On this episode of "Expedition Files,"
the CIA works in the shadows.
Now we shine a light on one of its most controversial
operations, MKUltra--
using hallucinogenics as part of secret
mind control experiments...
...with sometimes deadly results.
Then, history's most famous queen, Cleopatra,
is said to die by self-inflicted snakebite.
We reveal the untold twists of this truly poisonous story.
And how did two people walk into a museum and vanish
with a 160-million-dollar masterpiece?
For the first time, we paint the complete picture.
In the corridors of time...
are mysteries that defy explanation.
Now, I'm traveling through history itself...
on a search for the truth.
New evidence.
Shocking answers.
I'm Josh Gates.
And these...
are my "Expedition Files."
There's nothing better than a surprise twist ending.
That shock and amazement when a story ends up
where you'd never expect it.
You know, Bruce Willis is a ghost in "The Sixth Sense."
Brad Pitt doesn't exist in "Fight Club."
And if you haven't seen those movies, well, I just totally
ruined them for you.
Anyway, tonight, get ready for that same surprising sensation
as we explore three shocking true stories with endings
you really won't see coming.
And let's begin on November 28th, 1953,
in Midtown Manhattan.
It's just after 4 AM,
an unusually quiet time for the city that never sleeps.
No commuters streaming in yet from nearby Penn Station.
But that doesn't mean I'm alone out here.
In fact, I'm standing by a grisly scene.
CIA employee Frank Olson has fallen from a window at
the Hotel Statler and plummeted 10 floors to his death.
The authorities declare there are no signs of foul play,
calling it suicide.
But decades later, declassified documents
will cast doubt on the official story.
So, if Frank Olson didn't take his own life,
what really happened here?
New evidence suggests the truth is far more sinister
than anyone ever imagined.
Our story begins 10 years earlier, in 1943.
U.S. Army Captain Frank Olson
has just been transferred
to Maryland's Camp Detrick to begin work on a new,
highly secretive biological weapons program.
At just 33 years old, Olson is one of the first scientists
inducted into the program.
With a Ph.D. in biochemistry,
Olson's job is to test various biological
substances like anthrax for use as weapons against the Nazis.
Over the next few years, Olson works on other unsettling
secret experiments, like Operation Harness
in Antigua, which tests the airborne spread
of potential bioweapons by exposing hundreds of sheep,
guinea pigs, and monkeys to potent toxins.
In 1950, he participates in Operation Sea-Spray,
which clandestinely releases a nonlethal bacteria
into the mists of San Francisco,
tracking how quickly an airborne disease
could attack a populated area.
And though he finds his work disturbing, he continues
to move up the ranks.
By 1953, Olson has accepted an official promotion to a new
top-secret program at the CIA.
He now finds himself at the heart of a deeply
clandestine operation, something code-named "MKUltra."
Led by chief CIA scientist Sidney Gottlieb,
MKUltra is working to develop a substance that can do
three extraordinary things--
force alleged spies to tell the truth,
wipe the memory of prisoners,
and, wildest of all, induce a subject
to perform assassinations against their will.
In short, the CIA wants to develop mind control.
Olson is a principal investigator for many
of the MKUltra experiments,
forced to witness poisonings
and drug-induced interrogations
using the chemical weapons he helped create.
By the fall of 1953, despite a reputation
as a jovial, sociable family man,
Olson falls into a deep depression.
On November 18th, 1953,
his boss, Sidney Gottlieb,
organizes a retreat at a cabin at Deep Creek Lake
for those on the MKUltra Project,
purportedly as a morale booster.
Olson and 11 others travel to the lake
for rest and relaxation.
It'll be anything but.
The first night comes and goes with little fanfare.
Then, after dinner on the second night,
November 19th, Gottlieb passes around
glasses of Cointreau liqueur to the men.
Twenty minutes later,
things start to go off the rails.
Despite only having a single drink, Olson becomes
highly agitated.
Witnesses describe him as paranoid,
convinced someone has played a trick on him.
What'd you do to me?
He shouts delusional insults at the other men.
The next night, when Olson arrives back home,
he's a changed man.
He's sullen and confused, refusing to play with his kids.
His wife Alice tries to coax out what happened.
Will you please talk to me?
