return of the paintings. This would increase to $5 million in 1997, and it currently sits at $10 million. It is not only the largest bounty ever posted by a private institution, but the value for more information has only been exceeded in one.

case. Can you guess which one? Information in one case? Yes. It is not only the largest bounty ever posted by a private institution, but the value for information has only been exceeded in one case. Shit, I can't, I don't know. My only thought was like, I don't know if this is a callback

to like D.B. Cooper or something, but like, I'm assuming not. No. The only one, the only case that exceeded this is the U.S. government's bounty for Osama bin Laden. Which was $25 million. That's crazy. But the, so now, now that we know a little bit about the heist, I think now's a fairly decent time to talk a little bit about the museum's history and maybe like the weird

sort of bad security that the museum had that sort of like led to all this. And then we'll sort of talk about like the suspects and everything. So the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was funded by, surprise, surprise, Isabella Stewart Gardner. She was an exceptionally wealthy art collector, and she wanted a museum to house her personal collection. The museum would first open in 1903, and she would continue to add to her collection until her death in 1924. Also, the pictures of her is like, yes, yep, that's, that tracks. everything tracks. That is indeed exactly what I thought she would look like.

Yep. No, that's 1,000% of visual I expected. Yep. And in her will, she would leave the museum with her personal collection and a personal endowment of $3.6 million for like sort of upkeep and everything, which in modern numbers is no trifle. That's about $68 million at the time. of her death, with the stipulation that the setup and arrangement for the artworks in the museum

cannot be altered, changed, or expanded upon. Nothing gets sold, nothing gets added. It is to remain as is. The collection included over 7,500 paintings, thousands of books, and what's crazy is it included original manuscripts from Dante from the Divine Comedy Series and hundreds of artifacts from around the world. Like there are some truly riceless pieces of art hanging in the halls of this museum. So surely, this must have been just one of the most meticulous and tedious heights ever. They had almost an hour and a half alone in this museum with these frivolous, priceless pieces of art to do and take whatever they wanted.

And, well, they couldn't afford better mustaches, though, unfortunately. They just had those, those shitty lame ones that, yeah. I would like to, I mean, obviously it's a disguise, but I have to state that it is hysterical to me that like, oh, we're going to pose as cops, we need mustaches. We got to have mustache. We got to have the goofy mustaches. That's what they all have. That's the only way to be convincing. And though the heist was extremely high value, actually, not many things were taken.

In fact, only 13 items were stolen. Some of them were individually very expensive, like the storm on the sea of the Galilee and a lady and the gentleman in black, both by Rembrandt. But one painting accounts for more than half of the heist. value. The concert by Johannes Vermeer. It was one of only 34 surviving paintings attributed

to him and the estimated value of it is somewhere close to $300 million. Okay, so this makes them a bulk of what they got. Oh, yeah. The concert. But it's weird. The rest of the paintings,

oh, go ahead, good. Well, no, I was just going to be a shitter. Did they still boil with Apple? Do they still boil with Apple? Oh, do you haven't seen the Grand Budapest Hotel? I have not. I've been meaning to see it for so long. I've seen so many clips from it.

It's really good. It's really good, man. Boy with that. Oh, no. You know, I'll watch it tonight. I have been meaning to watch that damn movie for probably the last five damn years. I'll watch it tonight. I'll get it on Amazon or something.

You'll have a big smile on your face. It's a great time. All right. Good. Boy with Apple by Johannes von Hoytel, the younger. But the rest of the paintings that were taken seem to be kind of like random. There were five paper sketches from Edgar de Gauss that were stolen, and they were like under $100,000 combined,

while much more expensive paintings were left, like, completely alone. Like there were works by Raphael and Michelangelo, that could be worth double the amount of what was taken, and they were just left alone. And a painting by Titan, the grape of Europa, is one of the most valuable paintings in the entire city, untouched. Anthony Amore, the security director of the museum, has said after years of analyzing this crime,

he's still like, why did they take what they did and leave what they did? It doesn't make any sense. I've analyzed this crime. I have no idea what their thoughts. process was and why they did what they did and why they took what they did. They had all the time in the world to take some of the most priceless things and instead, it seemed like they kind of just seemingly grabbed a bunch of random things after a really long period of time. If it was a professional job, you'd think they'd muscle through,

know what the museum had to offer, make the most of their time, get the most expensive things. Would there be an argument to state that like due to the time they had, They chose things based on like location. I don't know, man. They actually had quite a long time. Like, they had almost an hour. Well, true, but isn't this like a large museum, though? That's true.

It is a pretty large museum. And honestly, they might have just not been art experts but at all. And they literally were just like, oh, yeah, we heard that there's some pretty cool stuff. here so let's just grab and go we don't know what's worth what and they probably just kind of got lucky with the concert i that okay that that's fair i guess that's fair i mean if i if i was going to do a heist of a sort like this right i would definitely try to plan things out but i don't think i would plan what i steal i'm pretty sure i would plan like my exit routes and my time right i've got 30 minutes in this room that like what I got is what I got I can carry this much I can move this

much unless unless I was like oh this museum has like a million here a million here and 37 billion dollars here then I would plan everything around stealing just the billion dollar but I don't know like isn't there like a world for when it comes to like thieving or like selling where having the one insanely expensive thing is bad because then like um Um, anyone who sees that you have it is like, oh, it does put the focus on you. Yeah. Because where are you going to sell it?

