The Sword AND The Stone (Part Five)
Blog Table of Contents
In a radio interview on WNPR in September of 2017" Stephen Kurkjian said that "for 28 years the FBI has labored diligently on the case." That is the very opposite of the conclusion anyone would draw, who considered Kurkjian's own book, Master Thieves, the last word on the diligence, or lack thereof, of this investigation by the FBI, most especially in the book's fourth chapter, called "Anne Hawley's Burden"
Kurkjian offers his own first-person account, in a later chapter, of bringing what he considered credible information about the Heist and the possible location of the stolen paintings to investigators in 2014, not as a journalist but as a citizen, describing an utter absence of any follow-up up with him, or replies to his own inquiries after that met even a minimum standard of common courtesy:
"I had met both men [Geoff Kelly and Anthony Amore] numerous times in the past, but on each of those occasions it was me asking the questions and taking notes. This time it was different; I was doing the talking and Kelly and Amore took the notes." Kurkjian spoke with the investigators for "nearly an hour." Kurkjian's source was willing to meet with Amore though not Kelly, he told them. "I gave Amore the caller’s cell phone number, but he never
called him. Nor did he—or Kelly—return my subsequent phone calls when I tried to determine what they’d thought of the information I had relayed to them, and what, if anything, they planned to do with it."
Former Gardner Heist era guard security Marjorie Galas encountered the same bureaucratic stone wall, when she tried to pass along information to investigators after the surveillance video was released in August of 2015:"
"The three other former guards who believe they know who the man in the video is "are Marj Galas, who lives in Los Angeles; April Kelley, a high school English teacher in Central Massachusetts; and Michael Levin, a Framingham lawyer. The four said they had not been contacted by investigators, though Galas said she called an FBI hot line."
Now a California resident and a writer for Variety, four months after the release of the surveillance video, Galas was urging members of a Facebook Gardner Museum staff alumni group, to take a look at the video, while investigators themselves never made any effort to engage the rank and file with the video:
"The three other former guards who believe they know who the man in the video is "are Marj Galas, who lives in Los Angeles; April Kelley, a high school English teacher in Central Massachusetts; and Michael Levin, a Framingham lawyer. The four said they had not been contacted by investigators, though Galas said she called an FBI hot line."
Now a California resident and a writer for Variety, four months after the release of the surveillance video, Galas was urging members of a Facebook Gardner Museum staff alumni group, to take a look at the video, while investigators themselves never made any effort to engage the rank and file with the video:
"After I posted about this on my twitter account @gardnerheist which included Galas' twitter handle: I received the following reply-tweet from Galas:
"Good morning - just saw your post. To date the FBI still hasn't reached out. Good morning - just saw your post. To date the FBI still hasn't reached out. The #Globe reporter remains focused on covering all angles."
Galas seemed not at all aware that six weeks earlier was a report in the Boston Globe that the man in the video had been identified, although not named, The news was buried in the story about the reward being doubled, though the Globe had been told the previous week about it in response to an inquiry the made to the FBI.
Even if the information by Galas and Kurkjian was not considered useful, in this particular instance, the two represent influential people among members of the public who have more than a passing interest in the case. They are the kind of individuals, people might well speak with, instead of the museum or the FBI directly. Information they provide could prove essential at some point down the road.
Gardner Museum trustee Francis Hatch, a former Republican nominee for Governor of Massachusetts, in a letter described the FBI's response to one of his own initiatives to further the Gardner Heist investigation as casting a "pall over future cooperative efforts.” The FBI has shown about as much enthusiasm for building bridges as P.O.W.s on the River Kwai.
In Master Thieves Kurkjian wrote that "two Boston cops assigned to the US attorney’s office on organized crime investigations also were convinced they knew who had pulled off the theft. They had received a tip from a reliable contact that John L. Sullivan Jr., a South Boston amateur artist as well as a petty thief, had been seen around the Gardner Museum in the days leading up to the theft, and confirmed it through parking tickets. But again, the jurisdiction belonged to the FBI, and entreaties to the agents to follow up on the tip fell on deaf ears, with one agent telling them 'we’ve got dozens of suspects that we’ve got to chase down.'”
David Turner
One of the suspects the FBI could have been "chasing down" was David Turner, although seemingly they were not.
"As part of my research, I uncovered a new witness," Ulrich Boser said at an author talk in 2013. One of the young men who had been out partying that night. He was at a party across the street from the museum that night. He ran out of beer went out on the street a with group of people a young lady in fact he was giving a piggy back ride and they saw the thieves in the car. Two days later they filed a police report and in that police report, he said that the thief that he saw that night had 'Asian eyes.' This is an unusual characteristic. David Turner has Asian eyes."
Only with the Gardner Heist could an eyewitness who filed a police report two days after the event be claimed as a "new" and "uncovered" lead by a respected journalist.
Turner had been convicted in 1989 and 1990 of two firearm offenses and one larceny/breaking and entering offense. He was charged in a notorious home invasion which, like the Gardner Museum Heist took place in 1990. In that case, charges were dropped against Turner when one witness was found murdered and another, the homeowner, backed out of testifying out of fear for her life.
