Gardner Museum Heist Investigation

Episode One Transcript Episode Three Transcript

Episode Two Transcript Episode Four Transcript

This Is A Robbery Episode Four Transcript

David Nadolski: My name is David Nadolski, and I was an FBI agent for 21 years. I was in the bank robbery task force, or Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Squad.

The Bank Robbery Task Force was bang-bang-bang-bang. Things were happening all the time, you're always on the move. Armored cars, banks, not to mention the other violent crimes.

Criminal: I stabbed him in the face, I stabbed him in the legs, I stabbed him in the arms, I stabbed him in the chest.

Nadolski: It was a lot of fun. In 1997, I believe, Anthony Romano, a guy who's been in and out of prison a lot, he gets in touch with me and says, "I got to meet you to talk about the Gardner case." We set up the meeting to take place at an abandoned ball field. It was cold, I remember that. It was… probably November, December. He says "I'm a mechanic. This old prison buddy of mine, his name is Carmello Merlino, I'm not real happy with him. He turned my ex-wife into a drug mule, and it almost ruined her life." He said, "I really hate the prick." I got the funny feeling now, he's doing a lot of talking with people that are somehow involved with the Gardner. He's got some connection. One of the guys he hangs with is David Turner. The Turner name came up during the Gardener theft at some point in time. I said, "Would you potentially wear a recording device one time? Can you do it?" And he goes, "Yeah, all right. I'll do it." He did. And he kept doing it. And he did it like a pro! [laughs]

Anthony Romano: Sunday December 13th Nine o'clock in the morning. Conversation between Anthony Romano, me, and Carmello Merlino

Merlino speaking: Good morning Viet Nam.

Romano speaking: What's up Fat Boy? Can ya talk to that other guy, maybe, Monday?

Merlino speaking: Who Myles [Connor]? He don't know where they are.

Merlino speaking: They want those motherfuckers bad. And they'll pay.

Nadolski: Merlino also wants to rob the Loomis Fargo Vault Facility. It's over in Easton, Mass.

Romano: Remebmer we talked about that Easton thing.

Nadolski: That's where they keep all the money. The trucks they come back and they unload money. And he's been casing it.

Merlino: Eighty bags or whatever the fuck it is.

Romano on tape: Wow.

Merlino: You take it all.

Nadolski: And he's planning, talking, scheming.

Merlino: This is going to be the crime of the century. So I'm going to recruit the other two guys, okay?

Romano: All right.

Merlino: Dave and his friend Steve. They're good with these. They know what they're doing.

Nadolski: The guys he wanted to use were David Turner and Stephen Rossetti.

Surveillance recording Man 1: You see him?
Man 2: Yeah.
David Turner: I seen you guys looping.
Stephen Rossetti: I'm looking in restaurants. and you guys are in a car. I went in that place. I went over to that place.
Carmello Merlino: These guinea cocksuckers. "Let him walk around, he needs the exercise.
Stephen Rosetti: I don't care.
Merlino: Nah you're good you're good.
Romano: This car just sucks in the snow. It just sucks.
Merlino Well we don't want anyone seeing four distinguished gentleman.
Turner: The only one they're going to memorize is me because I'm handsome.
Merlino: If that was our biggest fucking problem we'd be in real good shape.
Romano: The back door is just like the front one. No alarms on it. They open it with a key coming in. No key going out.
Rosetti: Okay so the first door you can go in and out of. And you need a key to open the other one.
Romano: The first door needs a buzzer or a key, the second door is just in and out. It's like a sally port.
Rosetti: Yeah.
Waitress: Cream. Oh see someone didn't tell me they wanted coffee.
Turner: Blame it on me.
Romano: You wanna fuck with her?
Turner: No. I don't.
Waitress: OK you're welcome.
Merlino: That looks delicious. You should share that white toast with me.
Rossetti: He shouldn't be having white toast. He should have at least wheat.
Man: He doesn't like when we eat bread. Not with his health.
Romano: Right.
Rossetti: Now, if we're inside and we're gonna run out the back we don't need any keys. We go straight out?
Romano: No. No. No. Straight out.

Nadolski: That tape was dynamite. We've got a case. What we had arranged for was the next day, we had my squad, we had the FBI SWAT team, the surveillance squad, all out at TRC. The first one to arrive was Mello. A SWAT van pulls up… Boom! They take him and he's gone.