Like every, every black market dealer that's looking to buy is going to be like, that thing is insanely hot, dude. I can't take that. Everybody knows where that one specific Michelangelo came from. They know there's only like one copy. The museum just got robbed. I'm not buying that.

Fuck you, dude. Also, how do you find a black market person for that? Like, like, how? How do you, like, how do you, like, go to like, hey, like, if I'm still in a painting, I'd get, like, a million dollars for it. Like, that's hard, but I bet I could, like, find someone to pay that without a problem. Me, the Eagle Scout. But, like, if I, like, how do you get someone for, like, $300 million? Like, what, that?

Like, who has the liquidity to give you that, you know? Wow. Well, we'll talk about some people that. might have the liquidity for it. But yeah, I guess there's something to be said for not taking the Raphael or the Michelangelo or the Titan painting or something like that because it's just so identifiable. And there's so few of them and everybody knows. So maybe you're right.

Maybe it's like, oh, yeah, we'll grab a bunch of little stuff that we can sell under the radar. Nobody will figure it's us and we'll still make out with. 500 million fucking dollars, right? I don't know. I don't know enough about stealing stuff. I haven't done, I've really done much of it. Yeah, I feel like our entire,

our entire discussion here is like, oh, yeah, remember like watching the Italian job and how they stole painings or something? Mini Coopers are very important. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I genuinely have no idea. Though that being said, I'm not going to lie, that would actually be a cool concept to do like a,

like a custodians, blood games type thing, where you can plan a heist. They'd be like a cool escape room idea. Yeah, that would be really cool. But even weirder was that the majority of the paintings that were stolen were literally sliced out of their canvas and likely rolled up like posters. Below where the Rambrandt paintings were hung with shattered glass and bent frames, meaning that they took the frames off the wall and slammed them on the ground before cutting the paintings out of their frames.

They had taken itself. Never mind. Maybe these people were just morons. Yeah, they might have just been stupid. Because, yeah, I mean, like you can see in the picture shy posted, that's essentially what they were left with like the frames are just there, the glasses everywhere. It's all just shattered everywhere. and yeah, yeah. Or they're efficient, but you said they had a lot of times, so.

They did. They had like an hour and a half. So, but they had also taken a self-portrait of Rambrandt off the wall, but they just left it leaning on the cabinet, opting to steal an etching instead. There was a Napoleonic flag that was hung framed in one of the rooms, but instead of taking it, it looked like they had a hard time with it,

like some of the screws on the flag were removed and people are just assuming they were just saying, ah, fuck it, this is taken too long. And all they took from this Napoleonic flag was a bronze eagle that was sitting on top of it. They left frames out at the front entrance where they stole the security tapes as well as the data printouts

from the motion detectors in the museum and then left. Now, speaking of security tapes, data printouts from motion detectors, this is probably as good a time as any to mention the security system in here at the time because it's really sloppy, like really, really, really sloppy. So the museum was actually never particularly financially sound. Like, yes, they were left with that big endowment, but that was in 1924. And they were struggling throughout the 80s due to,

a lack of donations and like I said the endowment drying up, the building was in bad shape, and they didn't really even have a good climate system to actually protect the paintings they were showing. This did slightly change in 1982 when the FBI were working on a mob case in the city and uncovered a plan to rob the museum due to its sort of deteriorating condition. And it is because of this report, they decided to invest, you know, quite a bit of funds into a security system. Sadly, they kind of sort of went about it all the wrong way. They bought a CCTV system, yes, but the cost of installing it inside the museum was way too expensive, so all the cameras remained outside. It was also too expensive because they spent a good

chunk of change on an infrared motion detection system and they were like, ah, infrared motion detection system? That's probably good enough. That's going to suffice. Sure, why not? This system was designed to send out alerts if people got too close to the paintings and it could monitor the movements throughout all the different rooms in the museum. If a sensor was tripped when it was in night mode, it would generate a sentence and a timestamp so that it could be reviewed by the person at the front desk and then management the next morning. Also, since they could afford the cameras inside, since they couldn't afford the cameras inside, the museum opted to instead hire multiple security guards, have them work as a team, transitioning shifts, and do that. But even that,

also, very poorly done. Because as we said earlier, the only way they could contact the police was by pressing that single panic button up front. The other museums in the area, like the Museum of Fine Arts down the street, they had their night watchmen call in hourly to confirm everything's good, conditions are normal, we're fine, on the hour, every hour. And this was the standard for museums, but unfortunately for the Isabella Gardner Museum, cost efficiency and corners were cut. And so the systems, or lack thereof, became very dated within just a few years,

and further upgrades were dismissed because further upgrades were not only financially impossible, but they were also really pushing that whole, don't change anything in my museum, part of Gardner's will. Well, I mean, like, I appreciate the whole don't change my museum stuff. It definitely doesn't account for the time. clearly. Yeah, all right. Yeah, it's weird, because I'm assuming there is someone that,

someone in her lineage that is like constantly making sure that her will is executed to the letter. But you would think that even that person would be like, yeah, this museum is literally falling apart. Please upgrade it. Absolutely upgrade it. Please make sure there's a security system that actually works, right? So. So, Shai posted the CCTV stuff.

Yeah, and the quote unquote quality of it. Dude, this is awful. Like, I, okay, is there a reason why CCTV footage is so bad? Like, I, you know, a Logitech webcam, a C930 does better than this. Like, is there, is there a reason? is just because these are really old and they just never upgraded them? It sounds like that.