But the normally talkative Olson is silent,
stewing in his despair.
Later that night, Olson makes a single ominous statement
to Alice.
I made a terrible mistake.
But he won't say anything more.
Over the next four days, a deeply troubled Olson travels
back and forth to New York City with two of his colleagues
to visit what Olson believes is a CIA-approved psychiatrist.
While there, they take him to see a musical and a magic show
in an attempt to lift his spirits.
But despite this, Olson continues to show signs
of declining mental health.
Get away from me!
Finally, on November 27th, nine days after he first began
behaving erratically and with his depressed and agitated
symptoms continuing, Olson agrees to enter
a sanitarium named Chestnut Lodge.
But before heading to the facility, he and his CIA
colleague, Robert Lashbrook, spend one final night
in New York staying at the Hotel Statler on the 10th floor.
According to Lashbrook's account, in the middle of
the night, around 2 AM, he wakes up just in time to see
Olson sprinting across the room
and diving full force through the window.
It's a grisly scene on the street below.
Olson's mangled body is strewn across the sidewalk, dead.
Authorities quickly rule his death a suicide.
But there are whispers of foul play.
Frank's wife is adamant that he would never kill himself.
The night manager of the hotel also tells authorities that,
quote, "in all my years in the hotel business, I never
"encountered a case where someone got up in the middle
"of the night, ran across a dark room in his underwear,
"avoiding two beds, and dove through a closed
window with the shade and curtains drawn."
Despite any lingering doubts, the official story of suicide
holds for over 20 years, until the mid-1970s.
That's when the U.S. government declassifies
a bombshell report exposing decades of illegal CIA activity.
And buried deep within its pages is the first crack
in the agency's longstanding cover story.
For over two decades, the CIA insists biological
warfare expert Frank Olson took his own life.
But then, in 1975, a newly-declassified document
cracks the case wide open, hinting not at suicide,
but something far more sinister.
It's a single paragraph that reads in part, quote,
"On one occasion, LSD was administered to an employee
"of the Department of the Army without his knowledge.
"He then developed and was sent to New York with a CIA escort
"for psychiatric treatment.
"Several days later, he jumped from a 10th-floor
window of his room and died as a result."
It's a stunning revelation.
Michael Evans, editorial director at
the National Security Archive, has spent decades uncovering
buried government secrets and has dug into what really
happened to Frank Olson.
Olson was among an elite group of chemists and scientists
who were trying to develop methods to interrogate
suspected enemy spies or defectors that they thought
might be able to be turned.
This is a time when-- 1949 and after, when LSD was really
kind of all the rage among the people who were in charge
of the CIA at the time, and including Sidney Gottlieb,
who was the chief chemist at the CIA, were really sort
of enthralled with the possibilities of what LSD
could do in terms of finding a truth serum or a way
to control human minds.
The paragraph about the Olson case
reveals that Sidney Gottlieb
spiked the Cointreau at the retreat with LSD
and did it without telling anyone.
Just a few days after Frank Olson's death,
there is a memo in the CIA
to impound all of the LSD that it had on site
or in various places around the world.
So this is clear indication that they knew immediately that
there was some connection between Frank's death
and the LSD experiments that they were doing.
Anyone who knew during all of those years never told
Alice Olson the real story of her husband's death.
She would discover it by accident
more than two decades later.
In essence, it was a 22-year-long cover-up.
My anger was unbelievable at how I had been duped for this
length of time and the anguish, which was unnecessary.
The CIA's secret drugging of Frank Olson enraged his family.
His wife, Alice, along with their son, Eric,
sued the agency for wrongful death.
They settled for $750,000 and an apology, but notably did
not receive an admission of guilt.
Eric was far from satisfied.
He wanted the full story of what happened to his dad,
so he set out to uncover the truth himself.
He decides that the time has come to exhume his father's
remains and to see what they might learn.
They discovered that Frank Olson had a traumatic
head wound to the front of his face,
when he supposedly had landed
on his back, when he hit the ground.
So this raised a lot of questions about whether he had
been struck by someone
before potentially being thrown out the window.
The official story was that Olson went face-first
through a closed window, but a new autopsy revealed
no cuts from glass, and it was concluded that the wound
on his forehead did not come from the fall.
