Gardner Museum Heist —Blog
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It's made for grown up tastes Oh it's serious. Very serious But then three years later Kelly Horan acknowledges in an interview with one of John and Linda Henry's many banks, that "as someone who also has enjoyed a fair amount of pot boilers I knew that red herrings would work and so my goal in structuring the entire [Last Seen Podcast] ten episode series, the kind of narrative arc that I wanted to put in place was one where each episode would take you in deep inside a theory, you would meet the central characters of that theory and then you would leave that episode saying 'Aha! that's the one.' only to have the next episode come along and make you doubt that because that was my experience, the experience of reporting this was like whiplash. You know, 'This must be it.' 'No this must be it.' 'He must have done it. No he must have done it.'" —Kelly Horan So Horan admits the podcast is a bunch of red herrings at the expense of "unraveling the mysteries" and actually investigating the case like the Boston Globe and WBUR claimed they had done. If Last Seen Podcast was an airbag, instead of just a bag of hot air, there would have been a manfacturer's recall on Last Seend podcast immediately. Errors and discrepencies in Last Seen Podcast Episode 7 "I [Myles Connor] was the one. RODOLICO: Here’s how Connor got himself into what he calls a “jackpot.” In 1974, Connor says his old buddy who liked antique rugs, Bobby Donati, approached him about an estate he wanted to rob in Maine. It was owned by the Woolworth family, who had a private collection that rivaled an art museum. Myles says in his book that he and Donati burgalrized the elderly widow's estate on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Four days earlier Donati had been sentenced to 4-8 years in Walpole State prison, the Boston Globe reported 5/23/74, and it's not like federal prison, when they sentence you, that's when you go. HORAN: Remember, Connor says he and Donati cased the Gardner together in the 1970s. Specifically, in his book Connor claims he cased the Gardner with Donati in the summer of 1975, when he was a fugitive from justice, after not showing up for his federal trial, and claims to have personally robbed the Boston MFA a quarter of a mile away, a few months earliers. And at that time too, according to the Nov 10, 1977 Boston Globe. Robert Donati was incarcerated, at Deer Island, where he had briefly escaped in 1959. CONNOR:“I wouldn't call him a mobster because mobsters are what you associate with organized crime. He [Donati] wasn't that kind of a crook.” Bobby Donati was that kind of crook: “Revere police Detective Lt. William Gannon said that the body of Robert A. Donati, 50, of Revere, was found in his Cadillac on Savage Street in Revere by an officer on routine patrol about 1:25 a.m. Donati was a reputed associate of Vincent Ferrara, who is awaiting trial in Boston on federal racketeering charges. Donati, meanwhile, was said to be making collections from bookmakers and loansharks on Ferrara's behalf. Originally from East Boston, Donati had a lengthy criminal record involving arson, armed robberies and the theft of securities from the Boston Stock Exchange. Source Boston Globe September 25, 1991. RODOCLICO: “Myles Connor was a rock star. His band was called Myles Connor & The Wild Ones. He headlined clubs around Boston, and opened for big names, like Roy Orbison and Chuck Berry.” Myles Connor was not a rock star. He played in clubs around Boston but never in Boston, or Cambridge. The only documentation of his music career that ever appeared in the Boston Globe was in advertisements by the Beachcomber for show-dates for Connor and his band on weeknights. There are no mentions of his opening for bigger acts, real rock stars, like Roy Orbison and Chuck Berry, ever. Rock n’ Roll Outlaw: The Ballad of Myles Connor, a new documentary that examines Myles’s incredible backstory—and what he may know about the Gardner heist, which the Boston Globe owned Boston Magazine reported was going to premiere on March 17, 2024, at the Arlington Theater. But it was not shown that day and the documentary never been released or completed. HORAN: “Connor was a Renaissance criminal. There has not been a “Renaissance criminal” in 400 years. What would a “Renaissance lawyer, or doctor, or Renaissance bus driver be? Calling Connor Renaissance criminal is a badly phrased euphemism for a hardened criminal: “Myles Connor is one of these guys who committed every type of crime you can imagine. Make a list. Brainstorm on crimes. He can check off every box. Sold drugs, stole drugs, robbed grocery stores, banks, homes, armored cars, implicated in the murder of two teenage girls. You name it. he's done it, a real bad guy. Anthony Amore 