It sounds like it was a really dated CCTV system. They didn't spend as much money as they could on it. So this probably isn't even top of the line. This is probably like mid-range, low-cost CCTV that they just like scattered where they could. So maybe it's just, maybe it's just this is what a cheap CCTV security system looks like. And what year was this again?

Um, let's see. This is the, this, so this happened in the 90s. Um, what's the, what's the time stamp on the, yeah, that's 31790 on the timestamp on those, um, on those CCTVs. So surely you've got better than that in the 90s, though, right? I got, I got, I got no idea. I got no idea. Yeah. Anyway, um, though the thieves took the printed paperwork from the, you know, the, tracking system. The hard drive that it was on was still fully secure and they were able to figure out the movements around the building that the thieves took. And the thieves essentially, weirdly, the thieves kind of just stood around after subduing the guards for about 13 minutes before they did anything. They were probably just like, you know, discussing where they were going to go, what they were going to take. So like, they were taking their time, but they weren't like

slow, slow, but they also weren't like really trying to like, oh my God, we got to go, we got to go, we got to get out of here quick. In fact, some rooms, they didn't even enter. Specifically, there's this part of the museum called the Blue Room, which will be important later, that they just don't even enter. They would get back to the front desk after checking in on the guards one last time, make a couple of trips out of the building, I'm assuming to secure their hall. And the robbery lasted for a total of 81 minutes, more or less all the time in the world to get exactly what you need. So what stopped the robbery again? Like, why did the 80, why was 81 minutes? Like, is that just when they left? Is that when like other security became aware? Oh, that's just when

they left. Honestly, like, nobody was aware until the next morning when the morning shift showed up. Because the only way they could let the police or anyone outside the building know is that panic button and they got rid of that real early. So they probably could have stayed all night until the morning shift showed up. But after 81 minutes, they're like, yeah, we're done. We're good. Okay. All right.

Because I wasn't sure if there was, they just stopped. Huh? Yeah, they were just like, all right, got what we wanted. See ya. Peace. Yeah. Crazy. All right.

Sure. It's very, very strange. And there was only one person in the museum who got. a good look at the thieves. Unfortunately for the police, it was someone who had just tripped their balls off of acid at the Grateful Dead show. Right. So, okay, I was a little worried that we were going to have a scenario where they blame our good fish fan, Grateful Dead fan, that he would be the one because he would, like, he helped them because he was on drugs. But I'm assuming it's far more on the lines of the.

Well, what a horrible eyewitness we have. The dude was going off. And apparently, old Rick or Rich plan for this, because as he was tied up, apparently he would repeat the lyrics of Bob Dylan's song, I shall be released so that he could, as the song says, remember every face of every man who put me here.

This. What a fucking nerd. This is just us saying like random 40-Kisms and stuff. Yeah. For, oh my God, okay. And believe it or not, Bricky, this did not help. No, I bet it didn't. The information he was able to provide to the police was limited in detail.

Essentially, he was like, yeah, the short guy was in his late 30s, maybe 5'9, slim, goal, wireglasses. I think his mustache might have been fake. Tall guy was about six feet tall, heavy chubby cheeks. He had a weird mustache early 30s. Why do you always give these people a southern accent? This dude's from Boston or whatever.

I don't know. This is the default. I don't know, man. It's what I do. It's a character trait. All right, fine. And when the police would show him the artist sketch of the criminals, based off of every word he said, he would

blurt out, that's awful. In more recent years, his memory on the criminals would fade even more. But, he was fairly confident that one of them looked like Colonel Clink, the commandant of the World War II

Comedy TV series Hogan's Heroes. I love this guy. This guy's my hero. Imagine this dude that is just blitzed off of As is going, yeah, they're like tall guys, six feet. He's heavy, chubby, weird mustache.

Kind of looks like that dude from Hogan's here. Listen, like, I'm not going to defend the fact that the dude was high on his job. Like, obviously, like, you know, he did his job badly. But simultaneously, all the systems were terrible and un-upgraded. And the museum, any form of decent security upgrade would have solved this or at least help. Yeah. And so like, he was probably criminally underpaid. Like, why would he even like go through the anyway, yeah. Yeah. No, I like, I don't.

This is the guy's my hero. I love this guy. And witnesses outside prior to the robbery who saw the fake cops essentially would confirm the details of the heights that Abath said about these criminals. But literally nothing else. They didn't confirm anything except the height. I mean, that makes sense. They're wearing fake cop uniforms.

You don't really know. True. You see how it's all they are in the nights, right? That's it. The guy looked kind of like that dove from Hogan's heroes. You wouldn't believe it. And then he goes to the eyewitness outside. He does look like Hogan's hero.

He does. He looks just like him. It's crazy. He's right. He's right. Anyway. So, we need to talk about the suspects now. And here's a bit of a spoiler.

The FBI believes they know who actually participated in the heist, but there are two catches to this. First, they have provided absolutely no explanation as to why they believe it's them. The FBI may or may not have collected a lot of DNA and physical evidence at the crime scene, but they've kept that part heavily under wraps. they did confirm, though, that at some point, a portion of the DNA evidence was either lost or destroyed, but that's about it. The second and biggest catch is that they know who may have participated in the actual crime, but they don't confidently know the rest of the story, not who ordered it, not who may have moved the pieces around,

and especially not where the pieces ended up. So let's look at the major suspects and see if you can figure out who the FBI has pinned this on. So obviously, first suspect number one is our boy, Knight Watchman, Rich Abbotteth. Yeah, I don't believe that for a minute. So naturally, the first suspect that comes to mind is, of course, the Knight Watchman Rich Abbotteth. for a few reasons outside of the obvious. At the very start, we mentioned that while he was patrolling around, he would open and close the side doors like he always did.