Turner and Rossetti are being followed by a plane. David Turner gets out, opens the trunk, takes out this huge duffel bag. The guns are in that bag. The guy in our car yells for the SWAT team, "Take him! Take him!" Take him!"

sirens wailing: You got anything about the Gardner you want to get off your chest [laughing]." [INTRO:

Abath: They said "Boston Police," and I buzzed 'em in.

Reporter Tom Brokaw: Boston. A quiet museum. A daring robbery.

Stephen Kurkjian: Vipers are in the grass, and they're moving towards you.

Reporter: The biggest art heist in history. The 13 art treasures stolen are worth half a billion dollars.

Reporter Ted Koppel: Take a look at these composite drawings.

Shelley Murphy: These were a get out of jail free card, and everybody knew it.

McGuigan: I have the paintings with me, now what?

Merlino: They want those motherfuckers bad. And they'll pay.

Gentile Defense Attorney Ryan McGuigan Outside Gentile's home: They're looking for them [stolen Gardner paintings] right here [Robert Gentile's house, Manchester, CT]

John Green: We're gonna get these back.

Reporter: Gardner Museum doubling its reward up to $10 million dollars.

Tom Mashberg: It can really come to obsess you.

Green: Why not just kill these people?

Anne Hawley: I had no idea what I was going into. It was just horrifying.

Reporter: The empty frames are all that remain on the museum walls.

[END INTRO:

Martin Leppo: You gotta remember, I represented Merlino. And I represented probably every member of his crew, Merlino, Davey Turner, and Stevie Rossetti.

Murphy: I do find it fascinating. They all had the same lawyer, They all had Marty Leppo. If you were a suspect, you had to have Marty Leppo.

Leppo: It's alleged, and they were indicted for, conspiracy to rob the Loomis counting-house in Easton. The unfortunate part for them was their added member was an informant. When the word came out that they had been arrested, we couldn't find them. What are they grabbed for? What are they doing? What's the bail situation? And nobody could find them. But I found them in the Brookline police station, and the informant was not there, even though he was a participant. And that's when I knew that something happened.

Nadolski: They had a carbine assault rifle, five semi-automatic handguns, a live fragmentation grenade. They had bulletproof vests, they had scanners. They had timers, jumpsuits. They had flex ties, handcuffs. They were given a chance to talk, but they all denied any involvement or connection or possession of anything from the Gardner Museum. They all got around 40 years.

Leppo: They did everything to make an arrest. They set up that sting, and said to them after they were arrested, "Give up the paintings, you walk out."

Murphy: This whole little crew of people, they were sort of intertwined. Some of them met through prisons, some of them met on the streets of Boston. Carmello Merlino, David Turner, and there was Bobby Guarente.

There's a strong belief that he had his hands on them. He may not have been involved in the theft, but somehow came into possession of the paintings.

The thing about Guarente that keeps him as a prime person of interest, even though he's dead, is he had connections to many of these people.

Edmund Mahony: I'd always covered the courts, and the Mafia and organized crime, those kinds of things. Everybody knew Guarente. He was the most popular gangster in New England, I think. I've talked to people who told me that, at some point in time, he considered David Turner like a son. Guarente loved him [Turner], "like my own boy." Turner was in the can on this thing. I mean he's a young guy, he's got a 40 year sentence. And Guarente wanted to do him a favor and get him out. He was floating the idea of returning a painting. Guarente had an appointment with the lawyer of David Turner to talk about this. By the time the government finds out about this, Guarente's dead, so they can't ask him about it.

The FBI went up to check a farmhouse that Guarente had, to see if they could find any trace of the paintings. And they went back to drop the keys off with the wife, or the widow, and say thank you for giving us the keys, and they try and engage her in a little bit of small talk. You know

"I'm so-and-so, from Boston, and we're from-- This is the Gardner Museum. You ever been to the Gardner? We know you used to live in Massachusetts… And she became, like, visibly agitated, and she starts going crazy, and she says, "I know what the Gardner is, my Bobby had two of the paintings."

He was dying, and she was constantly at him to get rid of the things.

