For art enthusiasts visiting Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an essential stop. Nestled among its lush palm trees and Italianate architecture, the museum offers a collection of timeless masterpieces by renowned artists such as Titian and Botticelli. However, amid the gallery’s grandeur, visitors often find themselves perplexed by the presence of several empty frames hanging stoically on the walls.

These frames serve as a haunting reminder of a notorious night-time heist that remains the largest art theft in history. It’s been 35 years since the audacious crime, where over a dozen invaluable artworks, collectively valued at over $500 million, were stolen. Among the missing pieces are irreplaceable paintings by Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt, leaving behind empty frames as a stark reminder of their absence and a mystery that persists unsolved.

Recently, new developments have emerged that might finally offer clues to the fate of these missing treasures. In the spring of 1990, the museum was the scene of a daring robbery. Two men, masquerading as police officers, gained entry, subdued the guards, and made off with their loot unhindered. In the aftermath, suspicions quickly centered on one individual: Brian McDevitt.

As the investigation continued, McDevitt’s name consistently surfaced among the list of suspects, casting a shadow over the enigmatic disappearance of the artworks. Despite the passage of time, the missing pieces and the empty frames remain poignant symbols of one of the art world’s most enduring mysteries.

Now, however, new claims have emerged which could shed intriguing light on what became of the haul.

Spaces for missing Rembrandt paintings ‘A Lady and Gentlemen in Black,’ circa 1633, and ‘The Storm on the Sea Of Galilee,’ also circa 1633, seen on the walls of the Gardner Museum

Brian Michael McDevitt was one of the early suspects in the case because of a near identical heist he attempted in the winter of 1980

After the museum was raided in the spring of 1990 – two thieves disguised as police officers bluffed their way inside, tied up the guards and then escaped unimpeded – one name quickly rose to the top of the suspect list: Brian McDevitt.

His was a name that was repeatedly circled by investigators. A career conman from Swampscott, Massachusetts, he had, ten years earlier, attempted a near-identical caper at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York.

The Hyde’s executive director at the time, Frederick J. Fisher, previously told the Daily Mail how Brian McDevitt – masquerading as a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family – hoodwinked him over several months while plotting to plunder the museum of more than 70 works.

Fisher is convinced McDevitt was the mastermind behind the Gardner heist, citing ‘glaring’ parallels between the unsolved robbery and McDevitt’s plot to rob the Hyde.

Now, two of McDevitt’s former classmates from Swampscott High School, Bernard Kravitz and David Townshend, have told Daily Mail they also share those suspicions.

Bernard Kravitz says his belief stems from long-standing local whispers about McDevitt, and from remarks made by one of his former cellmates – McDevitt spent time in jail for the attempted robbery of the Hyde – during a chance encounter on a train when he suggested McDevitt had boasted of owning an impressive art collection.

McDevitt’s father, John McDevitt, worked as a guidance counselor at Swampscott High, and Bernard Kravitz interacted with him frequently.

During their conversations, the elder McDevitt spoke often of a remote cabin he owned in northern Maine, where he usually spent the summers with Brian and his two other children. The cabin, located somewhere near Millinocket, Maine, was even referenced in John McDevitt’s obituary when he passed away in 2018.

In part, it reads: ‘The North Woods of Maine is where John enjoyed fishing, hunting, and all outdoor activities, spending fifty summers at his camp on the lake. He will be sorely missed.’

The cabin, located somewhere near Millinocket, Maine, was mentioned in McDevitt’s father’s obituary. The exact location is not know. Pictured above is the lake in the area

McDevitt’s father, John McDevitt (above), worked as a guidance counselor at Swampscott High

At school, McDevitt (second from right) showcased skills of deception were from a young age

In the early 1990s, not long after the Gardner Heist, Bernard Kravitz’s sister was on a train from New York City to Boston, wearing a Swampscott T-shirt, when a stranger beside her struck up a conversation.