There is a problem with that. According to his coworkers, the sensors on the doors were heavily monitored, and they were specifically told, don't open and close the side doors freely. They got those heavy monitors on them. Stop it. You don't do that. only in emergencies.

If he had, as he had said, done it as he always did, chances are somebody would have reprimanded him. He would have gotten consequences for it. I don't know if he would have been fired for doing it all the time, but you are not supposed to do that. The second factor has to go back to the blue room of the museum. Though the tracking system in the museum did not pick up any movement in there from when the robbery started to when it ended,

it was still disturbed, and a painting from the far side of the room of the blue room was actually stolen. It was the Manet Manet, M-A-N-E-T-E-M-A-N-E-T-E-M-N-E-N-E-T-T-T-E. Following the movement patterns of the museum, the only time the blue room had been entered was when Abath was doing his rounds before returning to the desk. Even the second guard, Randy Heston, didn't even make it to that room, prior to the start of the robbery. The blue room was also notably smaller than the other rooms, so the sensor covering it would 100% pick up movement. Hell, even the museum's chief of security consultant

would conclude that the motion detector was working fine, and every attempt to sneak past it during the investigation failed. Outside of all this, he was really quick to jump up from behind the security desk and abandon that panic button. Plus, he was already on the way out work-wise. So what else did he have to lose? Initially, the FBI would come to the conclusion that the guards of the museum were too foolish and incompetent to have committed such a crime.

And you know what? While I am offended by this statement, I believe them. And I agree. Also, didn't the panic would not work? Oh no, I think the panic button works fine It's just they couldn't press it Because you know they were handcuffed Oh sure

And you know what FBI for the first time Very full agreement Damn Damn Rick Look at that Fanny pack With the red jeans With the red Look at them sneaks too

Man Oh man Taking off that duct tape that they wrapped on his face Must have been an absolute bitch Yeah, that's a lot worse than I thought. It is all covered in his hair. Oh, man.

I thought maybe they like... I would have just a bag, man. Yeah, I thought when it said like, oh, yeah, they covered his face inductive. I was like, okay, they wrapped it around his eyes and maybe his mouth and stuff, the typical, the usual. But, oh, man, they steal masked him in that stuff. That is a whole ass mask. That sucks. It also looks like shit.

Really? It looks like they did it in a hurry. Yeah. Because with me, as someone known for, for... tying people up and art heist, you know, like our long history with that, you know, I would have done it this way. For sure. Obviously, we would have done it better off. Me, me sitting there eating a fucking, a fucking extra large double pepperoni pizza, shouting at the football game about why they aren't doing it my way.

So true. The American way. And you got to have a box of donuts on the desk. You're a security guard. You know, you got to have a donut somewhere. Oh, that's true. Anyway, Rich would be. questioned almost the rest of his life because statistically, according to the FBI, about 80% of museum heists have the assistance of some kind of informant,

some kind of inside job deal. In 2015, the FBI would release a video from the night before the theft, and the video would show Abbott opening the side door and letting someone in so they could chat at the security desk, renewing suspicions. But this was determined to be the deputy security chief of the museum. In 2010, he would talk about how the security system in the museums were a bit of an inside joke with the other security guards, and he said he would, quote unquote, chicken walk like Chuck Berry to see if he could sneak past the motion system undetected, which always worked. That's so goddamn funny.

This fucking guy. And he would defend his innocence for the rest of his life saying that whoever committed the crime didn't need his help. And, oh, man, the worst news, he would die at the age of 57 in 2024. Wow, just recently, actually. Rich died? Rich died at the age of 57, 2024. Damn. How?

That's a great question. All it says here is he would die at the age of, that's true. 57 is. That's young. Did it have anything to do with the acid? You know, it might have been all the acid, the weed, the party in the, you know. I mean, did he, I mean, in that 2019 photo, he doesn't look like terrible. Did he, like, have a heart attack or do you, like, have cancer or something?

Because, like, he seems all right. Shy, you got any details? Because the script has no details on how he died. It just says that he died. did die. That is quite young. Yeah, actually, you know, and I've read this script several times and I never thought to be like, how did he die?

No, I was revealed by his family. Okay, probably a sickness then. Too bad. Yeah, it could be. Yeah, yep. Suspect number two, Whitey Bulger and the Irish mob. So, Rich aside, first two suspects of this crime

were a lot more over-arcing in the Boston area during this time. The FBI and Boston PD immediately believed that this heist was either the Irish mob or the Italian mob. During this time, the mob was operating quite openly, and each one would have very different reasons behind why they would want to steal a bunch of paintings. For the Italian mob, it would be for bartering and sort of a show of force, particularly since the mafia along the East Coast, were in the middle of a family war,

which we will discuss in a little bit. And for the Irish mob, however, the motivation was more related to the provisional Irish Republican Army. Stealing some art would be a great way to trade up, get some weapons, support the IRA in Northern Ireland. You know, Boston at the time, was also home to one of,

if not the most powerful crime bosses of the modern era. and he had direct ties to the IRA. Whitey Bulger was the head of the Winter Hill gang, and for a period of time, he was one of the most wanted men in the country. In 1990, he was still active and hadn't gone into hiding quite yet.

