Hey Podcast Listeners, Jasmine Morris here. We're dropping in with a special episode to pay tribute

to a StoryCorps participant who died last month at the age of 57. Rick Abbott sat down with us in 2015 to tell his story something he rarely did.

And in this episode of the podcast from back then, you'll hear why. It's the Story Corps Podcast.

I'm Michael Garofalo, a producer here at Story Corps, and today we're going to look

back on the biggest art heist in history.

I'm here with Jasmine Belcher Morris who produced the story.

Hi Jasmine.

Hey Michael.

So when did this robbery happen?

It happened almost exactly 25 years ago in the really early morning hours of March 18th in 1990

at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

So what happened on that night in 1990?

That night, two men posing as police officers

tricked the night watchman into letting them in,

and then they stole artwork worth half a billion dollars.

The thieves have never been caught in the art never recovered.

And we're going to hear now from the security guard who opened the door that night.

Yep, his name is Rick Abbeth and he hasn't done many interviews, but he agreed to come to StoryCorps

with his wife Diana.

And this is the only interview he's giving for the 25th anniversary.

At the time of the robbery, I had just dropped out of Berkeley College of Music.

I was playing in a jam band and working night shift at the museum. I was just this hippie guy who wasn't hurting anything, wasn't on anybody's radar, and the next day I was on everybody's radar for the largest

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