Turner was also implicated in a 1990 burglary, one month after the Gardner Heist in Tewksbury, MA. One of the people involved, Leonard DiMuzio, latter day suspect of the investigation, said that Turner was in on the burglary too. DiMuzio was found murdered the following year.
In 1993 Turner was indicted for the Bull & Finch Pub robbery. Known as the "Cheers" pub for the hit TV show it was said to have inspired, the robbery occurred in September of 1991, 18 months after the Gardner Heist.
In March of 2017 the Boston Globe reported that Turner is considered a suspect in the Gardner Heist by the FBI, and in 2016 they reported he has been a suspect in the Gardner Heist since "the early 90's."
But in the same article they reported that it was after Turner was arrested in 1999 in the attempted armored car depot robbery (Turner claimed) that the FBI told him that it suspected he and Carmello Merlino were involved in the Gardner theft. Why did it take seven years for the FBI to make him their suspicions known to Turner. It was nine years after the robbery and the statute of limitations had long passed.
Boston Magazine reported in 2005 that "the FBI confirmed to lawyers that [Carmello Merlino] and Turner had been targeted as suspects in the Gardner robbery since 1992. Tom Mashberg in the Herald said in 2009 that Merlino's "name was first raised somewhat dubiously in connection with the Gardner theft in 1992."
A Freedom Of Information Act request by Ulrich Boser showed that Merlino had claimed to the FBI [falsely] that he could get the paintings back at that time. And Turner as a member of Merlino's crew would logically be a suspect then as well.
If Turner had been questioned earlier about the Gardner Heist then his attorneys would certainly have introduced it in Turner's appeal. It was exactly the kind of proof would need to bolster the claim that Turner was entrapped by investigators wishing to determine what he knew about the whereabouts of the stolen Gardner paintings. The more Turner could show that the FBI had a longstanding interest in his possible involvement in the robbery, the stronger the case would be that Turner was entrapped.
But as with Abath, a focus on Turner does not start until long after the crime. Logically it would not have taken two years and for Turner's boss Carmello Merlino to claim he had the painting for investigators to be taking a look at Turner as a suspect or Merlino for that matter, whose rap sheet went back to the fifties and included an armored car robbery in 1968.
Brian McDevitt
"Good morning - just saw your post. To date the FBI still hasn't reached out. Good morning - just saw your post. To date the FBI still hasn't reached out. The #Globe reporter remains focused on covering all angles."
Galas seemed not at all aware that six weeks earlier was a report in the Boston Globe that the man in the video had been identified, although not named, The news was buried in the story about the reward being doubled, though the Globe had been told the previous week about it in response to an inquiry the made to the FBI.
Even if the information by Galas and Kurkjian was not considered useful, in this particular instance, the two represent influential people among members of the public who have more than a passing interest in the case. They are the kind of individuals, people might well speak with, instead of the museum or the FBI directly. Information they provide could prove essential at some point down the road.
Gardner Museum trustee Francis Hatch, a former Republican nominee for Governor of Massachusetts, in a letter described the FBI's response to one of his own initiatives to further the Gardner Heist investigation as casting a "pall over future cooperative efforts.” The FBI has shown about as much enthusiasm for building bridges as P.O.W.s on the River Kwai.
In Master Thieves Kurkjian wrote that "two Boston cops assigned to the US attorney’s office on organized crime investigations also were convinced they knew who had pulled off the theft. They had received a tip from a reliable contact that John L. Sullivan Jr., a South Boston amateur artist as well as a petty thief, had been seen around the Gardner Museum in the days leading up to the theft, and confirmed it through parking tickets. But again, the jurisdiction belonged to the FBI, and entreaties to the agents to follow up on the tip fell on deaf ears, with one agent telling them 'we’ve got dozens of suspects that we’ve got to chase down.'”
David Turner
 |
| David Turner and Boston Police Sketch of Gardner Robber |
One of the suspects the FBI could have been "chasing down" was David Turner, although seemingly they were not.
"As part of my research, I uncovered a new witness," Ulrich Boser said at an author talk in 2013. One of the young men who had been out partying that night. He was at a party across the street from the museum that night. He ran out of beer went out on the street a with group of people a young lady in fact he was giving a piggy back ride and they saw the thieves in the car. Two days later they filed a police report and in that police report, he said that the thief that he saw that night had 'Asian eyes.' This is an unusual characteristic. David Turner has Asian eyes."
Only with the Gardner Heist could an eyewitness who filed a police report two days after the event be claimed as a "new" and "uncovered" lead by a respected journalist.
Turner had been convicted in 1989 and 1990 of two firearm offenses and one larceny/breaking and entering offense. He was charged in a notorious home invasion which, like the Gardner Museum Heist took place in 1990. In that case, charges were dropped against Turner when one witness was found murdered and another, the homeowner, backed out of testifying out of fear for her life.
Turner was also implicated in a 1990 burglary, one month after the Gardner Heist in Tewksbury, MA. One of the people involved, Leonard DiMuzio, latter day suspect of the investigation, said that Turner was in on the burglary too. DiMuzio was found murdered the following year.
