This Is a Robbery: The World's Greatest Art Heist (2021) s01e04 Episode Script
$10 Million Reward
[ominous music playing]
[buzzing]
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.
[sirens wailing]
Bank Robbery Task Force
was bang-bang-bang-bang.
Things happening all the time,
always on the move.
Armored cars, banks.
Not to mention the other violent crimes.
I stabbed him in the face,
in the legs, in the arms, in the chest.
It was a lot of fun.
In 1997, I believe, Anthony Romano,
a guy who's been
in and out of prison a lot,
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 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.
[tense music playing]
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.
[recorder clicks]
And he did it like a pro! [laughs]
[Romano speaking]
[Romano speaking]
[Merlino speaking]
[Romano speaking]
[Merlino speaking]
Merlino also wants to rob
the Loomis Fargo Vault Facility.
It's over in Easton, Mass.
[Romano speaking on tape]
[Romano]
That's where they keep all the money.
The trucks come back
and they unload money.
And he's been casing it.
[Merlino on tape]
[Romano on tape] Wow.
[Merlino on tape]
And he's planning, talking, scheming.
[Merlino on tape]
[Romano] All right.
[Merlino on tape]
[Romano on tape] Yeah.
[Merlino on tape]
The guys he wanted to use
were David Turner
and Stephen Rossetti.
- [man 1] You see him? Yeah.
- [man 2] Yeah.
[David Turner speaking on tape]
[Stephen Rossetti speaking on tape]
[Merlino speaking on tape]
[man 3 speaking on tape] I don't care.
[Merlino speaking on tape]
[Merlino on tape]
[Turner speaking on tape]
[Merlino] Yeah. If that was
- [Merlino speaking on tape]
- [Turner laughs]
[man whistling on tape]
[Romano speaking on tape]
[Rossetti speaking on tape]
[Romano speaking on tape]
- [Romano] It's like a sally port. Uh
- [Rossetti] Yeah.
[waitress on tape]
[Turner on tape]
[Romano on tape]
[Turner] I don't
[waitress on tape]
[Merlino on tape]
[Rossetti on tape]
[Merlino] He doesn't like
when we eat bread. Not with his health.
[Romano on tape] Right.
[Rossetti on tape]
- [Rossetti] We go straight out?
- [Romano] No.
[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!"
[sirens wailing]
Anything about the Gardner
you want to get off your chest?
[laughing]
[VCR clicking, whirring]
[Abath] They said "Boston Police,"
and I buzzed 'em in.
[intense string music plays]
Boston. A quiet museum.
A daring robbery.
[Kurkjian] Vipers are in the grass,
and they're moving towards you.
[man 1] The biggest art heist in history.
The 13 art treasures stolen
are worth half a billion dollars.
Take a look at these composite drawings.
[Murphy] These were
a get out of jail free card,
and everybody knew.
[McGuigan] I have the paintings with me,
now what?
[Merlino]
They want those motherfuckers bad.
And they'll pay.
- They're looking right here.
- [Green] We're gonna get this back.
[man 3] Gardner Museum
doubling its reward up to $10 million.
[Mashberg]
It can really come to obsess you.
[Green] Why not kill these people?
[Hawley] I had no idea
what I was going into.
It was just horrifying.
[man 4] The empty frames
are all that remain on the museum walls.
[tense music playing]
[Leppo] You gotta remember,
I represented Merlino.
And I represented
probably every member of his crew.
Merlino,
Davey Turner,
and Stevie Rossetti.
I find it fascinating.
They all had the same lawyer, 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.
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.
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.
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.
[as Turner] "Like my own boy."
Turner was in the can on this thing.
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
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?
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.
[birds cawing]
[Mahoney] 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 wives and 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,
all from Maine and Boston at that point,
look at each other and go,
"Who the hell is Bob Gentile?"
[inquisitive orchestral music plays]
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.
Guarente and Gentile
had met back in the '80s.
They were in the car business.
They were both Italian guys,
both heavyset.
They looked like brothers.
It became a friendship of years.
Probably 25, 30 years.
[Mahoney] They shared
some common interests.
Boosting stolen things.
