Although Kerry would use the case to promote his then-budding political career, Reissfelder did not use it to his advantage, returning to his bad habits of using cocaine and hanging out with criminal contacts, both of which were in full supply at Merlinos garage. However, the Celtics' Senior VP is conservative regarding his private life. Donna told me, I distinctly recall that painting the man in the high hat, Reissfelder said. And he grabbed me by the hair, and then-- and then-- and of course, I was stupid. You don't even have to be a diehard Seinfeld fan to know how George's fiancee Susan died in season seven: Licking the toxic glue on the cheap wedding envelopes George had purchased . Yeah, no more ads! Richard Reissfelder appears with Gardner museum director of security Anthony Amore, who holds up a picture of one of the stolen paintings. At the time of their marriage, Santos held the rank of Corporal and was on her way to flight school. Guarente's wife claimed he gave two of the paintings to Connecticut mobster Robert Gentile, but in February 2021 Gentile seemed to deny any involvement with the heist. The late Merlino himself was a person of interest in the Gardner case see Meet the Suspects for April 26. By his own account, Amore still speaks at least daily with Geoffrey Kelly, the top FBI agent on the case, and works with him to pursue leads, conduct interviews, communicate with reporters, art investigators and even members of the public about the case. What attracted you to him? Reissfelder and DiMuzio were known associates of the now deceased mobster Carmello Merlino. The museum opened to the public in 1903, and Gardner continued to expand the collection and arrange it until she died in 1924. And John Kerry and Roanne Sragow are going to, you know, be his best friends forever now." MICHAEL BLANDING: Well, let me take you back to the beginning. Reissfelder was caught after three years and sent back to Massachusetts. Here he is in the 1986 documentary about wrongfully imprisoned men, "Exonerated: The Wrong Man.". You could trade the paintings to, you know basically make a Hollywood film, right? Reissfelder said his family is anguished by the revelations and want the art to be returned. (Photo by Joseph Runci/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Remember the two suspects who fled TRC and crashed their car after FBI agents pursued them? Rare Pope Creek Poppy Jasper Rough Slab!Gorgeous RARE Top Pope CreekPoppy Jasper Rough Slab ! BLANDING: I can show you one of these letters that I found where he says, "I'm happy to share this information about the Gardner Museum, as well as these other crimes that, that I have knowledge of." Turner dangled tantalizing hints about the Gardner heist and other unsolved crimes, but eventually stopped communicating with Blanding. Reissfelder, a retired National Guard military policeman, became aware of the famed burglary after being contacted last year by Amore, who has run the investigation since 2005. He spent time with underworld figures from the mid-1980s until his death, and was a free man at the time of the theft, state and federal documents and witnesses say. And, um, when she unveiled these portraits to me, and she brought up one of the images the thief with the slimmer face I looked at it and said, "Wow, that's George Reissfelder." RODOLICO: Sikelliss break came in 1992, when a longtime friend and sometime accomplice of David Turners was swept up in the drug-trafficking sting on TRC Auto Electric. It's a helicopter. HORAN: Just not places like TRC Auto Electric. HORAN: By business as usual, Turner meant that he believed hed been set up for one crime the planned Loomis-Fargo robbery because the FBI needed leverage in order to question him in another one: the Gardner case. Jeannine Russell was born on January 31, 1967. But Anthony Amore, head of security for the museum, has said that based on Beauchamps statements the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys Office searched homes in Dedham; Lewiston, Maine; and Orrington, Maine, but each time, investigators came up empty. According to both men, Reissfelder immediately recognized the Manet painting, which depicts a formally dressed man sitting at a table outside the Tortoni cafe in Paris. #ada-button-frame { HORAN: But someone else could have. He believes the artwork has been stashed somewhere nearby. Last month, state prisoner Robert C. Beauchamp, 59, publicly made claims through his attorney that George Reissfelder might have stashed the stolen Gardner art in a safe house in Maine. I think its always significant when a person believes that they have seen one of our missing masterpieces, Amore said. And so, what role would he have played? All these theories are frustrating. Id love some day to own my own house. The two men belonged to the crew of local criminal Carmello Merlino, who was first . Alexander . SANTOS: The George that I knew wasn't-- He never-- he couldn't think on his feet. George Albert Reissfelder Sr. (1901-1976) - Find a Grave Memorial Born in Boston,worked hard all his life.Married ,father of 5 children.Preceded in death by his wife Emma G(schnabel).We miss him. One of them had options and