The FBI was immediately suspicious of him for a few reasons. The first was that Bulger had some deep connections to the Boston police, which could account, for how the thieves had actual legitimate-looking police uniforms. The second had to do with something that happened earlier in the night. The fire alarm that sort of just randomly went off for no reason, no fire. According to the FBI, the act of tripping a fire alarm before a big job was actually somewhat

of a calling card for the IRA. And they believed that it could have been that Bulger had members of the IRA do his bidding for him so he could get the painting shipped to Ireland. Bulger, however, was not willing to take credit for a crime. He firmly said he did not commit. In fact, Whitey Bulger was actually like, he was pissed about this whole thing, because he was like someone committed this huge $500 million heist under my nose in my territory, and they didn't pay me any tribute.

What the fuck? So Bulger actually would send out his own men to see if they could figure out who did the crime. And he strongly, strongly denied taking any part in it. Okay. But can we talk about his hat, though? Sure, Ricky. We can talk about his hat. Big fan of that.

Big fan of that. That's a great mobster hat. Like brother, like, mm-mm. That's a good. Also, though I would say if I, me, with large knowledge of how to be a mobster, if I was a monster, I definitely would do something similar if I really didn't want someone catching on to me stealing the thing. I'd make a big hubbub about it. True. True. But he also might be making a big hubbub because he actually didn't do it. He actually is kind of pissed that it wasn't his ice. Yeah. So it could be either one. It's a, it's a good way to hand. handle it either way. A former member of the IRA named Richard O'R.R. would say that at the time, there was also no real need for paintings anyway. The IRA was actually making money hand over fists from supporters, and a bunch of paintings probably would have never come up as something that

they needed to counsel on or do. Suspect number three is the Italian mob and the Marilino gang. Hopefully, I am not butchering these names. If I am, I'm sure. there are plenty of comments letting me know about it. The Italian mob is a different thing altogether during this because the East Coast was a war zone. And ultimately, they had already outlined some plans to rob the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum well beforehand, that we kind of briefly touched on earlier.

The Merlino gang was led by Carmelo Merlino, who he had robbed a few armored trucks in the 60s and the 70s. The gang was affiliated with the Patriarcha Crime Family, also known as the New England Mafia. And in 1981, one of their associates, a man named Louis Royce, had devised a plan on rushing the museum with smoke bombs and stealing anything they could grab in the confusion. It was actually this specific plan that was uncovered by the FBI that caused the museum to update their security. the one we kind of sort of talked about. That dude is straight out of Goodfellas. It really is.

Holy. I looked over for a second. I was like, oh man, if you ever needed the picture of a stereotypical like Italian mobster deal, there it is.

Yeah, that's up there. Mm-hmm. At the time of the robbery, Louis Royce was in prison for a separate crime, but he freely admitted that he shared the specific of his plans with other associates.

He would specifically drop the name of Stephen Rosetti as one of the ones he confided in most, but he also was friendly with another member of the gang named Lenny Damuzio. These names, dude. Not much is known about him except that he was, as Possum says, except that he was whacked in 1991 and shoved in the trunk of his own car in East Boston.

All right, well, fitting end, I guess. Well, that is about the most Italian momster ending you could get. You got whacked and shoved in the trunk of your car. But one of the Merlino gang associates, Bobby Guarantee, was, according to a local reporter, one of the most popular gangsters in New England. He would lead a mostly uneventful post-mob life until he died from cancer in Connecticut in 2004.

The FBI would go to his farmhouse based off some tips in the early 2010s, but they would find nothing. But when they spoke to his widow Elaine, she would get really upset and irritated. She would say that as her husband was dying, she got mad at him and told him to get rid of some of the things he'd been sort of stockpiling, which is kind of a weird thing to say as he's dying. she said that he was in possession of two paintings from a heist and before he died in 2004, he gave them to another Merlino associate named Bobby Gentile. Gentile would deny this at first saying that he didn't know anything about these paintings.

What? Me? Painting stolen? Never. He would later be arrested for drug possession in 2012 and would agree to a polygraph test. He would say that he had no idea about the theft, or where the art was, and shock of all ages, failed that polygraph test. Oh my God, these Italian mobsters, they're just right on the nose.

It's crazy. He would retest, and he would claim that Elaine had shown him one of the Rembrandts at some point in the past, and then he would pass the polygraph test. The FBI would conduct a raid on Bobby Gentile's home in Manchester, Connecticut in 2012, and find two important things. First, in the shed in the backyard,

they'd find the floor was false, hiding a secret ditch. Unfortunately, though, the ditch was empty. Second, they would find a copy of the Boston Herald from March of 1990. Inside the newspaper would be a piece of paper with notes on each of the stolen pieces and how much they may be worth.

During the raid, they would, would speak with Gentile's son, and his son would recall that a few years prior they were hit with this really awful rainstorm, so bad that it flooded their backyard, and even though that floor was false, flooded the ditch. And at the time, Gentile's son didn't know why, but his father was just really distressed about this, because whatever was hidden in the ditch was completely ruined. In later interviews, Bobby Gentile would claim that the ditch was filled with expensive vehicle parts and those were ruined by all the water. There's no stolen paintings in there and he would continue to

deny the accusations of stealing the paintings until his death in 2022 at the age of 85. Yeah, I don't think he did it. Well, it's hard to know what was in that ditch. I guess, but like a mobster with a hidden ditch, I mean, come on. True, true, they probably all. got one. If I was going to live a, if I was going to be a mobster, I literally, like, the first

thing I would do is a place to hide stuff. True, true. Bricky's going to write a documentary at some point. You're going to run autobiography. I'm not a mobster. But if I was. If I was an evil piece of shit, here's how I would do it, but I'm not, by the way. So moving on to our next suspect is the Morlino Gang Association.