To Eric, this was clear proof that his father was murdered.
It's a shocking accusation, but it also begs
the question, why?
Could it be because the CIA was worried Olson would reveal
the dirty secrets of MKUltra?
Frank Olson was among couple of dozen people who would have
known almost all the details about the MKUltra Project
and about all of these sinister programs that the CIA
and the Army had been developing and using on people.
Any revelations that he might have made in a mental state
that was deteriorating
would have been something that the CIA
would have been very concerned about.
It seems Eric was onto something, because in 2024,
further top-secret CIA documents were declassified,
showing there was indeed much more to Frank Olson's ending
than was previously known.
In one especially damning document, we learn that
the psychiatrist that Frank Olson was taken to see
in New York City was not a psychiatrist at all,
but rather an allergist.
And his primary qualification
was that he was doing LSD experiments for the CIA.
But taken together, the collection suggests
strongly that the CIA was never interested in Frank Olson's
mental health, but rather the security
of the MKUltra Program.
The documents and second autopsy don't conclusively
prove Frank Olson's murder, but they do lay bare
a disturbing truth.
He was unknowingly dosed with hallucinogens
by his own employer, the U.S. government.
If there is one positive thing to come out of this nightmare,
the declassified files suggest Olson's death helped bring
an end to this disturbing secret program,
as far as we know. The full unredacted truth may
remain forever in the shadows.
We've jumped back in time about 2,000 years to witness another
death shrouded in deception.
It's 30 BC, and I am deep in the heart of Alexandria,
the capital of ancient Egypt,
in the palace of legendary Queen Cleopatra.
Her empire is crumbling, and minutes from now,
she'll be dead.
History tells us Cleopatra is about to take her own life,
poisoning herself with a viper's bite.
But millennia later, a remarkable new theory will
tear up that old papyrus, rewriting everything we think
we know about the death of the Queen of the Nile.
When ancient Egypt is conquered by Alexander the Great,
it ushers in the Hellenistic Age, ruled by a dynasty
of Macedonian Greeks known as the "Ptolemies."
Almost 300 years later, in 69 BC,
Cleopatra is born into this royal line,
quickly proving herself to be a young woman
of sharp intelligence and fierce ambition.
When Cleopatra's father dies in 51 BC,
she's just 18 and thrust into a battle for the throne.
She initially shares control
with her 10-year-old brother, Ptolemy VIII.
And if co-ruling with your kid brother isn't awkward enough,
Cleopatra marries him to keep the bloodline pure.
Gross, but welcome to politics in the ancient world.
Her brother-slash-husband wants the crown to himself.
And before long, the sibling rivalry explodes
into full-blown civil war.
Cleopatra is driven out of Egypt.
To get rid of her brother-husband
and take back power,
she turns to a visiting Roman general for help.
His name? Julius Caesar.
According to legend, to get an audience with him,
Cleopatra is smuggled into his room
inside a rolled-up carpet.
Caesar is transfixed by her beauty.
And even though he's 30 years older than her and married,
Caesar and Cleopatra begin a legendary romance.
And hey, it also doesn't hurt that he has the military might
that she needs, and she has
enough riches to keep the Roman coffers full.
There are many more twists and turns
to Cleopatra's power struggle.
If you're interested, crack open an Egyptian history
book of your choice.
Suffice it to say, though, Caesar gets
Cleopatra her throne. He also gets her pregnant.
In 47 BC, Cleopatra gives birth to Caesar's son, nicknaming him
Caesarion, aka Little Caesar.
Pizza, pizza.
Cleopatra and Caesar's power-coupling
lasts until 44 BC,
when his Senate friends, led by Brutus, stab him in the back.
Literally, like 23 times.
After Caesar's death, Cleopatra urgently needs
a new ally in Rome.
Caesar's former protégé, General Mark Antony,
rises to power as one of Rome's three new rulers.
He asks Cleopatra for a meeting, and she agrees,
eager to secure his Egypt alliance with Rome once more.
Cleopatra reportedly arrives in high-style on a sumptuous
golden barge with purple sails, dressed in the robes
of the goddess Isis.
Cleopatra's beauty, not to mention her tremendous wealth,
is intoxicating.
Though he's married, the great general falls
for her, following right in Caesar's footsteps.
