Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 347: The Gardner Museum Heist Part 2

Episode Date: April 26, 2026

Alex continues our unofficial BOSTON BEAN BONTH by taking Mathas and Jesse through a half-billion dollar art heist in Boston, Mass in the second part of the Gardner Museum Heist series.CHILLUMINATI is a weekly comedy podcast hosted by Mike Martin, Jesse Cox and Alex Faciane. Hold on to your tin-foil hats and traverse the realms of the mysterious, supernatural, spooky and sometimes truly horrible - and your third eye will never be the same!Subscribe to our Patreon to support us and for extra content like full video episodes, weekly Minisodes, exclusive art, and more at http://patreon.com/CHILLUMINATIPODThank you to our sponsors:Zocdoc - Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to zocdoc.com/chill to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. MintMobile - If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com/chill. Mike Martin - http://www.youtube.com/@themoleculemindsetJesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecoxAlex Faciane - https://www.youtube.com/@StarWarsOldCanonBookClub/Editor: DeanCuttyProducer: Hilde @ https://bsky.app/profile/heksen.bsky.socialShow Art: Studio Melectro @ http://www.instagram.com/studio_melectroLogo Design: Shawn JPB @ https://twitter.com/JetpackBragginSources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft https://archive.is/mGrkn https://archive.is/2NSc8 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/TheftAudioWalkTranscript_FINAL_20200301.pdfhttps://g.co/arts/v519iztsXvdStwmJ7 https://buildingsofnewengland.com/tag/152-beacon-street-boston/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_(John_Singer_Sargent).jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Anders_Zorn_-_Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_in_Venice_-_P17e10_-_Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum.jpg https://g.co/arts/FZwqmoTaiG14pVsK6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Jaleo https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Mrs._Gardner_in_White_(1922)_by_John_Singer_Sargent.jpg https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/ISGM_visitor_MAP_20210105.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Rembrandt_Christ_in_the_Storm_on_the_Lake_of_Galilee.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lady_and_Gentleman_in_Black https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_Obelisk#/media/File:Landscape_with_an_Obelisk,_Govaert_Flinck,_1638,_Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum,_Boston.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concert_(Vermeer)#/media/File:Vermeer_The_concert.JPGhttps://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/gardners-gu https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/styles/portrait_large/public/2025-03/P21n9_001_0.jpghttps://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/10955 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14031 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14030 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14028 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14029 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/10749 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/images/art/23/06/T17s1_a_003.JPG

Every time I grocery shop, I end up spending more and getting less. And it's not just groceries. Everything costs more. It adds up and soak in the debt. So that's why I reached out to the Credit Counseling Society. After my first call, I felt the weight lifting. I bet they can help you too. Don't wait.

The sooner you call, the more options you'll have. And the weight, leave that for the grocery bags. The Credit Counseling Society. When debt's got you, you've got us. and welcome back to the Chulamati podcast, episode 348. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined by my other two co-host, Jesse and Alex. Welcome back to the show, boys.

Good to see both your smiling faces. Yes. Yes. I feel good. Oh, we're about to break into a musical. Top hats and chains appear. I don't know. Just I feel good.

And listen, I think it's because there's good energy from last week, right? Like, you leave the show on a cliffhanger. It feels good to come back. Is that what we're? doing? Oh, well, I mean, that's what I did last week. I just, I left a little cliffhanger and now I'm back because I'm excited to like tell you guys about the good energy about the good, well, just about the cliffhanger. I'm excited. The energy is that I get to make good on the cliffhanger. But before we talk about the cliffhanger, should we talk about- I really tried to trip him up and he just like,

no, he was like water flowed around the rocks. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like Bruce Lee. I'm like Bruce Lee. I had a nice five-minute nap before the show can do for you. Yeah, that's exactly what you should do. take a five minute nap before the show, uh, listener, uh, pause, go for a nap. Go to sleep.

We'll be back. Uh, no, what I was going to say is, do we need to talk about the missing scientists? Do we, we talked about that twice over the last bonus. Since we've spoken,

there's been more. There's been another one since last we've spoken on the minisode. And the inventor of the helies died. And that could be just as serious. They found another scientist, uh, in his Tesla burned today or the, or,

yesterday. All right. All right. We had to stop. We had to stop. We have to stop. Yeah. Tesla's be loading.

Yeah. That's true. That's true. No, but I heard, I heard that there's now an actual FBI inquest into the air. Which is different than what was before,

which to me, like we were talking about this last week, right? Like, that was what we were waiting for. We were like, well, we don't know a lot about this.

And so like, is it weird? Maybe you can frame anything and make it seem weird. But now the FBI is like, well, that's weird. Yeah. My realistic take, if these people are truly going missing, I know people want me to say aliens. It's probably a tech war of some kind.

Like, just opposing tech industries of countries, sabotaging other tech, like scientists who are discovering things. That's the vibe of it. Yeah. That's what it rings to me to is like. Those stories on Reddit that are like, they made me read the three body problem, like, to like induce me into the like this like research project. which I think is about aliens killing humans to stop them from learning specific things.

Uh, kind of. This, yeah, spoilers. Uh, I'll post spoilers right now. It's about,

yeah, aliens mess with our known physics so that we don't advance to a certain point. So that way when they come to conquer us. Yeah, they can take us out. And that's just like book one of three. But,

but the good news is, the good news is if you watch the Netflix show, which is nothing like the book. No? They do. I mean, and like grand swaths, sure. But like, it is not the book.

I will say, um, Samuel Tarley is brutally murdered in the spoilers. Oh, wow. Sam. You can watch, you can watch Sam.

From Game of Thrones? From Game of Thrones. He's in it. Yeah. That sweet man who made that guy's skin all better. Yeah. In the show, he's like a tech.

He's basically Elon Musk. So that's a thing. Sam Tarley. I got to watch the show just for that. Just for that. I got to watch it. Read the book. Good book.

Okay. but here's the thing. Disclosure Day is coming very soon. The movie, not the actual. I'm coming out to LA for that, boys. We're going to go watch it together and do an episode on. We should do a show right afterwards. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But it's coming out. And Spielberg says it's closer to truth than fiction or something like that. I don't literally what he said. Correct. It's like exactly his words was like what he mean by that though. It's closer to truth than fiction. Like what does he know? What does he know? What is he known since the age? what is he known since close encounters and working with valet and hynick like what does he know that we don't know i'm like the launch of like a new it's like the launch of like a new star wars it's like a new

branch of conspiracy whatever he says like whatever the plot of disclosure day ends up being oh there's going to be a UFO belief spin off yeah right off that we yeah like whatever like that's the kind of that's kind of what i'm interested in is like it seems like it's going to be some kind of hybrid theory some kind of yeah you're all hearing the music in your head i can tell i am i am everyone at home they're hearing that backwards violin i think they're trying to make it something like that they're trying to redefine the aesthetics of an alien invasion right well it seems to me if we're really gonna fucking talk about this for a second it seems to me that he's going the route of it's partially consciousness related in some way right like just from the trailers from what from

what it seems to be that these things are both physical, but not fully physical, that there, that there's something to do with how it interfaces with our, with our thoughts, with our consciousness, with our brain, whatever,

and that this seems to be the more, I mean, we've been doing the show for eight years, and we have watched the narrative of UFOs in the global, like belief system going from major, like a majorly like nuts and bolts to crafts to a little bit more of these, like,

entities of like weirdness being part of the narrative now. something that, whether it be reality or physics or just like conscious of space, that seems to be intermingling with it, that over eight years has become part of this narrative now. And I think Spielberg is putting that in his movie in some fashion. Yeah. I never expected the walls to be like coming down between like alien lore and like psychedelic drug. I mean, like, I don't know if there's a difference between this.

Like, I think we should go back one day and look up what was happening in the. 70s and 80s when they were dropping close encounters the third kind of that kind of stuff. Because I imagine it's the exact same. Like Spielberg's not going to be like, it's not real. Anyway, see my movie. He's going to be like, we are so close to the truth. And I will tell you what I know in my movie. Of course he's going to do that. Of course. But I just like culturally, whether it ends up bringing greater understanding in real life of what's going on with our true situation. Like culturally, I'm excited about it because I feel like Spielberg, it has the juice to convince us of shit. And I'm just interested to see how it's going to impact this, this,

the feeling. And I know I'm not the movie guy, but like, I've seen basically all Spielberg's movies and every he just, his movies are great. Like, I love his movies. So like, it's going to be, it's going to be good, no matter how close to the truth it actually is or not. Yeah, I'm very excited to watch a Spielberg movie about aliens. I always love one. I loved War of the Worlds, even though that movie is like so weird. But like, is it considered weird? Because like I saw when it came out. I remember really liking it.

Yeah, it's good. It's just a weird move. Like if you look back and like it. I like, and they goop the world. Yeah. When you see who's who and stuff, you're like, what the fuck? Can I, all right. Can I just say, can I ask a question?