See, it's David Turner and George Reisfelder. Another associate that had more promise was David Turner, who worked more closely with Merlano. In 1992, Merlena was arrested for drug trafficking, and he would say that he could return the paintings for a reduced sentence. Though he likely wasn't involved in the crime directly, Marino was like, oh, you know, I got enough sway as a broker. I can make a deal with whoever did it.

I have so many connections. got you. And so he would have Turner tracked down the paintings or attempt to track down the paintings, but he had no luck. He said they were somewhere in South Boston, likely in a church. And the FBI believed that a lot of the evidence actually pointed to Turner as the primary suspect, and he likely worked with another man named George Reisfelder to get it done. Ricefelder, however, died in 1991 of an IV overdose. But he looked remarkably close to the shorter, slimmer man in the police sketches, the one that supposedly looked like Colonel Kling from Hogan's heroes,

looked a lot like him. Ooh, the colonel is finally going to be a thing. Before his death, Ricefelder was a career criminal, too, so it checks out. And in 1982, he was almost sentenced to life, but his murder charge was cleared and he walked free. So also, looking at that picture of them in the lineup, he does kind of look like that.

Like, that does line up. Also, that wasn't a fake stash at all. The hat helps a lot, though. That's true. The hat is doing a lot of heavy lifting, isn't it? Also, you're right. That is not a fake stash, but damn, am I not wrong to say

that does look like a fake stash? That is a huge. If I was rich, I too would also be like, yeah, kind of looked fake to me. That thing looked like it was pasted on with the, anyway. There was also a character witness for Ricefelder. It was his sister-in-law, Donna Ricefelder. She would talk about how George needed help mounting a painting that had, in her words, a fru-frew frame.

when asked about if he could do the crime, she denied it immediately. She said he was too skinny, said he couldn't lift anything to save his life, said apparently in the thickest Boston accent imaginable, he's too slow, he drives 25 miles an hour on the expressway. This would be confirmed. Thank you. Let's go. Let's go.

Not great. Not that I'm from, see, if I was Massachusetts. I'm not from Massachusetts. But if I was, go ahead, Bricky. No, no, no, no. I'm just going to leave that one there. Oh, okay. Okay. Cool. Oh, man.

That's a, that is, that, that, that's the cover of a horror movie shy. I, that, that, that, that's a cold-hearted killer. Yeah, yeah, I'd agree. That man would steal 500 million millions. Yes. This would be confirmed among some of his friends, too, as he was not only a bit weak, but he also had some anxiety, particularly. around sharp edges, needles, you know, the usual stuff.

She would be shown a picture of one of the stolen paintings, the Ches Tortoni from, I think, the Blue Room, and she would confirm that that was one of the things that she helped reframe. She would be told how long the heist took, but then would say that George would never tie anybody up. He couldn't do that. He'd feel too bad about it. You know, George was such a good guy that he would just, He'd probably want to, like, if he did tie someone up,

he'd probably want to check on them all the time and constantly ask them if they were okay, or if they were comfortable, or if they needed water, or anything like that. If my son tied people up, this is how he would do it. Which, actually, if you remember, is exactly what one of the thieves did. They were constantly checking on the two security guards

to see if they needed anything, if they were good. if they were comfortable, all that. So it may be, but by the time of George's death, the apartment he was in was empty. The FBI would arrest David Turner, Carmelo Merlino, and Stefan Rosetti, who was originally confided in plan-wise, in 1999 during a sting operation surrounding an armored bank vehicle. The FBI would say they knew he committed the heist and he would claim entrapment. saying the sting operation was set up just for the paintings and nothing more. He would be sent to prison and while in prison he would send a letter off to old Bobby Gentile in 2010,

asking him to get a hold of his ex so he could get the paintings so he could get out of prison. As a means of cooperation for his own potential sentence, Gentile would agree to speak with Turner's ex, but Turner's ex wanted to meet someplace in Boston with two other men. situation is now it's becoming too goddamn complex. There's an X. There's two other random people. We don't even know if they've got these paintings.

What the hell is everybody talking about? Forget it. We're not helping anymore. That deals off the table. Carmella Merlino would die in prison in 2005, and both David Turner and Stephen Rossetti would be released from prison in 2019. So now we're coming up two. our final suspects from the self-proclaimed world's greatest art theft and notable conversationalist

Miles J. Connor Jr., who was in prison at the time of him spilling his truth. He was very much not afraid to talk about who he said was the brains of the operation because that person was already dead. He would say that he personally scoped out the museum years before the heist with a criminal named Bobby Donati. He was a member of the Patriarcha Crime Family, and he was whacked in 1991. Prior to Bobby's death, Connor said he helped him with a few previous art heise and said that Bobby said that the next one he was going to hit was going to be the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Said it by fucking name. Bobby was friendly with another career criminal by the name of David Hofton, and And according to Connor, Hoffton would visit him in prison and say that it was the two of them who committed the heist. But for a very specific reason, Bobby wanted to get Connor out of prison. And they believed that they could do a long con where Connor claimed to know where the art was to get a reduced sentence and would all come out in the wash. Boy, that's a convoluted plan. That's, it doesn't sound like the kind of plan I would expect from people who stole this. So, hmm.