‘So you’re from Swampscott. You must know Brian McDevitt,’ said the man, who later revealed he’d once been McDevitt’s cellmate during his stretch in prison. ‘He has a great art collection,’ he added with a wry smile.

That remark has always stuck with Kravitz. Before his sister’s death, the two would often joke about what the stranger might have been hinting at.

But in the years since – as more circumstantial links between McDevitt and the Gardner robbery emerged – Kravitz says he’s begun to wonder whether the man was being serious all along, and what part, if any, the cabin in Maine may play in the equation.

‘We used to laugh, because my memories of Brian were that he was this small, thin, redheaded geek in high school, but then you see everything he did in the years after – it’s remarkable he was the same person,’ Kravitz told the Daily Mail.

‘And his dad was always going on about this cabin in Maine. I wonder if anyone has ever looked there… there’s probably a nice little Vermeer hanging on the wall and nobody knows about it.’

For David Townshend, who was enrolled with Brian McDevitt in the school’s International Relations club, the eventual felon’s skills of deception were evident from a young age.

‘He didn’t have any kind of features that would make you think this is somebody special, but he had this personality like he ran the world,’ remembered Townshend.

‘Brian was very pompous and arrogant and self-confident… It’s entirely possible he’s responsible for that heist. But knowing him, if he was involved, he would’ve wanted it to come out that he was the mastermind.’

McDevitt’s ex-girlfriend, Stéphanie Rabinowitz, claims he did confess to the caper during a conversation with her in 1992, when he asked her to give the FBI a false alibi.

According to Rabinowitz, McDevitt claimed he was paid $300,000 by a third-party to rob the museum.

‘My gut instinct told me he was involved in this,’ Rabinowitz told the Daily Mail earlier this year. ‘Why would somebody who is innocent make up all this crazy stuff and tell me the FBI is coming to see me?’

The Gardner Museum heist is the biggest and most brazen art crime in history

Police interpretations of the Gardner thieves are seen above

Gardner guard Rick Abath is seen handcuffed and blindfolded with tape in the basement of the Gardner Museum where police found him on March 18

The Gardner Museum heist began at 1.20am on March 18, 1990, when two thieves disguised as police officers talked their way inside, claiming to be responding to a disturbance.

Security guard Rick Abath broke protocol by letting them in, then called over his colleague, Randy Hestand. Before they could defend themselves, both were handcuffed, blindfolded with duct tape and dragged to the basement.

Motion sensors later showed the two burglars entering the Dutch Room at 1.48am, where they smashed alarms, and tore canvases from frames with blades.

The heist lasted 81 minutes. Thirteen works were stolen – including Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Vermeer’s The Concert, valued today at $250 million. The thieves ignored masterworks like Titian’s The Rape of Europa and instead took relatively worthless pieces, including a Chinese Gu and a flagpole finial, before stealing security footage and fleeing in a hatchback at 2.45am.

Investigators were left baffled by the thieves’ choices, concluding the job was likely to have been carried out by amateurs rather than art experts.

The heist came a decade after the attempted, and nearly identical, robbery at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York on December 26, 1980.

In that case, Brian McDevitt had posed as ‘Paul Sterling Vanderbilt’, claiming to be a wealthy writer and art benefactor. Hyde director Frederick J. Fisher said McDevitt ‘was the talk of the town… driving a Bentley, dressed immaculately, very charming’.

McDevitt ingratiated himself with the museum, offered donations, and inquired about security systems. On Boxing Day that year, he and an accomplice hijacked a FedEx truck, bound and gagged the driver, and planned to rob the Hyde disguised as deliverymen. But holiday traffic delayed them, and they arrived after closing time.

The driver escaped, and both men were arrested. McDevitt served several months in jail for attempted grand larceny and unlawful imprisonment.

Years later, Frederick J. Fisher was struck by the parallels between that plot and the Gardner heist: ‘In both cases they disguised themselves, used handcuffs and tape, planned to cut art from frames, and treated their hostages kindly. It had his fingerprints all over it.’