I don't know why my first thought of when I hear War of the Worlds is Tom Cruz and peanut butter. Is that a plot line in the movie? I don't know why peanut butter. Tom Cruise is in the movie, for sure. I seem to recall peanut butter being a thing, but maybe I'm crazy. No, no. I think of $1,000 Amazon gift cards for homeless people.

No, no, no, that's the other one. That's the much better. That's the much better war of the war. Masterpieces only in my memory, sorry. No, Dakota Fanning's his like little kid daughter. Yeah, I feel like maybe there's a peanut butter and jelly scene. I think she has, like, she has an allergy. I think she has an allergy. I think she has an allergy.

I haven't seen this movie since like a long time ago. Oh, do you think that? Boy, I just put on my movie making hat. Do you think that was the Dakota fanning's character is allergic to peanuts? Peanuts could kill her. There is a peanut butter scene. Okay. Stephen Spielberg's War of the World's 2005, the peanut butter scene highlights Ray Ferrier's, Tom Cruise's failure as a father before the alien invasion, showing him struggling to make sandwiches for his kids. Distressed by his disconnection from them, he throws a piece of peanut butter bread against the window, emphasizing his inability to code.

Yes, okay, I'm not crazy. That was just Tom Cruise trying to act like a human being who can't float. But I, but going back to the, like, I love the idea of, like,

that's actually kind of smart the idea of, uh, like a fanning, the fanning girl being unable to eat peanuts because it would kill her. And then the thing that kills all the aliens is their like inability to like exist on earth because of the weird crap here. They're like, wait,

The peanut jealous? Braid. I feel, yeah, I feel like that's what that movie was about. At the end, Peanuts killed the aliens. That's what it was.

In the end, Twas Bean Boy killed the beans. Big, big peanut farmer. Yeah. Killed the aliens. Former, a former president came down.

Jimmy Carter was like, get out of here, aliens. He's like, now go on, get out of here. Go on now. You're damn aliens. Get on out of here.

You're never going to make me cry again. I swear to God. Rebilt. rebuilt all the love that story. I love that Carter crying at the alien truth story. I don't want to picture Jimmy Carter crying. It's just it's like it's like picturing like I don't know. He's like of all the presidents. We talk about, you know, AI generating yourself into a Christlike figure. If there's one president who was literally Christlike, it was Jimmy Carter in a lot of ways. They roasted his ass for it too. Yeah. He was a week of which went up to the original.

Yeah. Good question. Good question. Good. question. Anyway, let's start off this episode by saying a bunch of stuff we're not doing, which is what I love to do. First of all, we are not doing Boston season. But like, because the April Fool's prank was us saying that it was going to be Boston season and we don't really do pranks on the show because we know this show is not about messing with the audience. That's not what we do here. So, you know, so because we said we were going to do it, we're kind of coincidentally doing quite a few topics for the next few months, centered around the Boston area.

So like the prank is that you thought there was not going to be a Boston season because the prank was Boston season and how it is in fact sort of like Boston season as well as the greater New England area and its history and its culture, et cetera, et cetera. You said Boston season so many times it has no more meaning for me. Boston baked Beeson, dude. And secondly, the other thing I'm not going to do here is promote our social media. We do have Chuluminati. Dot, um,

Chuluminati pod.fm on Blue Sky. We do have that. We are on Instagram. We are on TikTok and Twitter and Reddit and YouTube all under Chaluminaity Pod. We're there on all of those things. But we talked about all the free video clips and merch updates and stuff and fan participation that you can get there last week. So we're not going to talk about that this week. This week we are here to talk about patreon.com slash chluminati pod where we do a minisode every week and we're just about to upload a new rotten popcorn episode and you get access to a whole beefy archive of exclusive early content like that in exchange for supporting us directly. Also as soon as that fucking Bigfoot

documentary finds a distributor and gets its ass on some kind of streaming service, you know we're going to do that fucking thing too. Oh, by the way, I also have a link here that I've been saving for a while called the UFO movie. They don't want you to see on YouTube. Hell yes. Got to watch that. Finally, the truth. The truth I've been waiting for all my life.

Yeah. So again, that's what I am promoting. That's our Patreon. and patreon.com slash Tulumari Pod, just in case you want to sign up. And last week, I said I announced some new merch, so here we are. We were already going to launch a new set of featured artist 50-50 split stickers next week. But you guys absolutely demanded that we also release that sexy mantis alien from last season's branding as a shirt. So we had our lovely house artist,

Studio Mellectro, turn her illustration into a full-on shirt design. Now that is coming too. And again, we are not promoting it today, but next week when we do announce the merch, you'll hear about it first if you follow us on at least one of those social medias,

Chiluminati pod. FM on Blue Sky, Chulminati pod literally everywhere else. Live, laugh, love, eat, pray, Really quickly. Love again. Just pause.

Pause. Yeah, what's up? Pause. What's up? Pause. I'm paused. I'm so paused. I'm skipping through the intro.

And hey everyone, did you know that August 22nd in Chicago, Illinois? We're back for another live show. That's right. You can get your tickets. Click the link down below. 82226. 82226. 82226.

We got where are you going to skip the promos? Fools. Thank you. so much to Zoc Doc for sponsoring a portion of today's episode. And finding a doctor you actually like, kind of feels like that moment in research where all the puzzle pieces come together and I actually understand what I'm looking at

for my episode topic. And sure, the basics matter. In network, reasonably close, actually has availability before the next presidential election, but honestly, let's just be true to ourselves. It's kind of just the starting line, really, when you think about it. What you really want is someone who listens to you, right?

Someone who doesn't make you feel rushed, someone who explains things in plain English and doesn't make you feel stupid for asking a follow-up question. Someone who, for whatever reason, just gets you. I won't judge you for why the person gets you as long as they get you, right? The doctor does exist, and finding them is way easier than you think on Zoc Doc. Zococ is a free app and website that helps you find a book high quality in network doctors so you can actually find someone you love. We're talking more than 150,000 providers across all 50 states, whether you need dermatology, dentistry, primary care, eye care, any of the 200 plus specialties on Zoc Doc, you can search by specialty or symptom and build the care team that's right for you. You want to see your doctor in person?

That's great. You can actually schedule that. If you prefer a video visit, you can do that too. What really makes it click is the verified reviews for me, thousands of them from real patients, so you get genuine sense of who this doctor is before you ever walk in. Maybe they hate small talk as much as you. That's my big thing. I talk enough for a living. I don't need to talk to my doctor more than I have to. Maybe the type to crack a joke and lighten the mood. Not my personal preference, but maybe you need someone to make you laugh more. I'm failing, clearly. Either way, you go in with a real picture of what to expect. And when you're ready, you see real time availability and book instantly. No phone tag, no voicemail, purgatory. Appointments typically happen within 24 to 72 hours

of booking and you can even grab same day slots. When I'm looking for a new doctor, this is literally what I use. Stop putting off those doctor appointments and go to Zocdoc.com slash chill to find it instantly book a doctor you love today. That's ZOCDOC.com slash chill. Zocdoc.com slash chill. Thanks to Zocdoc for sponsoring today's episode. And finally, for our last not before we get started, though this is an Alex episode, at least in the sense that I wrote it, it is nonetheless not going to be a very weird script because I don't do that anymore, okay? And I'm definitely not just secretly being mysterious somewhere else that you don't know about yet. Today, we're just going to finish talking.

talking about the fate of some really expensive missing paintings, starting with the hint I teased you with at the end of last episode about some sort of strangeness with one of the guards. Okay. As hopefully you remember from last time, since this is the second half of a two-parter you should have already listened to the first half of. In March, 1999, if not, we'll take, we'll take a five-minute nap. If you did it. You'll take a five-minute nap. You go listen to it. You come back.

We'll be here waiting. Yeah. March 1990, 13 pieces were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the Fenway of Boston, Massachusetts. The thieves came in overnight. They were dressed as police. They tied up the guards with cuffs and tape and hid them in two separate sides of the museum away from each other where they stood in the dark for like probably eight hours. They didn't get found until the next morning. And then they took their sweet time in this museum for almost an hour and a half.

As if they somehow knew the police weren't going to be coming, which is just not the pace of most art heists. Like, most art heists are like under 10 minutes from like when you hear sound to when everyone is gone. But this one lasted over 81 minutes. Unless it's a movie, in which case. Right. You know, they're like, we already plan for this. The cops will be uptown. It's coming because we set fire to a warehouse or something, you know.

40 minutes in, a big, big actor is going to show up that. you didn't know was in the movie. Yeah, because he's the other thief who was there before them. It's somebody, yeah, it's somebody like pretty big that's like kind of exciting, but like not a very famous like French or Italian actor that we already know, Jean Reno, maybe Guy Pearce. He's like. Guy Pearce.

Yeah, of course. He's Australian, but he like, John Luke Picard. Yeah. Yeah, he's a, well, he's a, he's not going to be born for another 200 years. Yeah. So he's, so we got to wait for him, but he's French with an English accent. It makes him very universal. Yeah, that's true.

And he's, how, where we, who were we talking about? How does he have the, how does he have the nice house in the post money society? He just gets to have it. Because it's, because it's a winery. Because he has a winery. Family, family owned winery. So the rich just permanent. Everybody's rich.

