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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, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/27/metro/investigators-suspect-link-between-gardner-museum-heist-an-execution-style-murder-lynn/">told</a> 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

Art

13 strangest unsolved mysteries of the art world

Did Leonardo da Vinci really paint Salvator Mundi? The painting, Salvator Mundi, sold at Christie’s in 2017 for an eye-popping $450 million, in large part because it was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. But some art experts, including Oxford art historian Matthew Landrus, believe that only 20 percent of the painting was completed by Leonardo himself. Citing artistic details and painting techniques evident in the brushwork, Landrus suspects the rest of the painting was done by Leonardo’s assistant, Bernardino Luini. Bernardino’s work has never fetched more than $654,545. Adding fuel to the fire, it’s thought that da Vinci completed a mere 15 paintings in his lifetime. Are these watercolours really by Adolf Hitler? Even though Adolf Hitler was rejected from art school, he did quite a bit of painting in his youth. And there are people in the world who’d pay good money (anywhere from $150 to $51,000) to acquire the artistic efforts of der Führer, art being subjective after all. But recently, German prosecutors confiscated 63 paintings signed “A. Hitler” on suspicion of forgery. The jury is out (figuratively) on their authenticity, and verification is apparently extremely challenging. The scandalous death of Joseph Boehm Sir Joseph Boehm was a prolific Victorian-age sculptor credited with, among other things, creating the British Victoria-head coin. In 1890, at the age of 56, Boehm died suddenly of a stroke in his studio, but he wasn’t alone when he died. He was with Queen Victoria’s sixth daughter, Princess Louise, a sculptor herself. Many believe his death occurred in the midst of a sexual encounter with Louise. Historians, including Lucinda Hawksley, author of Queen Victoria’s Mysterious Daughter: A Biography of Princess Louise, believe Louise and Joseph had been engaged in a long-time affair. The shooting death of Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh died at age 37 as a result of a gunshot wound at close range, and although it’s long been assumed the emotionally unstable artist committed suicide, there’s always been debate as to whether he was actually shot by a 16-year-old schoolboy. The movie At Eternity’s Gate, starring Willem Dafoe as the tortured artist, argues that it was not suicide, but it also wasn’t murder, but rather an unfortunate accident, a view put forth by others, including forensic expert, Dr Vincent Di Maio. What's the David sculpture holding in his right hand? Michelangelo Buonarroti sculpted the magnificent David with a sling in his left hand, leading to the presumption Michelangelo envisioned the biblical figure as a lefty. But some experts believe David’s right hand tells the more important story: it is disproportionately oversized, which some speculate is a nod to David’s having been “strong of hand.” And some point to the bulging veins in the hand and surmise David is gripping something tightly, which may or may not be another weapon. Why did Caravaggio kill? The artist, Caravaggio, was known as a troublemaker. For starters, in 1596, he killed another man during a brawl in Rome. No one knows what led to the brawl, although possibilities include money, sports, and romantic jealousy, but what’s even more mysterious is whether Caravaggio spent the rest of his life expressing his guilt through his paintings, some of which art historians believe contain thinly veiled confessions. These include his painting of the murder of St. John the Baptist and his depiction of a despondent Goliath as Caravaggio himself. Was Caravaggio the victim of