Yeah, the plan of, oh yeah, we're going to do an art heist because our friend is in prison and we're going to do a long con on the art so we can divulge where the art is so we can get a reduced sentence. They're like, man, you're better off doing the Alcatraz shit and just taking a spoon to the wall. Like, Jesus. Anyway. But only one problem. As we said, Bobby was killed in 1991 and David Hoffton would also do. die an untimely death in 1992 of a heart attack. Still, Connor would say that he could totally figure out

what they probably did with the artwork. Remember, this is the greatest art thief in the world, self-proclaimedly. And he would do this for a reduced sentence, of course. First, he tried to say without any sort of true knowledge of where the art is, sort of like, hey, I'll tell you where the art is if I get a reward in full freedom, even though he doesn't know where the art actually is. and naturally, police told them to fucking pound sand because, dude, you don't know shit.

But after he was told that, he said they should. He was like, all right, fine, I'll give you a tip of where you could go to find something like this. Go to antiques dealer. Dealer is stolen goods. His name is William Youngworth. We use them all the time. That's a great place to go.

So, FBI would raid Youngworth's property to no avail, but a journalist would begin to build up a good rapport with him in the late 90s. One night, Youngworth would tell the journalist that he had proof of the paintings, but he'd have to come to him to a specific location. He had the journalist drive from the offices of the Boston Herald to the shipyards in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a four-hour, 223-mile drive in the middle of the night. In a storage unit, Youngworth would present a barrenuous, would present a barrow,

bunch of tubes and would unfurl one, revealing the painting the storm of the Sea of Galilee. I hope I'm saying that, right? It was apparently cut in the same way that the museum said it would be cut. Youngworth would apparently tell the journalist that the crime was done by five people total, but only identified two. Oh, he only identified two of them. He said that Bobby Denotti was one of the robbers that night, and he said that David Hoffden moved the paintings to a safe location. The FBI would track down the alleged warehouse the journalist went to and would find nothing. The legitimacy of this story was called into question immediately, but the journalist said he had physical proof from Youngworth, even though you went to the storage bin I told you to,

even though you didn't find anything, I have secured proof from my visit to prove the legitimacy of my story. He brought out paint ship. paint chips scraped from the same painting he saw that night. Actual paint chips. But analysis of the chips determined that the oils in the chips

they were 100% from the area. So like these could have been the oil chips from the painting, but they were not the same oils that were actually used by Rembrandt. Another questionable part of his story was the rolling of the paintings like a poster.

These old paintings were covered with an absolute metric shit ton of varnish. If they were rolled up, like he said they were, they would have been ripped and cracked to hell. The FBI would eventually track down Youngworth, and they tried to work with him, but his demands were so extreme for such a little evidence that they just stopped talking with him. They just didn't even want to deal with it.

They were just like, fuck this guy. too much. He doesn't have enough. He might have some paint chips. He might have some counterfeit paintings. Fuck this guy, we're out. He would, though, provide more evidence, which allegedly included full-color photos of some of the paintings. But again, the legitimacy of these photos have never been confirmed. He would also provide another vial of paint chips. Apparently Youngsworth loved keeping these fucking paint chips around, and they would be tested again. and again, they would be confirmed to not be anything that Rembrandt would use.

However, these paint ships were shockingly close to something that would have been used in the painting like, oh, I don't know, $300 million the concert. Oh, so, you know, but anyway, so with all of that in mind, who do you think the FBI, quote unquote, decisively determined did the crime? Oh, God, I don't even know. Maybe the guy who died. I mean, you're right. There is, they are guys that died that they thought did it. So, you know. So in 2015, the FBI would state that they had the utmost confidence that the two individuals seen that night committing the crime were dead, long dead in fact. and that they were George Reisfelder and Lenny de Mutsio,

likely arranged at the behest of Carmelno Merlino. There was no... Oh, go ahead, go ahead. So the hat guy, yeah. And the mustache guy, okay. There was no explicit reasoning behind naming these two, but the FBI noted that their deaths were notably really, really suspicious. both of them would die in 1991, just over a year after the crime, and actually, surprisingly,

within a few weeks of one another. Lenny was whacked and shoved into the trunk of a car, and there are no witnesses. His murder remains completely unsolved. And George would die of an overdose. But if you remember what we said about old George Reisfelder, he was deathly. afraid of needles. He hated needles. He had anxiety around needles, knives, sharp things, and for him to just like, oh yeah, he died of an overdose that was an IV-based overdose, that's a little suspicious. Though we don't know much about Lenny. We know that George was a nice

enough guy who was, we'll say, more than a bit antsy. And so the FBI's like, maybe they were both killed because they were like they were just getting ready to spill the beans. George, good-hearted guy, can't deal with the guilt, is about to come clean. And the mom is just like, no, you silly bitch, you're going to die of an overdose. But nobody truly knows. And even if the... I feel like anyway, like a kind of death by overdose. I mean, that kind of rings the sort of like it wasn't his choice type thing.

Yeah, definitely. And shy's right. They were both mobsters, though. Like, it's not unheard of for this sort of shady stuff to happen in a CD mob underworld either. They both happened to be tied loosely to people that could have done the heist, but, you know, it's also mob life, right? Even if the FBI has confidence that they know who did the crime, the case is far from solved and is still a mystery to this day. The people who did the crime may not be the same people who move. move the paintings around.

And it's been so long that the number of people involved could be absolutely countless. The FBI has given very little insight into their investigation, but in 2015, they'd say that the paintings were still out there. They're still moving around. They're still somehow shifting hands. And were seen as recently as the mid-2000s. They may still be in the country or they may be long gone.