Yeah, no, the family wants to wine, but there's other people that don't want a wine. And he also has like house servants in the Picard series, but like, I'm assuming, you know. You know what? That's not real. That's just not real. The day I got rid of money. The only real season three is the only real season out of that whole thing. The day I got rid of money, I have nothing.

The day Picard got rid of money, he had a winery. If I want a winery, what steps do I take? Who do I talk to? Technically, he didn't have, technically, according to generations. I think he, yeah, he ditched it. He left his like the boy who was in one episode of that show there and he died. I remember that. dude what a sad life he had um when he's finally born in he lived two whole lives kind of technically

if you think about it yeah technically four at least a few you know there's a few episodes where like uh anyway anyway in the middle of my recap about what happened last time uh yeah they they they tied up the guards it took 80 minutes which is too short for a live action movie but the right length for maybe an animated movie. And in the end, since Isabella Gardner's will forbade anything in her collection from being moved,

from being donated, being sold, added to, subtracted from, on pain of complete and utter donation of everything in it to Harvard, they have just literally

left the frames up on the wall in the museum ever since, because it is her collection as a museum. It's never going to change. So while they're missing, there is still a space for them.

And in a contrast from last time, here is a quote about this for Jesse to read from an article on Bloomberg.com. Over the years, the pictures of frames have become one of the most famous features of the museum. I do remember that. I was there.

Visitors stand thoughtfully in front of them as if willing the paintings to reappear. In a way, they become their own exhibit, a reminder that while we value great beauty, we also destroy it. I don't know if that's what it reminded me of, but I will say, I wouldn't have noticed unless every tour guide said, this is what happened. And then I was like, whoa, that's neat.

Otherwise, there's so much stuff to look at. I simply would not have clocked what that was. I'd say there's, I'd say there are like two or three paintings that are like, oh, shit, there's a big missing hole in the wall. But for the most part, most of them, like the, all the de Gaas sketches, they're like less than a foot square. They were in a fucking like glass cabinet. You wouldn't even notice. But yeah, there's a few that are just conspicuous. But like even the built, like the building itself is so beautiful that like you could walk around there and just be like the entire time. Just eyes

like open. Yeah. And actually that's one thing. That's one thing about this case that you may have picked up on last time. Though I only briefly touched on it, speaking of being surrounded by beauty and masterpieces was that while some of the pieces that went missing were pretty valuable, like we lost Vermeer's The Concert and we lost a couple of the Rembrandts specifically, which make up the brunt of the $600 million valuation for the missing items, the storm on the Sea of Galilee and the two people standing next to each other. I forget what that one's called. Those are the three big ones that were missing.

The thieves who were there for all that time specifically did not steal a Raphael or a Botticelli there's a couple of each of those That's because he's a dick to the other turtles Yeah that's the problem Bada celli the turtle the box turtle Yeah Bada Shelley the turtle the box turtle With a third toe

The There also were other Chinese artifacts Besides the goo that they took That was like Like truly valuable Ancient Chinese artifacts didn't touch those Or even Tidians rape of Europa, which is arguably like the most important painting of any kind in the world, maybe

if you are like a student of like Renaissance painting, for example. I think probably the rape of Europa, even at the time, was worth more than all of the paintings that they stole put together. It's, it's so interesting because just thinking about the art world, like I'm not in it by any extent of the imagination, but I have dated a few people who are very in the art world. And like it doesn't make like the theft of art as a re. Like when you said a $600 million value like valuation all of it, that's to who. You know what I mean? Like who would you you can't just sell it. It's mostly for insurance purposes really. Oh sure. But like the valuation is based off of that you would in your mind to think, oh my God, they can make six hundred

million dollars. You can't just sell this stuff. Which means either A, they kept it. or B, they had a buyer to begin with, right? Right. Which is crazy because then it's like. Somebody who wanted something specific at least. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's so interesting because you can't just like if I went to your house, Alex and stole all your comics.

Like if I started unloading them on eBay, it would be very obvious. Yeah. And I would know like the other thing is like I would know immediately which ones I need to look for to see if they're missing. Yeah. Yeah. Like in the art world, there are only so many pieces of that, you know, quality and make. And at a certain point, if someone just has it, you'd be like, where'd you get that from?

And then you just follow the rabbit hole back down to who sold it to you. Right. And I don't like, what a crazy. Yeah, art theft is wild because you're only stealing the one. Right? It's one paint. So unless it's held by manet, it's Lord. Yeah.

Too much money in his manner in the basement where no one. can see but even that guy if he's bragging eventually someone's gonna be like i hate that guy i'm gonna let everyone know he stole it right it creates it creates like a chain of crimes like you can't anything you can't do anything having to do with it without committing like crime after crime after crime unless you have to like yeah you have me like i'm like how do you how do you have to be a mob you have to be a mobster level person with homie status with other mobster level and you have to all that's I imagine you maybe even you would try to flood with like some forgeries out there. You get forgeries out there to mess with the market as well while you have somebody who's buying the real thing.

But you flood it was four four degrees so nobody can really perfectly traffic. It's so hard to fake. Yeah. What do you do with it? Fake a painting that doesn't exist or like a lost piece by someone. That's the one thing. On the other hand, though, we have the other half,

a painting where we are holding the frame that it was cut from that you can then fit it back to to see if it's the real painting. Like now we're talking about some crazy forger. That's how we're saying. Springfield. How many like, but how many, the other part I think about is how many weird eccentric billionaire collectors that are abroad that people maybe have like a black market context sales to where they have a collection of stuff that they should not own, but they can't do anything about.

Like that's the only people I can think about. And you'd only steal it if maybe you knew they were in the market for it. But that's the problem with it is that. All art, for the most part, is designed to be shown off. The reason it exists, the reason you buy it is to say, I own that thing by that guy, and it's mine. And you can't have it because there's only one of them. That's the rich person.

The fungibleness of it is the rich part. And the reason why there are museums is because the rich guys are like, well, I don't want to keep it in my house. Put the museum as protected and then stick it in the Jesse Cox wing. You know what I mean? And we get to look at it. Like the loving public gets. gets a Mona Lisa and then you feel like

I'm sharing with the world That's a good deal actually That's how you stop your workers From burning down warehouses Yeah yeah yeah yeah But it's like You want to show it off So taking art and then not showing it off

It's like selfish It's very strange It doesn't make a lot of sense But that's why the question is like Did this person who orchestrated this theft want specific items or was it something like because we also know that they like started

sealing something being like fuck this one's too big or they took something down and then looked at it while it was down and was like oh we already took that one and like left it so like maybe they were just dummies like maybe the erratic sort of nature of it is just because they were dummies they might they might not have any knowledge

of the sort of peculiarities of the art world they might just be panicking does it never ascribed to malice what can be described to stupidity like right like they can they could just maybe not they maybe got a couple lucky grabs that's one of my hardest that's one of my hardest that's one hardest ones in 2026 let me tell you but uh also uh towards the end of the episode last week uh i also happened to hint uh kind to add some strangeness involving one specific piece that went missing which is edward manet's shee tortony which just in case you don't remember what that is it's this one right here it's the guy with the hat um and uh just like last time, again, everything I do and say is going to be in the show notes. So you can listen and get this if you just go to what you're listening to and look in the notes. But yeah, obviously, we don't know exactly what happened since the security tapes were swiped at the same time that the thieves unsuccessfully grabbed the motion tracker printouts. Like I mentioned last week, they did actually take the tapes.

But if you look at this map of the Gardner Museum from last time, which I included once again in the show notes, you can see it right here. you can see that while everything else that was stolen came from the Dutch room and the short gallery, which are two rooms that are not connected to each other on the second floor where they can track every movement of the thieves from the room, one room to the other room to the other room to the other room, to the other room, whatever. They can track all of that. Most of everything came from up there. Shaytor Tony comes from down on the first floor by himself in the blue room where normally

it's a small painting. It hung underneath another larger painting Manet did of his mom, right? But in this excerpt from a substack about Shea Tortoni, the ideal museum on substack, that Mathis is about to read, we will hear why that wasn't even the strangest part. The thieves also removed the frames of the Dutch paintings they stole, leaving them slightly damaged on the floor. However, for Shea Tortoni, the frame was discarded on the opposite side of of the museum in the security office.

No one knows why, especially since, unlike the Dutch paintings, it was not necessary to remove this frame to transport the painting given its small size. Right. And really, like, the topper on all of this comes from the fact that actually we do have the motion tracker data from that night, as I mentioned, because the thieves did not understand in 1990 that taking the printout is not the same as deleting the file. So they just opened the file again and saw all the movements. and so we know that the fucking motion senses were working properly.

And in that data, we see that the blue room, which contains that painting, was not accessed at all during the 81-minute heist. Not one time. Nobody went in there. Nobody went out of there. The guards were tied up. And when they looked, the only person to have come and gone from the room that entire evening was one of the two security guards on their rounds. but in this case the one who we're talking about is a literal pot smoking rock music playing acid-loving deadhead called Rick Abath.