from them, chose a life of crime. His wife allegedly told the FBI in 2010 that her husband confessed he gave two of the paintings to alleged Connecticut mobster Robert Gentile, now in his eighties. They had listening devices that could pick up two-way radios. The Senior VP of the Celtics is reserved regarding his personal life. There was a robbery of the Bull & Finch pub, the Cheers you know, the pub that serves as the model for Cheers. Undisclosed sources in the investigation believed that the thieves the FBI identified were George Reissfelder and Leonard DiMuzio, both involved in the Merlino gang and both deceased shortly after the robbery in 1991. I will go after your-- I'll go after your family." Shes so young. In taking on the role at the Gardner, he also took on the responsibility of assisting the FBI in solving one of historys most bedeviling museum heists. HORAN: Two months after George Reissfelders release, Janice Santos married him. What did he look like back then and, you know, what drew you to him? He's just got to adjust a little bit,' and it didn't happen. Sragow, who is now a judge in Massachusetts, and Kerry, the former U. S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate, won Reissfelders release in August of 1982. His peers had voted him most unique and had given him the nickname Crackerjack. He had a broad, round face with wide, high cheekbones, a mop of light brown hair, and a grin that conveyed confidence and mischief. For everything that points toward these particular suspects there's something that points away. ". We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. George Reissfelder pictured in Netflix's This Is a Robbery "I wasn't anything involved in it. BOSER:My name is Ulrich Boser, and I'm the author of "The Gardner Heist." Anthony Amore says Reissfelder had few prospects. He has kept his wife and children's identities a secret until now. 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ROBERT BEAUCHAMP: OK, I'm Robert Beauchamp. The other one was middle aged and beaten down and had done hard time for a murder he didnt commit. If it was because of some new federal sentencing guideline, you know, decision it would be detailed in the record. Interesting side note, Carr reports: Reissfelder was free to commit the crime because his court-appointed lawyer, future secretary of State John Kerry, had his murder conviction overturned eight. At 2:15 P.M., the prisoner, George A. Reissfelder, 42 years old, was unmanacled in the Suffolk County Superior Court when the District Attorney's office declined to oppose his lawyer's motion that . Robert Sikellis is the former assistant attorney general for Massachusetts who spent years in the 1990s trying to put David Turner behind bars for those crimes. Don't cooperate.". View George Reinsfelder Junior's 1940 US census record to find family members, occupation details & more. Of course they didn't have anything with Merlino because he waited outside the museum in a van, you know, and a walkie talkie keeping, you know, as a lookout. STEPHEN KURKJIAN: Seven years reduction off a criminal sentence? Because I realized at that point-- I thought maybe they'd steal maybe up to five million dollars at the most, but when it turned out to be hundreds of millions, I said, "You know what type of investigation this is going to be compared to what it would have been?". They told me they had information from several sources that I was an actual participant in the robbery. He calls it the perfect vehicle to tell the story of Boston., It, in my mind, represents so much of the citys respect for art and culture, its value of learning, and the sort of really richer ideas, and then also represents, you know, this other side of the city that is rough, and dirty, and criminal, and we have this tension that, you know, rests at the center of it all.. HORAN: Was David Turner in on the robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum? And in those cases it generally means cooperation. One of them had options and from them, chose a life of crime. So that seems pretty impressive. This time he was found dead from cocaine poisoning a suspected mob hit that was never proven, he wrote. Robert Beauchamp says the TRC gang was flying too close to the sun. Turner has steadfastly denied that he has cooperated with authorities in the Gardner case but The Boston Globe reported in 2016 that federal officials shaved seven years off of his 38-year sentence, a reduction that puts his release in 2025. One of the places the FBI looked the longest was TRC Auto Electric in Dorchester just four miles from the estimable museum. KURKJIAN: This was a ploy by him in order to later tell the investigators, Oh, I was in Florida at the time.. During a one-day furlough in 1974, Reissfelder fled the state. And why were the Boston FBI agents who arrested him so convinced that he knew something about the Gardner heist, they offered him a get out of jail free card to talk? HORAN: So someone returned a car that had been rented in David Turners name. Thats the auto body shop about four miles from the Gardner Museum that doubled as an underworld nerve center. And seemed wholly uninterested and unconcerned