They would hijack truckloads of clothing
and they would sell that sort of thing.
So they had a lot going on.
Gentile's just a swindler and a cheater.
You know,
everybody's looking to break his legs.
[upbeat jazzy music playing]
[Mahoney] Bob at this point
has 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 put in a stove,
and a table, chairs,
a refrigerator, and a sink.
He goes down at ten o'clock in the morning
and starts cooking.
He's cooking big things
with sauce, spaghetti, everything.
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.
All 60, 70 years old, 80 years old,
and he's feeding them down there.
And he's holding court, blah, blah, blah.
They drink wine and eat spaghetti all day,
and talk about when they stole this,
when they stole that,
when they'd knocked over
this guy and that guy.
[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."
The next thing is,
"Can you get me drugs?
Can you get Oxycontin,
can you get this, 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.
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?"
[man] 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.
[man] Did you get any indication
why that sentence was cut?
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'd be part of the public court file.
[tense music playing]
[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
law enforcement has
from other sources, 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,
"Do you know there's about 100 FBI agents
outside of your client's house?"
I said, "No, I wasn't aware."
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.
Federal authorities 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.
They had, I'm not kidding,
two helicopters flying in the air.
It was something out of a movie.
[Mcguigan]
Ground-penetrating radar.
They're lookin' for paintings.
They're lookin' for 'em right here.
[reporter] Remind people what was taken
from the Gardner years ago.
It was amazing. Thirteen paintings,
Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, Vermeer.
He's a crook, you know, he's just a crook.
Crooks do those things.
I wish he didn't live here.
I think that they're gonna find nothing
but a bunch of worms
for their fishing expedition.
At that point I said to myself,
"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."
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.
Word came in.
We're going to get this stuff back.
We prepared for our press conference.
Poster boards were made for 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.
[Mahoney] 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 they found hiding places
that they hadn't known about before.
The FBI 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 could hide something in.
They bring me out to the hold,
and they show me a cut in the floor
that they had made.
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,
"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.
I looked and said, "It's an empty hole.
What do you want from me?"
They said, "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."
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 paintings from the Gardner.
[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 a value of what the art
would've been valued on the street.
That doesn't look good.
Corroborated law enforcement's sense
that the search warrant
was appropriately issued,
and they were hopeful
that he'd give them information.
They're telling him,
"You're gonna die in jail
unless you give us information,"
and he has no information for them.
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's incapable of telling the truth.
I asked for a meeting with the assistant
U.S. attorney on the case.
I figured I'd be walking into
a normal meeting
with an FBI agent and 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 seen that one?
Have you 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 "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 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."
[Mahoney] The polygraphy result
was a tenth of a percent chance
he was telling the truth.
It was less than one percent, I think.
It was just, you know
I mean, almost certain.
He was questioned. "Did you know anything
about the heist before it happened?"
He flunks that part of it.
"Do you know the whereabouts
of the paintings today?"
He flunks that when he denies it.
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.
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.
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 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."
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
"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?"
I said, "You're probably gonna die
If I'm honest with you."
He kept moving his legs.
He was in a lot of discomfort.
And he kept moaning he 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.
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.
[atmospheric music playing]
[man] When was the last time
you talked to him?
He got out of prison on the 17th,
which I think was a Saturday.
I had lunch with him.
- How was the lunch?
- I paid.
He bought two lunches.
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 half-ruined house by himself.
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 Guarente did have them?
[Gentile] I don't think so.
If he had them,
he would've gotten Turner out of jail.
Him and Merlino and all
He wants to get them out of jail.
Those were his friends.
If he had them, he'd have gave them up.
- [Kurkjian] He's that kind of guy?
- A good guy.
He was a bad guy, bank robber,
but 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.
[birds cawing]
[McGuigan] The FBI,
they believe Erlene Guarante,
Guarante'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.
[Nadolski] 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 "tribute."
And Gentile typically
and characteristically was
"You out of your mind?
That's worth too much money.
Give 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 murmring indistinctly]
[beeping]
[man] Good afternoon, everybody.
Great to have each of you here today.