Hell yes. Eric Abath, who had suddenly and already, like quite recently put in his notice by the time the robbery rolled around and was affecting that sort. He was still on the schedule, but his notice was in that time. Jesse, you were a teacher. Do you know what senioritis is? I do. Well, I'm aware. I think everyone who was a senior knows what senioritis is. That feeling that you don't really need to, like, nothing's real anymore. Like the structures of society are breaking down and you are like a god, like the, you see the matrix.

Oh, you mean the inherent problem with a two week notice? Yes. Yes, exactly. And so he was in that window already that night while he was working. Abath had been known as sort of a counterculture smart ass around work who had been very vocal over the. the nearly 12 months he worked there. He's one of those guys who's like miserable and anxious and he like works in the security system and he's like, this security system fucking sucks. What the fuck is wrong with you guys? And he's like pretty disrespectful to the leadership, but also he like works his ass off and like hits every like midnight shift every night that he's supposed to work.

Yeah. Technically he was the first YouTube commenter. Yes, exactly right. And he he was always talking about how lacks. the security was the museum. There was literally just one. There wasn't even a fail safe alarm. Like every museum around it at the time had the thing where like, if you don't sign in every

hour, at least the cops go, are you guys good? Yep. Right. And if they, you know, don't do that, then they come, right? Garden Museum did not have that. They had one button that you press. And, you know, because of that, you know, much to the security staff's chagrin, you know, they would like openly clash with him, even though he was kind of right.

And he said that he only kept the job because it was overnight. And it worked for his schedule where he could practice and play shows with his like, quote unquote, fish knockoff band, Yucaya, which was like making some waves in the local scene in Boston at the time in the Fenway. Like it's 1990. Don't forget. So Yucaya's like the band. And then we can talk about Lyle Grindle, great name, who is the security director.

He's the security director of the museum. He said that while Rick was great at first, eventually they became sort of like disillusioned with each other over like kind of who each other were. And that Rick would like go play a gig early in the night and then show up like drunk or high for his shift. And then one night, he even had a New Year's Eve party at the museum with friends after hours.

I don't know if you remember this. But last time I said that it is literally against the rules of your job to let anybody in the, entire museum at all when it is after business hours when you're in the security guard he would have been fired in like two seconds but the other guy on liked him you know what i mean like he's this kind of guy he's like a man of the people so a man of the people yeah like at work so the notion the notion of him clowning on lyle grindle by stealing shay tortony and leaving the frame on his office chair doesn't necessarily seem out of the question considering

the relationship that you know they have, right? It's like the book name. That's like a book name right there is like Grindle in the mysterious case of La Chay Torto. Yeah, Harry Potter fought that guy at some point. Yeah. I think he did. Yeah, yeah.

That's actually just a spell. La Grindle. Okay, so I'm not going to be watching that show. Okay, so in addition to the strangeness involving the blue room and Shea Tortoni, right? Abath also. briefly peaked out a different side door at the museum, or not on camera, but like on the motion detector, right? Like, it wasn't like hidden. He just did it. Like, uh, he said he did this regularly during his rounds to check and see if the door was still locked. But that was not part of his

protocol. And his coworker said that if he did that all the time, it would always show up on the fucking printout and that he would have gotten in trouble every single time and would have had to been not doing that long before March 1990 when he already had his two weeks in because he already worked there for like a year, which caused some people to guess that maybe he did it as a signal to somebody parked outside because according to the witnesses that we talked about at the beginning of the last episode, two guys in cop outfits would already be parked right out there to see him do that. So don't know. Also, the other guard who was supposed to be working that shift with him was an old man type guard, sweet old man type museum guard. Joe Mulvey,

who called in sick that night, which sounds fishy, but he was like an old man and it was the night of St. Patrick's Day. And I think maybe he just wanted to be home. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. His home was Flanagan's pub. Yes. Right. I'm just saying, like, I just think maybe it had something to do with that. And so he ends up being replaced last minute by Randy Heaston. who has never worked a night shift before. He shows up with his trombone because he thinks that, oh, I'm going to be in the museum. Like, might as well practice my trombone

because nobody's going to be there. Yeah, no, I get it. It's just a funny sight. You're just an eye in the museum, practicing his trombone. Right. I think of that meme with the dad and the kid and the, like, slamming the door or playing the trombone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Except it's them, but it's in the archaelary,

and they accidentally broke a few paintings. And they're like, oh, we got to make a look at the thing. bro, we're going to be in so much trouble. Oh no, Shaytor Tony, bro. Call those mobsters. Did we just crack this case? It's like Mr. Bean in the movie, but just with Shaytor Tony. So he didn't know the protocols, this trombone guy.

And strangely, Abath only went to go open the side door at the end of his rounds, but before he went to relieve him. So he did his whole rounds. And then on his way to go relieve him, he did this little quick door thing that he did. He didn't tell Heastened what he was doing or why he was doing it before he did it. He just went and did it. Also, the night after the robbery took place, the same day he had just been pulled out of the basement after seven hours in cuffs and tape, he went to a grateful dead show that he had tickets for that same night and never went back to work again. Oh, all right.

On the one hand, on the one hand, I get it. Like, you know, it was a more resilient generation. if I had just been trapped in a house or beneath a giant museum for eight hours taped up and I could either Yeah, you probably traumatize a little bit Yeah, like it's probably chill to like It's probably like chill to go see the dead right

And then he was like, are you a deadhead Alex? No. Look, I'm not trying to disparage anybody's like life choices. It's not like that for me to say But a jam band to me is like just everything about music that I like don't really care about like I understand like beautiful vibes a performance I like can get on the vibe like I like kind of jamming with people right like I get it but it's almost like you're just something about I think the fish fandom is like kind of like getting the jam vibe without having to jam and it's like fine okay but it's just to me not what I'm it's not to me like creative output in the same way that like a record is. The only fish Alex likes is real big fish. Fish, I love real big fish.

I love like a big fatty tuna, like one that's like a couple hundred pounds. You know, like the kind that you can get at like a nice jefferson market. You know what? I tried, Mathis. I really, I got a reference. I tried to bring back to 90s second wave scoff. But you know, it's fine. No.

It's the problem is like the kind of guy who is scone and his shoes off back in the day. The problem is I've been to several. Skankin. Real big guy. I've been to several real big fish shows when I was like young. and they were already like done they were already like in the in the Hawaiian shirt like dad zone like dad phase yeah yeah right 2001 they were only like yeah extremely big fish uh that you like like they're like like it's like the band was already gone yeah yeah yeah yeah it still had two

ease in it but it was like extremely good okay so we went to go see the grateful dead he never went back to work again uh but he maintained his innocence throughout his life. And though there was some weirdness in 2015 when he was seen on video footage from the previous night, St. Patrick's Day, I'm sorry, not St. Patrick's Day, the day before St. Patrick's Day. Allowing in and talking to a strange man at his desk overnight again, there was some weirdness. But it was eventually found to be another security worker on staff.

And basically the situation was that somebody knew had taken over the case in the FBI and they'd like looked at some stuff they'd never seen before in 2015. 15, like 25 years after the fucking robbery. And so they were like, well, what the fuck was that? And so they went to talk to him. And he was like, I have no memory of doing that. I don't even know what that was. What the fuck?

And then like the other people who worked there were like, oh, that's this guy. So what? What? What? It's like another guy on the on the security staff who it actually was. It was just there? Yeah. And it's still weird.

There's no explanation ever found. But it had been 25 years. There was no chance to figure it out. out and like, you know, like, it was more likely that this guy was coming to run some kind of errand that they just forgot about before they knew it was going to be the most important day of their lives the next day, right? Like, you just don't remember stuff like that. Like, I always, I listen to the beginning of cereal sometimes because I think it's just so good. I don't know if you ever remember it. But she's talking about like, what did you have for dinner last night?

What did you have for dinner two weeks ago? Like, what did you have for dinner two weeks ago? Are you sure? Who was there? Like, where were you? Yeah, like, you're like, fuck, you know. I don't know. Yeah.

And, yeah, we just don't know what the fuck that was about. And eventually, though, I would say he's very compelling as some type of suspect. And basically everybody agrees that he used to go around Boston bars and just like bitch about how bad the security was at the Gardner Museum. Rick or any of the guards on staff were found by investigators to be, quote, too incompetent and foolish to have committed the crime. and also and also i want to stop them yeah that's true i would say i'll also say rick died in twenty four at age 57 he was not a millionaire uh in boston who sold shay tortony he was a low-key chilled out teacher's assistant or something in vermont which is not what i would be doing if i stole shay tortony from the gardener museum so as much as it was just a drunk-ass decision

and they all stole this artwork and they got back and realized they had actually can't do anything with it because they didn't think that far. They were just too drunk and they just had to live normal lives with art hidden somewhere. I feel like eventually you'd think of something. Right? Like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I think that if they couldn't do anything with it, they would just say, oh, we found this. Someone dropped it off and we got it back. Amazing. No, I think immediately that my God be like, no, that make me fucking suspect immediately. I would just leave it somewhere if that was the case. I would just go drive to the Gardner Museum and I would leave it in the trash can in front of the front door

and then I would leave. Yeah, maybe. But yeah, he died. He was not rich. I don't think he stole the painting. So as much as he could have been involved, he probably wasn't. Though I still don't really have a good idea

of what happened to Shaytor Tony or how it possibly could have been stolen when neither of those two fake cops went anywhere near it. It doesn't make any sense to me, and I have no answer for you. So as annoying as it is to let go, if we, like the various agencies working on this case, decide to look for other suspects, eventually somebody is going to land on this guy, Brian McDevitt, just based on the details of his past alone. He's from Boston. He is a con man. He loves flags.