In 1993 Turner was indicted for the Bull & Finch Pub robbery. Known as the "Cheers" pub for the hit TV show it was said to have inspired, the robbery occurred in September of 1991, 18 months after the Gardner Heist.
In March of 2017 the Boston Globe reported that Turner is considered a suspect in the Gardner Heist by the FBI, and in 2016 they reported he has been a suspect in the Gardner Heist since "the early 90's."
But in the same article they reported that it was after Turner was arrested in 1999 in the attempted armored car depot robbery (Turner claimed) that the FBI told him that it suspected he and Carmello Merlino were involved in the Gardner theft. Why did it take seven years for the FBI to make him their suspicions known to Turner. It was nine years after the robbery and the statute of limitations had long passed.
Boston Magazine reported in 2005 that "the FBI confirmed to lawyers that [Carmello Merlino] and Turner had been targeted as suspects in the Gardner robbery since 1992. Tom Mashberg in the Herald said in 2009 that Merlino's "name was first raised somewhat dubiously in connection with the Gardner theft in 1992."
A Freedom Of Information Act request by Ulrich Boser showed that Merlino had claimed to the FBI [falsely] that he could get the paintings back at that time. And Turner as a member of Merlino's crew would logically be a suspect then as well.
If Turner had been questioned earlier about the Gardner Heist then his attorneys would certainly have introduced it in Turner's appeal. It was exactly the kind of proof would need to bolster the claim that Turner was entrapped by investigators wishing to determine what he knew about the whereabouts of the stolen Gardner paintings. The more Turner could show that the FBI had a longstanding interest in his possible involvement in the robbery, the stronger the case would be that Turner was entrapped.
But as with Abath, a focus on Turner does not start until long after the crime. Logically it would not have taken two years and for Turner's boss Carmello Merlino to claim he had the painting for investigators to be taking a look at Turner as a suspect or Merlino for that matter, whose rap sheet went back to the fifties and included an armored car robbery in 1968.
 |
| They didn't even round up the usual suspects |
"There are amazing similarities," between the Gardner Heist and an attempt to rob the Hyde Collection in 1981 by Brian McDevitt and an accomplice, Frederick J. Fisher, a former director of the Hyde Collection who now heads the Hillwood Museum in Washington, said in 1992.
In both Heist the robbers wore uniforms. In the case of the Hyde Collection robbery attempt the thieves dress. The thieves used similar language, and carried with them handcuffs and duct tape. Like Myles Connor and Florian "Al" Monday, McDevitt was a Massachusetts native, something of an aesthete. with an appreciation for the finer things, though not as strong on the ability to acquire them by honest means. McDevitt was living in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood just a few miles from the Gardner Museum before abruptly moving a short time later.
 |
| Brian M. McDevitt, |
"There is also a close resemblance between the Gardner and the Hyde collections, each of which is housed in a re-creation of a 15th-century Italian palazzo. The Hyde, in fact, was inspired by the Gardner and is referred to in museum circles as "the mini-Gardner." Both contained works by Rembrandt, Vermeer and other Old Masters, and by French Impressionists -- artworks that are extremely difficult to sell illegally because they are so well known" the New York Times reported in 1992.
But W. Thomas Cassano, the supervisor of the violent crime squad of the F.B.I.'s Boston division, who was in charge of the Gardner investigation, at the time he was asked about it said he was unaware of the Hyde case more than two years after the Gardner Heist.
In 1992 the New York Time also reported: Former head of the Hyde Robert "Fisher has not been interviewed, even though he has sent two messages about his suspicions to the bureau. Nor has Kevin Judd, the police chief of South Glens Falls, who took the confessions of Mr. McDevitt and Mr. Morey after the attempt to rob the Hyde. Roy Prout, a detective in the Suffolk County District Attorney's office in Boston, also said he had not been contacted by the F.B.I. about a possible link with the Gardner case. Detective Prout took Mr. McDevitt's confession after Mr. McDevitt was arrested for stealing more than $100,000 in cash and bonds from a safe deposit box in the New England Merchants National Bank in Boston in 1979.
Robert A. “Bobby” Donati and David A. Houghton
Two suspects who would seem to be suspects in their own right without the input of an informant were Bobby Donati and David Houghton. Yet here is another lead that seemingly was not worked, not only by Kurkjian in 2014 but by Edward Ellis in 1992.
As Tom Mashberg reported in 1998 for Vanity Fair in 1998: "Starting in 1992, with Connor’s approval and support, Edward B. “Rocco” Ellis had sought to use the two names he’d been given by Connor—Robert A. “Bobby” Donati and David A. Houghton—as leverage with federal officials in Boston. Ellis hoped his fresh leads in a stale case might be parlayed into a transfer to a medium-security prison near his home in western Massachusetts. For nearly five years Ellis had had no luck with his bartering." Donati's names has resurfaced frequently in the same breath with Donati's, but little is know about. The one images available of him online is fake. An in depth article in the Boston Globe, about why Connor and Youngworth's claim about Houghton being involved was dubious. But then when two men posting as investigators started casting aspersions Houghton's way, the newspaper went along for the ride.
by Kerry Joyce
