this investigator for boston globe investigated for decades. he first interviewed rick abath for the night of the crime for the globe. he told the alarm was designed to keep visitors from getting too close to the rembrandt. that sea scape, even if you look at prints of it now, images of it now, you will see an etching of rembrandt itself. odd experts, odd specialists, common folk knew that. they would come up and put their finger close to, point out the image of rembrandt. if they got too close, the alarm would sound. reporter: he says the thieves then smashed the alarm. that was really a compelling little detail to me because it seemed like that worked. that if you got too close, the sound would go off. as i went through the rest of the security that was in place at the museum, nothing else was there to guard the museum s valuables. reporter: like the motion detectors, this alarm was not
throughout his actions here in the short gallery he goes back and forth about a half dozen times, again passing things that any art expert would say, my god, these are two rafaels. small and portable. why wouldn t you that he those. it is a great mystery to the theft. reporter: 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 in a gold guild frame and it was here. reporter: though the motion detectors pick up the thieves on the first and second floor, there are no records of anyone enter rg the bling the blue root rick abath who says he passed through the room that night on his regular rounds before theft. rick abath says in the time he worked at the museum, the motion detectors never failed.
which was the only way into the museum at night. that door was locked. so anyone who wanted to get in to the museum would have to ring the buzzer. the guard on duty at the desk could see who was ringing that buzzer through a security camera perched outside right above the door. the camera is in plain sight. if there was trouble, the guard had just one way of alerting the outside world. a panic button at the security desk. h it was up on the underside of the desk. but it was a fairly long desk. and the computer that you had to be at to to do your desk was all the way over to the left and it was almost all the way over to the right. it wasn t just within arm s reach. still, rick abath never found any reason to use that panic button. that is, until the night of march 18th. that night was unusual from the
museum employees after hours, even the museum s director. i was never verbally told that, to the best of my knowledge. i know i m sure there was a policy written somewhere. i m sure it was. but it wasn t the culture of the place for the most part. people came in and out of there fairly regularly. i mean at least once a month we let someone in. reporter: so it was not unusual for rick to hear that buzzer go off. on this night, rick says he had no doubt it trereally was the boston police at the entrance. they were standing there in their hats and coaches and badges. they looked like police. i buzzed them into the museum. and one of them came right over to my desk and one of them kind of stood in the alcove right there, just looking around. didn t seem particularly odd to
them. their job was done. but remember video camera perched outside the door with where they entered? the thieves must have known it was there and must have known where it was hooked up to be with because before they left the museum, they made one last move. to be sure nobody ever recognized them. there was a point where they kicked open a door, pried open a door, broke it bretty badly and took the videotape we had. only evidence of what they looked like. from are the security director s office. reporter: at 2:41 a.m., the door to 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. reporter: never heard from again. and never caught. rick abath s fear that the thieves were going to burn down