He fits the physical description for one of the suspects besides having wispy red hair, but that's easily covered up. And in 1981, he disguised himself as a FedEx driver, grabbed some handcuffs and duct tape, tried to steal a Rembrandt from the Hyde collection in Glens Falls, New York. So apparently after they kidnapped the real FedEx driver, they like hit traffic. And then their plan got fucked because the museum was already closed when they got there and that's how they got caught.

But at the very least, very good suspect to at least chat with because of how many details are exactly the same. And of course, he denies having anything to do with it, but he also wouldn't take a polygraph. So here is Jesse with more on McDevitt from the book, The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Bosner, which you can grab in the show notes, along with another book that's going to be huge for me today that I used a lot, Master Thieves by Stephen Kirchian, who was like, I think somehow related to the Netflix documentary about this because he's like in it a lot. So yeah, grab either one of those books from the show notes if you're interested in this

story. It's a very fascinating story. And here's Jesse with the quote about that weird guy. He was living in Los Angeles and trying to pass himself off as a famous author who was writing a screenplay about art theft. But McDevitt denied any involvement. He said that he didn't look like the Garner Thieves, that he had a red beard at the time of the heist. And when the FBI ran his fingerprints, they didn't match those recovered at the scene. Still, just as authorities began to press him on the robbery.

one of his former associates died of a drug overdose. Was someone murdered over the case? Well, if you ask me, it is pretty likely that somebody somewhere is dead because of this heist. But like the FBI, I don't really think it was McDevitt because really the two most serious theories about who's responsible for this crime. Both suggest the involvement of organized crime. And we'll just start with the one everybody's already thinking of when they think

of organized crime in Boston. and that is Whitey Bulger, who is not Italian, but Irish. And in the case of this heist, Wydie Bulger is just sort of automatically implicated because he was the boss of the Winter Hill Gang in Boston, which is just some generally serious customers. I think Johnny Depp played this guy in a movie one time. He did. And we talked briefly about Whitey Bulger in M.K. Ultra way back in the day. And honestly, he's going to be a topic we'll cover fully in the first.

future. Okay. Great. Yeah. He's like a huge, he's like Al Capone level. And according to Charlie Hill, who is a nearly 80-year-old retired Scotland Yard art thief expert, it was specifically because Wydie Bollger was working with the Irish Republican Army, aka the IRA. And here's Mathis with another quote about that from Bloomberg. For years, Hill insisted the Boston mobster, Whitey Bollger, had given the Gardner works to the Irish Republican Army, which is rumored to have trafficked and stolen art. When Bulger was arrested and the painting still weren't found, he revised his theory. Now he says that if Bulger was involved, it was only peripherally.

He says he believes the two original thieves, loosely affiliated with the IRA, but not acting on its behalf, traveled from Ireland to steal the art. Quote, two clues jump out at me, Hill says. One, the crime happened the night of St. Patrick's Day, which he points out. Yeah, obviously the Irish performed crimes on St. Patrick's Day. Oh shit, it's the Fourth of July, boys. It's the bird.

It's the purge. What she points out is an important Irish holiday. Again, very, very, you know, correlation equals causation there. Quote, two, one of the robbers used the word mate when he tied up the security guards. That's not a word Americans say. And then, quote, that's a word Irish say?

I don't know. I genuinely have not. No, I will follow up on that. I feel like that's not true, but I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. And then lastly, that's a new one, quote. That's a new one from Charlie, the gardener's chief investigator, Anthony Amor says,

I hadn't heard that one before. I have great respect for Charlie, but he thinks everything stolen ends up in Ireland. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like he was racist against the Irish. He's Scott. I mean, he's from Scotland Yard. So it's not like that far away that he's like locked into that one thing.

and then he thinks of Boston basically is like an extension of Ireland, which I guess in some ways there's a lot of Irish in Boston. I just, I don't think that they're like sending Irish art thieves to Boston to steal art for the Irish. You know, but before,

that's just a weird, very specific. I mean, like, I don't even know like, all right, I'm the IRA. England's right there.

I'm fighting against England. I need money, but do I need art? And the only reason why I need art is to get money. but if you can't sell it, then what the hell is the point? The reason people take art is because they want to have leverage when they get pinched to get out of jail or something like that or to store value sometimes. That makes no sense.

Like, then why do the crime in the first place? If you're stealing art for your future arrest for stealing art, like, okay. Well, we'll, you'll see as we get into this, what might motivate somebody to do this. But like, the idea is that if you, steal art, the idea is that it's like a get out of jail free card. So you've committed another crime and you're doing art theft as a cover for a bigger crime. Or you've got somebody in jail. Or you've

got somebody in jail and you want to get them out and you don't have any good way of getting them out of jail. So maybe you steal a priceless painting and say, I'll give it back if you let Whitey Bollger out of jail or whatever, right? I mean, okay. You know what I'm saying, right? I do. I feel like bribing the police would be an easier way of doing that. It basically is that, but without getting in trouble because it's like so precious to culture and like there's only one like you said like I don't know I know we probably said something like this before but man crime doing crime is like so much more work it makes the and like makes the it makes the cops into heroes it makes the cops into heroes you know what I'm saying right like they get to bring back the FBI like gets to

bring back the painting no I get I get it yeah it just like man this is so this is so much work yeah I know exactly thank you so much to Mint Mobile for sponsoring today's episode I'm going to ask you a question and I don't want you to get stressed about it, okay? When was the last time you actually looked at your wireless bill? Like really looked at it. Not the glance at the total sigh, cry internally and then pay, but I mean like a real breakdown because if you're still with one of the bigger carriers, odds are there's a bunch of stuff on there that you can't even identify. Line fees, service charge, regulatory recovery fees that feel kind of like the carriers just making up words to take more of your money?

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That's mintmobile.com slash chill. Up front payment of $45 for three months, five-gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first three months only then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra cement mobile for details this is awesome because i want to go into the italian mafia based theories because that's probably where we're going to end up today but before i do that i want to take a brief detour to talk for a moment about something else it's incredibly strange and frustrating that happened to the museum director who we briefly met last week and holly who this happened to like three this happened to like three this happened to like maybe like three, four months into her shit, something like that, like not very long

in this, this robbery occurred and it just like basically defined her career against her wishes and stuff. And she's done so much for the museum since this, you know, like she set up the artist and residence program and a lot of other cool things that that museum is famous for right now. But this happened to her four years after the heist. She's the director of the museum in April of 1994. One spring morning, while opening her mail, she finds a weird typewritten two-page letter. That's like a legal document type letter, which claimed to be from a third-party negotiator. They said that they did not actually know the thieves, but that they were contacted because the pieces were originally stolen as collateral to try and help reduce a prison sentence.

But that's something had happened, and that was no longer on the table. so they were reaching out to try and start the process of like giving them back to the museum and getting them somewhere that they could be. And to put Anne's mind at ease about the treatment of the paintings, they said they were being kept in a quote, non-common law country or county, excuse me, and that they were being stored properly in a way, I think country probably, and that they were being stored properly in a way that would not further damage them any more than they had already been damaged by, you know, being sliced and shit, right?

So, of course, this involves things like a multi-million dollar deposit in an offshore account. At the time, the losses were like 260 million. So they were like 2.6 million for us would be good, which was like within what the budget of the museum had to get the paintings back. So like, you know, not a crazy request. And then they wanted it in an offshore account. They wanted immunity for all parties involved. So there's definitely more to talk about.

but they also included lots of info about the heist that only the FBI knew. So they were at least somewhat legit, right? Like they knew shit. They were somebody. But after reading one specific line in the letter, which I have literally heard nothing about anywhere else except in Master Thieves, she decided she would consider it. So here's Jesse with that line. But again, I just want to stress up front that nothing is going to come of this,

that we can definitely consider it when we talk about what we think actually happened. And I just, I think it's fascinating. and it just makes my mind work. So, Jesse, just read that for me. The perpetrators were not dressed as police officers, as reported by the press, but were dressed as security guards. Yeah. So, like, I believe that if you put together all the clues that I'm putting out here for

you, that there is something like a definitive theory of this case that you can get. But I couldn't quite make it work, so I didn't do it. But just think about all these little details that I'm saying. Like, something seems to add up here. Can I? Really quickly. Yes. The guy who wasn't supposed to be there that was another security guard. Old man. Yeah. Yeah. In your, uh, like overarcing theory.