My name is Rick DesLauriers,
special agent
in charge of the 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
bluffed their way into the museum
by telling the night guards
they were investigating a disturbance.
Some described the theft
as one of the 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 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."
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,
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] 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, I believe, an off-ramp to Route 1.
And it was parked there
for several months.
The only time someone really noticed
the car was there that long
was because it was completely white
from birds sitting on it.
They checked out the car, 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,
1992, '93, with quite a bit of cocaine.
And we turned Charlie Pappas
to become an informant.
[Sikellis] 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.
- [gunfire]
[man] 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.
The last shot was in the mouth,
which meant, "You're talking." [chuckles]
[dramatic music playing]
[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 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 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]
[man] Hey, David, how's it feel to be out?
- Wonderful. Goin' to Disneyland.
- Yeah?
[Murphy]
He walked out a free man.
Do you have any knowledge
of the Gardner heist?
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 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'd think there's an incentive,
if he does know anything,
to try to find it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] Hey, you plan on trying
to collect the reward?
[somber music playing]
[Leppo] Everybody talks about the Gardner.
This is it.
Where's the last page,
"and we apprehended"?
Unbelievable.
I literally have spent
almost 25 years on this case. Uh
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.
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 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.
It's three o'clock in the morning.
I have the paintings with me. Now what?
The feds, in their account,
believe that the paintings most likely
went through these hands of Donati,
to Guarente, to the outside world.
[Mahoney] 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."
You can't write off anything
until you have the evidence that says
100% that this didn't happen.
Maybe it did.
There's stories about stuff being buried,
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.
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.
Bobby had connections with some people
in Canada that they were looking at.
We have had verbal accounts.
A source who was extremely reliable
says he thinks he saw the Vermeer
in Dublin.
Nonsense.
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.
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,
potentially get $10 million.
That's why this case
is so confounding.
They could be in Australia.
They could be in the Middle East.
Could be in Europe. Who knows?
You wanna keep in the public eye.
Why don't we get our evidence
on one of the anniversaries,
put it out on the table, the tapes,
and just show the stuff?
Until you have the paintings
it's all still just a theory.
[dramatic choral music plays]
[intricate string music playing]
[buzzing]
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.
[sirens wailing]
Bank Robbery Task Force
was bang-bang-bang-bang.
Things happening all the time,
always on the move.
Armored cars, banks.
Not to mention the other violent crimes.
I stabbed him in the face,
in the legs, in the arms, in the chest.
It was a lot of fun.
In 1997, I believe, Anthony Romano,
a guy who's been
in and out of prison a lot,
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 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.
[tense music playing]
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.
[recorder clicks]
And he did it like a pro! [laughs]
[Romano speaking]
[Romano speaking]
[Merlino speaking]
[Romano speaking]
[Merlino speaking]
Merlino also wants to rob
the Loomis Fargo Vault Facility.
It's over in Easton, Mass.
[Romano speaking on tape]
[Romano]
That's where they keep all the money.
The trucks come back
and they unload money.
And he's been casing it.
[Merlino on tape]
[Romano on tape] Wow.
[Merlino on tape]
And he's planning, talking, scheming.
[Merlino on tape]
[Romano] All right.
[Merlino on tape]
[Romano on tape] Yeah.
[Merlino on tape]
The guys he wanted to use
were David Turner
and Stephen Rossetti.
- [man 1] You see him? Yeah.
- [man 2] Yeah.
[David Turner speaking on tape]
[Stephen Rossetti speaking on tape]
[Merlino speaking on tape]
[man 3 speaking on tape] I don't care.
[Merlino speaking on tape]
[Merlino on tape]
[Turner speaking on tape]
[Merlino] Yeah. If that was
- [Merlino speaking on tape]
- [Turner laughs]
[man whistling on tape]
[Romano speaking on tape]
[Rossetti speaking on tape]
[Romano speaking on tape]
- [Romano] It's like a sally port. Uh
- [Rossetti] Yeah.
[waitress on tape]
[Turner on tape]
[Romano on tape]
[Turner] I don't
[waitress on tape]
[Merlino on tape]
[Rossetti on tape]
[Merlino] He doesn't like
when we eat bread. Not with his health.
