FBI Hopes DNA can Help Solve 1990 Gardner Museum Art Heist

BOSTON.- The FBI is hoping advances in DNA technology can help solve a 20-year-old Boston art heist.

A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Boston office tells The Boston Globe the lead agent in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum case is resubmitting evidence taken from the scene for DNA analysis.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum curator Karen Haas, left, and museum director Anne Hawley address a news conference March 19, 1990, concerning the theft at the museum in which thieves stole a number of priceless art treasures from the Boston museum the night before

Agent Geoffrey Kelly said he could not disclose what evidence would be reviewed, but experts familiar with the case said it would probably include duct tape used to bind two museum security guards.

The heist was one of the world’s biggest art thefts. Two men disguised as police officers talked their way into the museum in March 1990 and stole 13 works, including pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet worth an estimated $250 million.

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