Mahony: He said, "We're going to drive down to Portland. I'm gonna meet somebody, have lunch, and I'll give him the paintings. They went into a restaurant, the two wives and the two husbands. At one point, Guarente and this other guy went out, and transferred paintings from Guarente's car to the guy's car. She remembers the guy likes to eat. He's a big eater. He's a gourmet. They used to come up and dine together.

It's this guy named Bob Gentile from Connecticut. Then the FBI people, who all from Maine and Boston at that point, look at each other and go, "Who the hell is Bob Gentile?"

2010 or so, Bob Gentile is a local hoodlum. When he first came up, I call up guys that I know, retired FBI agents who are on the organized crime squad in Connecticut. You know, the agent said to me, "He's got nothing to do with Boston. He's got nothing to do with any art heist." And one of the things these Mob guys do is they always have a half-assed car business on the side. And he was closely associated with Guarente.

A. Ryan McGuigan: Bobby Guarente and Bobby Gentile had met back in the '80s. They were both in the car business. They were both Italian guys, both heavyset. They looked like brothers for God's sakes. It became a friendship of years. Probably 25, 30 years.

Mahony: They found out they shared some common interests. Boosting stolen things. I mean they would hijack truckloads of clothing and they would sell that sort of thing. So they had a lot going on. You know, Gentile's just a swindler and a cheater. You know? Everybody's looking to break his legs.

Mahony: Bob at this point has a, he's like kind of muscled his way into taking over this used car lot, G&M Auto. And this guy has actually converted one of the grease pits into a gourmet kitchen. And he cleaned out the equipment, and he put in a stove, and a table, and chairs, and a refrigerator, and a sink. And he goes down there at ten o'clock in the morning and he starts cooking. And he's cooking these great big things with sauce, spaghetti, everything like that. Bobby's got the apron on with the big stomach. He's got all these old-time, broken-down gangsters from the area that come down, there all 60, 70 years old, 80 years old, and he's feeding them. And he's holding court, blah, blah, blah. They drink wine and eat spaghetti all day, and talk about when they stole this, and when they stole that, when they knocked over this guy and that guy. and the other thing.

glasses clink: The FBI inserts an informer into this group. He's trying to get Gentile to talk about the art, talk about the museum, talk about the paintings. They start working on Bobby. I mean, non-stop every day. Gentile's winking and nodding. "Oh, yeah, I can't talk about that," you know? The next thing is, "Can you get me drugs? Can you get Oxycontin, can you get me this, can you get me that?"

McGuigan: The informant sees a bottle that my client had on his desk. And he picked it up, and it was his own prescription for Dilaudid. And then he says, "How much do you want for this?" Says, "I'll give you $300 for the bottle." Client said, "Okay." And there you go. There's a felony. Murphy David Turner's name came up in court in Connecticut. I went looking at the Bureau of Prisons website and saw his release date, and suddenly it's 2025, and it's like, "What's the reason?"

Interviewer: David Turner's original release date was 2032. And then it gets put to 2025, sometime around the same time that your--

McGuigan: My client is being prosecuted. Yeah.

Interviewer: Did you get any indication why that sentence was cut?

McGuigan: No. But I-- It's not a coincidence. In law enforcement and criminal law, we don't believe in coincidences. Turner's working with the FBI. And so that's why I believe that it was this cooperation that gets him seven years shaved off his sentence.

Murphy: We know that it was kept secret, but if it was for some reason like sentencing guidelines changed or there was something that didn't need to be secret, it would be part of the public court file.

Kelly: I don't know what's publicly revealed in the proceedings against him, but typically, when a search warrant is executed it's based upon information that law enforcement has from other sources, other witnesses, who say, "We know so-and-so is involved in a crime and we know the fruits of that crime are at his location."

Murphy: Clearly David Turner got some sort of a deal for information.

McGuigan: I got a phone call, and they said uh, "Do you know there's about 100 FBI agents outside of your client's house?" I said, "No, I wasn't aware."

TV Reporter: You can get a nice zoomer there. They're bagging and tagging, baby. Okay. Federal agents searching a reputed mobster's home in Manchester, and it may be connected to the largest art heist in history.

Former Federal Prosecutor Brian Kelly: Federal authorities, they got a search warrant for his property, and the thought was that there were a couple paintings on his property.