with what was going on around him although he was not-- not-- not a dumb person, that's for sure. The other wasnt. But, Steve says, there is one for two days after March 20. Robert L Reissfelder, West Roxbury, MA holds a Building Licenses, Construction Supervisor license and 1 other license according to the Massachusetts license board. And that's what happened. Lived In Milford NH. Robert Beauchamp, one of those contacts, has stated that Reissfelder and David Turner, another devotee of Merlinos garage, visited him often in Massachusetts state prison during this term and in the vaguest of terms told him they were planning a major robbery and asked how they might hide the valuables in the immediate aftermath. When he was hauled in on drug-dealing charges, Pappass best option to avoid prison time was to flip on Turner. He was born Sept 3, 1923 in Boston, Mass. Previously, he had worked as a specialist for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. HORAN:Boser, who is a senior fellow at a Washington, D.C., think tank now, remains passionate about the Gardner mystery. So my name is Janice Santos. Of all the men floated as possible suspects in the Gardner heist, no one is more of a dead ringer. RODOLICO: When we come back the other guy. Turner has denied repeatedly to reporters and in court that he had any knowledge of the heist, but he associated with known felons whose names had been tied to the crime including Robert Guarente, Carmello Merlino and Stephen Rossetti. He doesn't have access to the paintings or he'd be out of prison. Carmello Merlinos coke-dealing operation out of TRC Auto Electric was thriving. A poem a previous boyfriend had written threw him into a rage. So that's when we started talking about getting some crime insurance, figuring that that was going to happen sooner or later. Kerry and Sragow managed to win a new trial for Reissfelder in June 1981 based on the deathbed confession of his co-defendant, Sullivan. When I see this I have the same reaction every time. KURKJIAN: I went looking for documents. There was a murder of a gay social worker who gave Turner and Pappas a ride home from Provincetown, and he turned up dead that night. I was 23 years old. While nothing directly tying him in the Gardner theft was found in his apartment, Reissfelders brother later told investigators later that he had seen what he thought to be Manets Chez Tortoni, one of the 13 artworks stolen from the Gardner, as having hung for a time over his brothers bed. This hits you anywhere, you're dead." His mother died. Reissfelder did not stick with the Inmate #6875309 look after a couple of weeks from his release from prison as the photo (far right) taken six years before the Gardner Heist shows. BEAUCHAMP: And when I started seeing the FBI sketches of them I thought, those disguises weren't really all that good. HORAN: On March 11, 1991, almost the anniversary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery, George Reissfelder died. And about 5'10", maybe 170, -75 pounds. So, everything that we've seen about David Turner, he's usually the guy inside, like strong arming, like he's very aggressive. HORAN: And this is George Reissfelder, remembering his worst hard time. But yeah. Jeannine and Bill often played golf together according . His wife divorced him and he has two children, besides Maria, whom he has never seen. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) Justin Quinn. SIKELLIS: In my opinion, it was just ice cold. It was 17 years ago. I said to myself, "This is real, and I just might be spending the rest of my life in here.". I mean, it was--, it was--, it was chilling to be in the same room at times. The paintings frame was found on one of the chairs in the empty office of the museum security supervisor the next morning. Would they let him go? After more than 28 years, authorities have yet to make an arrest, or recover any of the artwork stolen, in the Gardner Museum heist. (Courtesy Boston Globe). AMORE: She'd never seen George Reissfelder in her life. And so I guess Merlino basically and maybe Reissfelder and Turner to a far lesser extent started canvassing museums in the Boston area. My brother received stolen property. HORAN:And running through this story, Boser says, is a tale of two cities. David A. Turner was considered a suspect in the Gardner heist early on in the investigation. And so, the plan was for him to come out, move in with me. Edward D. Cowhig of Gate of Heaven Church in South Boston that Reissfelder was innocent. In her book, Seinfeldia, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong gives the full story . AMORE: I always start with "[Christ In The] Storm On The Sea Of Galilee," which is the one that's most commonly recognized by people. In 2010, Guarente's wife, Elene, told the FBI that shortly before her husband's death, he gave two of the stolen paintings to a Connecticut mobster, Robert Gentile, during a rendezvous at a. I'm just saying the work of art looked exactly like George to the point where we had a police uniform photoshopped onto him, and you hold the two and he looks exactly like this composite work of art. 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