lead poisoning? But maybe his violent tendencies weren’t Caravaggio’s fault exactly; maybe, just maybe, he was a victim of lead poisoning, which is known to cause changes to the nervous system. This position is supported by scientists who analysed his bones and determined with 85 percent certainty that Caravaggio had enough lead in his system to make him behave erratically and to ultimately cause his death. If this is true, the lead most likely came from the paints Caravaggio was using, especially since he was notoriously messy with them. Did Rembrandt reveal a murder plot in one of his paintings? Rembrandt’s painting, The Night Watch, depicts a civilian militia rousing to action in the middle of the night. But some, including the director and artist, Peter Greenaway, believe the painting is “really an exposé of a murder – of one officer by another.” It’s a theory he supports with 20 points – all visual and based on the painting – in his films, Night Watching and Rembrandt J’Accuse. Who is the man hidden under Picasso's The Blue Room? In 2014, scientists announced they found, hidden beneath the surface of Pablo Picasso’s The Blue Room, a portrait of a man wearing a bow tie, his chin resting on his hand. It’s not all that unusual for an artist to reuse a canvas, but what’s mysterious is the identity of the man. Some speculate he might be the art dealer who hosted Picasso’s first show in 1901 (Ambroise Vollard). What’s known for sure is that it is not a self-portrait. Is there another woman hidden beneath the Mona Lisa? In 2017, French scientist Pascal Cotte revealed he’d discovered the hidden image of a woman beneath the surface of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. It had taken him more than a decade of examination and analysis and has led to speculation about who the woman might be. Cotte has said it’s another woman from Florence, Pacifica Brandano. But not only is the jury out on that, not all experts even agree there’s actually a different woman depicted. Some believe what Cotte discovered is nothing more than a painter’s “first draft” of the finished product. Who pulled off the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist? In 1990, 13 works of art worth approximately $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in a robbery perpetrated by two men posing as law enforcement officers. “Despite some promising leads in the past, the… theft…remains unsolved,” the Museum states on its website. In fact, the Museum is offering a $10 million reward for information leading directly to the recovery of the art, plus a separate reward of $100,000 for the return of one specific piece. Where is the missing art from the Rotterdam heist? In 2012, thieves broke into the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam and made off with seven paintings, including works by Picasso, Monet and Gauguin. Four Romanian men were arrested and convicted of the theft in 2013, but no one knows what happened to the stolen artworks. The mother of one of the thieves confessed to burning the paintings but then retracted her confession. In 2018, someone planted a very realistic looking Picasso-esque painting beneath a rock in a forest in Romania, but it was discovered to be fake. The paintings remain missing. Who is Banksy? The artist, Banksy, has been around since the early 1990s, creating striking and highly recognisable street art in public places. Yet their identity remains a mystery. Who is Banksy? “Over the years several different people have attempted to ‘unmask’ Banksy,” writes Artnet, in its 2016 analysis of ten popular theories, to which street artist Carlo McCormick, contributed his own opinions (could he be Banksy?). Image credits: Getty Images This article originally appeared in <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/uncategorized/13-strangest-unsolved-mysteries-of-the-art-world?pages=1" target="_blank">Reader's Digest</a>.

