Cold case
From the "Wolf Blitzer Reports" staff
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Masterpieces by some of the world's greatest artists, including Rembrandt, Manet and Degas, were among more than a dozen art objects stolen 15 years ago in a cunning -- and so far perfect -- crime.
"They're out there. I know they are out there," said Anne Hawley, executive director of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where, in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, two men wearing fake Boston police uniforms tied up security guards and spent more than an hour plundering the museum's treasures.
In all, the thieves made off with $300 million worth of art, including Rembrandt's only known seascape, "A Storm on the Sea of Galilee," and one of only 35 known paintings by Vermeer, "The Concert."
Those two works alone are reported to be worth at least $50 million each.
To this day the empty frames remain on display -- a reminder of the loss.
Now, the statute of limitations on the crime have run out, and museum officials are going public with new details of the case, hoping to rekindle a promising lead that inexplicably dried up.
In April 1994, the museum received an anonymous letter from someone offering to arrange the return of the artworks in exchange for more than $2 million -- and immunity for the thieves.
The museum was instructed to indicate its interest by giving a sign -- the numeral "1" inserted into the currency exchange listing for the Italian lira in the Boston Globe.
The museum followed the instructions, but a week later the anonymous letter-writer broke contact. And that's the last museum officials heard.
Now, 11 years later and 15 years since the robbery, museum officials are revealing those past communications, hoping to prod that person into contacting them again -- and this time striking a deal.
"Eleven years ago, we were not able to even talk about immunity, because the police and the FBI were concerned with prosecution," Hawley said. "But now, as I've said, the whole landscape has changed and we're just hopeful that on the occasion of the 15th [anniversary] that this just comes a rallying point for this to be over with."
