Haunted Cosmos - The Empty Frames of Palace Road (S8, E2)

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

Thirty-six years later, the case of the Isabella Stewart-Gardner Museum heist is unsolved. It is, many argue, the greatest and most successful art heist in human history.What is it about heists that peaks our interest? Why do these unsolved mysteries draw us in? Find out in this latest episode of Haunted Cosmos!New Haunted Cosmos shirt available for a limited time! - Get it here!Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes and monthly Livestreams, by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosThis episode is sponsored by: Jake Muller Adventures is an immersive, mysterious, and engaging audio drama. Use code "HAUNTED" to claim 10% off all digital downloads. https://www.jakemulleradventures.com/haunted Indigo Sundries Soap Company - Go to http://indigosundriessoap.com and use code HAUNTEDCOSMOS for 10% off your whole order!Stonecrop Wealth Advisors! Go to this link to check out their special offers to Haunted Cosmos listeners today. https://stonecropadvisors.com/hauntedcosmosTalk to Josh at Volenté Creative to get help you with your branding and marketing: https://volentecreative.com/ncpChronicles of the Elohim is a line of premium action figures Visit https://kaleolegends.toys and pre-order your figures todayWhite Tree Solutions can help your company’s data problems. Call William at 952-209-9638 or visit WTSData.comGray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order. https://graytoadtallow.com/Buy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!If you're a Christian business owner who wants to reach thousands of like-minded people and grow your company, we'd love to partner with you. Email us at [e-mail] Support the show

This episode is brought to you by Jake Mueller Adventures, a thrilling Christian audio drama. It was late December in Stockholm, Sweden, already night by 455 p.m. An early winter chill is accompanied by the smell of rain. The clouds blocked the moon and stars, making it especially dark. Yellow reflections from streetlights spilled across the puddled walkways. Strands of Christmas lights on storefronts decorated the ground with an array of color. Faint holiday music hung in the air, and through it all could be seen umbrellas bobbing up and down and could be heard the tapping of rain on their canvases.

Occasionally, a rambunctious boy jumped into a puddle and filled the air with laughter. Everyone walked with collars turned against the cold. Suddenly, though, an explosion echoed from someplace in the city's northern edge. Soon thereafter came a second explosion. Fire consumed the streets and threatened the buildings. Everything turned to a confused mess of noise and motion. Children cried and parents picked them up to spread somewhere else. Men shouted and shielded their women.

Sirens soon began blaring, all racing toward the blasts. Where it had been only black, the sky was now a pulsing orange. Further south, though less panicked than this, people stood still in fear for what might be next. Everyone stared northwards, just waiting. The National Museum of Art, on the edge of a canal in the neighborhood of Normal, was scarcely filled with visitors and security, and security, all of whom watched the fires glow from the windows. While they looked, a trio of

men came through the south door. They emerged from the dark silently, masked and armed. The leader carried a folding stock sub. He was flanked on either side by his team who brandished simple handguns. Their distraction worked flawlessly. Once security finally noticed the intruders, it was far too late. Everyone was already staring down the barrels of the guns. They shouted threats of harm and gruff tones, and seconds later, all of the guards and visitors were prostrate. Their hands cupped on the backs of their heads. Just three paintings, that's all they cared about. Two by Renoir and one by Rembrandt.

As suddenly as they'd come, they were gone back into the night. Sirens still blared far away, and some were only beginning to scream toward the gallery. The men poured buckets of nails and deep piles across the road in their injuries. The rain was a happy accident for them, because the witness meant police would have a harder time seeing the abhorred. instructions and headlights. The men slunk toward the canal always in the shadows. They jumped the railing and landed in the boat that was waiting for them. They were far away when police finally arrived. A year later, all three men and their accomplices were arrested and convicted.

It took another four years after that for all of the paintings to be recovered from the hands of drug traffickers and black market fences. Now admittedly, this story does not contain any sort of high strangeness, at least not in the paranormal or supernatural or supernature. natural sense. But it is nonetheless highly strange. It's a crime thriller in real life. It's history which proves, as real history frequently does, that fiction is merely trying to keep up. A shadowy band of thieves, an undercover sting operation, an international drug syndicate, it's all these things at once. It's fascinating. And that, fascination and everything like it, is exactly what this show is in the business of exploring. Simply put, who doesn't love a good heist story?

And this one, this abridged telling of the National Museum heist in the year 2000, is up there with some of the best. But it's missing something that the best heist stories hold on to. Lingering mystery. The story's biggest flaw is that it is complete. The perpetrators were caught, the art was found. What we need is a story that leaves us hungry for more, a story that keeps us leaning forward and wonder, even after it's done being told. And we have just the thing. Early in the morning on St. Patrick's Day weekend in 1990, the streets of Boston and all of her suburbs are revelrous.

Partiers run up and down the narrow streets of Old Town. All the townhomes and row houses are packed with honking cars and shouting people and blaring speakers. Green streamers cover the ground and clouds of glitter float around the night. There's no gap in the drone of sirens ringing always somewhere, close enough to be heard. Everything smells of vomit and sweat. The whole city is one pulsing mass of life in its basest form. At this hour of the night, the celebrants are exclusively debauched, drunken and crude. There are few decent persons left in the waking world, except, of course, for the police, Boston's finest.

In one of their finest hours, and they are sanctuaries for the handful of weary and wronged, supplicant pilgrims trapped in that wretched place. This back-an-alien scene, as was said, reaches far. And on Palace Road, there is a young woman drinking and dancing on the side. She looks across the street and watches two men step out of a parked hatchback. They are dressed in police uniforms. They begin walking north toward the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Art. In her stupor, she thinks little of it and quickly forgets.

One 20 a.m. The pair of would-be officers step up to the side door of the museum and ring the buzzer for entry. This connects them via intercom to one of the two security guards on night duty, 23-year-old Rick Abboth. On the small screen at his desk, a hazy video feed displays the men outside. Abboth sees they are policemen and respectfully asks how he can help them. They reply that they received a call about a disturbance on museum property, that they need to be admitted right away to perform a search.

Abbott assumes a drunk has hopped the fence somewhere on the lawn in a neighbor saw. The side entry foryer is a tight security checkpoint. A single fluorescent bulb flickers over the thin veneer of stained carpet. Abboth sits right next to the threshold of the entrance to the museum proper. A wall of one-way glass separates him from the foyer. Once the men are inside, Abbott slides a viewing window open. The two officers ask if other security is working with him that night, and the young man nods and picks up his radio,

calling for Randy Heston, a 25-year-old, to come back from his rounds. A second later, the radio comes back alive, and Heston confirms he's on his way. Abith unlocks the next door, and the officer steps fully now into the museum. museum. This is his first really good look. One of the men is quite tall and the other quite short. There's something off about the taller man. His thick mustache appears too black and Abboth swears it's tilted. For a single second he wonders if it might be fake, but just as the question

comes to mind, the shorter man interrupts. It's as if he somehow knows that Abbot is doubting. He says that Abbotus looks familiar, like he's seen his face on a bulletin before. And he wonders aloud if he's a man they have a warrant to arrest and commands Abith to come around and offer a form of identification. Abith does so. In doing so, he walks about 15 feet away from the only panic button in the entire museum. Once he steps totally free of the desk, things start to happen fast. The shorter man, who's very stout, grabs him and shoves him face against a wall. Before he can react, one of his wrists already has a cuff tied around it. Abboth finally struggles, but it's too little too late. All he can do is groan and shout, but even this is weak. The pressing makes it difficult for him

to breathe. A second later, both wrists are cuffed. The man lets go and Abith sinks to the ground in defeat and fear of what may come. He looks up, just as Heston walks in. Heston is not a foolish man, but he is also unfamiliar with the night shift and its protocols. He's overall newer to the museum. him. He therefore still carries an aloofness about him as if he learns something new everywhere he looks on the job. This is the posture with which he enters that little lobby area. He's unsuspecting. The taller of the intruders is on him in a rush. By the time he goes to warn him, he's already coughed and on the floor. Abbott thinks of saying something, but thinks better of it. He just hangs his head. The thieves stand in front of them with their arms crossed. Neither guard looks up. They just

stay downcast, studying the black boots of their captors from their periphery. And then they hear the men explain their whole plan, alternating line by line as if they rehearsed it. They're going to spend the next hour or so robbing the museum in whatever way they like. The guards are not to cause any problems, nor are they to tell the police any details of their ordeal after the fact. This instruction is bolstered, of course, by both a threat and a promise. For the threat, the thieves assure the guards they know where they live,

having taken their driver's licenses. As for the promise, both guards can expect a handsome reward in about a year's time should they comply. They then wrap Abiths and Heston's eyes and mouths with duct tape before leading them into the basement. They handcuffed them there, one to a pipe and one to a workbench, and after waiting a few minutes to make sure the police are not coming, the thieves set about their heist. Thanks to infrared motion sensors, the sequence of the theft is known with a high degree of confidence. But to appreciate what these men did, it's worth knowing a little bit more about the layout of the museum. Built between 1898 and 1901, the museum bears the name of its benefactor, Isabella Stuart Gardner. It was a modern take on a Renaissance Venetian palace.

A four-story brick square serves as the skeleton. Outside, the eye is drawn to the earth stone stucco and terracotta roof tiles. Symmetrical arched windows give the place a feeling of moderated affluence and old money. Inside, by contrast, the museum is genuinely extravagant. Every story in every room is purpose-built and furnished to evoke the highest artistic affection, and everything comes from Isabella's own private and carefully curated collection. Perhaps more than any other art museum in the world, Isabella's is a pure, ornamented outworking of its founders' love from mankind's own ornamental craft. Working down from the top, the fourth floor

contains small galleries and an old residence. The third floor houses rooms dedicated to Dutch art, to Raphael, to Gothic pieces. The second floor is overpowered by the famous blue room, but there is also the Italian room, and a room full of priceless eastern tapestries. All of these galleries and connected hallways converge on the defining feature of the first floor, and indeed the museum's Pieste des Resistence, the courtyard. Stepping on the mosaic tiles and leaning against the stone railing transports one into a vision of history's highest luxury. One feels as though he's witnessing something of great import,

the preservation of man's highest glory distilled into a single four-cornered room, the magnificence of Babylon's hanging gardens, of Egypt's precision, of Europe's grandeur, and particularly of France's instinct to saturate everything in abject beauty. Everything is supported by this Edenic garden, trickling fountains, the brushing sound of leaf against leaf, and the scent of exotic flowers whose delicacy perfumed the air. It is a lovely place. This is no sterile museum. It's not the modern cage of white walls bereft of humanity. It's a distinctly and richly human place. These thieves,

then, were not brutes, unfamiliar with higher art forms. They were confident they could navigate the almost labyrinthine floor plan, that they could work undaunted by the richness, of every square inch of the place, and they were right. Beginning on the second floor, focus turns to the Dutch room. The theft begins with the removal of two Rembrandts, the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and a lady and gentleman in black. These are the works the heist is best known for. Their loss is in some respects the most tragic. Ripping canvas echoes through the darkness. The masterpieces are cut from their stretchers, rolled and stored in whatever vessels the intruders use. They then attempt to remove a self-portrait by Rembrandt, but give up on the piece and leave it

leaning unceremoniously against a cabinet. They remove a flink, a Vermeer, and a bronze Chinese vessel all from the Dutch room before moving on. But why these things? Why not other things? They then go to the short gallery and set to work removing a Napoleonic flag, but something stops them from taking it. Perhaps some of the housing screws are too stuck and are costing too much time. So they settle for pilfering the flags, Eagle Fenial. Lastly, from the short gallery, five Degas sketches are taken. And finally, from the blue room on the first floor, Amenae, entitled Chez Tortoni, is ripped away from frame and stretcher. The pair is now satisfied. They go to the security director's office to stage the loot and make final preparations for departure. Throughout, the museum remains dark and quiet.

Having set all the pieces there, both men go check on Abith and Heston in the basement. They ask if the guards are comfortable before returning to the office, corrupting the footage from the museum cameras, and destroying the printout data from those motion detectors. They do not know, however, that the same motion-capture data is backed up on a local hard drive. It takes them five minutes to carry the art to their car. By 2.45 a.m., they're gone.

A crown jewel of sub-creation, of man's rearranging his world to beautify it, stands wounded and bleeding. Even with the sun's rising, it's dim and mute. the museum is diminished. Hours passed before the next security shift arrives. When neither Abboth nor Heston respond to the request for entry, the security director is called.

He enters with his own set of keys, finds the security desk empty, and calls the police in a panic and huff. It takes another five minutes for the police to arrive. Soon enough, Abbott and Heston are discovered in the basement. The museum is then closed. Investigators are called in. A fruitless effort begins.

An effort that will go on to consume strength and careers of many hopeful detectives. Thirty-six years later, the case of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist is unsolved. No arrests have been made. No works have been recovered. It is, many argue, the greatest and most successful art heist in human history. Ben, have you heard of the Jake Muller Adventures? What's that? A Christian audio drama. Zombies, vampires, global conspiracies, and faith at the center. I was up all night on the edge of my seat. Is it fully immersive? Sounded. effects and cast and everything? Yes, full cast, cinematic sound. It's like you can hear the danger

coming. Ooh, so kind of similar to Hanna Cosmos, but know your mom jokes and more drama? No mom jokes yet. But yeah, tons of drama. So it's kind of like your mom then? Not quite. Check it out at jakemulleradventures.com slash haunted for 10% off. You must begin a perilous journey to find treasure in the mountains. Along the way, be weary. demons, vampires, and ghosts. They will lead you astray and corrupt the wealth you seek. You'll be assigned a personal guide, Stonecropp wealth advisors. They will help you find the treasure and fight against the corruption.

Are you acting like you're in a movie trailer again? This is supposed to be a simple ad to tell people to use Stonecropped Wealth Advisors to invest in faith-based portfolios instead of pagan companies. Visit Stonecroft Advisors.com slash Hawnham Cosmos to get the demons out of your portfolio today. Investment advisory services offer through Stonecroft Wealth Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the U.S. Does your outdated website give your visitors sleep paralysis?

What? Is that a thing? Are you haunted by that logo your uncle's pet werewolf made? Brian, what are you talking about? If you're ready to level up your brand and website, you need to talk to Josh at Valenti Creative. What's up, guys? Josh, my guy.

What the heck? How did you just appear? Head to valentecreative.com slash NCP to talk with Josh about your brand and website. Oh, oh, this is an ad that we're doing right now? Wait, how did he teleport into this room? Ben, I wish I could tell you, but this is an ad. You have to go to valentecgrative.com slash NCP and reach out today. Do you want a six-pack?

No, I don't mean abs and I don't mean beer. Now, I'm talking about the six-pack you really want, a six-pack of masculine-smelling bars of soap from Indigo-Sundry soap company. And if you're buying masculine soap, then we all know your beard needs some grooming too. And that's why they sell a beard care bundle with beard. oil, balm, and mustache wax. Get the soap and the beard bundle at endigosundry soap.com and subscribe for 10% off your order. You know what time it is.

It's time to haunt the Cosmos. Welcome back. 147. No, 247. Not literally. I mean, it's time. It is time as the listener gets to this stage of the episode to be welcomed to the episode here 20 minutes into the episode. Welcome listeners, season 8, episode 2. We're back. Evan, hit the light. He did it quick this time.

I know. That was awesome. Evan, hit the other lights. Oh, is there a storm outside? Yeah. Beware people watching this episode. Thunder noises right at that exact moment. Okay, excellent.

Or just right now. Hey, do you know what I'm excited about Ben? What? Stealing. Yes, me too. Who doesn't love literal theft? Oh, a clue. A clue.

Hey, by the way, do you want to know what? the best line in the National Treasure Corpus is. The whole corpus? Between the two movies. That's tough. What do you think? The funny, it's the funniest line. Okay. It's from the first one. Okay. It involves the bifocals. Okay. Do you know where I'm going to, when you say it, but. Okay. This is the funniest line in National Treasure. Maybe in Nicholas, that's saying something. Maybe in Nicholas Cage's whole career is when they pull out the bifocals and they dump them out. and it's in their bifocals. Yeah.

And he goes, and he goes, oh, it looks like some kind of ocular device. Glasses. Thank. Glasses. Thank heavens Sherlock Holmes is here.

Glasses. Tell us what glasses are. It's like when people use the word utilize instead of the word use. They mean the same thing. What are we doing here? Well, I want to utilize.

a word that has more utilization. Oh, okay. I got you. Well, Ben, I am so excited for this episode where we of Haunted Cosmos decided, as we sometimes do, and the listener knows this. And you know this. We've missed. You asked for this.

And we've missed in this before. No, no, no, no. We've never missed ever. In 2023, Indigo Sundries became one of our sponsors. At the time, their business was little more than a side hobby. generating a couple hundred dollars a month. But because of their partnership with us and because all of you chose to support them,

they've grown enough to make it their full-time livelihood. This is what happens when Christians support Christians. Our communities are strengthened and faithful businesses thrive. So if you're a Christian business owner who wants to reach thousands of like-minded people and grow your company, we'd love to partner with you.

Email us at advertising at newchristendompress.com. Ever, money please. I know this. Here is the thing. Sometimes on Haunted Cosmos, you have to stretch your wings and fly and do something that you just literally shoehorn into the haunted cosmos universe.

So true. And that is an art heist that we both like. An art heist, there are no ghosts. No ghosts. There is no... Spoiler. Nothing supernatural whatsoever. Really whatsoever.

Unless there actually is something supernatural, but it just hasn't been discovered yet. Speaking of supernatural, we're going to be doing a series just for patrons of the show that will actually be supernatural. And it's called Campfire Tail Tales. Probably. Yes, that's the working.

Telltale Campfire Telltales. The telltale sign of the Campfire Tale. Yes. And it's going to be so fun because we're going to go to a forest, my backyard. Or my backyard. Probably mine.

Because I've got sick forest. I've got a vibe. But I have a solo stove. Which is an authentic campfire. We're going to bring your soul. solo stove to my backyard. I'm not transporting. My deck. Okay, he's going to make my car dirty. He's going to transport it. And we're going to tell each other's stories and it's going to be authentic and fun. And only patrons are going to be able to see it. That's right. Only patrons.

And if I am remembering right, only patrons of the upper two tiers. Yeah, that's right. We'll ever see those shows. And, you know, asterist. So unless we decide otherwise. And none of, of the freeloaders who listen to the show for free and none of the freeloaders who actually do monthly support our show at the lower year. But a shout out to those guys. You're actually awesome. You're actually really cool and we like you and you're handsome. And you're not freeloaders. And you're better looking than all of the non-patrons. That's right. And more intelligent. That's right. So, and I don't make the rules. But those are the rules. Can't Far Tales can be a lot of fun. And I'm, I'm really excited for it. We're filming that actually as we sit here in this studio.

Yeah. like a week or so from today. That's right. We're filming it a week from today. And today is August 12th. Wednesday. August, the 12th. The 12th.

So that's going to be a lot of fun. Yep. Basically, people should support the show because Sonic Cosmos is awesome. And the benefits are there already, but they are mounting. All right. So you always get, all tiers get access to the Dusty Tome show, which is an ongoing show on Patreon. The monthly live streams. that normally Brian and I will do,

but for the month of August, it's just going to be me. Dude, those have been fun. And anyone else, those are maybe my favorite. Those are the best part of our show. Because Pete, you can, you can comment live and we basically just vibe

with our patron folks. It is a 45 minute vibe. They ask us questions that, quite frankly, we don't answer. We shouldn't answer. But we do. Sometimes. And stand by it. It's a lot of fun.

And you can, you know, we're 151 episodes deep on the Dusty Tome. That's right. 151. 151 dropped today, the day of recording. A lot of stuff is happening today. A lot of stuff has been happening. Okay, so, and then there's the Canfire Tailtales,

the Talesale sign of the Canfire Tail, to the top two patrons coming soon, and that's going to be a quarterly thing, I believe. Yeah. Where one episode drops each quarter. And then also graveyard shift. Yep. Okay, so we've been doing off-season seasons of the graveyard shift.

We're going to keep doing that, but it's going to look a little different. We're actually going to reserve some episodes to only give to our patrons. So probably, probably two of them at least. Yeah. And we're going to have a graveyard shift season in the middle of season eight. That's right, because October. Because it's the month of October.

It's fall. It's time to sit down with the boys. Not with your girl. Not with your girl. Don't, don't sit down with your girl. Guys, it's time to go out with the boys. Let me paint you a picture. Listen to graveyard shift.

Let me paint you a picture. I'm ready. It's the on point for this episode, by the way. It's the early 2000s. Okay. It is cloudy outside. Yep. Mid afternoon.

I'm there spiritually. It's about to start raining or snowing. Yep. The leaves are orange. The wind is howling. There's a chill in the air. There's a smell of chocolate chip cookies coming from the kitchen. And you and the boys, the wives are cooking the cookies.

You and the boys, though. I thought it was going to be like your friend's mom. No. But we're married. We're adults. We're adults. Okay, keep going. The wives are cooking to cookies. Weird, but okay. And they're vibing. They're doing everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you and the boys are sitting down in the living room looking at the beautiful, let's say it's just, you live on a farm, you know?

There's pumpkins outside. You all are cozied up with blankets and some hot toddies, and you're about to listen to an episode of the graveyard shift. Yeah, you're going to watch it on YouTube. What better way to ring in October than that? There isn't. There is not. The ladies come in, to give you the cookies. Showing signs that they're going to hang out a little too long. And then you shoe them from the room. You say, no, this is for the boys. This is for the boys.

And they know that that's coming because they know that they married a misogynist. Well, and they know that if they're there, all of the funniness will leave the room. Because they'll try to participate. Because they'll try to tell a joke. They'll be like, and then you'll have to. You have to courtesy laugh so that you don't hurt their, their delicate feelings. That is going to be. Why don't we get more five-star review?

about our misogyny. We only get them about our Japanese, our racism, but not our misogyny. Speaking of reviews. We need to work harder. Speaking of reviews. Yeah. And speaking of something that you said earlier, which is money, please. Okay. Wow. Speaking of Henry Winkler, the guy who plays Mona Lisa and John Ralphio Saperstein's dad in Parks and Rec, and also who played another character on another show. I would like to read a review that we got on Spotify.

Which you should be giving us a five-star review every single time you listen. Or a one-star review. But now- So that we have material for this part of the show. Don't do what Ben just said, though, because we're at a 4.8 overall. And don't ruin that. Don't ruin that. Don't be that guy. Or ruin it.

Ladies, if you're upset about the things that we just said, that wasn't us. That was AI. Okay. Deep fake. All right. Plausible deniability. This is a review. It said, he says, all right, I'm out.

10 plus minutes at the opening of every single episode of self-aggrandizing nonsense is too much. Enjoyed the first few seasons, but you guys have jumped the shark. Where's the line? Is it eight minutes? Here's seven minutes. I will admit that he has a point. Okay. I will also say, though, that that comes after a really long, well-designed.

Like 25-minute cold open. Yeah, with like sound design and music and it's scripted. Like, come on, you know, you got to let loose a little bit. Yeah. But anyway, that reading that review made me ask a question. What did the phrase jump the shark come from? And Brian, you have the answer. Well, Ben thought I was making it up.

I did. I had to ask Chat Chappetee to confirm. Is it? What's the name of the show? That's the part I forget. Happy Days. It's from the show Happy Days with the Fons. Played by Henry Winkler.

Who is, you know, whatever, Sapperson. Sapperstine. In Happy Days, there's an episode late in the show. like the series, where the Fonz is water skiing on the ocean, and he jumps on a big ramp over an enclosure where there is a shark. Yeah. And people were like, it was so unbelievable and ridiculous and stupid that it ruined the show for them forever,

and the show jumped the shark. So now when you say, oh, it jumped the shark, it's like, it's gone too far. You should have quit while you were ahead. Yeah. So that's what the review. Ben didn't believe me that that was what that was about. No, you can look it up.

He had the audacity to have his robot slave look it up for him. It's true. To vindicate me. And my robot slave has been getting so obnoxious. It's been driving me nuts. Is your robot slave a eunuch? Well, yeah, because Chad GBT is a robot. So it's a eunuch.

Well, we've recreated court unic slaves. Unic implies you used to be a man. It's like digitally, though. Well, no, because it was like nothing happened to make it a eunuch. it just was that way. What are they doing? Chad TBT is like a Kendall. Okay. This was great.

I appreciate this. Anyway. Yeah. Art heists. Specifically, the Gardner, Isabella Museum Stewart. What a great story this is. I mean, real bummer for the art museum. And for like those people. The inheritance of human art.

And for like justice. But it's such a good story. I feel like we've got at least $200 million out of it. The biggest tragedy is that Rembrandt's storm on the Sea of Galway got taken. And that painting, though it is a 2CV, it does go hard. It depends on the tradition that you subscribe to. Yeah. But it is.

But it's so good. It is an amazing painting. Now, how familiar are you coming into this episode with this story? I have watched at least one documentary and maybe multiple YouTube videos about it over the year. Yeah. So the second we were zeroing in, it rang some bells, but the details, I had to pull up. I had to, like, bring back and refresh. But it is just, it's got everything.

Yeah. It even has, like, it's not just that no arrests have been made and the art hasn't been recovered. It's also like we know of things that are weird in the story. Yeah. Do you know of any of them? The weird things? Yeah, like any oddities? Well, like the inside job vibes.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Walk me through that. Well, it just seems like a couple things. It seems, number one, like the people who were orchestrating the heist, knew stuff about the security protocols that would have been kind of difficult to know unless you were like a guard or knew a guard or a guard had gotten,

you know, had a Hagrid situation where he let it slip, that fluffy, the three-headed dog could be lulled to sleep with music. Yeah. In a drunken gambling kind of situation. Couldn't have said it better myself. So it doesn't necessarily mean that a guard was in on it or something because they could have let it slip. Like, oh, you know, hello, guard. Would you like let me, oh, where do you work?

And, you know, oh, tell me more about it. You guys have like a panic button or something? Where is it? Wow. Where is it? You know, and people are dumb. Here's the other thing, especially people that are like the best job you can get is a night security watchman at a museum. In Boston.

You know what I'm saying? And would you admit that you had like let all that slip? No. To the FBI. No. So it could have been an inside job because they seem to know like that they pretend it. At this point in the show, you know that about the heist. I'm just trying to remember.

Yes. So because I don't want a French nun situation. For those you know. The real ones know. If you know, you know. It was like he knew to lure them away from the desk area. Yeah. Where the only panic button in the museum was.

Yeah. And they did that. very easily. How did they know where the panic button was? Here's another thing. This guy, so there were two, y'all know now, there were two security guards on duty that night. There was Abboth, I can't remember their first names, and Heston. Heston, yeah. Now, Heston was older than Abith, but he was newer to the security game. Yeah. And from all accounts, he was pretty much an idiot. Yeah, he was an idiot. Like he just didn't know, he didn't know what he was doing. RIP, did he die? Heston, he got hit by a bazooka.

But I mean, like, he was not, he was not smart. I think he died in 2024. Okay. I think it was Heston. He died in 2020. I'm pretty sure Abbott died in 2020. One of them died in 2024. Anyway, Heston, like one of the FBI agents, you'll hear about this later.

Yeah. Basically was like, should we investigate Heston? No, he's incompetent. He's too dumb. And that is basically what they said. But Abbott is a little bit different. Abbott had been there for longer. and he did something really weird the night of the heist.

Yes, he did. And that is, actually he did two things. One thing you'll hear about shortly, but another thing he did is like five minutes before, like literally five minutes before the thieves came and sued for entry, he opened the door that they were going to come to and then just immediately closed it again. And the thing is, that's completely out of protocol.

Like he's not allowed to do that. Right. Now, people who want to be charitable to Abbott. They're like, maybe, you know, it was, it was St. Patty's night. It was the morning after St. Patrick's Day. So it was like still St. Paddy's. Yeah. And maybe he saw something on the screen that was like part of yours getting too close or

someone dropped off something weird or something like that. So we just went to check. But it is like super coincidental that he did that. And then five minutes later, it was almost as if a signal. It was a signal. Was a signal. You think it was? I don't trust Abbott's as far as I.

I can throw him. And I've said that about Abbott's my whole life. And I, and I've seen night security guards. They're not light. Oh, generally. Exactly. Yeah. Here's the other thing that is odd about this. Speaking of information they could only have had ahead of time, we know that the heist took place, depending on how you calculate the date, either 26 days before or 294 days before an event, depending on how you calculated it again, where this never could have happened. happened again. What? Because they would have been on notice. They would have had, like,

because I would have been on the case, because I was conceived 26 days after this, born 294 days after. Ah. So you know what I mean? Like if I had been around, if I had been on the case, dude,

they couldn't have done it. So true. They couldn't have done it. You are a lot older than me. Yeah, dude. I was basically like, they knew to do it then. was born the same year Judy Densch started playing the role of M in the 007 movies.

1995. Okay. With golden eye. As we all know. It was golden eye. It was golden. It was golden. It was golden.

It was golden. Yeah. So they knew that. A couple pieces of insider knowledge, opening the door and they knew that I was going to be on the, on the case. And then just to drop the, there was the fire alarm thing. But, oh, the fire alarm is coming. And the blue room. The blue room is the blue room.

The blue room is the weirdest thing. We don't want to spoil that. What I want to talk about, though, Ben, is why do people. people like heist stories so much. Why is there something about us that you make an Ocean's 11 and there's going to be an Ocean's 12? You make Ocean's 12, you give a pig of pancake,

there's going to be an Ocean's 13. You make an Ocean 13, there's going to be an Ocean's 18 in the Longhouse that we live in with all women. Proving everything we've ever said. And it bombs that movie. And then there's going to be an Ocean's 14. And there is going to be an Ocean 14.

They are. It's going to be Top Gun Maverick. It's in production. And it's going to be the boys are back. And Brad Pitt's going to be like, hey, Hey, ladies, leave the stealing to the men. Okay. Leave, you're not good at it.

I'm sorry, you're not, you're not funny and you're not good. Leave the witty banter. Leave the heists to the guys because it's, it's, like, you've got a role to play on the periphery, like, make sure that they're not hungry when they leave the ice. Like there's orange slices for the electro lights after the heist is over. I'm just worried you're going to be hungry on the heist. That's so sweet. Thank you. Let's talk about why is it, though?

I'm going to get Chipotle on the way anyway. Babe. Thank you. Let's be honest, though. We all love heist. And this is not necessarily a good thing about us. No. But we do love it.

Why is it? Why do we love them? Because when I hear about a heist, I am. There's a part of me that's kind of like, that sounds pretty cool. All right. Look, I don't want to. And I would like to be involved in one. I don't want to project my own sensibilities onto all of humanity.

But there's something I like about art, heists in particular. Okay. And that is that it's like a higher class form of stealing. Like here's what I, here's what I don't care about. No, look, hear me out.

This isn't like a BLM riot. Yeah. Stealing Nikes. Yeah. Here me out. Here's what I don't care about. What I don't care about is some dude, like walking into a 7-Eleven and, and stealing some, I don't know, I don't know,

glasses. It's third world. Like, give me all your cash. Third world coded. And then getting away with it. I don't care about that. Bo. I don't know.

There's something. There's like an added miscelled. Steak because it's like a classy heist. Yeah, no. I've seen white collar. Yeah, dude. I know what the FBI white collar division is like. Yeah.

They got Neil Caffrey's in there. Look, think about all of the, because... Think of oceans. Seriously. Like, those are classy guys. They're robbing casinos. And they got the little Asian backflip guy. They got...

And you know what's funny is this heist has an element of that little, like there's a little Chinese element where they wanted a little that Kung Pow chicken. That's right, because they stole a Chinese vestment. They could have stolen a bunch of stuff. They stole a Chinese goo. which is an ancient vessel. Of course, I needed to head of time. It's like a vase.

They wanted a little of that Kung Pow chicken. They wanted a little of that oriental flavor. They didn't want that just plain shrimp ramen. They wanted that oriental ramen. So they went in there and they knew what they wanted. They didn't want that Panda Express. And that's Ocean's 11. What people like about the heist, this is part of it.

We like the idea of a person who is extraordinary. and who has like extraordinary knowledge of interesting things. And, and who is like unknown and content to stay unknown. It's like, it's like Batman. It's like, it's like Dr. House. He's like, oh, it makes everyone look stupid because he knows everything. It's like in every heist movie, there's someone that, he's kind of like a little, he's a bad boy, but he knows everything about art.

And they're like omnipotent when it comes to this one thing. Everyone wants to be the guy that knows everything about art. Yeah, it's true. If it like comes up in a conversation and you're like, oh, yes, my favorite stays on. Yeah. I am, dude, you put me in an art museum. I'm one of the worst people to be around. Because he's pretending to like derive all these deep secrets and they're like,

no. Sir, that is actually the exit sign. No, that's not, that's not the piece. No, it's like, I went to the, so I grew in Atlanta. You're like Tom Haverford. The shapes. Shut up about the shapes. I don't know, guys.

These shapes are really doing things to me. No, I grew up in Atlanta and the high is there. the high, high museum of art of Atlanta is there. Believe it or not, I actually do have great art. It's not what you think maybe. We went there on a field trip. And it was like, I was seeing paintings that I learned about in art class. And when I'm learning about him, I'm like, I could not care less about this stupid Vermeer.

He was a weird dude, probably. And he painted some stuff. And then I go to the museum and I'm like, oh, wow, look at this. Oh, my gosh. Look, that's the Vermeer. It's like that kind of thing. Yeah. So anyway, we all want to be that guy.

There's that. You know what else there is? What? So an art heist, a good one. Like the ones that are Ocean's 11-ish. I can't emphasize enough how they don't take any art in the ocean. It's a heist. It's a heist.

Okay. A heist is a heist. It's much closer to the 7-Eleven robbery. No, no, no, no. There's a parallel out here between the Ocean's 11. And it's that we either perceive. receive it as a victimless crime? Or it's a crime, not against an individual,

but an institution and maybe one that even deserves it a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Like a casino. Yeah, like a casino. Also like art museum. Like I had to wait in line. I got to, who are these rich people that can pay a million dollars for it's a hundred million dollars for his art piece? Oh no, you lost your $100 million art piece. I bet you're not even going to be able to afford that third champagne bath for

the day, right? So people have this idea and it's a part of our covetousness, I think. Yeah, yeah, that you can steal from the rich. And we can just steal, like the rich can. Yeah, like Isabella Stewart Gardner, who cares if she loses her Rembrandt? Yeah. Who is she? Okay, so we've got like this element of victimless crime. It's kind of a fun crime in people's minds.

It's kind of like a stick it to demand. Yes. It's like, you know what it's like, it's also like when that guy that did the Discovery Channel show about different stunts and extreme sports, he was bald. He, uh, he like got arrested for base jumping off of the empire. state building and he wasn't allowed to. Yes. And he gets arrested and everyone's like, no, set him free. Like, that's cool.

Yeah. He stuck it to the main. He just did his thing. And there's this cloud of mystery, unknown. It's a skill set or a knowledge base that you're not familiar with, but that seems elevated and classy to you. And everyone wants to get rich with no effort. Yeah.

So they're like, imagine, dude, if I had a $100 million painting and I successfully fenced it. Yeah. And I was just rolling into Benjamin's. But I could do it. But I was the guy. I could do it. And I was cool. But here's the thing.

Nobody that was that, like, people would want to talk about it. And that's how they would, like, people talk themselves in a prison all the time. Because they can't keep their mouth shut about how cool they are for having been the art heist guy. So those are some of my theories surrounding the intrigue of why we love doing crimes. I think of the, I think of the, why we love watching other people do crimes. But not every crime. A lot of crimes we don't like. But this is a crime.

Kind of universally, people, like when you're watching, catch me if you can. Yeah. Everyone's rooting for the guy who's just stealing from everybody. Yeah, and making everyone's life worse. He's a terrible person. He is so bad. He's a narcissist.

He's like, I can fly this plane, endangering the lives of hundreds of people. I can steal from the bank, so they have to, you know, like blah, blah, blah. It's when you want to root for him. It's like in it. Now, bear with me. Okay.

In Silence of the Lambs. I haven't seen it. Really? It's about a cannibal, though. I know that. No, it's not about a cannibal. It's not? No, he's not a cannibal.

Oh, but he's a serial killer. Yeah. He serial kills people. Now, well, Hannibal Lecter is a cannibal in the movie, but like he's not the main villain of Silence of the Lambs yet. He's not? Not of Silence of the Lambs. Okay, I didn't know. Later, later.

Go ahead. Okay. But it's kind of like in Silence of the Lambs when there's the, there's the like criminal bad guy who comes in as the expert and he ends up being, he like, knows everything and he's better than everybody else at their job. Yeah. It's like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Yeah. When he has this magnetism that you're just like, wow, he's a better psychologist than all of the FBI behavioral psychologists. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's cool, you know. And then he is a cannibal. Can't emphasize enough how bad that is. But also he's a cannibal. Yeah. He eats people. I mean, at a basic level, people like, people like

mystery. They like unanswered questions. They, you know, but then you elevate it up to this like all pre-existent mystique where it's like the realm of the elites you know, the art. The art. High art. It's kind of like so if you combine like handsome, mysterious, like really knowledgeable about really interesting stuff

ringing any bell. We're now on minute like 20 of the self-aggrandizing. No, no, no, no. This is hard-hitting commentary on the story. That's right. Okay. I, we should maybe go through a little bit just to make sure and then we'll go to the next part.

Let's make sure everyone remembers what pieces were actually stolen. Yeah, because they got some McElagelo. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. Oh, they left the Raphael's. They left the Michelangelo. They left behind.

This is one of the weird things about the case. And they were like, we want these pieces in particular. They took 13 pieces of art, and a lot of them are like not really worth that much. And so, yeah. Yeah, compared to other things. Like they left behind multiple Michelangelo's and Raphael's and Botticelli's and other Rembrands. And like they could have taken a lot more valuable things. They had all the time in the world, right?

Like it was 1 a.m. The guards were subdued. They could have stayed there for four hours if they wanted to, just making off with stuff. And they didn't. And so that makes people wonder if it was like a mixed bag, like some higher organization wanted them to take certain pieces. And then the other ones were just to make it look like a random robbery, you know.

But what they did take were three Rembrandts, storm on the sea of Galilee, that's the biggest tragedy. A portrait of a man and gentleman in black, or a woman in gentlemen in black. Not a man and gentleman. And then a self-portrait sketch by

Rembrandt as well that was not really worth that much, but it was cool. They took five Daegas. De Gaas, yeah. They took... It was a sketch series of Daegas. Yeah. They took a flink, which at the time people thought it was a Rembrandt. It turns out later the it was attributed to Flink instead. I didn't even know about that one.

And that's like the obelisk in the field. It's actually a really cool painting. And then they took a Vermeer. Yep. So all those are worth a great deal. And then the Chinese goo. And then they took the Chinese goo worth I could buy it. Like I could afford it.

100 grand. No. No, they took the Chinese goo. They took the Roman filial. The French. Well, it was a Roman eagle, though. Yes, but it was a French flag. But they tried to take something else.

And it's a finial. And it's a finial, not a filial. I said finial. You said filial. Run it back. All right. The Roman filial. The Roman filial.

Run it back. I haven't do that 30 minutes worth of editing. I probably said it wrong. But if I either way run it back. And then they took another like ancient vase basically that like no one knew where it came from. Who cares about vases? Who cares about who's collecting old vases? Now I will say this.

You walk into a living room with a tall vase and some like and a phicus grown out of it. That's nice. That's true. That's nice. That's nice. I'll give you that. But anyway, those are the pieces that they took and that adds up to lucky number 13.

Potential numerology. No. But again, it's odd that they left behind some of the more important pieces. Now, I have a theory about this. Okay. One of my theories is that they suspected that some of the more obvious pieces to steal

were somehow traceable or trackable. because it would make sense if you're a museum to on your highest value pieces, track them. This is another reason why they would cut them out of the frames. Yeah, that helps explain why they cut them out of the frame. Which is not uncommon practice for art thieves because the frames are hard to get off the, like they don't make them easy to get off the wall. They had time, but it's like, do you really want to spend a lot of time?

Every minute is another minute where something random could happen. You could get caught. But cutting it out of the frame does reduce the value of the piece. Yeah. I mean, obviously you're slightly. lashing up a Rembrand. Right. I could never.

I could never. Unless I had the opportunity. I think it would be, I think it would, see what I'm saying. I think it would be good to go into the next piece because the wrinkle. So this crime, first of all, it, it was unsolved. Like it's, we've already let it fly that it's unsolved to this day. Paintings are still missing. Here's another detail going into this next scripted section.

The police uniforms. A lot of people hear that. And, you know, it's 1990 and there was a fake mustache that. was crooked. And so a lot of people then suppose like, oh, these police uniforms, or you could get them from party city, you know? No. They still have, like, the guards were like, they were police uniforms. Real ones. Like they looked like real, plain as day, totally real police uniforms. How did they get those? They had to heist them. Yeah, well. First. Or they were given them. What if they were real police officers? Everything of that. Anyway, call us FBI. We will help you out. With that. Honest Cosmos is on the

With that, let's go into this next story read by our good friend Brian. But before we do, Evan, do we need to do any ad? All right. Buying a Gostundry Soap. Are you ready to record Hanna Cosmos? Yeah, for sure. Let me just grab my Gratotelo lip balm, my Gratotelo whipped balm for smooth, moist, moist, and also my Gratio Tso.

Why do you need all of that? Dude, I gotta feel moist. I gotta feel fresh for every episode. Otherwise, I'm not gonna perform well. I guess it's a good thing then that Gratotel uses simple, uses simple organic ingredients instead of synthetic fillers most skin care products use. I'm moisturized. I'm thinking smooth.

I'm thinking moist. I'm ready to tell some ghost stories. Visit gray-toed tallow.com and use code Cosmos 15 for 15% off your order so you can tell spooky stories too. Kaleo Legends debut series Chronicles of the Elohim explores the divine beings referenced in scripture and mythology, framing their story within a biblical worldview. They're asking big questions. If the gods are real and created by the one true God, what were their roles before their rebellion?

What were the consequences of that rebellion? And what part does humanity play in the Divine Council? Chronicles of the Elohim is a line of premium action figures that takes a supernatural worldview and turns it into legendary collectibles kids' love and collectors display. Visit CaleoLegians.toys and pre-order the Chronicles of Elohim figures today. Most companies have a data crisis. Not from a lack of data, but from how that data is managed. White Tree Solutions has recognized that data is often scattered across reports, systems, and the minds of employees.

They figured out how to turn data into functional processes by connecting the systems that run your company. They then build AI models on top of those processes to assist the people at your company. Protect what your company knows. Call William at 952-209-9638 or visit WTSData.com. Four years after the heist, the FBI has received only dead-end leads. The general public has largely forgotten the theft, with the exception of anyone who tours the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. And the museum director, Anne Hawley, is treading water between her daily operations

and the constant stress of where those precious pieces are, of what more she should do, and of why it had to be her museum on her watch. In late April of 94, Anne Holly entered her office with an already swirling head. Much to do, always much to do, and much to worry about. Her office stood in obvious contrast to the rest of the museum. Its simplicity and relative smallness made the grandeur of the galleries seem a little comical at times. This was a good thing. Man no longer lives in Eden.

The museum was only ever an escape. The office always preached this. It kept her humble and grounded. In a strange way, it also comforted her. The blue carpet and the wall paneling, the contemporary desk, and the bulky fax machine. It was objectively ugly compared to the art, but at least it was familiar. It inspired simple delight, the same way a parent's home does to grown children. Despite the ugliness, she knew it and she loved it because she loved her job genuinely.

Her mind slowed when she entered, allowing her to focus on just the next thing. And the next thing was a single piece of mail. placed on her desk. No return address, typewritten to her directly, and no postage. Assuredly, it had been dropped at the building very early that morning. She picked it up. It was sealed tightly in heavy paper stock, the kind that is satisfying to cut into. She sliced her opener across the top fold and pulled out a note, again typewritten on the same kind of paper as the envelope. The exact contents of the letter have never been publicly released, but in effect, its author claimed to be a third-party mediator

between the museum and those responsible for the theft four years prior. This first revelation made Holly's heart skip a beat. She dropped the letter on her desk and stared blankly at it for a few seconds before picking it up again. When she did, her hands were trembling. She read in great haste. The author did not know the thieves, but had been contacted by them anonymously.

The works were stolen in some shade, the attempt to reduce a prison sentence, for whom and for what, and how this was supposed to work, the letter didn't say, but it did say that the attempt had failed. And so there was no longer any reason for the thieves to even keep the art. What they wanted was to negotiate a return. In exchange for complete immunity and a $2.6 million ransom, all the pieces would be given back in the same condition in which they had been taken. Should Holly wish to begin negotiations, she could print a coded message in an upcoming issue of the Boston Globe. Finally, the letter concluded with a list of details exclusive to the investigation.

She knew right away before contacting the FBI about it that these details could not have been known by anyone other than herself, the agents working the case, or the thieves. She set the letter down, picked up the phone, dialed her FBI contact, and the coded message was printed in the globe on May 1st of that year. Holly was hopeful. She really just wanted the art returned. She wanted to do right by the shared heritage of the Western tradition. She didn't want to be remembered as the one who lost, for example, Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. But her hopes never amounted to anything more than that.

A few days after the coded message was published, a second letter arrived. The same author acknowledged her obedient to the terms and expressed gratitude, but said the thieves had gotten cold feet. The investigation was too big. Immunity they intuited was a pipe dream. They needed more time to consider their next move. But in the 31 years, since that second letter arrived on Holly's desk, there's been no further correspondence. After the heist, the FBI took immediate control of the case, assuming the pieces would certainly cross state lines. Right away, however, the case's difficulty made itself known. Despite the boldness of the theft, no real physical evidence. was recovered from the scene. There were, of course, the witness reports from Abbott and Heston.

There was the motion detector data from the different rooms. There was the brief glimpse of the thieves a partier got from across the street. But there was no hard, tangible evidence left by the thieves themselves. Even fingerprints and footprints were muddled and mixed with those of Abith and Hestant. From the beginning, it was like putting a puzzle together with every piece turned upside down and some missing. Suspicion naturally started with museum security. Heston was cleared quickly. He was just too aloof.

But Abbott was a different story. You see, one of the pieces taken was Monet's Chey Tortoni from the blue room. The problem is that the motion sensors never captured the thieves actually going into the blue room. But they did record Abbott walking through the blue room on his rounds hours before the theft. How did the thieves take the Monet without going into its gallery? Was Abbott an accomplice? The motion sensor network was extensively tested and found to be in good working order after the fact.

So how might it have missed those critical movements? This question has never been satisfactorily answered. Abbott maintained his innocence until his death in 2024. Now, despite the gap, the lead investigator on the case still moved away from Abbott as a person of interest. He cited his relative incompetence compared to the case's complexity, and that was that. Maybe his victimhood was all an act. Maybe his incompetence was, too. This much can be said. If it was an act, he kept it up for decades without ever benefiting

from the theft in the slightest. Another name already at the top of the FBI's list was the notorious Boston gangster, Whitey Bulger. His Winter Hill gang was the most powerful criminal enterprise in the city. But when question, Bulger flatly denied any involvement. Now, where reason might cause to doubt this denial, his actions following the interview do give it some credit. And this is actually kind of funny. He immediately opened his own investigation, dispatching his deputies to find out who was responsible for the theft, not to fix the crime, but in order to collect tribute from them for committing the act on his soil. Whether he found them or not is unknown. Still, the feds didn't give up on Bulger as quickly as they did, Abbott. They knew he had Boston police officers on his payroll.

He could have outfitted the thieves and police uniforms with ease. Plus, one detail of Abbott's patrol before the theft made it hard to ignore Bulger's possible involvement. See, being an Irish Republican, Bulger had close ties to the IRA in America. One of the calling cards of IRA action was to trip the fire alarm at whatever building or establishment was to be hit. Around 12.20 a.m., that fateful night,

almost exactly an hour before the thieves arrived requesting admission. Abith heard multiple fire alarms ringing in the museum's galleries. He checked each room, found no smoke or fire, assumed it to be a malfunction, and disabled the alarms. It was a mere breadcrumb, yes, but it seemed far too coincidental to be just that. But in the end, no hard evidence tying Bulger to the theft could be found. The FBI could spin their wheels no longer. They were forced to move on to other leads. But precious few other leads remained.

The obvious suspects continued to bear no fruit. Investigators were therefore forced to broaden the scope of their search, and this led them down a path of complexity that to this day is yet to be untangled. Everybody, welcome back to this episode of Haunted Cosmos, where we are exploring the mystery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. What a heist. What a heist indeed. High energy heist.

Brian, walk us through some of the oddities that we've alluded to earlier, but have now exposited more when it comes to that guy, Abbott. See, it's the motion sensors that get me. Yeah, yeah. The Blue Room. I feel like they let him off too easy. You know what I'm saying? 100%.

How do you explain that? The Blue Room thing is crazy. Yeah. They took something from the Blue Room. Yeah. But the motion sensor data only showed the Blue Room. Abbott. Yeah, only Abbott.

Hours before. Hours before. So if he. knew it was going to happen. He might not even have told the guys that he was going to do this. But he just took the opportunity and said, well, I'm going to get a little something, something. Yeah. I'm not leaving here with nothing. I'm leaving here with something. The problem is, the problem is there was no other evidence that Abbott did anything. Like there's circumstantial stuff. The fire alarm. Yep.

The door. And the motion sensor in the blue room. But other than that, there was nothing that came up in the interview. with Abbott. There was nothing that he was holding on his person. Like they did searches. And they are eventually like, if this guy is in on it, he doesn't know. Why do you think, why do you think that, or maybe better question to be, what do you think about the claim in the letters that it was, that the heist had originally been to bargain to like get somebody out of prison or something? Wasn't that it? Yeah. And then they later just said like it didn't work out. didn't work.

So we'll give the art back, but they got cold feet. But give us $2.6 million. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, shoot a shot. Today, there's a $10 million reward.

Yeah. And they claim no prosecution. If you return the art, we'll give you $10 million. We want to ask questions and we'll give you $10 million. And then the filial, finial.

Did it again. I know. Was it on purpose? No. 100,000 separate. Mm-hmm. Because, and the thinking is that the finial would be easier to,

just like kind of end up somewhere random. Yeah. Like sitting on somebody's shelf or something, because it's not that recognizable. You take it to a pawn shop with the pawn stars guy and he's like, I got a friend of mine. I got a guy. He's an expert in finials. He's an expert in stolen art heist finials. This thing is worth $5 million. Best I can do is $30K. Guy comes in cocked fedora. Every time. Massively overweight. Massively overweight. Every single time. So what do you, what do you think about that? Do you think that, because the letter, they had details that only allegedly, insiders would know. That's what interests me most about the letters. I think that the letters would still be kind of a cool, you know, element to the story, even without that. But the fact that not only,

what was her name, Holly? Yeah, the art museum director. Yeah. Not only Holly, but also the FBI was like, how do they know these details unless they were involved or were told them by someone who was involved? Because remember, So the author of the letters claim to be like basically an intermediary. Yeah. He was like, I don't know who did it. Yeah. But they reached out to me anonymously and here's what they're saying. I am shocked that that's not more of like an angle that we know about the FBI pursuing.

Maybe they did. That's the thing. They probably have tons of stuff. A lot. Yeah. That we will never know because it's a secret. Yeah. They're not going to let us all in for the Netflix series.

The one guy did write a book about it, one of the FBI. FBI people. Yeah. Wasn't his name? What was his name? I can't remember. But he wrote, it wasn't that long ago.

He wrote a book about it. The other thing that I love is Whitey Bulger. He had Whitey. Bulger. I say Bulger. I saw that movie with Johnny Depp. Did you?

He played Whitey Bulger. I don't remember anything about it except that he was in it. It was a forgettable movie. Johnny, and with Johnny Depp? Johnny Depp was Whitey Bulger. Was he starring alongside like a randomly emo chick? which because it seems like a lot of the time he does.

No, it wasn't a Tim Burton movie. Oh, okay. Go on. Anyway, Wydie Boulger loved the story about him getting called in and he's like, what? Someone did this on my turf? And then he goes and sends his own guy to try to find him to shake him down and be like, you owe me money not to solve the crime.

For committing this crime on my turf. And I'm unclear in this, but apparently he was forthright about this enough that he just told them. I'll look into it. But this is why. Yeah, I'll look into it. it. Not for you. Because for me, nobody steals on my turf without giving me a cut, basically.

I really do love that. It's something that Jack Nicholson's character from the departant to do. And that brings up an important opportunity for me, which is something I've always wanted to do on the show, which is my impersonation of Jim Carrey's impersonation of Jack Nicholson. I'm begging. Eating a complete rotisserie chicken by himself. Please don't do it. I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Please go. You're all welcome. You did it.

And that was amazing. I'm leaving us at one-star of you. That's it. That's it. No, but it basically came down, like they were pursuing all of the normal avenues of investigation for a heist, which is, if you run out of leads, wait until something comes up on the black market, trace it back to the source, and then you'll get them. And the problem is, to this day, nothing has ever come up on the black market from this heist. Nothing. Nothing.

Now, in the hot clothes, we've got some interesting details that I think actually gives us a pretty good idea of what happened. Maybe. I'm going to be honest. I'm convinced. And the documentary that I originally saw about this convinced me. Was it the Netflix documentary? I think it was a Netflix. I watched the same thing.

It was like three years ago. Yeah, I watched the same thing. Now, I'm pretty convinced from that that is what happened. I am too. And here's the problem with it. that if that is what happened, there's a really good chance that literally we never know.

Correct. And that it's never, ever, ever covered. Because once you get into that world, I'm gonna, you know, try not to give too much away. It's just like, it could, it's just gone. What's interesting to me is that like the MLK Jr. assassination,

you look into some of the stuff and the mob is right there. That's right. And we think about the mob as like this funny, like, oh, they eat it the spaghetti. But no, the mob, they're, they're legitimately up to stuff. There's a reason that they're, the mob. That they're crying families.

It's because they do crimes. And they like, they can't be touched. Now, this reminds me of one of my other favorite heists. Do you know this one about the Mona Lisa? Wasn't it that I, I heard about it researching for this show, but I forgot about it. It's one of the things that made the Mona Lisa as famous as it is. Yeah. is that it was like the early 1900s.

I think 1913. I'm doing this off the dome. I could be wrong. And it was some, like a handyman. I'll look it up. Now, his name is really Italian.

It was something like, Alfredo da spaghetti, Vincenzo Ravioli. It was something like Pajuccio or something. You know, something real Italian. He stole the Mona Lisa. He broke,

like he stole the Mona Lisa. And for several years, he got away with it. Then he ultimately got caught and they got it back. But that's one of the things that made the Mona Lisa is so famous. Oh my God.

Gosh, I guessed his name, Vincenzo. Now, it's not Ravioli. Vincenzo Perugia. Perugia. He was living in Paris, Italian immigrant living in Paris. He wasn't a master criminal carpenter and handyman who worked at the Louvre and helped install protective glass around the Mona Lisa. He therefore knew both the building and its routines. Yep.

And then he stole it. That's it. And then he got caught. got caught. Two years later. Another great heist. The other heist that's really cool is the Spider-Man Heist.

You know about the Spider-Man Heist? I did know about that one. Spider-Man Heist is sick. You should do dusty tome on it. I should also say that like this is, so the Vincenzo Perugia guy. Yeah. He reminds me of another,

it's not a heist. It's a violent crime, actually. But it's one of those historical violent crimes that just draws you in. And it is the murder of Archduke, Franz Ferdinand at the hands of Gavrillo Princeep. Yeah.

Like the black hand, it started World War I supposedly. Like all this stuff that's done in the shadows. Utter incompetence. Yeah, yeah. And then it suddenly comes out like these normal guys, basically. Yeah. They were just trying to commit your, you're totally run-of-the-mill act of terrorism.

You're totally running the middle act of violent, terroristic crime and service of kind of stupid. Against the head of state. Yeah, yeah. Really stupid. Frankly stupid. Then, like, totally upturns the entire course of world. world history.

Yeah. It happens. Like, that's just interesting. I'm going to go on record and say that Ben is going to do, Ben is going to do a dusty tomb on the Spider-Man heist

because it's sick. Let me look it up on chat. No, don't do it now. Don't tell them about it. No, I'm not. This is for me. He's going to do one.

And it's really cool. It's a cool heist. I'm typing in what about Spider-Man heist? In terms of, it's a sick heist. So we've got a letter, then another letter saying,

never mind. Yep. And then 31 years after that, I think. of silence. Yeah. Nothing else. And then, sorry, go ahead.

We've got, they're looking into the mob and like, there's some promising stuff. There's some precedent of mobsters, as we'll see. Mobsters stealing art not to sell it. Yeah. But to use it either in private collections, because they're the mob. Like, what's a better status symbol of like, not only am I super wealthy, I'm so beyond, like, the need for money that I can get things that money can't even buy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can get works of art that are stolen. And look, it's hanging behind. me like. So listen to me. You think I'm scared of the police. I ain't the whole thing. Not a relevant reference at this point. But he was a mobster.

It's thin. So with that, should we just go into the hot clothes? I think we need to go into the hot clothes. I think we need to say thank you for listening to this. One of the greatest episodes of Honod Cosmos ever put together. Probably the greatest. And I expect nothing to be cut from this episode.

Exactly. Anything I said or Ben said at any point. And I want that on. Signing off, Season 8, Episode 2. We'll see you in Episode 3. Have a great rest of your day. And hey, don't go stealing any pieces of priceless art. The two men walked through Palermo with furtive steps. The moon was unshawed, pouring her silver light down with unique vigor. But it was late. Cicely was at rest. And so the brightness of the night didn't matter. No one saw the thieves. From the harbor down the blocks,

lining the Via Vittorio and into the claustrophobic alleyways of stucco that would have been warm red in the day. They passed by wooden doors that would have already appeared ancient when newly built. Shapes of uncanny men were painted on the walls and whitewash, and strings of ivy hung still like the hair of an aging woman down from residences above the road. Everything rough and everything dry, and the air was laced with salt spray from the Mediterranean. With each turn in the maze, they sank deeper into the belly of the city closer to their tar. At the target. Finally, an array of crystal moon, the door stared back at them, a silent gaping mouth coaxing

them inside, and they entered the Oratory of St. Lawrence. The carved baroque walls were sad shadows in the dark. Stepping into the hall of high ceilings and granite floors came with resounding echoes. Such a space. Old saints looked down upon the men in the form of statues on top of the molding, a great cloud of witnesses bound to witness something great indeed. The night's light entered through the windows further up. and danced within and without the chandelier, which cast multicolored prisms all about the room.

At the oratory's other end stood the altar behind a short mahogany rail. There rose a lectern of great mass, as though it had been set there since the foundations of the earth and the building had been erected around it. Of green stone it was, polished to the point of reflection, and on the wall above it hung the prize, Caravaggio's nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence. The painting had hung there since its completion in 1609. Now the crackling pigment watched as its doom approached. One man cut the canvas from the frame. The other pulled a Persian rug from the adjacent hall

onto the granite floor in front of the lectern. They laid the masterpiece on the rug, then carefully they rolled it up, carried it out and were gone into the night. Its empty frame, left alone, was made to watch its precious tenant drift away. It has never been recovered. And yet, the trail is not entirely cold. Rumors circulate today regarding the Caravaggio's whereabouts. It is these rumors that concern us.

Beginning in the late 1990s, criminal informants in the Sicilian mafia began claiming to have seen the painting in a variety of settings and uses. One man said his boss used it as a floor mat for a number of years before one day it mysteriously wasn't there anymore. Another boss was said to have kept it hanging in his private office as a show of power to any who entered. One man claimed that yet another boss storted away on his farm for a time, not caring to really do anything with it at all. There it deteriorated before passing into more hands and becoming lost yet again. Despite the many disagreements present in the informant stories, one thing anchors them all in a common thread. A crime boss had it. They all agreed that regardless of who initially took it,

Kosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, took control of the painting shortly after its theft, but why? And why did they just keep it? These questions were evidently answered in the early 2000s when a member of Koso Nostra's governing commission, Salvatore Kanchimi, turned coat on his brethren and entered witness protection under the Italian government.

He claimed that the informants were all telling pieces of a fuller truth, that the painting was not haphazardly passed from one boss to another. Rather, the painting was given as a token of trust, an honor, and prestige, and power to various men at various times. It was not mere currency, it was something more. Status. The painting was a sign and seal of one's good standing within the organization. If one boss owed another a debt of gratitude, he gave him the caravaggio. If that boss needed to post collateral on a loan, he used the painting for that too. and on and on it went.

At the time these revelations were coming out, the FBI was hitting a hard wall with the Gardner Museum case. But this news made them wonder. Maybe they'd been asking the wrong questions. Maybe they'd been thinking of the heist in too simple of terms. And maybe their patience

in waiting for a piece to come up for sale on the market would actually just never pay off. In 1990, Boston was ruled by two major players in organized crime. We've already mentioned the first. Whitey Bulger's Winter Hill Gang. They considered the south side of the city their turf. And yet, Bulger had connections with other criminal syndicants in the state and beyond that were extensive.

The second was the Patriarcha crime family. These were Italian mobsters whose influence was far from limited to Boston. They had their hand in most organized crime in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Some of the bosses of note were Vincent Ferrar and Bobby Donati and Carmelo Merlino. Despite the obvious rivalry that existed between Winterhill and Patriarcha, the gangs behaved most civilly toward one another. In fact, they were not unfamiliar with working together on operations that would benefit both. For example, a boss in Patriarcha might ask Whitey Bulger to find a rebellious bookie who fled into the southern territory for him. Usually, Bolger was happy to do this.

It kept peace with a larger crime family and would result in them owing him some kind of favor or goodwill in the future. Things such as this happened with relative frequency, leading to a commerce of trust, services, and goods between the two gangs, and of course, such a commerce existed self-contained within each of the gangs as well. But how is such commerce upheld? How is trust quantified? Goods and services paid for, especially among criminals, criminals whose every move is constantly watched by the law? By now, one of the potential answers might be obvious. Who needs dollars and cents,

things so easily tracked by the enemy, when you have a Rembrandt? What if the criminal enterprises in Boston, Massachusetts, and the rest of New England had a collection of priceless art they could use to barter with, to use as collateral, to give his gifts to signify trust?

Might that help them worry about one less thing? And for many years, the FBI has become confident that this line of thought solves the mystery. Still, none of the works have been recovered, and no one has been charged in connection with the crime. Both Robert Garante and Robert Gentile grew up in the patriarchal organization, albeit in different places.

Both men rose through the ranks until they served together as lieutenants to one of the high bosses, Carmelo Merlino. There, the tomb became close friends. There was a trust that transcended the honor code of the gang. They were brothers and bond. Their wives were friends. Their children grew up close with constant playdates. Garante and Gentile, even outside the limits of patriarchy, had one another's backs to whatever end.

In 2004, Garanta died of cancer, and Gentile was at his bedside comforting his widow, Elene. A world of secrets. Some shared and some not lived between those three hearts. Only a few years later, the FBI started down the road of organized crime to explain the Gardner heist. By 2010, Aline was sitting across a metal table from one of the agents. A recorder was running. Cold fluorescence filled the space between. Aline, tired of her life, irritated that even after his death, she still had to cover for her husband's life of lawlessness,

answered every question with blunt honesty. Of course her husband possessed the paintings at one point, but he'd given them up long ago. To whom? To his best friend, Robert Gentile for safekeeping. In 2012, Jen Teal was indicted on drug charges. The feds took this opportunity to question him and thereby turned the focus of the case onto the Gardner Heist. To their surprise, he appeared perfectly cooperative, even submitting himself to a polygraph test regarding the stolen art.

But when he denied having any knowledge of the theft or the location of the art, the test indicated falsehood. And the whole room inhaled. Agents wondered if they might finally have the beginning of the end, sitting there in front. front of them. Gentile scrambled. He assured everyone he was telling the truth. He demanded a retest, during which, by the way, he said Aline once showed him one of the missing Rembrandts and Garante's home decades prior, and the test indicated truth. But even this, Gentile later denied. Days later, the FBI raided his home with a search warrant. During the course of the search, an agent was drawn to an odd squeaking sound in one of the floors. The spot was covered by a rug,

which the agent peeled back. The sunstain on the floor betrayed how long the rug had sat there untampered with. But sure enough, a small door with inset latch was sitting there, staring up at the agent. He called for others to come in a system.

They heaved the door upward and let it fall back down with a bang on the other side. Darkness and dirt were both in. He poked his head down, flicked on his flashlight, and scanned the entire hidden crawl space. A secret ditch,

deep enough for storage, but not deep enough for a man to fully stand up in, and it was empty. In the home's basement, agents found a copy of the Boston Herald issue from March of 1990. The front page told the story of the heist and estimated the black market value of each stolen piece. It was faded with age and frayed on the edges, but it had clearly been kept in a safe place all these years, and then the search ended. No tangible evidence was found. Once again, the FBI was left downcast.

As they packed to leave, one agent asked Gentile's son, he lived on the old property at the time, about the secret ditch under the floor in that one room. And the younger genteel thought for a moment and then lit up as if remembering some fun fact. He said his father built it a long time ago, and that it flooded a few years before he inherited the property, and that, oh yeah, when it flooded, his father was very upset about whatever was stored there being damaged. Thus we come full circle Because all of this leads back to the same question What actually happened to that stolen art

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