Art

Prime suspect in legendary plane mystery dies

Few cases in history have been able to stump America's most experienced investigators. Yet the unsolved case of how a well-groomed businessman successfully hijacked a flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington 50 years ago - only to parachute from the plane after his requests were met , never to be seen again - baffled FBI agents to the point where they decided to close the case years ago. And now, the chances of them solving the case is even more unlikely as lead suspect Sheridan Peterson, who is thought to be "Dan 'DB' Cooper", died on January 8 according to memorial website <a rel="noopener" href="http://legacy.com/" target="_blank">Legacy.com</a>. The 94-year-old once said "the FBI had good reason to suspect me" in an article published on July 2007 in the National Smokejumper Association's (NSA) Smokejumper Magazine. “Friends and associates agreed that I was without a doubt DB Cooper. There were too many circumstances involved for it to be a coincidence,” he wrote. “At the time of the heist, I was 44 years old. That was the approximate age Cooper was assumed to have been, and I closely resembled sketches of the hijacker.” Even Mr Peterson's ex-wife once told FBI agents that it "sounded like something he'd do". On another occasion, a photo came into fruition showing Mr Peterson dressed in the exact same outfit - a black raincoat over a freshly pressed business suit - as the hijacker during the 1971 flight. “What was even more incriminating was the photo of me simulating a skydiving manoeuvre for Boeing’s news sheet,” Mr Peterson wrote in his Smokejumper piece. “I was wearing a suit and tie – the same sort of garb Cooper had worn, right down to the Oxford loafers. It was noted that skydivers don’t ordinarily dress so formally.” Mr Peterson long claimed, however, that at the time of the hijacking he was living in a mud hut in Nepal, working on a “protest novel” about his experiences in Vietnam.