McGuigan: There were cars everywhere. There were three massive black trucks, tactical vehicles, tents they had erected. A few bloodhounds. They got a ferret back there. I'm not kidding, they had, two helicopters flying up in the air. It was something out of a movie.

Mcguigan: Not they've got ground-penetrating radar. They're lookin' for paintings. They're lookin' for 'em right here.

Reporter: Well let's quickly remind people what was taken from the Gardner all those years ago.

Different Reporter: It was amazing. Thirteen paintings, Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, Vermeer.

Robert Gentile's neighbor: Well he's a crook, you know, he's just a crook. And crooks do those things. I wish he didn't live here.

McGuigan: I think that they're gonna find nothing but a bunch of worms for their fishing expedition.

At that point I said to myself, "Well, they must know something that I don't." In the face of all of the money that is being spent right now, I have to be wrong. I couldn't possibly be right."

Reporter: Okay five, four, three, two, one. I can't believe they're letting the attorney for this… suspect hang out right there with the feds, but I guess he has a right to. I mean… it makes no sense to me.

John Green: Word came in. We're going to get this stuff back. We prepared for our press conference. Poster boards were made for all the pieces. The words "recovered" were over them, the item was in the center of it. We were very excited. I had been on many, many searches. We'd get leads for different people, different places, and we would go and we would search their homes. We would come up dry at each one of them. We were really salivating at the opportunity to see all the things that we were looking for.

Mahony: They really took it apart. I mean… They were looking inside walls and things. I think they went in there three times, and every time, you know, they found secret hiding places that they hadn't about known about before. The FBI went out they looked at the shed, and they found a hole in the floor. And underneath the hole, was another hole in the dirt, with some kind of big Tupperware thing in it, which presumably, you know, you could hide something in.

McGuigan: They bring me out to the hold, and they show me a cut in the floor that they had made.

Kelly: It looked very dramatic. And there was a giant piece of equipment they had to move out of the shed, and underneath that equipment was a trap door. And then they open the trap door, and someone said, you know, "There's a big container down here." They pull out the big container, and it's essentially empty except for a handgun and some weed.

McGuigan: And I looked at it and said, "It's an empty hole. What do you want from me?" They said, "Well, we think your client might have put the paintings in here." I said, "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee is five by four. It's not gonna fit in there. What are you talking about?" "Well, the small Rembrandt could have." And I said, "Yeah, but are you really looking for the small Rembrandt?" Clearly didn't get what they wanted, which is certainly not firearms, it's certainly the paintings from the Gardner Museum.

Green: I was disappointed about that, and I said, "If you ever find this stuff, ring me up. I want to see it all."

McGuigan: They spend the better part of eight hours in the house, and they then told me that they had found a number of guns. Uh, they had found a newspaper article. It was the Boston Herald. And it was all about the museum being robbed. Within that, was a yellow, lined piece of paper with every single piece of art that had been stolen from the museum on a left-hand column, and on the right-hand column, there was a corresponding number with every single piece of art that had been stolen from the museum on a left-hand column, and on the right-hand column, there was a corresponding number with a value of what the art would've been valued on the street. That doesn't look good. That doesn't look good.

Green: Corroborated law enforcement's sense that the search warrant was appropriately issued, and they were hopeful that he'd give them information about it.

McGuigan: They're telling him, "You're gonna die in jail unless you give us more information," and he has no information for them.

Mahony: That set off all kinds of red flags. I went and I asked him about it, and I said, "What is this?" The thing is, Bob Gentile wouldn't know the truth if he tripped over it. He just, he's incapable of telling the truth.