[Romano on tape] Right.
[Rossetti on tape]
- [Rossetti] We go straight out?
- [Romano] No.
[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!"
[sirens wailing]
Anything about the Gardner
you want to get off your chest?
[laughing]
[VCR clicking, whirring]
[Abath] They said "Boston Police,"
and I buzzed 'em in.
[intense string music plays]
Boston. A quiet museum.
A daring robbery.
[Kurkjian] Vipers are in the grass,
and they're moving towards you.
[man 1] The biggest art heist in history.
The 13 art treasures stolen
are worth half a billion dollars.
Take a look at these composite drawings.
[Murphy] These were
a get out of jail free card,
and everybody knew.
[McGuigan] I have the paintings with me,
now what?
[Merlino]
They want those motherfuckers bad.
And they'll pay.
- They're looking right here.
- [Green] We're gonna get this back.
[man 3] Gardner Museum
doubling its reward up to $10 million.
[Mashberg]
It can really come to obsess you.
[Green] Why not kill these people?
[Hawley] I had no idea
what I was going into.
It was just horrifying.
[man 4] The empty frames
are all that remain on the museum walls.
[tense music playing]
[Leppo] You gotta remember,
I represented Merlino.
And I represented
probably every member of his crew.
Merlino,
Davey Turner,
and Stevie Rossetti.
I find it fascinating.
They all had the same lawyer, 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.
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.
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.
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.
[as Turner] "Like my own boy."
Turner was in the can on this thing.
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
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?
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.
[birds cawing]
[Mahoney] 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 wives and 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,
all from Maine and Boston at that point,
look at each other and go,
"Who the hell is Bob Gentile?"
[inquisitive orchestral music plays]
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.
Guarente and Gentile
had met back in the '80s.
They were in the car business.
They were both Italian guys,
both heavyset.
They looked like brothers.
It became a friendship of years.
Probably 25, 30 years.
[Mahoney] They shared
some common interests.
Boosting stolen things.
They would hijack truckloads of clothing
and they would sell that sort of thing.
So they had a lot going on.
Gentile's just a swindler and a cheater.
You know,
everybody's looking to break his legs.
[upbeat jazzy music playing]
[Mahoney] Bob at this point
has 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 put in a stove,
and a table, chairs,
a refrigerator, and a sink.
He goes down at ten o'clock in the morning
and starts cooking.
He's cooking big things
with sauce, spaghetti, everything.
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.
All 60, 70 years old, 80 years old,
and he's feeding them down there.
And he's holding court, blah, blah, blah.
They drink wine and eat spaghetti all day,
and talk about when they stole this,
when they stole that,
when they'd knocked over
this guy and that guy.
[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."
The next thing is,
"Can you get me drugs?
Can you get Oxycontin,
can you get this, 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.
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?"
[man] 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.
[man] Did you get any indication
why that sentence was cut?
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'd be part of the public court file.
[tense music playing]
[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
law enforcement has
from other sources, 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,
"Do you know there's about 100 FBI agents
outside of your client's house?"
I said, "No, I wasn't aware."
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.
Federal authorities 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.
They had, I'm not kidding,
two helicopters flying in the air.
It was something out of a movie.
[Mcguigan]
Ground-penetrating radar.
They're lookin' for paintings.
They're lookin' for 'em right here.
[reporter] Remind people what was taken
from the Gardner years ago.
It was amazing. Thirteen paintings,
Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, Vermeer.
He's a crook, you know, he's just a crook.
Crooks do those things.
I wish he didn't live here.
I think that they're gonna find nothing
but a bunch of worms
for their fishing expedition.
At that point I said to myself,
"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."
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.
Word came in.
We're going to get this stuff back.
We prepared for our press conference.
Poster boards were made for 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.
[Mahoney] 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 they found hiding places
that they hadn't known about before.
The FBI 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 could hide something in.
They bring me out to the hold,
and they show me a cut in the floor
that they had made.
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,
"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.
I looked and said, "It's an empty hole.
What do you want from me?"
They said, "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."
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 paintings from the Gardner.
