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“There they were, two of Boston’s best standing there waving at me through the glass,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir about the robbery, parts of which appeared in The Boston Globe.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

Despite forecasts, Boston remained largely snowless on Tuesday. Few residents seemed upset about being spared, except the children of the city – deprived of real snow on a snow day – and their working parents, who were forced to make alternative childcare plans.

School officials canceled Tuesday's classes almost a day in advance, depending on Monday morning's gloomy forecast that expected a foot or more of snow. Max Baker, a spokesman for Boston Public Schools, said the district of more than 47,000 students tried to reduce disruptions by providing adequate warning.

“Going to bed at 6 p.m. is a nightmare for many families,” he says.

But on Monday evening, forecasts changed and the storm's more southerly track ended the threat of a snow maggon in Boston.

“I think most people understand that these things happen,” Mr. Baker said. “You can plan all you want, but you can't predict the weather here.”

That was a difficult lesson for six-year-old Hannah Caraballo, a first-grader at Donald McKay K-8 School in East Boston. Tuesday morning, she was ready for action and excitedly collected the building blocks for a snowman: a scarf, a carrot nose and sticks for arms.

She watched and waited hopefully as the rain fell. Reluctantly, her parents came up with another plan: “Now we're going to make slime,” said her mother, Sandy Caraballo.

Many winter-weary residents saw the lack of snow as an unexpected victory. It was a normal day at Mike's Pastry in the North End, said an employee, Maria Papa. “We had a delivery of ricotta from Rhode Island, and the guy said it was pretty bad down there, but here it's nothing, thank God,” she said.

Boston's long-suffering car owners also received a rare reprieve: Given the “sudden and drastic changes in the forecast,” the city said in a news release, “no vehicles were towed for parking violations Monday evening.” The snow emergency measures issued by the city were lifted on Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Eric Anastasi, 34, was happy with how the weather was as he walked his dog near Boston City Hall on Tuesday afternoon, as dealing with heavier snow “tends to be more difficult” for people in the city.

“It's just crazy how they hype it up,” he said.

As cities across the Northeast and New England prepared for what could be a major winter storm on Tuesday, dozens of school systems in a handful of states canceled classes, pulled the plug on after-school activities and otherwise adjusted their class schedules.

While the storm is not forecast to last, it will bring strong winds and coastal flooding in some areas, and school officials are not taking the impending weather lightly.

Here's a quick look at schools in the Northeast.

• Dozens of other school systems just north of the city closed Tuesday, including several in Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Rye and White Plains.

• In New Jersey, where parts of the state could be blanketed in as much as a foot of snow, Newark Public Schools will be closed Tuesday, as will Jersey City and Paterson Public Schools. Further south, in Edison, public schools have opened with a delayed opening.

• The Philadelphia School District has a two-hour delay. Some surrounding districts, including Pottstown School District and Upper Merion Area School District, plan to host virtual learning days.

• Farther north in Massachusetts, Boston's public schools are closed, as are Plymouth and Salem's public schools.

Jimy Williams, the 1999 American League Manager of the Year for Boston who won 910 games in a dozen seasons including stints with Toronto and Houston, died Friday in Tarpon Springs, Florida. He was 80.

The Red Sox said his death at a hospital followed a brief, unspecified illness. He lived in nearby Palm Harbor, on the west coast of Florida, about 25 miles from Tampa.

Williams was named AL Manager of the Year after leading the Red Sox to their second straight playoff appearance. He had replaced Kevin Kennedy as Boston's manager after the 1996 season.

The Red Sox won 78 games in Williams' first season and then more than 90 in each of the next two. In 1998, Boston made the playoffs as a wild card team, but was defeated by Cleveland in the AL division series. The next year, trailing 0–2 in the division series, again against Cleveland, the Red Sox rallied to win the game 3–2. (Boston lost 4-1 to the New York Yankees in the AL Championship Series.)