Legal

Unsolved medical oddities that still mystify doctors

<ol> <li> The girl who never aged</li> </ol> Brooke Greenberg died at the young age of 20 in 2013. But she didn’t look like your average 20-year-old because her body stopped developing at the age of five. Her hair and nails were the only parts of her body that continued to grow year by year. Despite being born premature, doctors remained perplexed as to why she stopped ageing. Numerous DNA studies showed no abnormalities in her genes associated with ageing. Nor did her parents have a history of abnormal development. Plus, all her sisters were normal and healthy. Scientists continued to refer to her condition as Syndrome X, a metabolic syndrome. Yet, her unusual condition remains unexplained by science. On the other hand, <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/science-technology/13-unsolved-mysteries-easily-explained-by-science" target="_blank">here are 13 unsolved mysteries easily explained by science.</a> <ol start="2"> <li> Mermaid syndrome </li> </ol> Sirenomelia is a birth defect that partially or completely fuses the legs together, similar to how a mermaid looks, thus the alternative name “mermaid syndrome.” Most newborns don’t survive for long with this anomaly but some children defy the odds like Shiloh Pepin who lived until she was ten or Tiffany Yorks, the oldest known survivor of the condition, who died at age 27 in 2016. But the exact cause of sirenomelia is still unknown in the medical world because most cases occur randomly for no reason. Due to this randomness, researchers believe a new mutation or environmental factors may play a role in the development of the disorder. <ol start="3"> <li> Highly superior autobiographical memory </li> </ol> If you give Jill Price a date, she can easily tell you what day of the week it fell on and what she did that day. Price was reported as the first known case of highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) in 2006. Since then, more adults and even children have been identified as having this ability. People with HSAM can recall almost anything from their memories in minute detail from events in their life to conversations they’ve had. The true mystery is why some people have this superhuman brainpower and others don’t. Brain images of people with HSAM have shown researchers that some parts of their brain structure are different from people who have a typical memory. But it’s not yet known if these brain differences cause HSAM or if they occur because the person uses areas of the brain associated with memory more. <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/thought-provoking/15-scientific-mysteries-boffins-cant-figure-out" target="_blank">Here are 15 more mysteries that have scientists perplexed.</a> <ol start="4"> <li> Water allergies </li> </ol> Fewer than 100 people in the world have been diagnosed with aquagenic urticaria, a rare condition where people break out in hives or rashes every time they’re exposed to water. However, researchers have not found an underlying cause for the condition. Some scientific theories suggest that the hives are caused by an allergen in the water or an interaction between the water and a substance found in or on the skin that generates a toxic material, which causes hives. Some doctors recommend patients only bathe in or drink purified water (that is, if the condition is allergen-based), but an effective treatment still has yet to come to fruition due to limited data on this rare condition. <ol start="5"> <li> Stiff person syndrome </li> </ol> This rare, progressive syndrome known as stiff person syndrome (SPS) can cause people to experience extreme stiffness, rigidity and painful spasms in their muscles. Sometimes, these muscle spasms are so strong they can even fracture bones. When the central nervous system, specifically in the brain and spinal cord, has decreased inhibition, it can cause a person’s muscle activity to increase, which can result in SPS. Scientists think the syndrome may have an autoimmune component and research has indicated that it may occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks the brain and spinal cord. Although scientists are on the cusp of discovering what could cause this disabling disorder, they still have yet to understand everything about SPS. <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/healthsmart/6-myths-about-human-body-quashed" target="_blank">Here are 6 myths about the human body quashed. </a> <ol start="6"> <li> Disembarkment syndrome </li> </ol> You know that feeling you get when you feel wobbly after you disembark a boat? You’ve probably heard someone say you’re “getting your land legs back.” For most people, this feeling of being in constant motion usually goes away after a few minutes or hours. But some people suffer from disembarkment syndrome, a condition where their bodies and brains can never shake that feeling of swaying and rocking. Unfortunately, it’s a hard condition to treat and usually goes away within a year. And it’s not just limited to being out on a boat either; riding in planes, trains, cars, even elevators can cause it too. Unfortunately, doctors still aren’t sure what really lies behind disembarkment syndrome. People who get migraines and women ages 30 to 60 are more likely to get it, but experts are uncertain if hormones play a role or how migraines could be linked. <ol start="7"> <li> Morgellons disease </li> </ol> People with this skin condition typically feel like something is stinging or crawling all over their skin. Unfortunately, Morgellons disease is an uncommon skin condition, characterised by small fibres or particles emerging from skin sores, that modern medicine still doesn’t understand. Some doctors think the condition is all in the patient’s head and try to treat them with cognitive behavioural therapy, antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs or counselling, while others in the medical field think the fibres could be caused by an infection from the bacterium Agrobacterium, commonly found to cause tumours in plants. As researchers attempt to study the cause of this mysterious disease, there’s still no official guidelines on diagnosis and treatment. <ol start="8"> <li> The boy who doesn’t feel hungry</li> </ol> In October 2013, Landon Jones, a 12-year-old boy from Iowa, U SA, suddenly woke up without an appetite or thirst. It only took a year for the boy to go from a healthy 47kg to a meagre 30kg. Doctors were baffled by his condition after countless brain scans, psychiatric evaluations and medical evaluations for digestive problems or eating disorders showed nothing. Some doctors wonder if he suffers from a rare brain dysfunction, particularly in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls hunger and thirst. In 2014, his parents reached out to the National Institutes of Health to help evaluate Landon and possibly treat him for this rare disease. But there’s been no news to-date to say if doctors have determined a diagnosis. Written by Ashley Lewis. This article first appeared on <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/culture/8-unsolved-medical-mysteries-that-still-stump-doctors" target="_blank">Reader’s Digest</a>. For more of what you love from the world’s best-loved magazine, <a rel="noopener" href="http://readersdigest.com.au/subscribe" target="_blank">here’s our best subscription offer</a>.