McGuigan: I asked for a meeting with the assistant U.S. attorney on the case. I figured I'd just be walking into a normal meeting with an FBI agent and a U.S. attorney. This is a big meeting. This is a big deal. They were asking about, of course, the piece of paper. And they said, "For God's sake, Bob, you have the piece of paper. It has a list of all the paintings and values, for God's sake. Stop denying it." There are probably 12 FBI agents, three U.S. attorneys, and then a polygraph guy from the FBI. This polygraph had about 35 people in the room, milling around, having coffee, slamming doors, babies crying. You name it, it had it. They had put a picture of every single one of the pieces of art that had been stolen, and they put them on the wall, and he went down through each and every one of the pieces of art. "Have you ever seen that one? Have you ever seen that one? Have you ever seen that one?" They then were having side conversations with one another and my client, explaining what kind of picture it was, who painted the picture, what was the size of the picture. So he was getting a tutorial while he was taking this [air quotes] polygraph, right there in the U.S. attorney's office. In the middle of the polygraph, he just out of the blue states, "You know what? I think I did see that little one. I saw it in Maine. I went to a party at Bobby Guarante's house and his wife, when we got to the party-- His wife was there, and she came downstairs and she pulled the little picture there out of her bra, like that, and she showed it to me and she put it back in her bra." And they were, oh, all excited about that. He knew that they were excited about it. They leave the room to take a break. He looks at me and he said, "Boy, I got 'em with that one, didn't I?" I said, "Did you make that up?" He said, "Yes." I put my head down and I said, "Please, God, don't do that anymore."

Mahony: The polygraphy result was a tenth of a percent chance he was telling the truth. I mean, it was less than one percent, I think. It was just, you know… I mean, almost certain.

Murphy: He was questioned. "Did you know anything about the heist before it happened?" He flunks that part of it. "Do you know anything about the whereabouts of the paintings today?" He flunks that when he denies it.

Mahony: With a guy like him, what're you gonna do? He's never told the truth in his life. If you asked him what his name was, he would give you a fake name. It's just the way he is.

McGuigan: Not only did they imprison him, they prosecuted him to the full extent that they could. He was looking at a death in prison.

McGuigan: Where was I? I think I was on the golf course. I get a phone call from a U.S. Marshal. He says, "Do you know what's going on with your client?" I said, "No." He said, "I think you have to call him. It's his health, he's bad. He's asking for you." So I frantically call the office. I find where he is. He's at the hospital. He's not going to live through the night. If there's ever a chance of a deathbed confession, this is it. By the time I got to the hospital, it was already twelve o'clock. I had thought, "I'm going to show up, he's dead. I know it. It's just my luck." Showed up… talked to the doctor. I said, "How's my client?" He said, "He's not gonna make it through the night." So I went and sat down with him and I spent the night with him. I woke up the next morning about nine o'clock. I hear a gasp and a "what the "F" are you doing here?"

chuckling: I said, "Good to see you too, Bobby." And he said, "What's gonna happen to me?" And I said, "You're probably gonna die… If I'm honest with you." And he kept moving his legs. He was in a lot of discomfort. And he kept moaning that he can't die here. "I can't die here, I can't die here. I can't die here." I approached him, I got in his face, and I said, "The only way that you don't die here… is that you give me something. I guarantee you, if you give me anything on the paintings, that I could have you medevac'd out of here tonight, and you can be in your bed with your wife this evening, and you could die at home." And then real tears coming down his face, because he genuinely loves his wife. And he looked at me, defeated, and he said, "But there ain't no paintings." It was at that point that I knew that I would never ask him about paintings again.

Interviewer: When was the last time you talked to him?

Mahony: He got out of prison on the 17th, which I think was a Saturday. I had lunch with him.

Interviewer: How was the lunch?

Mahony: I paid. I paid. He bought two lunches. He took one home with him. He's 80 now. I mean, 81, 82, I can't remember. He's overweight. He's got a heart condition. He's got arthritis. He's got a bad back. He's livin' in this, he's got like a half a room in the house by himself.

Kurkjian: Well, the feds have spent a lot of time announcing that the paintings went from Bobby Guarente to this great friend of his, Bobby Gentile. Myself included, everyone has knocked on Gentile's door and talked to his lawyer, and he denies, denies, denies.

Kurkjian on tape: Good. So, this is Monday at Bob's house. What do you think about the possibility that the Guarente did have them?

Gentile: I don't think so. If he had them, he would've gotten David Turner out of jail. Him and Merlino and all, he would have got every... He wants to get them out of jail. Those were his friends. If he had them, he would have gave them up. -

Kurkjian: He's that kind of guy?

Gentile: Oh he was a good guy. He was a bad guy, bank robber, this and that, but he was a good-hearted guy. He was a teddy bear, he was a nice guy. What do I care what somebody else did 20 years ago? I know nothing about the paintings.