The Red Sox won 85 games in 2000 and Williams was fired in August 2001, with the team going 65-53. He was hired by the Houston Astros that fall, but after two winning seasons with them, he was fired from the team mid-season in 2004 at 44-44.

Williams was fired a day after fans at the All-Stars Game, held at Minute Maid Park in Houston, booed as he was introduced as coach for the National League team. (Houston joined the American League in 2013.)

Williams' career management record was 910–790.

James Francis Williams was born on October 4, 1943 in Santa Maria, California, northwest of Santa Barbara. He first spelled his name Jimy as a joke in high school. After graduating in 1961, he attended Fresno State, where he earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural industry in 1964. He played summer ball that year with the Alaska Goldpanners alongside future Major League stars Tom Seaver and Graig Nettles.

Williams, an infielder, signed with Boston, played at Class A Iowa and was selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in a 1965 draft. Williams made his major league debut on April 26, 1966, striking out Sandy in his first at bat Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He played in 14 Major League games and went 3 for 13 (.231) with one run batted in. His first hit came on May 7, an RBI single off San Francisco's Juan Marichal, who like Koufax was a future Hall of Famer.

“I can remember my first Major League hit, but if you only get three, you can remember them all,” he told The Houston Chronicle.

He went on to play minor league ball for the Cincinnati Reds and Montreal Expos organizations before a shoulder injury cut short his playing career. After six seasons as a minor league manager for the California Angels organization, he became third base coach for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1980.

Bobby Cox took over as manager of the Blue Jays in 1982, and when Cox left to become general manager of the Atlanta Braves in 1986, Williams replaced him in the Toronto dugout. Toronto went 86-76 in his first season and had a 3½-game AL East lead with seven games remaining in 1987, but went 0-7 and finished two games behind the Detroit Tigers.

The Blue Jays went 87-75 in 1988, and Williams was replaced by Cito Gaston after a 12-24 start in 1989. Williams had clashed several times with Jays star George Bell, who did not want to be a design hitter.

Williams returned to the Braves as Cox's third base coach from 1991-96, memorably greenlighting Sid Bream's pennant-winning run on Francisco Cabrera's single that beat Barry Bonds' throw from left field to win Game 7 of the Won the 1992 NL Championship Series. against Pittsburgh.

After his time in Boston and Houston, Williams spent 2005 and 2006 as a roving instructor for the Tampa Bay Rays and was Manager Charlie Manuel's bench coach for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2007 and 2008, earning a World Series ring in his second season deserved.

His sons Shawn and Brady Williams both played in the minor leagues. Brady is Tampa's third base coach; Shawn is a former minor league manager.

In addition to his sons, Williams is survived by his wife of 47 years, Peggy Williams; his daughters Monica Farr and Jenna Williams; and eight grandchildren. Monica was an All-America swimmer at Texas A&M and won two gold medals at the World University Games.

The New York Times contributed to the reporting.

Bill Iffrig, who became a national symbol of resilience for appearing in a photo documenting his fall at the 2013 Boston Marathon finish line after the first of two bombs exploded and who quickly got up and completed the race, died on January 8 . was 89.

Mr. Iffrig died at a memory care facility in Marysville, Washington, according to his son, Mark Iffrig, who confirmed his father's death.

Mr Iffrig, an experienced mountain climber and president of a local climbing club, did not start running until he was 42. He went on to win dozens of national championships in races of various distances.

He ran more than 50 marathons, including several Boston Marathons. Mr. Iffrig finished second in his age group of over-80s at the 2015 Boston Marathon, his son said.

However, Mr. Iffrig gained national attention after running in the Boston Marathon in 2013, the year two homemade pressure cooker bombs were detonated. Three people were killed that day, 17 lost limbs and another 250 were injured, many of them seriously.

Mr Iffrig was about 60 feet from the finish line when the first bomb went off, knocking him to the ground. The moment was captured by John Tlumacki, a photographer for The Boston Globe.

