Richard Abath, security guard at the Center of Boston Art Museum Heist, dies at the age of 57

Richard Abath, a night watchman whose decision to allow two thieves disguised as Boston police officers into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 enabled the largest art theft in history – and one that remains unsolved – died on February 23 in his house in Brattleboro, Vt. He was 57.

His attorney, George F. Gormley, confirmed the death but did not provide a cause.

Located in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, the Gardner Museum is one of the country’s premier private art museums, home to its namesake owner’s vast collection of paintings, sculpture, and historical artifacts.

Mr. Abath was not a professional security guard: at a time when museums were considerably lax with their security, he was a recent music school dropout who took on the job to help with bills while he focused on his band, a Grateful Dead inspired outfit called Ukia.

By his own admission, he occasionally came to the museum drunk or high, and he said he once let some of his friends into the museum after hours for a party.

The robbery took place around 1 a.m. on March 18, 1990, the day after the beer-soaked revelry of St. Patrick’s Day. Mr. Abath stood at the museum’s security desk; he insisted he was sober.

The other guard on duty had just finished a tour of the museum’s galleries when the two men came to the door, identified themselves as members of the Boston Police Department and said they were there to investigate reports of a disturbance. Mr. Abath allowed the thieves into the museum’s vestibule.

“There they were, two of Boston’s best standing there waving at me through the glass,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir about the robbery, parts of which appeared in The Boston Globe. “Hats, jackets, badges, they looked like cops.”

One of the men asked Mr. Abath to come out from behind the desk so they could see if he matched the description of a suspect. As soon as he did, they forced him to face the wall and handcuffed him.

He soon realized something was wrong; the men had not searched him. And he was now a few feet away from the museum’s only panic button, behind the desk.

When the other guard returned, the men handcuffed him too. They then covered the guards’ eyes with duct tape and tied them up in different parts of the basement.

Over the next hour and a half, the thieves stole more than a dozen works of art, including pieces by Edgar Degas, Rembrandt van Rijn, Édouard Manet and Peter Paul Rubens, and cut the works from their natural wooden frames. They also took an ancient Chinese cup and a bronze eagle finial from a Napoleonic-era flagpole.

But the men left behind several valuable works, raising questions about their level of aesthetic sophistication. Still, as thieves they knew what they were doing: they took several tapes from the museum’s security cameras that allegedly showed them working in the galleries.

All told, they took some $500 million in art, the equivalent of $1.2 billion today, making it by far the largest art theft in history.

Suspicion immediately turned to Mr Abath. City and federal investigators focused on key details, such as the coincidence that the thieves arrived so soon after the second guard left to make the rounds. A video camera outside the museum showed Mr. Abath briefly opening a side door shortly before the robbery.

Mr. Abath maintained his innocence for the rest of his life, and was never named as an official suspect. He said he regularly opened the side door to make sure it was locked and that although museum protocol prohibited him from letting anyone in outside of business hours, there was no risk that the visitors would be uniformed police officers.

“You know, most of the guards were older or students,” he told NPR in 2015. “No one there was able to deal with real criminals.”

Richard Edward Abath was born on May 24, 1966 in Wilmington, Del. His father, Walter Abath, was an engineer for Dow, and his mother, Madeline (McKenna) Abath, was a librarian.

Mr. Abath attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but left before completing his studies.

He married Diana Hampton in 2006. She survives him, along with his sister, Kathy Buterbaugh; his brother, Jim Abath; and two children from a previous relationship.

He moved to Vermont in 1999 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Union Institute & University, an online institution based in Cincinnati. He later worked as a teacher’s assistant at a public school.

Mr Abath tried to stay out of the spotlight after the robbery, but incidental developments in the case led to renewed scrutiny of his role.

In 2015, the FBI released security footage from the night of the robbery. It showed a car driving into the museum and a man with his collar turned up approaching the front door. Mr. Abath let him in.

The news media and law enforcement touted the tapes as a major twist in the case, and Mr. Abath, who had since moved to Vermont, was interviewed again by authorities. But the mysterious visitor turned out to be the museum’s deputy director of security.

“I don’t just want to be remembered for this,” he told NPR. ‘But they say it’s half a billion worth of works of art. And ultimately, I’m the one who made the decision to involve them. It’s something most people don’t have to deal with. It’s like doing penance. It’s always there.”