Despite guilty plea, art theft remains a mystery.
In the movies, a leotard-clad cat burglar would have circumvented a state-of-the-art alarm system and rappelled through a skylight down into the Museum of Fine Arts to snatch Georgia O'Keeffe's
Special No. 21 (Palo Duro Canyon)
while a guard slumbered at a
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bank of security monitors. As it was, sometime on Dec. 16, 2003, someone simply lifted the painting off its hanger and left the building with it.
The theft wasn't elaborate, but it was sufficiently dramatic to announce a new chapter in Santa Fe's story as a center for arts and culture. Indeed, since the disappearance of the O'Keeffe, valued at roughly $500,000, a wave of art thefts has swept Santa Fe galleries, with more than a dozen artworks being pilfered in 2004 [Cover story, Sept. 8: "Art Thief Wanted"].
Given Santa Fe's well-publicized position as the nation's second largest art market, Lloyd's of London insurance claims investigator Neil Lieberman says more and more thieves will continue to be attracted to the region.
"It's the downside of Santa Fe's cultural prestige," he says.
Subsequently, over the past year, the Santa Fe Police Department and the New Mexico State Police have worked with galleries and museums to improve security. Most of these efforts have taken place through a special task force which includes various local and state authorities.
"At this point people who are likely victims have an understanding of how to avoid contaminating the crime scene, which is an important step," says State Police Spokesman Peter Olson.
Authorities have said all along that a poorly handled crime scene hamstrung their efforts to solve the high-profile problem of the missing O'Keeffe.
Following the theft of a second O'Keeffe painting Jan. 8, police arrested William Crumpton, who was employed at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum as a guard.
That painting was recovered, found hidden inside the O'Keeffe Museum itself. In custody, Crumpton-who previously had been a guard at the Museum of Fine Arts-also admitted guilt in the first O'Keeffe theft, but later recanted.
He did, however, on Oct. 25, plead guilty to the attempted O'Keeffe Museum theft as well as multiple burglaries at the O'Keeffe Café and the neighboring County
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Treasurer's Office. Crumpton is currently scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 10, 2005.
But the initial O'Keeffe theft remains unsolved and, at this point, District Attorney Henry Valdez doesn't anticipate charging Crumpton-or anyone-in the foreseeable future.
"There are some circumstances where I can envision charging a suspect," Valdez says carefully. "But certain circumstances would have to change for us to be able to move forward." There are no leads, Valdez says, regarding the whereabouts of the missing painting.
"But it's a very important case, so I'm not ready to close it just yet," he says.
The rash of gallery thefts from the past year also remains unsolved. Although a few of the stolen works have been recovered (some found on the Internet and one found, amazingly, under a tree), and a police sketch of a suspect was released, no arrests have been made. Recent events in Taos, including the Dec. 7 theft of a Zuni Kachina from the Millicent Rogers Museum, have led Taos Police Detective Barry Holfelder to suspect a ring operating in both Santa Fe and Taos.
"There's so much art concentrated in this corridor that it makes sense to find a group of thieves working the region," Holfelder says. He has plans to make a trip down to Santa Fe to compares notes with detectives here, but it will have to wait until next year. Holfelder's art snooping is, like the investigation in Santa Fe, "on the backburner. I'm swamped."
