Janice Santos was 22 years old and in the Army National Guard when she married George Reissfelder just two months after his release from prison in 1982. #ada-button-frame { I would have been the first. George Reissfelder and David Turner were both pulled into the gravitational orbit of crime boss Carmello Merlino at TRC Auto Electric in Dorchester in the late '80s. And in my mind, you know, it was-- it was a form of bragging, right? . Steal a painting. New lead: The apartment building in Quincy where one of the stolen paintings, a Manet, might have been seen. And when Janice Santos first learned about the heist, she had an immediate intuition about who that was. Stay up-to-date with important news developments, delivered right to your inbox. He believes his brother would not have associated with the likes of Merlino if he had been compensated by the state for his wrongful imprisonment. He has written two books: Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Story of Notorious Art Heists (with reporter Tom Mashberg) in 2011 and The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds and Forgeries in the Art World in 2015. It remains the most valuable art crime in the nation's history. ROBERT BEAUCHAMP: OK, I'm Robert Beauchamp. HORAN: And before then he was saying that his brother hadn't done it, but it was seeing that painting that convinced him that his brother must have done it. It was 17 years ago. Drug deals, illegal weapons, armored car heists, murder. HORAN:And running through this story, Boser says, is a tale of two cities. In this episode, we take a closer look at David Turner and George Reissfelder two criminals with very different backgrounds who found themselves pulled into the gravitational orbit of Merlino in the late 1980s. HORAN: Yeah, so you hear the news and you think Carmello Merlino. In the same year, she won Gold Canada's Player of the Year. The museum and the FBI have responded skeptically to Beauchamps claims about the art. In the interview with. BEAUCHAMP:Yeah, a couple of times we had Mexican standoffs, and the only reason that he backed down was both times I had a .357 and he only had a small .22 or .25 automatic. RODOLICO: The people he knew were from prison. Im convinced they had my brother killed with an overdose of cocaine, said Reissfelder, who was notified of his brothers passing by Merlino. HORAN: Ulrich Boser says that while David Turner had to deny involvement in the Gardner heist, he seemed unable to keep from insinuating that he knew something about it. But, Steve says, there is one for two days after March 20. I don't want to take any blame for the Gardner. August 24, 2022 8:00 am ET. Well, I thought so, you know, but, you know, in hindsight what did I know about love, you know? He is running on the 2018 Republican ticket for the office of Secretary of State in Massachusetts. She finally managed it in 1989. Came back negative. I really did well on the test, and I went and took the flight physical, and I was going to be going to flight school. In a neat schoolboys script, Turner writes: I would briefly go into my childhood and the events that I believe contributed in my going down the wrong path, namely the death of my father. He continues, I think a book of this type would appeal to a wide audience. Both thieves were dead within a year of their breathtaking crime. That man, Robert Beauchamp, claimed that his former cell mate -- a man named George Reissfelder -- told him way back in 1990 that he had taken part in the heist. Reissfelder, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the sketch drawn of one of the thieves, died of a cocaine overdose in July 1991. Boser typed notes as he listened to Turner on speaker phone. 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The Boston man was released from jail in 1982 after he was wrongfully . for 35 years before retiring. One of them had options and from them, chose a life of crime. BOSER: The most curious thing that happened with me and David was that he-- he wrote me this letter where he included this poem and essentially said, you know, he did not commit the Gardner theft, but he did want to be on the cover of my book. ". RODOLICO:In a letter dated Oct. 26, 2003, Turner proposes that Blanding write a book about his life. Bill Reissfelder is a married man with a wife and family. They told me they had information from several sources that I was an actual participant in the robbery. They had all sorts of -- at the day non-digital devices, electronic devices, that could look over the fence. 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. Prominent chin. 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. Bowl haircut. She worked solely off the description given to her by one of the guards who had seen both thieves. That's not how it works. At Boston Celtics, Bill Reissfelder has 25 colleagues including Wycliffe Grousbeck (CEO), Irving Grousbeck (Managing Partner) Industry Colleagues In the Sports industry, Bill Reissfelder has 10,918 colleagues in 650 companies located in 26 countries. Crimes with dates that bookend the Gardner heist and with M.O.s that resemble it. Swap that painting for freedom. We have-- we had very clear suspicions as to who that was, given he was a cooperating witness, but unfortunately we never had enough evidence to prosecute. HORAN: Shelley Murphy, who wrote a Globe piece about this with Steve, says this makes sense. The eyes are his.. Pappas himself is also a person of interest in the Gardner case see Meet the Suspects for April 6. And have money left over to buy, like, a seven-bedroom house. 