McGuigan: The FBI, they believe Erlene

Elene: Guarente, Guarente's wife. They're interested in their theory of the case that the paintings went from Boston to Maine, Maine to Connecticut, Connecticut to Philadelphia. That's the story that they're sticking to.

Mahony: Gentile is the link. He actually was inducted into and joined the Philadelphia Mafia family and became a member.

In one of the stories, there was a loud argument between Gentile and Guarente about "delivering a painting" to one of the bosses in Philadelphia as a "tribute." And Gentile typically and characteristically was-- "Are you out of your mind? That's worth too much money. What are we going to give something like that away that? Forget about it." I think he has valuable information that, for whatever reason, because he's stubborn or stupid or whatever, he's not sharing.

crowd murmuring indistinctly:

beeping:

Richard DesLauriers: Good afternoon, everybody. Great to have each of you here today. My name is Rick DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston division.

Murphy: It was really stunning. The FBI announces on the anniversary that they are very confident that they know who committed the robbery, and the thieves are dead.

DesLauriers: With today's announcement, we begin the final chapter. Twenty-three years ago today, two men posing as Boston police officers bluffed their way into the museum by telling the night guards they were investigating a disturbance. Some described the theft as one of the most significant art heists in American history. We agree. We are pleased to announce the FBI has made significant investigative progress in the search for the stolen art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Art Museum. We are continuing our relentless investigation with the same tenacity that brought us to this point. It quickly led to confirming the identity of those involved in the robbery and brought us to the point where we are today.

Murphy: It's very tantalizing, because they're essentially saying, "We figured it out." Many people would say, "No, you didn't, because you don't have the paintings."

DesLauriers: However, we do not know where the art is currently located, and we are again asking for tips from the public.

It's likely over the years that someone, a friend, neighbor, or relative, has seen the art hanging on a wall, placed above a mantle, or stored in an attic. We want that person to call us. We also want…

Kelly: I think that's an unfortunate interview to give. Because, unless you got the items, I mean-- I think it's better left unsaid what you do and do not have.

Reporter: So why don't you name them? If you believe that you know who stole the paintings, how does it help not to identify the crew you're looking for? Because that's an ongoing investigation right now. We're not going to compromise ongoing investigative activity.

Murphy: But they don't release the names. However, through court filings, they identify people of interest. Some of the prime suspects. It comes back to this crew who hung out at this garage in Dorchester. One of the names is George Reissfelder. The other one was Lenny DiMuzio.

Whelan: Lenny's life was cut short. An informant told me that when he was at David Turner's house, David shot him in his backyard, or the garage area, threw him in the trunk. That car was driven to East Boston and was parked under, a (uh) I believe, an off-ramp to Route 1. And it was parked there for several months. And the only time someone really noticed the car was there that long was because it was completely white from the birds sitting on it. They checked out the car, they checked out the plates, they opened the trunk, and Lenny was in the trunk… melted. He was there for quite a while.

Sikellis: It was in the parking lot of Santrapio's Pizza, in East Boston. There was a lot of speculation as is, but, uh… nothing beyond speculation.

Whelan: Charlie Pappas was arrested, in 1992, '93, with quite a bit of cocaine. And we turned Charlie Pappas to become an informant.

Sikellis: And he agreed to testify against David Turner on a home invasion. Although he was a friend of David Turner's since childhood, he said, "I don't want to go to jail. I'm givin' this guy up." And it was the night before Thanksgiving, and two people jumped out of the bushes and shot him several times.

Reporter: Pappas was scheduled to testify in a 1990 home invasion case against David Turner, who lives in this house several blocks away from the murder scene.

Whelan: The last shot was in the mouth, which meant, "You're talking [chuckles]"

McGuigan: There's a lot of mysterious… deaths around the theft. Everybody who apparently did the robbery is whacked. Or dies of natural causes, or some might say unnatural causes. At that point, Guarante's dead. Merlino's dead. Everyone had died. Except for Turner.

Kurkjian: You ever see those guys before? Or since?

Abath: Not to the best of my knowledge, no.

Kurkjian: Anybody close to them?

Abath: The only guy who came close, when I saw his picture, was Turner.

Murphy: Turner got a break. David Turner had seven years shaved off his prison sentence, and we know that. And we know that it was kept secret.

