In the spring of 1975, Myles Connor found himself facing an insurmountable prison sentence. The former rock-and-roll frontman turned prolific art thief had finally pushed his luck too far after being caught trying to sell stolen Wyeth paintings to an undercover FBI agent.
Connor was already out on bail for another stolen-art case when federal authorities arrested him, leaving him staring down decades behind bars in a federal prison. Desperate to reverse his fate, the 31-year-old turned to an unusual family connection for help.
The Desperate Proposition
Connor arranged a meeting with Major John Regan, a veteran Massachusetts State Police detective and close friend of his father. He presented an intriguing offer: while he refused to inform on his criminal associates, he could help recover valuable artwork that had vanished from museums and private collections.
Regan remained unmoved by the proposal. He reminded Connor that federal prosecutors would only consider a deal for something truly historic - a recovery so significant it would make headlines worldwide.
"I'm sorry, Myles," Regan told him. "Nothing short of a Rembrandt could get you out of this."
Rather than discouraging him, the remark sparked an audacious idea. If freedom required a Rembrandt, then Connor would simply steal one.
Planning the Perfect Crime
According to art theft expert Anthony Amore, whose new book The Rembrandt Heist chronicles Connor's remarkable crimes, the thief possessed one of the finest criminal minds in history. Unlike other art thieves, Connor appeared motivated more by his love of art than financial gain.
"This is a guy who could've really been anything," Amore told the Daily Mail. "He had the opportunity to go to Harvard because of his IQ, and he had a really promising music career... he was opening for Chuck Berry and Roy Orbison."
Born in Milton, Massachusetts to a police officer father, Connor had chosen a different path. He formed several bands and developed a flamboyant performance style, sometimes arriving on stage revving his motorcycle or being carried out in a coffin.
His criminal career began in 1963 when he stole artifacts valued at $100,000 (equivalent to roughly $1 million today) from the Forbes House Museum. Numerous other heists followed, with Amore estimating Connor staged at least 30 thefts with total hauls worth tens of millions.
The Daylight Museum Heist
With just weeks before his trial, Connor targeted the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, an institution he knew well from childhood visits. He selected Rembrandt's Portrait of Elsbeth van Rijn, then valued at $500,000 ($3 million today).
In a brilliant test run, Connor sent associate Steve Gorski to the museum the day before the planned theft. Gorski simply removed the painting from its hooks when guards weren't looking, confirming no alarms would sound.
On April 14, 1975, Connor and his gang entered the museum with purchased tickets, armed with pistols and wearing disguises. They reached the second-floor Dutch and Flemish art gallery in under a minute.
When a security guard caught them removing the Rembrandt, Connor pulled his pistol and growled: "Shut up or I'll kill you." After another guard arrived and was pistol-whipped, the thieves fired three warning shots and escaped with the masterpiece.
Connor had orchestrated several diversions to aid their escape, including setting fire to a nearby electric breaker and leaving an overheated car blocking traffic.
The Aftermath and Unlikely Friendship
As museum director Rollin Hadley told the New York Times after the theft, "There's no market for this painting. You can't sell a Rembrandt. Nobody's going to buy the thing." Fortunately for Connor, he never intended to sell it.
The stolen Rembrandt became his bargaining chip, though the complex negotiations that followed drew in mob figures, federal agents, and Connor's close friend, music manager Al Dotoli.
Interestingly, Connor's name later surfaced in investigations of the infamous 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, though he has always denied involvement. Anthony Amore, who leads security at the Gardner Museum, has since developed an unlikely friendship with Connor.
"To put this in soccer terms, if you're a goalkeeper and you have the opportunity to talk with [Lionel] Messi about what he sees when he looks at the goal, you talk to him," Amore explained.
The pair, along with Dotoli, have become close friends, with Connor even attending a recent reading for Amore's book in Boston where the audience applauded the former thief.
"I said, 'You know you're all applauding an art thief!' and people laughed," Amore recalled. "And it's funny, because you don't want to glamorize what he did, because he committed some serious crimes, but at the same time, he's just such a loveable guy."
The Rembrandt Heist: A Criminal Genius, a Stolen Masterpiece, and an Enigmatic Friendship is published by Pegasus Crime and available now.