11/12/14 Time 45:00 Also a con man and a Gardner heist huckster: “Every single person who said they could get the paintings back, one of them is Myles Connor, who's come forward and said it, they're all charlatans and that's nicest word I can use for them. Hucksters. —Anthony Amore Anthony Amore Weston Library 10/29/13 Time: 1:24 HORAN: “And he says the question of who he [Myles Connor] would and wouldn’t steal from was all down to a personal code. A kind of thief’s honor system. There is no such thing as a thief’s honor system, and that certainly is not reflected in the violent criminal career of Myles Connor. He is a “Renaissance criminal,” but one with an “honor system”? HORAN: “It was a crime spree in the mid-1970s that solidified his reputation as someone who could outfox law enforcement. Myles Connor did four long stretches in prison totaling over 25 years in five decades. His internal organs were badly injured when he shot a state trooper and the police fired back hitting him “several times,” Connor wrote in his book, with his “shoulder taking the worst of the damage.” Connor was in prison for all but less than three years of the 70’s. HORAN: “Which, brings us back to that parking lot in Cape Cod, where Connor was nabbed with the five stolen Wyeth paintings.” “Connor was caught with four stolen Wyeth paintings, not "the five." Three by N.C. Wyeth, and only one by Andrew Wyeth, and a reproduction of another Andrew Wyeth painting.” CONNOR:“And he [the FBI arrestin officer said, ‘We've got you now, Connors. It'll take a Rembrandt to get you out of this.’ I said, ‘You know, you're right.’ And so then I set my heart on getting a Rembrandt.” This is just one of at least three versions of the story Connor has told about what motivated him to steal the Rembrandt at the MFA, which he doesn't fit the description of the person who took it. In “Stealing Rembrandts,” by Anthony Amore and one of the reporters who covers him, Tom Mashberg, it was only well over a year later, when he was trying to figure out a way to avoid prison time, that he and a family friend in law enforcement came up with the idea of stealing a Rembrandt: “ "I said, 'for Chrissakes, John, what will it take to get me off? A Rembrandt? And Regan told me, 'That just might do it.'" In his own book Connor swears John Regan said to him ’Face it Myles, nothing short of a Rembrandt could get you out of this.’ I swear these are the words he uttered.” HORAN: “On a sleepy Monday — April 14, 1975 — Connor launched what sounds like a paramilitary strike on Boston’s MFA. Connor says there were three vehicles with eight armed men, one with a machine gun.” “Two unknown white males armed with 9 mm semi-automatics.” Boston Globe April 15, 1975. Also a Boston Globe review of Connor's book in 2009 by Shelley Murphy said of Connor's MFA Heist: "They pistol-whipped a guard who tried to stop them and escaped out a rear door," and Murphy mentions nothing about a machine gun. Her review advises that: "The book is clearly shaded by Connor's version of the truth." The April 16, 1975 Boston Globe reported that shortly after 12:30 p.m. Monday, one of the robbers held an unarmed guard at gunpoint while another lifted the oil and wood panel off the wall." It is hard to know what was so sleepy about an early afternoon crime in the largest city in New England, four days before a two day visit by President Gerald R. Ford to kick off the county's Bicentennial celebration. Connor does not fit the desciprtion of the guy who took the painting. The robber who removed and carried the painting out of the Museum was described by witnesses as a white male about 20 years of age, 5-foot-9-inches tall and around 140 pounds with long blond hair, and wearing a black leather cap. The other robber was said to be 5-foot-6-inches tall and weighed about 135 pounds. He also appeared to be about 20 years old. The driver of the getaway car was described as a white male, but there was no further description. Connor was 32 had spent years in prison, and was only 5'6" according to reports in the Boston Globe. CONNOR:“As the exit was made down the front steps there was a phalanx of guards that came rushing down.” Boston Globe reported just two guards responding to the theft before the thieves left the building. CONNOR:“And there was a guy with a machine gun, brrrrr. Let the machine gun go off. They went right back.” There was no machine gun. “As the thieves fled to a waiting car, the armed man fired three shots, hitting no one but adding a movie-scene flourish to what was then thought to be the most expensive art heist in American history.” NY Times CONNOR:“The guy would not let go of the painting. The guy ran up to the back of the van and latched onto the painting.” They left the scene “in a black and gold Oldsmobile or Buick” Boston Globe April 14, 1975 