so i figured i d take the first round. that first round takes longer than usual. the fire alarm goes off for no apparent reason. so does another alarm on the fourth floor. after all that, rick returns and the gallery guard takes his turn making the rounds. the clock reads 1:24 a.m. and rick is alone at the guard desk. suddenly, the night takes a dangerous turn. he rang the doorbell. i could see him on the outside camera. i could see him walking down the street. i thought they were just clearing drunks off the street. there were a lot of drunken people in the street that particular night. but then they stopped and buzzed the buzzer. i leaned over to the intercom and i said yeah? and they said boston police, we got a report of disservice on the premise. so i buzzed them in. that decision to buzz them in is something rick abbot has had
just two night watchmen, one panic button, motion detectors that could be dodged and one security camera outside. did the thieves have help from inside? would they have been able to pull it off without inside information? suspicion still surrounds the men on guard that night. night watchman rick abbot said while he doesn t know of anyone in the museum who would have knowingly tipped the criminals to the laxed security set-up, he admits it was a topic he and other guards spoke about often. we talked about in terms if the place got robbed or when it would get robbed. the security was very much a concern. we knew there were no alarms on the paintings. there was no alarms that went outside the place other than the panic button. it was definitely a concern. a concern that he and others would speak about in public. if you re worried about
that decision to buzz them in is something rick abbot has had to live with for the past 23 years. the night watchman, against protocol, allowed them into the museum. anthony amore is the security director for the isabella stewart gardner museum. he s also an active investigator on this case. he says back in 1990, no one was allowed into the museum after hours. not even police officers. but rick, the security guard, said he d routinely buzz in museum employees afterhours. even the museum director. i was never verbally told that to the best of my knowledge. i m sure there was a policy written somewhere. but it wasn t the culture of the place, for the most part. people came in and out of there fairly regularly. at least once a month, we d let someone in. so it was not unusual for rick to hear that buzzer go off.
vulnerability in the security system, you can sell that. you and that s what i think happened here. someone who had some interest in art made known to the criminal underworld, to a gang that he or she was familiar with. the information that this museum s security system is abysmal. and this is the components of it. how that person learned of it, whether he or she had a relationship with one of the guards, had picked it up at barroom conversation, that s yet to be determined. reporter: to this day, no museum employee, including rick abbot, has been fully cleared of the crime. investigators are also still trying to determine why the thieves took what they did. and a more tantalizing question. the treasures of what they left behind. two doors down was a michelangelo. they walked about a half dozen times by raphaels. they walked by a boticeli.
it was a point where they kicked open a door, pried open a door, broke it pretty badly and took the video tape we had, the only evidence of what they looked like, from the security director s office. at 2:41 a.m., the doors of the museum opens and closes. and then opens and closes again four minutes later. it must have taken the thieves those two trips in and out to load up the art. then, just as suddenly as they arrived, the thieves were gone. once they leave, they re never heard from again. rick abath s fear that the thieves were going to burn down the museum prove to be unfounded. the museum was left largely unharmed. but 13 of the greatest works of art, worth about half a billion dollars, were missing. rick says he just remembers waiting and waiting and waiting. police found him the next morning. the police came around the corner with flashlights and the