By now, the Statue of Limitations has long. long, long expired, but the reward for the paintings remains. Though the robbers took 13 pieces of art that night, they left five frames behind. And those frames actually remain hanging in the museum to this day, sitting in the same spot they did when they originally hung the pieces of art that were ripped out of them. As anniversaries come and go, security director Anthony Amori thinks optimistically, believing that an answer is getting closer and closer,

and eventually the frames will be filled once more, saying, I think any time people consider how many people come to see the empty frames, that number would be dwarfed by the number of people who come to see a Vermeer or Rembrandt's only seascape. When masterpieces are stolen, they are often recovered decades after because people are more willing to talk. The scariest people involved are no longer scary.

The museum itself isn't complete until these pieces come back. And that is all we have on the one of the most, I don't know if I want to say prolific art heists, but one of the craziest art heists in history that is still unsolved to this day. I'd call it prolific. It was like half a billion dollars. Yeah, that's a fair chunk of change. Who knows? Those paintings, they're still out there somewhere. Probably all crinkled up and folded up and rolled up and probably ruined beyond all recognition. But, you know, they're probably still circulating out there somewhere.

Absolutely. I mean, I mean, I'm too bad to our poor man, Rich. Yeah. Unfortunate that he didn't, that he's not currently around anymore due to what I assumed be health problems. but also, I'll be honest, I'm pretty sure the two mobsters did it. I really don't fully know, honestly, but like the two of them do kind of fit the description in like a sort of what a dude tripping acid might look like. You know, like, clearly, if I was tripping acid, I would probably see that mustache.

I think it's fake too, because it looks fake even in this. It does. It does. That being said But the big question is Oh go ahead Go ahead Well I was just say I do I do find the fucking fact that we're just going around

With like Irish and Italian gangsters back and forth and back and forth Yeah I mean at the time that's probably the most likely place to look right But also do you think that Rich had Anything at all to do with it? God no Not on the slightest Not on the slightest

It. Rich doesn't look like he could, Rich looks at the kind of guy who would see a fly in his house and then go get a cup and a piece of paper so he can let it out freely as opposed to like swatting it. Swatting it. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I mean, I don't mean to stereotype, but like Rich does not look like an Italian gangster at all. True. True. True. Also, if he was like being, his family or his life were being threatened in order to be. in order to be like, you know, oh, we're going to go raid this place and you're going to, like, let us in or else we're going to kill your family. The two, I don't think the two would have gone to a grateful dead concert. Yeah, probably not. He probably, yeah, he was so chill about everything that it just, it doesn't seem like he could have been involved. Like, I, here we go. If I was in an art heist and I was part of the inside job, I would be, I'd probably be just,

anxiety riddled and not be able to relax. And like I don't think I'd be able to go to a Grateful Dead concert and enjoy it at all. So, yeah, at first I was like, oh, it's got to be an inside job. Like this, it all went too smoothly for the robbers. Like, they must have had help from the inside. But then, like, you start really looking into just how bad the security system was and and everything. And it's just like, yeah, this probably was just.

a poorly maintained museum that got taken advantage of. Yeah, well, the help from the inside was known as bad funding. Also, like, if they did get help from the inside, I bet it 100% could have been a random other co-worker or, like, another person who worked in the museum and basically just said, yeah, these two dwebes, this dude's old, like, this dude reeks of weed every time. There's only two of them. I wouldn't worry. Like, that is one thousand.

thousand percent how I get to see that type of situation because like, oh, yeah, no, they're just up there. Don't worry about them. And how many times in movies is it like, oh, yeah, the bank heist happened because, oh, yeah, there's a new night shift guard that just started that now has all this insider information. It could have been the new guy. It could have been good about old Randy. Yeah, I don't know. Nah, no. Nah, no.

But that's it. Detective Ridiculous, back for a one day special just to troll the shit out of Bricky. You love to see it. I mean, that is a pretty fascinating art heists, all things considered. But, yeah, any, I don't think Richard did Jack all. Nah. I, you know, the more, the more I read the script, the more I hear about him, it's like, nah, nah, nah, no. Like they said, he's, I'm sorry.

rest in peace, brother. But like they said, they were just too incompetent and hapless to really actually be of any use. And like Rich said, they didn't even need his help, really. Like, again, such a poorly funded museum at the time. You don't need an insider. It was easy enough to do on your own. So, yeah, that's the heist. Yeah.

I mean, it's, yeah, it kind of was weird. It seems like combination of like insane incompetence, but turns out incompetence or at least like like kind of shenanigans marlarky when it comes to stealing stuff helps a lot when nobody fixes your security. When you just have CCTVs outside, only one button to the police and your fail safe is a fucking walkie-talkie. You know, what do you know? You got robbed. Crazy. Wow. How could this have been been prevented?

certainly no way i could have been a friend anyway yeah that's that's what we got you want to you want to take us home uh yeah no i mean i happy happy april first everyone hope you enjoyed this little trip down in memory lane um good old uh as far as pranks go it's not a particularly crazy one but i think we've gone past the point of um uh i think we've gone past the point of like ha ha april's like now i've got to say more fun than that and this is a fine one Yeah, definitely. But it's good stuff. Thank you everyone for watching. Hope everyone enjoyed the podcast. Next week, we will be talking about Adepticon and the fun reveals there. And you might see some new merchandise. Yippie.

All right.