Yeah. Would, like if I was going to plan a heist and I was going to dress up as security guards, wouldn't it be easier to convince the security guards on duty that you were a guy who was going there to go get a thing as a security guard? And then everyone's like, oh, that was just the guy. He was here earlier. Yes. Yes. That's exactly what I'm, that's, there's something to that. Or that maybe like they took the guards and put them downstairs and just like took over for them way earlier than we think or something like that. Yeah. I mean that's like that's movie plot stuff right. That's like Ocean's 11 kind of shit. Right. But like it's a fucking crazy prospect that like sure doesn't really figure into this story that much anymore. But it's just interesting to me.

And anyway, so they tell her that if she's interested, she should not yet get the authorities involved. and instead print a one in front of the currency columns value for the Italian lira in the Sunday business pages in the Boston Globe. That's what they want to do, like a coded, like a coded message in the newspaper. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, I think so. I mean, yeah. So she, of course, immediately contacts the FBI. But they do help her put this one in the newspaper in exchange for exclusivity on breaking the story if it leads to the paintings being found.

And here is that. I put in the show notes. You can see the sort of like image of the one that they put in front of the Italian lira because they didn't want to misrepresent the value of the lira for like investors or whatever. So they just kind of put the one kind of in a place in the middle. You can see it. Yeah, it just literally looks like a one right printed on the thing. It's like not even the right font.

But it is like secret messages in a newspaper, which is a funny part of this. And it works. She got a second letter back. But the rider of the letter now expressed. significant hesitance at the prospect of a full government investigation into their identity and they never heard back from them again. And Holly never heard anything and it was clearly somebody who knew something, but just evaporated. Isn't that nuts?

Yeah. It's like total blue balls. I wonder if they knew that she went to the FBI somehow. Like maybe it was a mob person and they have somebody in the FBI and they knew that the FBI were now now involved or something. Oh, well. I guess that leads to nothing. So anyway, let's talk about the mob now.

Basically, as of like a few years ago when the documentary came out, which I think was like 2022, the story according to the FBI was that members of an organized crime org were responsible for this and that eventually the artwork was trafficked to Philadelphia where somebody eventually tried to sell it off in 2002. The FBI themselves still haven't named anyone, but people close to the story have identified pretty much everybody in this as individuals involved with a criminal operation being run out of a run-down

car mechanic shop in Dorchester, Mass, by one Carmelo Merlino under the Boston mafia boss Frank Salemi. So they're like not willing to say that, but anybody who looks into the case, like, it's very obvious who we're talking about. Apparently,

Merlino's boys had already had a line on the place as far back as a lot. like the early 80s. They case the place in 1981. Though at the time the main plan was like smoke bombs and then like grab shit while everybody was panicking. But some undercover FBI guys for like a different

thing found out about that plan like secondarily just by chance. And they were able to warn the museum and nothing ever like came of it. So crazy. One guy that the FBI found interesting who was close to Merlino was David Turner who was like a life criminal guy. he kind of had like a sweet face

he was kind of like got like a like a cute face and everybody kind of was like my boy with this guy you know what I mean my baby boy but they had heard from multiple sources that he may have had access to the paintings or at least special

knowledge of the paintings by 1992 so not even that far after the crime apparently Merlino himself tried to use the paintings to get of a cocaine related jam like a trafficking charge and he was like I have the paintings reduce my sentence, which, right?

I guess. You steal them as like prep so that one day when you get pinched, you have Storm on the Sea of Galilee to offer back to the, like, you be like, you guys can be the FBI guys that got back the Rembrandts. Just let me out of jail. And so that's the idea. And basically, he sends David Turner in to get these things because this guy allegedly helped him on several break-ins already that weren't the Gardner Museum.

So he was like, you're my guy. So we sent him to find them. But he heard they were in some church in South Boston, but he couldn't find them, David Turner. And because of this, even though he says he didn't do it. And Merlino doesn't seem like he ever had access to the paintings after all. And his credit card, David Turner's credit card, placed him in Florida that night, picking up a cocaine shipment. somehow the FBI still thinks he looks like one of the dudes in the sketch and they like him as one of the thieves. So here's the sketch.

I'm going to give you the sketch right here. So you can see. I think you guys remember these from last time. They're the cops. Okay. Yeah. Them's the cops. And then here's another picture of the cops next to a picture of David Turner.

And you can kind of see. You can kind of see how it. For people who can't see him. for my younger listeners, think the Mario brothers. For my older listeners, think Father Guido Sarducci. That's, that's, it's literally that. Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's somebody, that's my 50 plus crowd. I wasn't sure if that was, I was going to say, is it in living color or S&L?

But I think it's, no, that's 100% not in living color. he's in Casper right who I don't know maybe I can't remember I love that movie I can't remember you do Casper watch that one that's one of the ones he's seen yeah that's a major mainstream picture that's great I know I said one of the few that I saw as a child that's a major mainstream picture dude yeah yeah that's a major mainstream pick do you think he looks like him I mean the problem with the with the with the first one you sent it looks like he has a mustache and then the second one he doesn't have a mustache. Well, that's two, that's two sketches in the first one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but the one that I assume is supposed to be the same. Yeah, it's the same guy, but

has a mustache in one and no mustache in the other. Here's the thing. You could say, yes, potentially they look alike. However, the eyes, the guy's eyes are a little more squinty. And if you were going to, like, that's something you notice. You like notice when someone's eyes are huge like that. Right. Like big wet eyes like that. He looks like Polly D from the Jersey Shore. Yeah. Oh, the real version? Yes. Like his actual photo. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. He's got like a like a pit bull shaped face. Yeah. The drawing has like a. I don't think the hair and the eyes are just off. These doughy eyes. These big baby boy eyes. They give him. He doesn't have those eyes. Yeah. What's the guy? He's got very kissable lips. And in the picture's lips, not so kissable. Very thin. What's the guy in like dog what's the guy the actor who's like died young who's like in like only like a few movies but they're like the godfather and shit He looks like that guy

Can't think of his fucking name. I know no earthly idea Somebody who also worked at a video store and has ghost celebrities in their mind I understand what I'm talking about Yeah Use your own ghost library to help me find mine Uh anyway They like him so much as one of the thieves that in 1999 They have a separate sting operation where they catch him

planning to rob a Loomis A.B. Wells Fargo vault. And they bring him in and they tell him, all right, we know about the Gardner Museum. So we'll let you go if you tell us where those paintings are. And like he had no information for them. And it was so bad, according to him, that two years later, he claimed entrapment over it. He said that the FBI actually planned the whole sting just to get him to confess to the Gardner Museum. But he actually, but he actually lost and went to jail for that. So. oh well and also merlino dies in prison in 2005 for the coke charge so if his plan was to do that like painting leverage thing he fucked up uh and he died but turner was still in prison uh in 2010 though

turner from prison contacts another career criminal in that circle whose name is robert genteel everybody is named robert from now on sometimes i'm going to call him robert sometimes I'm going to call them Bobby. I'm so sorry. All three new characters that I'm going to introduce. It's nonfiction, so I can't change it. They're all called Robert. So he contacts Robert Gentile, who he knew through their mutual friend, another career

criminal, Robert Garante, Bobby Garante. He wants him to work with him on the outside. He's like, Bobby Gentile, will you help me? Will you cooperate with the FBI? Will you meet two of my ex-comic friends and try and get that paint. paintings back so that I can maybe get out of jail. Gentile does not want to do this. Nothing comes of it.

But this connection that they have is corroborated by the wife of Bobby Garrenti, the other Bobby that they both know. Her name is Elaine. She says that even though Bobby Garanti died of cancer in 2004, that's her husband, he had at one point owned at least some of the paintings and that when he started to get sick, she begged him to give them to Gentile for safekeeping because she did not want him to die and leave her with them. So eventually he did leave them with Bobby Gentile according to her. Gentile, of course, denies all this, but he also failed a polygraph test about it.

So a few days later, like smelling it, getting excited, lap in their tongues, the FBI raid his house. Like a few days later, they show up. They find a dugout hole in the. back of his house in a shed. And inside that hole is a hole. And inside that hole was a hole. And inside that hole was this big Tupperware thing. And inside that giant Tupperware thing was one handgun and a little bit of weed.

Hell yeah, brother. But something did not feel right about it. And as investigators looked around, they eventually also found a March 1990 copy of the Boston Harold with a front page story about the heist as well as. folded inside of it, a handwritten piece of paper listing the names of each painting, which was stolen and what they might be worth for sale. Okay. So that is a little.

That's pretty. It's pretty suspicious. To his credit, though, he says he felt framed by the FBI and that the list was actually a list that some broker wrote who was trying to use Gentile as an intermediary between themselves and Bobby Garrenti. He said, usually what was in the ditch was like, Little motors or something, but he couldn't really remember what was in there. Why he dug out all those holes and put, he says probably little motors, but he's not.

Yeah, that's probably. Yeah. Gentile ended up doing 30 months anyway for the drug charges that they got him on. Apparently, this dude, like loved food, Bobby Gentile. This is like something I remember from the documentary. He, it was either Gentile or Garanti, one of the Bobby's, love food so much that they would like, they had eventually, like, at the garage where they all worked, like, taken one of the, like, you know, the, like, downstairs.