In a 2015 interview with MSNBCMr Iffrig recalled the explosion and lying on the ground as he assessed whether he had been injured.

Since he wasn't bleeding and all his joints were “working fine,” he decided he could continue, he said.

“I'm going to get up and finish this thing,” he remembered thinking. 'I was there for four hours. I didn't want to stop.”

Soon his bright orange shirt became known throughout the country.

He became a symbol of resilience. President Barack Obama mentioned him by name as he addressed the nation after the bombings.

“Like Bill Iffrig, 78 years old — the runner in the orange tank top who we all saw crushed by the blast — we may be knocked down for a moment, but we'll get back up,” Obama said.

Before his photo circulated in the news, Mr. Iffrig lived a quiet life in Washington state.

William George Iffrig was born on June 13, 1934 in Everett, Washington, the son of Clarence and Fannie Iffrig. His father worked at a cast iron company in Everett, and his mother was primarily a homemaker and did some housework later in life, Mark Iffrig said.

Shortly after Bill Iffrig graduated from Everett High School, he began working as a carpenter for Weyerhaeuser, a pulp mill. He worked there for about twenty years before the factory closed.

He later became a mason for Scott Paper Company, where he worked for about twenty years before retiring.

In addition to his son Mark, Mr Iffrig had a daughter, Susan Shephard, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His wife Donna, to whom he was married for 69 years, died in November. His other son, Curtis, died in a car accident in 1979 when he was 17.

Despite his achievements in racing, Mr. Iffrig remained humble, Mark Iffrig recalls.

“If he lost or won the race, he was the same person,” he said on Saturday. “He didn't talk about himself, he just went about his business.”

Boston chef Barbara Lynch, who was accused by more than two dozen employees of multiple forms of workplace abuse in a New York Times report last year, announced Friday that most of her restaurants had closed by the end of 2023.

These include its fine-dining restaurant Menton, one of the city’s most prestigious destinations since it opened in 2010, and two others in the same building in the Fort Point district: the stylish trattoria Sportello and the sophisticated cocktail bar Drink. The Butcher Shop and Stir, both in South End, have also closed.

No. 9 park, the Beacon Hill institution on which her empire was built will continue to exist, and so will the fish bar B&G Oysters and Ms. Lynch’s latest project, the ruddera seasonal restaurant on the waterfront in nearby Gloucester, which opened in June after a two-year delay.

About 100 employees have lost their jobs, according to a company statement. Barbara Lynch Collective. In a Zoom call on Friday, the company’s new Chief Operating Officer, Lorraine Tomlinson-Hall, who was hired after the Times report was published, called the remaining restaurants “great” and expressed hope for expansion on the North Shore, where Mrs. Lynch lives.

In the statement, Ms. Lynch attributed the closures to “post-pandemic realities,” financial mismanagement by her former employees and “an uncooperative landlord.”

Acadia Real Estate Trusta New York-based investment firm, owns the Fort Point building, one of the neighborhood’s first luxury developments: with Ms. Lynch’s three street-level restaurants, it helped usher in gentrification in the long-neglected area of ​​South Boston , where she grew up.

“Boston is no longer the same place where I opened seven restaurants over the past 25 years,” she wrote. “Properties have been flipped and flipped and landlords just want the rents that only national chains can sustain.” Acadia Realty did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

Ms. Lynch’s statement made no mention of the long-term problems caused by her alcohol abuse and verbal and physical aggression against employees, which led to high employee turnover and was an open secret among Boston’s hospitality workers.

After a long, hard climb to the top from her troubled childhood in South Boston, the past few years have been a long, hard fall for Ms. Lynch, one of the most famous women in American cooking, and since then a leading chef in New England. the nineties.

At the height of her success, around 2017, she received numerous culinary awards, a best-selling memoir, and a spot on Time Magazine’s annual list of most influential people.