Mark Antony moves to Egypt to be with her, and they have
three children together.
In short, she's secured
Rome's support and Mark Antony's heart.
There's just one problem.
Mark Antony has a new political rival, Octavian,
the adopted son of the recently assassinated Julius Caesar.
Octavian wants to be emperor and is no fan of Antony.
To keep Octavian on his side, Mark Antony agrees to marry
his sister, Octavia.
That's right, Octavia and Octavian.
The ancient Romans loved a matching nameset.
Very confusing.
After some quality time with Octavia, Mark Antony realizes
she's no Cleopatra, abandons her,
and returns to Egypt.
It's a fateful choice.
In doing so, he doesn't just break Octavia's heart,
he ignites a war with Rome,
a war that will end in one of the most iconic
and controversial deaths in history.
After Mark Antony leaves his well-connected wife Octavia
to be with Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra,
all hell breaks loose.
Outraged by the insult to his sister, the rising Roman
ruler Octavian declares war against Antony and Cleopatra.
In 31 BC, Cleopatra and Antony's combined
forces face off against Octavian's fleet
at the Battle of Actium, off the coast of Greece,
only to suffer a crushing defeat.
The lovers retreat to their Egyptian stronghold,
but the support of their allies is dwindling.
Octavian's army marches on Egypt.
The royal city of Alexandria falls to the Romans,
and instead of allowing himself to be captured,
Mark Antony falls on his own sword,
death by suicide.
Barricading herself in her chambers
with her treasures,
Cleopatra prepares for the worst.
It is said that as the Romans surround the palace,
Cleopatra is told of her lover's death,
and in despair, she has one of her handmaidens smuggle
a venomous snake into her chambers
in a basket of figs.
According to the story, Cleopatra then kills herself
by accepting the deadly snake bite.
The report comes from the historian Plutarch,
writing more than 100 years after Cleopatra's death.
He even says Octavian has a sculpture
of the Queen of the Nile carried in his victory parade
with a snake clinging to her breast.
Plutarch is far from the only account
of Cleopatra's death, though.
In the 2,000 years that follow,
various other versions of how she ended her life emerge.
She pricks herself with a poisonous hairpin.
Drinks a homemade poison.
Applies poisonous ointment to her skin.
OK, so poison is definitely a theme.
But can we prove it?
With the death of Cleopatra, the Ptolemy dynasty is done,
and Egypt has officially fallen.
The Romans make a point of burying Cleopatra and her story.
We don't even know the location where she was laid to rest.
So did Cleopatra die the way we were told?
Or is there another truth the Romans wanted hidden?
The answer might lie in her burial, but for centuries,
experts have searched in vain for Cleopatra's tomb.
Historians believe the ruins of Taposiris Magna,
outside Alexandria, could be the location of her burial.
And in 2017, I did some digging there myself.
Archaeologist Kathleen Martínez and I opened an ancient crypt.
And using a high-tech camera, we peered inside.
That's a skull.
Look at that, buried in the sand.
- That's a human skull. - Yes.
Oh, my God.
You can see two skulls.
Unbelievable! Another skull.
There were two bodies together in the crypt,
but no royal implements.
It's an amazing find, but not Cleopatra.
In the years since I joined the search, Kathleen has
continued her excavations at Taposiris Magna, making further
remarkable discoveries, including new tunnels,
a sunken port, and hundreds of coins bearing
Cleopatra's image, as well as two statuettes.
Intriguing, but no burial site yet.
Meanwhile, other new insights into her death are emerging
from a different kind of expert, an acclaimed criminal
profiler who suggests her death was not a suicide,
but a calculated assassination.
Professor of Ancient Religions Hugo Mendez has
closely studied the findings.
In her book, "The Murder of Cleopatra,
History's Greatest Cold Case," criminal investigator Pat Brown
argues that the Queen of the Nile definitely
did not take her own life.
Brown looks at Cleopatra's death like any other
homicide cold case.
She's taking stock of the body, the weapons,
the witnesses, even the motive.
The narrative is suspect from the beginning.
Cleopatra, this is someone who was raised with all
of the political intrigue of the era.
She's calculating, she's indomitable.
She's someone who is thought to have killed members of her own
family to stay on the throne.