Like, when you, when you're, you're at a mechanic, like, when, when they, like, have the little trenches where they can, like, go on where they go under your car. Yeah, yeah. He, like, took one of those and he, like, back converted it, cleaned it out, put a fridge and a sink and tables down there. And he was fucking making fucking tomato gravy, like, fucking every day. Hell yeah. And having, like, 90-year-old mobsters over and cooking fucking spaghetti.

Yeah, like fucking spaghetti for him and shit. Like, laid in a ladle in an out in a fucking pit under his shop. And they got him like, they got a like informant into that group. And then they like got him to like buy a bottle of drugs. You know, like a bottle of,

you know, they got him to buy a bottle of drugs. And that's how they got him. Right. Yeah, they had to find some way to get him a crime on him so they could get him arrested. Yeah. Yeah.

So he does feel a little bit bodied by the FBI. And you kind of make sense why. If you see it from the point of view of a mobster, you can see why he feels a little mistreated by the FBI. But it's also worth saying that he had 30 months, and he could have gotten less if he had had any information to give them at all about the Gardner heist, but he didn't.

So who knows? He ain't a rat? Either he's not a rat or he doesn't have anything to give them. Because I wouldn't sit 30 months in jail for fucking paintings. You know what I mean? Nobody's going down for paintings. Sure. You know, nobody's dying for no paintings.

Then there's rumors that David Turner, who's still in jail at this time, is writing a book about this thing, which he denies. And eventually, he's released in 2019, which if you want to watch that happen, literally happens in real time on camera and the Netflix doc, which is crazy. You just watch him walk out of prison, just dead ass in his sweats, just walks out of prison, which is like crazy. They still don't really know exactly what the fuck happened to those paintings, except that somebody in Bobby Gentile. house says that maybe there was someone in there one time and that maybe their dad got real upset when he got water damage one time. I don't know. It's nuts.

But anyway, meanwhile, separate branch of the story. Back in 1991 again, this guy Bobby Donati is murdered as part of a gang war. Okay. This dude is already like a big time mobster dude guy, badass dude. He's mixed up in all kinds of shit by the time that he's killed. he's got a lot of responsibilities and stuff. And a little before all that, like a year earlier at the time of the theft, his name comes up for the theft in the mouth of New England master art thief,

Miles J. Connor Jr., from jail, who worked with Donati in the past, said they even case the Gardner Museum together at one point, when he specifically pointed out Napoleon's flag finial is something that he thought was cool. And anyway, this guy also said, that Donati's partner on the job, David Houghton, visits him in jail and tells him they're going to use the paintings to get Connor out of jail, the art thief, which is something Connor himself had done with his own stolen paintings in the past. He says that he can help get the paintings back now that Donati's dead from the gang war, but that it's going to be at the price of his own freedom if he helps. So the FBI do not let him help. And instead, they follow his advice to go see this weird criminal antique dealer that's played by Jesse. C Cox and the drunk history version called William P. Youngworth. William P. Youngworth. I love that. He's like, he's like an art antiquities dealer of crime. He sounds insufferable. Yeah. And they eventually did some raids on him at.

Is this going to lead to me doing him? Because I'm very excited. Like no, I mean, no, but I was ready for like to do the voice. I was not a man of good words. The character was coming together in your mind. I was over there. Planning like yeah. I wish. God, he's going to be slurring. I wish.

I wish. But he's apparently not actually like a man of great words. But let me tell you, if I was wasted and I was telling you what happened and they asked me to put words in his mouth and you were on set dressed as him, you do a great job. Man, that sounds great. This extra FBI attention that Youngworth is getting draws the notice of a journalist called Tom Mashberg. And after talking with Mashberg for a while, according to Mashberg,

Youngworth, this is around 1997, Youngworth eventually drives him to a warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and shows him a tube with the storm on the Sea of Galilee painting inside of it. And it even looked all cut on the edges and crackily like the real thing would look. And in his article about it, he did not give Youngworth's name. He kept him anonymous. And in return, Youngworth offered that it was actually five guys who did the crime, not two, and that Denati and Houghton were,

in fact involved in the crime. However, FBI raids of the various locations that he mentioned as safe houses that they stored these paintings yielded absolutely nothing. Youngworth gave Mashburg paint chips eventually that were dated to the era that these paintings were painted. But experts did not necessarily match the oils used on storm to these chips. So they were like, well, they're right for the era, but they probably weren't from that painting. more chips are given.

They are also not from Storm on the Sea of Galilee, but the experts think maybe these chips are actually coming from the concert by Vermeer. But France, they're dating back a certain amount of time. You're like, well, they're not from this painting. It's like, what are the odds that they are getting painting chips from like,

it may not be the Sea of Galilee, but clearly it's coming from the person who has the Sea of Galilee. Right, like you would want to, ah, it's so weird. Yeah. Yeah. So they think maybe the,

the chips come from the concert by Vermeer. But frustratingly, nothing conclusive ever comes of this. And it just kind of that, that story also evaporates. Finally, in 2014, the author of Master Thieves, one of the books that I looked at for this, Stephen Kirkian, contacts Bobby Donati's superior in the mob, Vincent Ferrara, who told him that Merlino and his crew at the car garage have nothing to do with it, really. And that it's actually Bobby Donati, who set up the job to get him out of jail, Vincent Ferrara, his own boss, because he was afraid of getting killed in this gang war, which he ended up getting killed. And he thought that getting the paintings would help him get Ferrara out of jail, which would give him some protection. And the reason

that, according to this story, the reason that Bobby Garrenti ended up with the paintings was because Bobby Donati and Bobby Guarante actually were friends. And he was supposedly giving the paintings to Guaranti to hold on to until things blew over because he didn't want to be killed with the paintings, right? And so nobody's sure exactly what happened, even though we kind of probably know who's involved. And though we probably know where the paintings were at some point. because, you know, it seems like the same names keep popping up in all these different ways. The FBI still has it said exactly what's true and what's not. Yeah.

So we definitely don't know where the paintings currently are. And though this story is crazy and awesome, that last part really does kind of suck. And anyway, I'm going to ask you guys what you think happened in a second. But before I do, here is Mathis with one last tantalizing, frustrating, implicating quote that is also just separately an insane thing to happen. From the book Master Thieves. Here you go. Just before the robbery took place,

Danati walked into a Revere Massachusetts social club called the shack, run by his close friend Donnie the Hat, Rockford. That's Mathis' drunk history character, by the way. Doni the hat, Rockford? Donati carried a large paper bag under his arm, and Rockford insisted that Donati show him what was inside. When Donati resisted, the larger and tougher Rockford approached him and grabbed the bag and ripped it open.

Two police uniforms fell out of it. What the hell? Have you joined the other side? Rock first shouted at the Nadi playfully and grabbed the taser stun gun he usually kept beneath the shack's front counter. He pressed the taser playfully in the Nadi side and pulled the trigger. Yeah, playfully. Playfully pulled the trigger.

Playfully tasering him playfully. Don't tasing me, bro. It must have been the first. I like it too much. That's how you get out of a good, like if you're getting jumped or something or tasered, just pretend to a lot. Oh, yeah. That'll stop real quick.

There's some quote about David Byrne getting mugged. It's somebody who like knows David Byrne being like, David Byrne is such a goofy motherfucker man. One time we got mugged and he got pulled into the bushes and he was like, oh no. What? No, don't mind. Yeah. It must have been the first time Rockford used the taser as the blast of the gun did quite a number

on Donati burning right through his coat, shirt and into his skin. Denotti never explained what he was doing with the uniforms, but at least one person there that day remembered the odd encounter with the taser gun. And this source said that there was one other person with Denati at the shack that day. Bobby Guarante. Bobby Guarante. Yeah. So with that, with Bobby,

with Bobby Denati being seen right before the crime with a police with a bag with two police officer uniforms in it. With Bobby Guaranti, what do you guys think happened here? Why are all of these things happen? Why are all these things like so weird? Why are all these compelling things here? What's up with that guard? It seems like I think your your angle with it being like an organized grab for maybe

some of the safekeeping future date, get this guy out of prison, seems to be the most plausible, especially with who seemingly is clearly involved in this stuff. That feels like the right, the right theory that fits the easiest here. It doesn't feel like my original joke of like a bunch of dudes who got really drunk and decided this was a great idea. I mean, I feel like for me, right, like you think about the guards, you get that the guards, you get a sense that the guards were like almost like capitalism, post capitalism type employees where like they love each other like kitchen nightmare as employees where they like hang tough with each other. but actually like their boss just is like not a real person and sucks. And so they do kind of break the rules all the time and do all this stuff, right?