The city of Boston formally apologized Wednesday to two black men wrongly linked to the death of Carol Stuart, a 30-year-old pregnant woman who was shot in 1989 in one of the city’s most famous cases. history that highlighted racial disparities.

Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett were publicly and falsely named by the news media as suspects in the murder, but were never formally charged.

Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, made the apology at a news conference after an extensive one investigation by The Boston Globe published this month and a related one HBO documentary series detailing how Boston’s history of racism led to the botched investigation.

“We are here today to acknowledge the tremendous pain the city of Boston inflicted on Black residents in our neighborhoods 34 years ago,” Ms. Wu said. “The mayor’s office, city officials and the Boston Police Department took actions that directly harmed these families and continue to impact the larger community, reopening a wound that has gone untreated for decades.”

Mr Swanson and members of Mr Bennett’s family attended the press conference.

“I want to say to Mr. Swanson and Mr. Bennett, the entire Bennett family and the entire black community of Boston, I am so sorry for what you have had to endure,” Ms. Wu said. “What was done to you was unjust, unfair, racist and wrong.”

On the night of October 23, 1989, Charles Stuart, who was white, called police from his car phone to say that he and his pregnant wife, Carol, had been shot. Mr Stuart survived a gunshot wound to the chest, but his wife died, as did their premature son 17 days later.

Mr. Stuart told police that a black man wearing a black tracksuit had carjacked them after a childbirth class, forcing the two to drive through Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood “to a deserted area.”

The report led to an intensive manhunt. Within days, Mr. Swanson, then 29 and homeless, was arrested. Police found a black tracksuit in a sink at the Mission Hill apartment where he was taken into custody. Authorities charged Mr. Swanson with burglary but eventually released him because there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder.

Police soon turned their attention to Mr. Bennett, based on sworn statements from teenagers who later said police had coerced them into making such statements. Mr. Bennett, who had a lengthy criminal record, was arrested in connection with an unrelated case and subsequently charged with robbing a video store.

Mr Stuart later identified Mr Bennett from a police lineup.

However, within days it turned out that the story was a lie. Matthew Stuart, Mr Stuart’s youngest brother, told police it had actually been Charles who planned the murder as part of a staged robbery. Matthew admitted to police that he helped dispose of his brother’s gun.

Mr Bennett was acquitted of the murder but was jailed for it 12 years for the video store robberywhich he has said he did not commit.

Charles Stuart later died by suicide, while his brother pleaded guilty to criminal charges, including conspiracy and insurance fraud, and went to prison for three years.

City officials and police came under heavy criticism for their handling of the case, as did the news media, which had promoted the narrative that the wrongly accused suspects were guilty. The Bennett family sued the city of Boston, but were only able to secure $12,500 in settlements.

“There was no evidence that a black man committed this crime,” Ms. Wu said Wednesday, “but that didn’t matter because the story confirmed and exposed the beliefs shared by so many from residents to reporters to officers. and civil servants. At every level and on every occasion, those in power turned a blind eye to the truth because the lie felt familiar.”

Joey Bennett, a cousin of Mr. Bennett, attended Wednesday’s news conference. Willie Bennett did not appear. Now he is 73 weak and has not spoken publicly about the case in years, according to The Globe.

“We just want to express our gratitude to Mayor Wu for the apology,” Joey Bennett said. “Her courage in acknowledging the misconduct of the Boston Police Department and issuing a sincere apology is something we deeply respect and appreciate.

“Your apology is accepted,” he added.

He also acknowledged Mr. Swanson in his comments.

“So he is a friend of the family and we have chosen to have him stand in solidarity with us so that he can get an apology from us,” Mr Bennett said. “Injustice has been done to him. He hasn’t been right since that case.”

Mr. Swanson did not address reporters at the press conference, but later told the Associated Press that while he was “glad this is happening today,” he still faced financial ruin.

“I just need some financial compensation for all the trouble and pain I’m still going through,” he said.