She's not the kind of person who's gonna fall apart because
of Mark Antony.
The author argues that based on every historical account
of Cleopatra that we have, it is totally out of character that
she would commit suicide, even with the Romans
at the door.
An analysis of the crime scene
itself also raises serious red flags.
Why did the women not exhibit any of the characteristic signs
of snake poisoning? Vomiting, convulsions.
We don't hear about this in the record.
For that matter, why is the snake never discovered
in the chamber?
The snake should be with the women,
but that's not in the story.
So let's say that there is no snake.
Imagine that Cleopatra is able to concoct her own poison,
a poison she can stab herself with
or use as an ointment or drink.
The problem is that there is no poisonous object described
in the scene. So where's the murder weapon?
The purported crime scene doesn't make any sense.
It's often said that history is written by the victors.
And our understanding of Cleopatra's death was written
by her enemies.
Interestingly, Cleopatra's suicide by snakebite story was
strategically promoted by the same man who had the most
to gain from her untimely demise, the Emperor Octavian.
A living Cleopatra would have
been very, very dangerous to Rome.
She was likely the mother of Caesar's only child,
and she was a respected leader who had the support
of the Egyptian people.
To openly kill Cleopatra might have inspired the Egyptians
to rebel.
On the other hand, keeping her alive would also
have triggered violent uprisings in her name.
It seems much more likely that Cleopatra is imprisoned,
beaten, and tortured by Octavian in an attempt
to try to find the location of her son, Caesarion,
who represents a direct threat to his rule.
And ultimately, Octavian had Cleopatra murdered.
The evidence can only be circumstantial
after 2,000 years,
but Octavian certainly had the motive,
the means, and the opportunity
to kill Cleopatra.
Since Cleopatra's body has never been found,
there's no way to reexamine it for any signs of foul play.
But Octavian's behavior after Cleopatra's death,
you could argue it screams cover-up.
He wastes no time wiping out every rival to the throne,
including killing Cleopatra Cleopatra's son, Caesarion.
One by one, the royal bloodline is wiped out, and within weeks,
Cleopatra's dynasty is gone.
And so, despite committing the most famous suicide
in history, it may be that history got it wrong,
and Cleopatra didn't die by her own hand.
Instead, she may have been murdered by an empire
that sought to erase her.
It's 2017, and I'm in a quiet little consignment store
in Silver City, New Mexico,
where the tables are lined
with secondhand items.
It looks like the usual junk.
But, oh, hey, that painting's worth something.
And by something, I mean $160 million.
That's because it's by Willem de Kooning,
the famed 20th-century abstract expressionist, hiding in plain
sight like just another garage sale leftover.
It's also at the heart of one of the most audacious
art heists in history.
Who stole it, and how did it get here?
We expose the secrets of the crime and reveal
the last people you'd ever expect to be behind it.
We begin on the day of the theft, November 29th,
1985, the day after Thanksgiving.
Just before 9 AM,
staff at the University of Arizona Museum of Art
prepare to open the doors.
While a security guard unlocks the entrance
for an arriving employee,
a man and a woman also ask to be let in.
The guard thinks nothing of it,
allowing these visitors early entry.
The couple climbs a flight of stairs to the second floor.
A guard trails close behind them.
The woman suddenly stops.
Turning, she strikes up a conversation with the guard
about a painting hanging in the stairwell.
Her partner, he keeps going.
Moments later, the man descends the stairs,
reunites with the woman, and together they simply walk
out the door not 15 minutes after they arrived.
A little odd, but nothing to panic about, right?
That is, until he enters the second floor gallery
and comes face to face
with his worst nightmare, an empty frame.
One of the museum's most prized possessions,
Willem De Kooning's masterpiece, "Woman-Ochre,"
has been sliced from its frame.
One vanished painting, two nameless thieves,
and a trail that will go cold for 30 years.
A $160 million masterpiece called "Woman-Ochre" has been
stolen from the University of Arizona Museum.
Painted in 1955 by the Dutch-American artist
Willem De Kooning, a major figure in the New York
art scene and a pioneer of abstract expressionism.
Museum staff, shaken and confused,
stare at the empty frame.
Panic sets in, as they call the authorities.
The painting was one of the museum's most important
works, but security was minimal
and there were no cameras in the gallery.