[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 a value of what the art
would've been valued on the street.
That doesn't look good.
Corroborated law enforcement's sense
that the search warrant
was appropriately issued,
and they were hopeful
that he'd give them information.
They're telling him,
"You're gonna die in jail
unless you give us information,"
and he has no information for them.
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's incapable of telling the truth.
I asked for a meeting with the assistant
U.S. attorney on the case.
I figured I'd be walking into
a normal meeting
with an FBI agent and 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 seen that one?
Have you 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 "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 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."
[Mahoney] The polygraphy result
was a tenth of a percent chance
he was telling the truth.
It was less than one percent, I think.
It was just, you know
I mean, almost certain.
He was questioned. "Did you know anything
about the heist before it happened?"
He flunks that part of it.
"Do you know the whereabouts
of the paintings today?"
He flunks that when he denies it.
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.
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.
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 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."
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
"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?"
I said, "You're probably gonna die
If I'm honest with you."
He kept moving his legs.
He was in a lot of discomfort.
And he kept moaning he 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.
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.
[atmospheric music playing]
[man] When was the last time
you talked to him?
He got out of prison on the 17th,
which I think was a Saturday.
I had lunch with him.
- How was the lunch?
- I paid.
He bought two lunches.
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 half-ruined house by himself.
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 Guarente did have them?
[Gentile] I don't think so.
If he had them,
he would've gotten Turner out of jail.
Him and Merlino and all
He wants to get them out of jail.
Those were his friends.
If he had them, he'd have gave them up.
- [Kurkjian] He's that kind of guy?
- A good guy.
He was a bad guy, bank robber,
but 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.
[birds cawing]
[McGuigan] The FBI,
they believe Erlene Guarante,
Guarante'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.
[Nadolski] 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 "tribute."
And Gentile typically
and characteristically was
"You out of your mind?
That's worth too much money.
Give 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 murmring indistinctly]
[beeping]
[man] Good afternoon, everybody.
Great to have each of you here today.
My name is Rick DesLauriers,
special agent
in charge of the 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
bluffed their way into the museum
by telling the night guards
they were investigating a disturbance.
Some described the theft
as one of the 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 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."
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,
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] 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, I believe, an off-ramp to Route 1.
And it was parked there
for several months.
The only time someone really noticed
the car was there that long
was because it was completely white
from birds sitting on it.
They checked out the car, 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,
1992, '93, with quite a bit of cocaine.
And we turned Charlie Pappas
to become an informant.
[Sikellis] 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.
- [gunfire]
[man] 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.
The last shot was in the mouth,
which meant, "You're talking." [chuckles]
[dramatic music playing]
[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 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 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]
[man] Hey, David, how's it feel to be out?
- Wonderful. Goin' to Disneyland.
- Yeah?
[Murphy]
He walked out a free man.
Do you have any knowledge
of the Gardner heist?
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 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'd think there's an incentive,
if he does know anything,
to try to find it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] Hey, you plan on trying
to collect the reward?
[somber music playing]
[Leppo] Everybody talks about the Gardner.
This is it.
Where's the last page,
"and we apprehended"?
Unbelievable.
I literally have spent
almost 25 years on this case. Uh
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.
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 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.
It's three o'clock in the morning.
I have the paintings with me. Now what?
The feds, in their account,
believe that the paintings most likely
went through these hands of Donati,
to Guarente, to the outside world.
[Mahoney] 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."
You can't write off anything
until you have the evidence that says
100% that this didn't happen.
Maybe it did.
There's stories about stuff being buried,
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.
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.
Bobby had connections with some people
in Canada that they were looking at.
We have had verbal accounts.
A source who was extremely reliable
says he thinks he saw the Vermeer
in Dublin.
Nonsense.
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.
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,
potentially get $10 million.
That's why this case
is so confounding.
They could be in Australia.
They could be in the Middle East.
Could be in Europe. Who knows?
You wanna keep in the public eye.
Why don't we get our evidence
on one of the anniversaries,
put it out on the table, the tapes,
and just show the stuff?
Until you have the paintings
it's all still just a theory.
[dramatic choral music plays]
[intricate string music playing]