An unsolved murder can give new clues about a three-decade-old heist of artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, as per a report.
The heist in question took place in the early morning of March 18, 1990. During the successful heist, 13 artworks were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Including the likes of Vermeer and Rembrandt, the works were collectively valued at $500 million. With the works never recovered and no arrests ever made, the case remains a mystery even 32 years later.
But an investigative report by Boston 25 suggests that another unsolved case – that of a murder – could give clues about the robbery. The murder of Jimmy Marks occurred on February 20, 1991 outside his apartment in Lynn, near Boston. With no witnesses or clues, no arrest was ever made. However, Boston 25 compiled all the clues that linked Marks with the Gardner heist.
Jimmy Marks was already a convicted robber and a known associate of Robert Guarente, one of the prime suspects in the Gardner heist. Investigators believed that Guarente, at one point, had at least two of the stolen works in his possession. He was also known to have met Marks on the day of his death. Guarente was said to have handed over the paintings to Robert Gentile, another suspect in the heist. More interestingly, Gentile was also placed in the same vicinity as Guarente and Marks on the day of Marks’s murder.
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Anthony Amore (Security Chief, Gardner Museum) said “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.” While Guarente died in 2004 and Gentile in 2021, solving the mystery could still help in recovering the stolen artworks.