Caring

Why Madeleine McCann case is “unsolvable”

Madeleine McCann’s disappearance will never be solved due to a vital missing CCTV footage, a former detective and child abuse investigator said. Former constable Mark Williams-Thomas said the young girl was a victim of a random act of crime. In his new book Hunting Killers, Williams-Thomas said the kidnapper could leave undetected because a crucial CCTV camera was turned off during the abduction. “The abduction of Madeleine McCann is one I’d put into the unsolvable category. “I believe Madeleine was the victim of an opportunistic criminal whose act was random – she wandered out of the apartment and into the path of this person. “The case hasn’t been solved simply because a crucial CCTV camera was turned off, meaning that whoever took Madeleine was not identifiable at the scene.” The 49-year-old said statistics show McCann’s case is unlikely to be solved. “The sad reality is, this far on, the likelihood of Madeleine being alive now is incredibly slim,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, in almost every case of stranger child abduction, within the space of 24 hours the child is dead.” McCann was three years old when she vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal in May 2007. The British child was last seen in her bedroom with her younger twin siblings. She would be 16 years old today. Inquiries into the case – including Britain’s Operation Grange – remain <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48533619?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c8255n4mp88t/madeleine-mccann-disappearance&link_location=live-reporting-story">ongoing</a>.

Legal

Girl missing for 43 years finally identified

An American murder victim known for 43 years as Jane Doe #40 has been identified by investigators as 14-year-old Judy Gifford, who disappeared at the age of 14. The breakthrough came after homicide cold case detectives and missing person investigators launched a joint investigation in early 2019. Reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, in a tragic turn of events, investigators shared that Ms Gifford’s aunt kept the same phone number for decades in case her niece attempted to get in touch. What remained of the teenager was discovered by a man walking his dog near San Francisco’s Lake Merced on October 1, 1976. Police found a gold chain with an owl pendant in the girl’s pocket. While sifting through unsolved cases, investigators stumbled upon a report filed in 2017 that said Ms Gifford had disappeared in San Francisco around the same time that Jane Doe #40 was killed in 1976, said San Francisco police. The missing girl’s half-brother, William Shin, reported his sister missing to San Francisco police at an unknown date after he “remembered having a sister when he was a child”, said a New Jersey State Police spokesperson. “He told investigators that his sister went missing when she was 14 years old, and his family had not seen or heard from her since 1976.” Back in June, detectives collected cheek swabs from Ms Gifford’s paternal aunt, Ogee Gifford along with photographs and dental records. That’s when they had an epiphany, as Ms Gifford was wearing a necklace with an owl pendant in some of the photos. They then compared her DNA with Jane Doe #40’s and got a perfect match. “(Ogee) Gifford, who has never changed her phone number in case her niece ever called, was brought some closure as a result of the joint effort,” said police in a statement. Investigators have reopened a murder inquiry into Ms Gifford’s death.

Family & Pets

Inside Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane’s secret double-life and unsolved murder

Bob Crane will always be remembered for playing American hero Colonel Hogan in the hit ‘60s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, but a recent book published by his son Robert Crane has brought the television actor back to the public eye. The paperback, titled Crane: Sex, Celebrity and My Father’s Unsolved Murder, has attempted to debunk the portrayal of the actor as a handsome, clean cut family man, while addressing rumours that surround his 1978 murder. “I was aware that he loved women and that he probably should not have been married,” Robert told <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/" target="_blank">Fox News</a>. “He probably should have been a single guy because he was not the most faithful companion in the world. I was aware of that. “I was aware of his love of photography … When home video came out in the mid-60s, he had to have one of the first units. I was aware of him taping women with their consent … It was always consensual. There was nothing hidden. There were no drugs. Both people wanted to be there.” Crane’s sex addiction has long been an open-secret in Hollywood, and according to his son Robert there wasn’t much he did in the household to hide it from the family. “It wasn’t a secret,” insisted Robert. “It wasn’t a secret at all … Everybody knew that was his dark room … I was a teenager, probably around 15-16 years old when I saw my dad taping women on the road when he wasn’t doing Hogan’s. “You got to remember that back in the ’60s and ’70s, the home video was the selfie of today … Everybody wanted to do it. Including the women that he met. So I saw some videos of different women … I put two and two together.” Robert does have fond memories of his father however. “He was a fun-loving guy,” said Robert. “When he was at home, we had fun. He and I co-created a baseball league in our pool … I would be the LA Dodgers. He would be the New York Yankees. We had a schedule, we had a world series. “We did home movies. He did a movie and I [played] an FBI agent. My cousins where in it, my dad was in it … This project took months to get together and it was about eight minutes long. But those were the kinds of things we did. We just had a great time.” After his career faded into obscurity, in June 1978 Crane was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale apartment, a murder which currently remains unsolved by authorities. Robert <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/" target="_blank">addressed the incident in his interview</a>. “The police took us to the crime scene,” he claimed. “My dad’s body had been removed. We walked around the crime scene … It was a joke. We were there touching stuff, contaminating the scene. I saw the actual bed that he was in when he was murdered. I saw blood. I think I saw brain matter on the wall. “The next morning, I went to the morgue and I saw my dad on a slab. I went in there, just looked at him … I touched his skin. I touched his cheek on his face and it reminded me of cool clay. I’ll never forget that … And then I had to report back to my mom and sisters. And they were all shrieking … And it turned out he was hit in the head twice while he was sleeping. And [the police] theorise with a tripod of a video camera.” What are your thoughts? Were you aware of this story? Hero image credit: Twitter / The Advertiser

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