afternoon edition. HORAN: Don’t shoot the guard,” Connor said. One of them smashed him in the head with the butt of a gun.” "The guard tried to stop the men as they ran toward the turnstyles inside the entrance and one of them clubbed him with a pistol butt." Boston Globe April 15, 1975 HORAN: “There was just one problem, as Martin Leppo recalls. On March 18, 1990, Connor was serving a long federal sentence for drug trafficking. And another problem. That's not true. Connor was not only charged with drug trafficking: “After months of allegedly selling about $500,000 in stolen 17th Century paintings by "old masters" and other antique artifacts to an undercover federal agent, authorities said Myles Connor Jr. was arrested Wednesday night when he allegedly sold the agent a kilogram of cocaine. Connor was charged with transporting stolen property and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.” Connor did long stretches in prison, for selling items from the same Woolworth estate burglary to two different FBI undercover agents 15 years apart. Genius! Leppo was not Connor’s lawyer for these charges in Illinois. The recollections of an 87 year old confident of Myles Connor, Leppo, concerning something that happened 30 years earlier, of which he had no direct involvement, is what the Boston Globe and WBUR consider being worthy of the term “deep dive” into this historic case? HORAN: “He [Myles Connor] was in prison in Lompoc, California. He was not. According to newspaper accounts and his own book, Connor was in the Sangamon County Jail in Springfield, IL awaiting sentencing, not serving a long sentence, according news stories at the time and his own book. His sentencing was delayed twice after the Gardner heist. Connor and his cohorts had plenty of opportunity to try and initiate a deal. LEPPO: “When the Gardner was hit, Myles became the No. 1 suspect. Did he orchestrate it? And so forth and so on. So that was number one. That was not "number one." Connor had been in jail in Illinois for over a year before the Gardner heist. He had been living in Kentucky for over three years. The FBI didn't even try to talk to CONNOR:“We've made no attempts to speak with Myles Connor. FBI Supervisory Agent Edward Quinn. "He has not been requested to meet with the FBI Connor’s defense attorney Boston Globe 5/13/90. He was not the number one suspect. CONNOR:“How I'm 100 percent sure that they [David Houghton and Bobby Donati] did it was because David Houghton, who was longtime friend of mine, flew all the way from Logan Airport to California just to tell me: “‘We've done with. We did it. And we got a bunch of paintings, and we're gonna use a couple of these paintings to bargain you into a reduced sentence.’" The Mensa member, Myles Connor, doesn't even know what state he was in when Houghton supposedly told him he and Robert Donati robbed the Gardner Museum to get him out of prison. From Connor's 2009 book, page 285, In the Fall of 1990 I was transferred to federal penitentiary in Lompoc, CA." Also in his book he says that "several weeks later I received an unexpected visitor, David Houghton... "David's visit was the last time I heard from either man [David Houghton or Robert Donati]." So that means Connor's visit with Donati was in Illinois. It would have to have been several months later for him to have been in Lompoc, CA. Horan is writing a book [of fiction I hope] set in Second Empire France HORAN: “He settled on one that was on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Portrait of Elisabeth van Rijn,” Rembrandt’s sister. It is not the artist’s sister. The correct name of the painting is “Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak,” A “proposed identification for the sitter is Rembrandt’s younger sister Elisabeth (Lysbeth). However, Rembrandt executed this painting in Amsterdam and Lysbeth apparently spent her whole life in Leiden.” “The same model appears in two other paintings that Rembrandt executed in 1632: “A Young Woman in Profile with a Fan in Stockholm, and Bust of a Young Woman in a Cap in a private collection in Switzerland…The presence of these four paintings featuring the same model by Rembrandt, and his workshop makes it highly unlikely that Young Girl in a Gold-Trimmed Cloak was a commissioned portrait. Interestingly, the same model, in a nearly identical costume, appears in two of Rembrandt’s history paintings from the early 1630s: “as Europa in The Rape of Europa, in the J. Paul Getty Museum, and as the woman (Esther?) in the Old Testament scene in Ottawa. “Portrait of a Girl,” once believed to be a rendering of Rembrandt’s sister, inspired the facial types of many of Rembrandt’s heroines in the early 1630s. Kerry Joyce Cranston, RI
by Kerry Joyce Copyright © 2022 All Rights Reserved
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