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. He would always be there for you. And that's it. He was very upset. Richard Reissfelder, who lives in Massachusetts, said when he saw the painting prior to his brothers death, he did not recognize it as one of the missing Gardner items. One of the places the FBI looked the longest was TRC Auto Electric in Dorchester just four miles from the estimable museum. 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." to Henry & Helen (Tully) Reissfelder. Both resembled police sketches of . Then, just days before the trial was set to start in late 1995: SIKELLIS: Charlie Pappas was shot and killed on Thanksgiving eve. Court records indicate surveillance photographs captured Reissfelder and Merlino together at the drug kingpins Dorchester auto body shop, TRC Auto Electric Co., where a $1-million-a-year cocaine ring was run. BLANDING: You know, I talked to several of his childhood friends who said he was just, you know, really intelligent, and charismatic, and loyal. So that seems pretty impressive. HORAN: So someone returned a car that had been rented in David Turners name. She was on track to become the first female helicopter pilot in Massachusetts. And that's what happened. !This is a rare jasper in the same state asGuadalupe Poppy and Morgan Hill Poppy Jaspers.This slab will pro HORAN:And someone who moved between those worlds and settled in the latter is David Turner. BLANDING: Eventually, and I should say allegedly, David was involved with a number of more serious crimes. Seinfeld. HORAN: George Reissfelder does resemble the police artists sketch of one of the suspects. He was 51 and has never been formally connected to the theft. BOSER:My name is Ulrich Boser, and I'm the author of "The Gardner Heist." }Customer Service. And someone lifted $50,000 from, uh, the Bull & Finch, and David was thought to be involved with that. You can try. What did you see in him? Composite at left shows digitally aged rendering of one of the thieves. Some of Turners letters, Blanding says, offered tantalizing hints about the Gardner heist and other unsolved crimes. But his former sister-in-law, Donna Reissfelder, said in the docuseries that she may have unknowingly helped him hang one of the stolen paintings in his apartment. Theyve asked nothing from me in return for all of the assistance they have provided, even in the face of very real personal pain.. Only after he was contacted by Amore in recent months and shown all 13 items taken from the museum did he recognize the Manet painting he now says his brother at one time displayed. Some believe that Merlino associates, including David Turner and Robert Guarente, were plotting the Gardner heist while the cocaine trafficking probe was underway. TYSONS CORNER, Va., Jan. 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pangiam, a technology company defining the future of authentication and trusted movement, announced the . 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. Fred Reissfelder. Merlino, 71, of Quincy, died in federal prison in 2005. At the . RODOLICO: Robert Beauchamp and George Reissfelder were lovers. In 2014, the FBI identified the culprits present at the museum as George Reissfelder and Lenny DiMuzio, who both died within a year of the notorious robbery. HORAN: Just not places like TRC Auto Electric. Thats all I want. SANTOS: He was frothing at the mouth about this thing. The other wasnt. RODOLICO: Two thieves relying on an inside guy, wearing disguises, using handcuffs in the middle of the night at the end of a holiday weekend. SANTOS: So he wouldn't let me leave the house, so I couldn't go to work. Sikellis next prepared to prosecute Turner for a 1990 home invasion. I'm a prisoner at MCI Norfolk. Bill Reissfelder, Boston Celtics, Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President - RealGM 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. Beauchamp is serving a life sentence at MCI-Norfolk for second-degree murder. PRESS CONFERENCE: For the first time, we can say with a high degree of confidence, we've determined that in the years since the theft HORAN: Next time, we follow the stolen arts trail and tell you with a high degree of confidence what we think. Janice Santos was 22 years old and in the Army National Guard when she married George Reissfelder just two months after his release from prison in 1982. Anthony Amore was hired as director of security for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 2005 and still holds the position today. (Photo by Joseph Runci/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Back in 1992, Kerry, as a private attorney, had secured the early parole of a career criminal, George Reissfelder, who had pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of a police officer in Florida . Remember the two suspects who fled TRC and crashed their car after FBI agents pursued them? George Reissfelder, on the other hand, left prison in 1982 after serving 16 years for a murder he didnt commit. Isabella Stewart Gardner collected and carefully displayed a collection comprised of more than 7500 paintings, sculptures, furniture, textiles, silver, ceramics, 3000 rare books, and 7000 archival objects-from ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy, Asia, the Islamic world and 19th-century France and America. (Courtesy Joe Runci/Boston Globe) George Reissfelder was already seen as a celebrity when. 