A Historical Examination of the Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene  Link to Part One Virtually every other stage of the eighty one minutes the thieves spent in the museum have been pored over, debated about, and second guessed: Were they pros? Were they thugs? Why this paintings and not that painting? Why were they let into the Museum at all? If the guard Rick Abath was involved in the robbery, something the Museum’s past and present security directors as well as the FBI have sometimes suggested is a distinct possibility, then clues to his possible involvement might be found from what is known and can be discerned about what actually occurred in the basement that fateful night. But details are contradictory and scarce, and with authorities less than forthcoming (“It’s an ongoing investigation”) actual clarifications from authorities have become an unrealistic expectation.  Three decades later, should it be an open question for the public whet...