Murphy: It is November 13th, 2019. David Turner's back here today for resentencing. We're standing out in front of the federal court in Boston.

Well, I can tell you I was here a couple of decades ago when he was first convicted in this attempted robbery of an armored car depot. You don't realize when the years go by, it's been 21 years, and I recall him as a young man with dark, jet black hair, and now he's a 52-year-old man. He's got a little gray, you know, to his hair.

man: Okay, he gets out, they just let him walk right out the front door?

woman: Yeah.

man: He's not going back--- He's not going back to jail?

woman: No, he's gonna walk free. Just got to do processing.

man: All right.

Murphy: There are very few persons of interest left alive in the Gardner heist investigation.

shutter snapping:

Reporter Bob Ward: Hey, David, how's it feel to be out?

Turner: Wonderful. Goin' to Disneyland.

Bob Ward: Yeah?

Murphy: And he just walked out the door a free man.

Ward: Do you have any knowledge of the Gardner heist?

Turner: Please get away from me. Any idea where those paintings are?

Murphy: There are some authorities who are concerned, some of the investigators that I've spoken to, who were dogging him back in the day, that he was someone that was a suspect in several murders. So there's concern.

man: Suspect number 2 is described as a white…

Murphy: On the one hand, people say, "Look, this guy's been in prison for 21 years. If he really knew where they were, he wouldn't be sitting in prison." But on the other hand, there's a $10 million reward, and he's walking out of prison. I would think there's an incentive, if he does know anything, to try to find it.

Ward : Hey, you plan on trying to collect the reward?

Leppo: Everybody talks about the Gardner. This is this is it. Where's the last page, "…and we apprehended"? Unbelievable.

I literally have spent almost 25 years on this case. Uh…

intricate string music playing: And in the first few years, I had what I call "Gardner sickness," which is just this intense desire to solve the case, no matter how you can. You know, follow every lead. Look at every clue twice, three times. You go back to the night of the crime, and you're gonna-- you recreate every step that took place. You look at the first police reports. It can really come to obsess you. There's gotta be a way to figure out where these paintings went, because it's so bizarre that they just disappeared.

Vigderman: To have them come back, it's like somebody coming back from the grave.

Hawley: When I see those frames, I feel that they are waiting for the work to come back.

McGuigan: It's three o'clock in the morning. I have the paintings with me. Now what?

Kurkjian: The feds, in their account, believe that the paintings most likely went through these hands of Donati, to Guarente, to the outside world.

Mahony: There are some people who think when Gentile dies, it might shake something loose. His death will trigger something. Someone will say, "Now he's dead, I'm gonna come forward."

Brekke: You can't write off anything until you have the evidence that says 100% that this didn't happen. Maybe it did.

Mahony: There's stories about stuff being buried, stuff being thrown away. And I wouldn't be surprised if this stuff was gotten rid of. There was just so much heat on this thing.

Connor: I know this organized crime guy in New York, takes stuff and sends them overseas to Saudi Arabia. He said "that's where they are. I know that's where they went."

Murphy: Bobby [Gentile? Donati? Guarente?] had some connections with some people up in Canada that they were looking at.

Dick Ellis: We have had verbal accounts. A source who was extremely reliable says he thinks he saw the Vermeer in Dublin.

Richard O'Rawe: Nonsense.

Brekke: We started getting calls from South America.

Hawley: We had this lead that came from Japan.

Kurkjian: There was a tip that said the paintings had been stolen by a group and they had wound up in France.

Leppo: They've traveled to Jamaica, churches in South Boston. They've gone all over and they haven't found a thing.

Kurkjian: We're coming up to 30 years now, 30 years that these masterpieces have been missing. It needs a break.

Murphy: They're out there. Somebody stashed them. Sometimes it's the next generation. "Grandpa's dead, look what we got [chuckles].": You know? It's like…

Fisher: You could potentially get immunity, You could potentially get $10 million dollars. And that's why this case is so confounding, right? They could be in Australia. They could be in the Middle East. They could be in Europe. Who knows? You wanna keep it in the public eye. So why don't we get all of our evidence on one of the anniversaries, and put it all out on the table, and the tapes, and just show the stuff? Until you have the paintings… it's all still just a theory.