When the Gardner was robbed, McDevitt was living in Boston’s Beacon Hill and had been dating Stéphanie Rabinowitz for a few months. She was then in her mid-20s.

Rabinowitz kept a detailed diary, and in excerpts in the days leading up to the Gardner heist, she wrote that she and McDevitt were having relationship issues, and described him as hostile and aggressive.

Stéphanie Rabinowitz started dating McDevitt (right) months before the heist. She claims he confessed to her in 1992 and asked her to lie to the FBI for him

Excerpts from Rabinowitz’s diary document McDevitt’s movements around the time of the heist. He told her he had to leave town for a few days on March 15

McDevitt died in Colombia, in 2004, from apparent kidney failure

Then, on March 15, Rabinowitz said McDevitt told her he was leaving for a few days to attend the Writers Guild of America Awards in New York.

She didn’t hear from him again until late on March 18 – hours after the Gardner was pillaged – and by then described him as seeming calmer and more like his usual charming self again. Weeks later, he abruptly packed his belongings into a U-Haul and drove to Los Angeles, without telling neighbors.

There, he boasted of being a successful Hollywood screenwriter and befriended a writer named Ben Pollack, who was unimpressed by McDevitt’s work.

Then, one day, McDevitt pitched him a script idea about two bumbling thieves who successfully rob an art museum. In McDevitt’s plot, the thieves stole several priceless paintings and two metal statues. They planned to sell the stolen art to a foreign buyer and hid their loot in a cave until a deal was made. But when the deal fell through, the thieves realized they had nobody to sell the art to and were forced to destroy it.

Both Ben Pollack and Rabinowitz believe Brian McDevitt’s script idea was a thinly veiled confession and may hold clues as to the fate of the Gardner loot.

‘There’s no doubt in my mind he did this,’ said Pollack in 2024 of McDevitt and the Gardner heist. ‘That script idea told us exactly what happened: he pulled off the heist, somehow, and destroyed and buried the art when he couldn’t sell it.’

Within months of meeting McDevitt, Pollack sensed something off about him and hired a private detective. When confronted about his criminal past, McDevitt became threatening, leading to harassment charges in 1992 – the same year The New York Times named him a prime suspect in the Gardner case.

McDevitt denied involvement, saying he’d been fingerprinted and questioned by the FBI but refused a polygraph. He claimed to have an alibi: a woman who could confirm he was with her that night. Stephanie Rabinowitz said McDevitt called her after the article ran, warning that the FBI might contact her and asking her to lie.

‘He asked me twice to be his alibi and got really mad when I said I wouldn’t do it,’ she recalled. ‘I wasn’t going to lie to the FBI.’

Rembrandt van Rijn’s ‘A Lady And Gentleman In Black’ was among the stolen paintings

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, another Rembrandt, was also stolen and remains missing

A valueless eagle flag topper was also curiously snagged by the thieves

At a Hollywood wrap party later that summer, Rabinowitz said McDevitt made a startling confession – that he’d been paid $300,000 to rob the Gardner and needed to flee to South America because federal agents were closing in. He asked her to join him, but she refused.

McDevitt was subpoenaed before a grand jury in August 1993 and soon after disappeared overseas. He died in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2004, reportedly of kidney failure – though his former girlfriend Rabinowitz doubts he’s really dead.

More than three decades later, the $10 million reward for the return of the stolen art remains unclaimed – while those empty frames remain in place as a mournful reminder of the missing masterpieces.

Current Gardner security director Anthony Amore and retired FBI investigator Geoff Kelly doubt McDevitt’s involvement, saying their evidence points to two small-time crooks with Mafia ties in Connecticut and Philadelphia. Both are now dead.

What the pair doesn’t know is where the artwork is. ‘The art will definitely be returned,’ said Geoff Kelly earlier this month. ‘It’s just a question of when.

‘I just hope it comes back while I’m still here.’

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