$500 million worth of art was gone. there was no trace of the thieves. authorities got an idea of what the bad guys looked like from the two night watchmen, the only ones to see the thieves up close. but it all happened so fast. they were tied up and blindfolded within minutes. watchman rick abath gave this description of the guards to a sketch artist. the guy who was dealing with me was kind of taller and skinny and was wearing his gold-framed, like, round glasses, if i remember correctly and he had a mustache. and i remember before he arrested me, it looked really greasy. i was thinking he was using some funky kind of wax or something on that. it was probably a fake mustache. but the description from rick and the other guard didn t satisfy the fbi.
he s going back and forth about a half a dozen times, again, passing things that any art expert would say my god, these are two raphls, small and portable. why wouldn t you take those? it s a great mystery to the theft. another great mystery is this painting by edward manet. the oil painting was taken from the blue room on the first floor. it hung right below manet s portrait of his mother. it was about 8 by 10 and it was in a gold, guilded frame and it was here. even though motion detectors picked up the thieve s trail by the instance on the first floor and all throughout the second floor, there are no records of anyone entering the blue room. rick abbot says in the time he worked at the museum, the motion detectors never failed. but he also says it wasn t impossible to avoid the detectors. in fact, he knew exactly how to do that.
to live with for the past 23 years. the night watchman, against protocol, allowed them into the museum. antny amore is the security director for the isabella stewart gardener museum. he s also the investigators 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. on this night, rick says he had
reporter: dawn and the damage was done. when security guards showed up for their regular morning shift and rang the buzzer, which they normally did, they knew immediately something was wrong. they called their supervisor and the f.b.i. and police were on the scene. reality sunk in. $500 million worth of art was gone. there was no trace of the thieves. authorities got an idea of what the bad guys looked like from the two night watchmen, the only ones to see the thieves up close. but it all happened so fast. they were tied up and blindfolded within minutes. watchman rick abbot gave this description of the guards to a sketch artist. the guy who was dealing with me was kind of taller and skinny and was wearing his gold-framed, like, round glasses, if i remember correctly and he had a
now, but as soon as he was tied up by the two thieves, he realized how vulnerable he really was. i was panicking. i didn t realize i was panicking. but i was completely panicking. the thieves lead rick and his partner down to the basement to different areas. rick is taken to the boiler room and cuffed to an electrical box. his eyes and mouth were duct taped and he feared for his life. i was afraid that they were going to set the place on fire after they were done. that was my maybe because i was right across from the boiler. but my predominant fear was god, i hope they don t burn the place. he couldn t see, couldn t hear, and he had no idea what was happening upstairs. all he knew was that his museum was unguarded and about to be robbed. it all happened so fast, he never had a chance to hit the one panic button by the guard desk.