The Practice Run

On Saint Patrick's Day, 1990, one of the largest art thefts in the world took place-the heist of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in which thirteen works of art, worth over half a billion dollars, were stolen by two thieves posing as policemen. Had there been a prior practice run for this theft? Ten years earlier, during the Christmas season, two thieves who posed as delivery men, after hijacking a FedEx van and etherizing its female driver, were thwarted in their attempt of a nearly identical robbery at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York-an art museum modeled after a one in Boston. The young mastermind of these crimes was Brian McDevitt of Swampscott, Massachusetts. He arrived in the small NY town in the spring of 1980, posing as a rich Vanderbilt heir and freelance writer. Prior to his failed heist he spent two months ingratiating himself to the museum's director, the author of this story, in hopes of extracting vital information that would aid in his crime. The book investigates the planning and execution of The Hyde's attempted robbery and traces McDevitt's various escapades following his jail sentences in New York State and one in Massachusetts over a previous bank heist. Ten years later he fled Boston immediately after the Gardner heist and settled in Hollywood, California, masquerading as a screenwriter. When word of his criminal past hit the West Coast, he hightailed it to South America to avoid extradition where he mysteriously died. FBI and Gardner Museum officials act skeptical about McDevitt's association with the heist, yet they claim they know who the perpetrators were but that they are dead, raising suspicion that McDevitt may be in the witness protection program. This story also explores the fascinating history of these two rather impoverished sister museums with art collections of international renown, that were jolted into the recognition of their vulnerabilities, following one thwarted and one actual theft. And even more fascinating is the possibility that a single individual might have been the mastermind of both crimes.