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. You decide to look into George Reissfelder deeper. And you kind of have to think on your feet doing something like that. In the documentary, Reissfelder's sister-in-law said that she . HORAN: Reissfelder had not only lost 16 years of his life in prison. And so I guess Merlino basically and maybe Reissfelder and Turner to a far lesser extent started canvassing museums in the Boston area. 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. David Turner was in the passenger seat. The other wasnt. I mean, it was--, it was--, it was chilling to be in the same room at times. But he said the painting stood out in his memory because it seemed very unusual to him, not something my brother would have., http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/572377002. RODOLICO: Way too much, George. Amore invited him to the museum and asked him to look at images of the stolen art. Reissfelder died in 1991, according to the documentary. More than a decade before, he had drawn front-page headlines and network TV interviews when he was freed from prison after serving 16 years on the wrongful conviction of a murder charge. He went through her stuff, looking for evidence that he couldnt trust her. 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 . And he said, "You can't leave me. RODOLICO: So, four years before the Boston FBI sting on TRC Auto Electric that would finally put David Turner in prison, Robert Sikellis, who had tried and failed twice to do so, had an epiphany about Turners alleged robberies: They looked an awful lot like the Gardner heist, but on a much smaller scale. For seven years, I was . Ive seen it. House Session Summary - Votes 150-3 To Send Senate $1.1B Tax Relief Bill State House News Service 4/13/23 4:53 PM. Reissfelder and DiMuzio were suspected of being part of the "Merlino gang," a crew of lower-level associates with alleged ties to the Boston Mafia. I know I saw it in his possession, said Reissfelder. I fought back. Thats what Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy wondered in 2016, when she made a sharp discovery. Celtics assistant GM Mike Zarren travels to Italy to share player tracking techniques with soccer club Atalanta. HORAN: David Turner told Boser that the FBI said, essentially, 'we know you did it.'. He was teary-eyed. This is when David Turner, a free man, if not an innocent one, landed squarely on the radar of investigators for the Gardner robbery, too. Sikellis realized that the entire time hed been working with Charlie Pappas to nail Turner for those robberies, he could have been asking him if Turner had also been one of the men who robbed the Gardner. A day after top House Democrats released their $56.2 billion budget plan for next fiscal year, the branch on Thursday whisked to passage a $1.1 billion tax relief bill that also makes statutory changes to the state's tax cap law and rainy day fund. Missing among its 29 charges is that social workers beating death in 1985 the summer after Turner graduated from high school. Several sources say that the franchise's CFO was spotted at several Celtics events with his family. BEAUCHAMP: Turner was interested in getting out of the drug business. JANICE SANTOS: OK. (Courtesy Boston Globe). Early life [ edit] Rainsford was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. HORAN:Boser, who is a senior fellow at a Washington, D.C., think tank now, remains passionate about the Gardner mystery. What attracted you to him? Edward D. Cowhig of Gate of Heaven Church in South Boston that Reissfelder was innocent. If it was because of some new federal sentencing guideline, you know, decision it would be detailed in the record. George Reissfelder In 2006, an inmate in prison for murder wrote Anthony Amore, the Gardner Director of Security, a letter. And heres someone who spent years trying to follow the trail of both of them. He was a cool customer, as they say. Several years later, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Amore said, informants drew their attention to two associates of Mr. Merlino, George A. Reissfelder and Leonard V. DiMuzio. HORAN: Carmello Merlino. Turner alleged entrapment by the FBI and twice appealed his conviction and lost. HORAN: But someone else could have. Their criminal pastimes overlapped, too. Turner dangled tantalizing hints about the Gardner heist and other unsolved crimes, but eventually stopped communicating with Blanding. The cause of death was a cocaine overdose. And John Kerry and Roanne Sragow are going to, you know, be his best friends forever now." I still remember that very, very vividly. Dressed as police in order to fool the night watchmen, the two escaped with 13 pieces of artwork. 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. William Reissfelder SLED Premier Account Analyst with Granite Telecommunication North Attleboro, MA. People Photos Purpose. You could trade the paintings to, you know basically make a Hollywood film, right? And in 1974, the pair escaped from prison. And I told him probably the best museums to rob would be university or college ones because they probably have the least amount of security. This time he was found dead from 'cocaine poisoning' a suspected mob hit that was never proven," he wrote. Their BuildZoom score of 103 ranks in the top 10% of 139,240 Massachusetts licensed contractors. Someone returned a car that had been rented in David Turners name summer after Turner from... I should say allegedly, David was thought to be involved with that released from jail 1982... A car that had been rented in David Turners name Murphy, who wrote a piece. Assistant GM Mike Zarren travels to Italy to share Player tracking techniques with soccer club Atalanta Boston reporter! 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