How an unsolved murder could shed light on an infamous art heist
In the early hours of March 18th 1990, 13 artworks by renowned artists such as Vermeer and Rembrandt were stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Collectively valued at $500 million, the artworks were never recovered as investigators failed to pin down one key suspect after the theft.
But now, over 30 years on, an unsolved murder of a man in 1991 has given police a new angle on what happened to the art.
Jimmy Marks was shot twice on February 20th, the year after the heist, outside his apartment in Massachusetts: 25 minutes northeast of Boston.
Jimmy’s murder remains unsolved, and there has not been an arrest made in connection with the high-profile case.
Marks was a convicted bank robber and an associate of Robert Guarente, who has long been a person of interest in the case, and who died in 2004. Guarente had been with Marks earlier in the day of his death and is suspected of having been the one to pull the trigger on Marks.
“[Marks] had connections to subjects suspected of being involved in the Gardner museum heist,” deputy police chief Mark O’Toole of the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, told the Boston Globe. “We don’t know what, if any, role he had. But very likely it was related [to his death].”
Investigators believe that Guarente was once in possession of two of the stolen works, which he then handed over to another accomplice named Robert Gentile, who died in 2001.
A recent tip to investigators said that prior to his death, Marks “was bragging that he was not only in possession of some of the stolen Gardner artwork, he bragged that he had hidden it,” according to Boston 25. Police recently searched the Lynn apartment where Marks once lived, but did not recover anything.
Gardner Museum Security Chief Anthony Amore said that the new evidence “needs to be investigated more thoroughly”, as investigators continue their efforts to recover the paintings.
Shortly after Marks’ death, investigators first were able to place Guarente and Gentile in the same place. Amore told Boston 25, “The fact that these people converge here around the time of the Marks homicide certainly makes a person hunting for the Gardner paintings sit up and pay attention.”
Image credits: Getty Images