Richard Abath, an evening watchman whose choice to permit two thieves disguised as Boston law enforcement officials into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 enabled the best artwork heist in historical past — and one that is still unsolved — died on Feb. 23 at his residence in Brattleboro, Vt. He was 57.
His lawyer, George F. Gormley, confirmed the loss of life however didn’t present a trigger.
The Gardner Museum, in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, is likely one of the nation’s main non-public artwork museums, with its eponymous proprietor’s huge assortment of work, sculptures and historic artifacts.
Mr. Abath was not an expert guard: At a time when museums have been considerably extra lax with their safety, he was a latest music college dropout who took the job to assist with payments whereas specializing in his band, a Grateful Dead-inspired outfit known as Ukiah.
By his personal admission, he often got here to the museum drunk or excessive, and he mentioned that he as soon as allowed a few of his pals into the museum after hours for a celebration.
The heist happened round 1 a.m. on March 18, 1990, the day after the beer-soaked revelries of St. Patrick’s Day. Mr. Abath was on the museum’s entrance safety desk; he insisted he was sober.
The different guard on obligation had simply gone to make the rounds of the museum’s galleries when the 2 males got here to the door, figuring out themselves as members of the Boston Police Department and saying they have been there to analyze studies of a disturbance. Mr. Abath let the thieves into the museum’s vestibule.
“There they stood, two of Boston’s finest waving at me through the glass,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir in regards to the theft, parts of which appeared in The Boston Globe. “Hats, coats, badges, they looked like cops.”
One of the boys requested Mr. Abath to return out from behind the desk so they may see if he matched the outline of a suspect. As quickly as he did, they made him face the wall and handcuffed him.
He shortly realized one thing was amiss; the boys had not frisked him. And he was now a number of ft away from the museum’s solely panic button, again on the desk.
When the opposite guard returned, the boys handcuffed him, too. Then, they lined the guards’ eyes with duct tape and tied them up in numerous components of the basement.
Over the following hour and a half, the thieves stole greater than a dozen artistic endeavors, together with items by Edgar Degas, Rembrandt van Rijn, Édouard Manet and Peter Paul Rubens, reducing the works from their ornate picket frames. They additionally took an historical Chinese beaker and a bronze eagle finial from a Napoleonic-era flagpole.
But the boys left a number of invaluable works, elevating questions on their stage of aesthetic sophistication. Still, as thieves, they knew what they have been doing: They took a number of tapes from the museum’s safety cameras that might have proven them at work within the galleries.
All collectively they took some $500 million in artwork, the equal of $1.2 billion at this time, making it by far the largest artwork heist in historical past.
Suspicion instantly turned to Mr. Abath. City and federal investigators zeroed in on necessary particulars, just like the coincidence of the thieves arriving so quickly after the second guard left to make the rounds. A video digital camera exterior the museum confirmed Mr. Abath briefly opening a aspect door not lengthy earlier than the theft occurred.
Mr. Abath maintained his innocence all through the remainder of his life, and he was by no means named as an official suspect. He mentioned that he commonly opened the aspect door to ensure it was locked and that whereas museum protocol forbade him from letting anybody in after hours, there was no contingency ought to the guests be uniformed law enforcement officials.
“You know, most of the guards were either older or they were college students,” he advised NPR in 2015. “Nobody there was capable of dealing with actual criminals.”
Richard Edward Abath was born on May 24, 1966, in Wilmington, Del. His father, Walter Abath, was an engineer for Dow, and his mom, Madeline (McKenna) Abath, was a librarian.
Mr. Abath attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, however left earlier than finishing his diploma.
He married Diana Hampton in 2006. She survives him, alongside together with his sister, Kathy Buterbaugh; his brother, Jim Abath; and two kids from a earlier relationship.
He moved to Vermont in 1999, and obtained a bachelor’s diploma from Union Institute & University, an internet establishment based mostly in Cincinnati. He later labored as a trainer’s aide at a public college.
Mr. Abath tried to remain out of the highlight after the heist, however occasional developments within the case would carry renewed scrutiny about his function.
In 2015, the F.B.I. launched safety footage from the evening of the theft. It confirmed a automobile pull as much as the museum and a person in an upturned collar strategy the entrance door. Mr. Abath let him in.
The information media and regulation enforcement touted the tapes as a serious flip within the case, and Mr. Abath, who had since moved to Vermont, was once more interviewed by the authorities. But the mysterious customer turned out to be the museum’s deputy director of safety.
“I don’t want to be remembered for this alone,” he advised NPR. “But they’re saying it’s half a billion worth of artwork. And ultimately I’m the one who made the decision to buzz them in. It’s the kind of thing most people don’t have to learn to cope with. It’s like doing penance. It’s always there.”