And so if maybe this dude was an accomplice, right? Maybe he was an accomplice in the sense that he got approached. They said, hey, let us in. You're going to be our little plan, our little man on the inside. you don't do anything tomorrow thousand bucks will be like chilling somewhere for you you know 10,000 bucks maybe some not too crazy

and uh you know never talk of this again right and then whatever happens happens you know we some one person said there were five people involved and that some of them were security guards like maybe that person was just being cute about what was really going on like there's like there's a way to twist everything a little bit

so that it all kind of becomes one story with all these different players in it. You can see how one guy thought that he was getting the painting so he could get his friend out. And the other guy thought that he was getting the painting so he could get his friend out. And that actually both reasons were kind of like personal reasons

because he was actually kind of scared that he was going to die or whatever. And you can see how him trying to get rid of the paintings before he's going to be killed leaves the paintings with Bobby Guarante. And you can see how Bobby Guarante, who is then dying of cancer, ends up giving them to Bobby Gentile

for a, minute and you can see how Bobby Gentile just wants to get rid of them and maybe eventually did or maybe they all got ruined and he burnt them. You know what I mean? Like whatever it is, it could be. The longer went on, the harder it is to attract these things. Like that's the thing. It's just like time does its thing. They change hands. And I think potentially, I think that's probably what they did. I like that theory of just being like, listen tomorrow, don't do anything. We'll pay you well. Never speak a word of it and you'll be taken care of. Not suspiciously well. well enough where it keeps his mouth shut.

Where it's like a bag of cash and you're going to be good for like two years, right? I would. You get a bag of cash and a threat. Like, here's your gift, but if you open your mouth. Yeah. Why did he quit, right? Yeah. Like, it almost wraps up too nicely in that theory, which is why I refuse to believe it.

Because it feels like an answer. And I have to, I have to assume that detectives, police, FBI would have also. Hit that wrap up point. A lot of the people are dead, though. A lot of the, like, like, I feel like what happened here is that, like, you know, people talk about the clean getaway. I do not think this was like a clean getaway, but I think so much shit was going on in everybody's lives and that maybe there was some kind of true boner that happened here

somewhere along the way. Like, some, like, maybe really it just was like, oh shit, they got wet, you know? Or like, or like he stole the paintings to get his guy out of jail. and then he got killed. And then all of a sudden there's these, you know, paintings, you know, and they, we got to get rid of them, you know. And then suddenly, oh, shit, these are a lot hotter paintings than I thought they were. But we're going to do.

But we talked about Irish mob and Italian mob and like everyone named Robert under the sun and police officers and security guards. And like, there's just way too many like loose threads to pull on. yet I think you could make a case that you are absolutely correct. I think that's the problem. I don't think we're off that far off from what happened, but I don't think there's something, there's something clearly missing.

Yeah. I want what I like what we would get like in like a true crime breakdown of like a serial killer. I want the cops not their side, but like I want to know, do they mishandle this early on that they fumbled this? Did they fuck up along the way where like they didn't treat it with as much like important?

because like, you know, that's how we learn serial killers go for as long and like their crimes last as long as forever. Does this in that category where the cops did not, they just fucked up early on, which caused it to go on long enough where they did change hands and would it not have been a clean as a crime as it's presumingly to be if it wasn't for maybe the cops fucking up early or something. There's, I mean, this like sort of like layer of tessellation or whatever you want to call it of this, like this is like one layer. if you do read the Gardner Heist and Master Thieves and you go watch, this is a robbery on Netflix, and you read the like four or five like really good articles out there that are about this crime, and you get that all together. There is an even more frustrating layer of probabilities and almost, even lower than this that you can get into. And there is a little bit more procedural knowledge about what went on with the cop investigations.

You know, like the reason I didn't put it here is just because I feel like to give you the narrative of like all the players and what they maybe had to do with this. I think we have to go this far into it and no further or else the message starts to get at this point you need to pick a theory and look into it. I think like other way. Yeah, you'd probably go like a month plus on this if you wanted to go all as deep as you could. Yeah, exactly. And I, you know, I don't think the Ireland theory is that hot at this time. But like other than that, like the letter writer, that's something for sure like there's a lot of things going on why did that person who wrote that letter who knew details the FBI only knew say that there was they were dressed as security guards and not police officers

the only people who saw them dressed as security guards i mean i'm sorry the only people who saw them dressed as police officers were the guards but if they guards because the guards are the ones who said they were police officers right so like why would the guards say they were police officers if they were dressed like guards yeah it's it's there's there's like enough like weird vagueness to some of this like and just like even if the guards in on it even if even if the guards were in on it why would they lie unless to cover up the fact that they were all dressed like guards and they have everybody looking for cops but it could just be that they think it's cops because those two people outside the museum

saw them yeah because we didn't go back like there was a fight yeah right like there was a whole scene outside of it yeah yeah so that seems like a whole like if you're gonna do That's why it seems very Ocean's 11 because it seems like a plan on top of a plan on top of I honest look this is what I believe now I think it was just like what's the second one where the French guy comes and he's like you thought you could do me then the ocean

that's happened two separate gangs showed up to steal that night and it went down that's my theory the security guards the same day that the Irish mob tried to steal or like the same day that the Italian mob tried to steal the paintings

the security guards decided to steal Shea Tortoni. And maybe, I mean, it's, it's an interesting, I mean, it's an interesting theory because and not because the Irish only do crimes on St. Paddy's Day, but if you're going to do it, you want a day where people are, like, drunk in New England and, like, people are not, like, paying attention. People, like, the cops are busy dealing with drunk people on the street in St. Paddy's Day out.

And it's, like, if you're not from that area, like, St. Patty's Day in the Boston area is fucking a nightmare. It is chaos all night long. Yeah. They are just, people are trashed. It's cops are out there dealing with other shit. So if there is a night, they want to do this. Absolutely.

Like, like, but like if you're going to be a night where you're going to, we're two independent groups come together to be like, the cops will be too busy. We'll have time. That is a day. That is a great movie.

It'd be a great movie. You know what I mean? Right. Hey, write that down. Listen, there's a Tommy karate movie out there. Yeah.

Is it Tommy karate movie being made out there? We'll now will this as a movie to be made out there. This is, yeah, pub crawl. You can name it. Pub crawl. I don't know what you can name it. Yeah, you can call it Master Thief Theater.

Oh, shit. Call it Luck of the Irish too. Yeah. No. Not at all. There was also something about the IRA art thieves. I think it was the IRA ones. Somebody out Europe way was like IRA thieves always triggered the fire alarm the same

night that they do the hit because it like puts you on edge and then yes indeed the the fire alarm was tripped the night before the the theft like there's there's all these crazy things that all happened that like if there was like three irish guys five momsters and and like three security guards that all tried to do this like i like it's like a dm running three separate games and bringing all their kids bringing all their games together and one giant crossover event it's the start no it's start of a campaign. Like you all went to go rob this guy and now you're on the run together. Yeah. The real, the real, the D&D one would be like it's a mummy. Like it turns out, it turns out there's a mummy in the museum. Yeah, you went to go rob a starship and it turns out to his palpitines.

Shout out to the Lando comics for being the best ones. The end. Dude, Charles Sewell, where are you? Anyway, that's the Gardner Museum heist. It is another one of our non-Boston season, Boston seasons. shoutouts, prayers to the Boston baked Bean Boy who is with us in spirit and in reality. If you liked the, if you like the Mantis shirt idea, we hear you talking about the Bean Boy, the Bean Boy print. We love the Beanboy art as well. We're looking into it. I love the Bean Boy. We love the Bean, we love the Bean, we love the Bean, we love the Beanboy.

They tell me. I want to do some kind of dark, some kind of. of night light, some kind of dark light. I want to do, I want to do like, like some kind of, some kind of black light poster of the bean boy. That'd be cool. Yeah. So I like that.

I thought you genuinely were going to make a nightlight. I would love a little, little tiny little bean boy nightlight. When you plug it in, he lights up at night and that's all you see like in your home in the dark. That's a what is it called? He should be a, um, a diffuser too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do the poster. He's like, without the nightlight thing,

he's just given the peace sign, but under the red light or whatever, he's holding a joint. It's just too good. It writes itself. The new merch is coming. There's all kinds of stuff. Thanks for listening.

More episodes coming soon. Next week. The beginning of the, the Salem witch trials next week. Mathis, Mathis, the real Boston season. The real Massachusetts. It's, yeah, and I'm excited for the Salem Witch trials. History is a crazy.

That's a big one. To research. Oh, it's a big one. The hardest thing I've had putting that together is there's infinite things to talk about and what to cut out and what not to cut out over the course. Because it's, there's just so many stories and so many historical figures involved in it all. And it's just like, I will not be, no matter how many episodes we do, we just won't be able to do full justice to the Salem Witch trials like as a whole.

I have to pick and choose and know that going in. And I'll repeat it next week. Well, we'll talk about it. That's the trouble with history in general, I think. Yeah, this is too much. It's infinite goldmine of just people that permanently affected the world forever on from that point on. Yeah. Anyway, minisota head gang.

Minnesota head. Missing scientists, maybe. Who knows? We'll talk about it. We appreciate your love. You'll see next week. Goodbye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night. enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside, and after a few moments, I hear my wife go, holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dashed back outside. She's looking up in the sky and fall. I look up to you, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky.