If FBI really wants to solve the Gardner art heist, it should include the public

Boston Globe

19-03-2025

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"Three Mounted Jockeys," left, and "La Sortie du Pesage," right, by Degas
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"The Concert" by Vermeer
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While crowdsourcing has its risks — in the Marathon case, it
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The ongoing FBI investigation has mainly focused on a small cohort of criminals from the Boston area with ties to organized crime. As told to Murphy, Kelly's theory is that two petty criminals — George Reissfelder and Leonard DiMuzio — planned to make some quick money and did not understand the gravity of the crime.
With help from one security guard — Richard Abath — they got inside the museum. Kelly also believes the mastermind was Carmello Merlino, a mob associate who ran a repair shop in Dorchester. Reissfelder and DiMuzio died within 18 months of the heist. Merlino, convicted of another crime, died in prison in 2005. Abath, who died in 2024, insisted he had nothing to do with any of it.
"Chez Tortoni" by Manet
AP/Associated Press
Stephen Kurkjian — a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, former Globe colleague, and author of 'Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off The World's Greatest Art Heist' — believes the key to recovering the art is about getting people to understand what it means to Boston and the art world at large.
'The city of Boston has changed immensely since thugs like these roamed the city. If we are deserving of the belief that we are a world-class city, then we've got to trust that the people will respond to a public appeal, of getting those masterpieces back to where they belong, in Mrs. Gardner's museum,' he told me.
Noting that one of the stolen paintings was Rembrandt's only seascape, a biblical tableau called 'Storm on the Sea of Galilee,' Kurkjian said that at one point the museum tried to convince the Vatican or the pope to make a public appeal to get the paintings returned. But Rome declined.
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"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" by Rembrandt
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While papal intervention might help, what is really needed are regular citizens who understand what 'Mrs. Gardner's museum' represents — the idea that beauty is something to be shared with everyone, no matter their wealth or social status. When Isabella Stewart Gardner died in 1924, she left a museum
With its peaceful courtyard and rooms filled with treasures, it's a magical place. But it will take more than magic — or another book — to return the missing artwork to its home. It's going to take someone who knows what really happened to trust the FBI enough to share the information — and that means the FBI has to trust the public enough to share what it knows.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at