The theft itself is as brazen as it is crude.
The woman's accomplice has cut the 30-inch by 40-inch painting
from its frame with a blade, then simply folded the canvas
and put it under his coat.
And just like that, they and the painting are gone.
And to make matters worse, there are almost no leads.
The FBI is called in, creating sketches
of the suspects.
But all they have are very vague descriptions.
The woman, about 50, thin, glasses, a scarf wrapped
around her graying hair.
The man, in his 50s, stocky, dark hair,
a trim mustache.
Possibly wearing disguises.
And despite chasing down every possible clue,
like interviewing art dealers around the world,
following up on black market tips
and interrogating possible suspects,
the painting has become a ghost.
But that doesn't stop it from increasing in value.
By 2015, the University of Arizona estimates that
the still-missing De Kooning masterpiece is worth
a jaw-dropping $160 million.
That brings us back to 2017 and that consignment shop
in Silver City, New Mexico.
The store's owner, David van Auker, has recently acquired
what he believes is just an ordinary painting as part
of a $2,000 estate sale from a recently deceased couple,
Jerry and Rita Alter.
It leans against that wall for two weeks, until one day
a customer says it's a De Kooning and offers $200,000
for the artwork.
Van Auker, excited, does what any modern-day sleuth would do.
He Googles it.
And what pops up stops him cold.
It's De Kooning's "Woman-Ochre," stolen 30 years ago,
now worth millions.
Van Auker contacts the museum, describing the painting.
The museum's curator is hopefully
optimistic but cautious.
Then the photos arrive. The dimensions come in.
And just like that, suspicion turns to certainty.
The stolen masterpiece embarks on an extraordinary homecoming,
back to the museum it vanished from over three decades ago.
Van Auker is offered a reward, but politely declines,
saying he returned stolen property,
something everyone should do.
With the painting's authenticity confirmed,
the FBI starts connecting the dots.
Van Auker purchased the piece from the estate of the late
Jerry and Rita Alter, a senior seemingly ordinary
couple living in New Mexico.
Jerry was a retired music teacher
who died in 2012.
And Rita was a speech therapist
who passed in 2017.
They had no criminal record.
Hardly the type to pull off one of the biggest art heists
in history, or so it seemed.
When authorities revisit the original case file,
something stands out.
The sketch of the male suspect
bears a resemblance to Jerry, without the mustache.
And the woman who distracted the guard?
A possible match for Rita, minus the gray hair.
Could it be them?
Did this unassuming couple really steal a painting
worth $160 million?
The CIA's MKUltra Program included many
controversial experiments, but arguably the most
outrageous was Operation Midnight Climax,
launched in 1953.
Prostitutes on the CIA payroll in New York and San Francisco
lured unsuspecting men into fake brothels,
where they were secretly dosed with LSD, all while agents
observed through one-way mirrors.
The aim was to study how drugs and sex could be used
for interrogation and control.
This jaw-dropping and pants-dropping top-secret
operation ran for a decade before being exposed
in congressional hearings in the '70s.
In the end, it turns out the biggest trip of MKUltra
wasn't the LSD.
It was how kinky the U.S. government was willing to get
in the name of mind control.
Jerry and Rita Alter lived ordinary lives.
But with their deaths, they've become prime suspects
in an extraordinary 160-million-dollar art heist.
The painting was traced to their estate.
And the resemblance between the couple in the original
police sketches?
Well, let's just say it ain't looking good
for Jerry and Rita.
That's not definitive proof they did it, though.
That proof is coming.
The FBI discovers damning evidence.
Travel records and a photo placing Jerry and Rita
in Tucson on Thanksgiving Day, 1985.
They were in town when the painting was stolen.
Right place, right time.
But then comes the smoking gun.
Pictures of the stolen painting itself.
Photos from inside the Alters' home showing the De Kooning,
not stashed away, but proudly hanging
in their bedroom.
Authorities are convinced they have finally solved
the case that has baffled them for decades.
But since Jerry and Rita died before their crime was exposed,
it left investigators with a huge question.
Why did they do it?
Art world investigative journalist Charles Sabba
has been working to complete the picture.
On the surface, Jerry and Rita Alter appeared to be
a reserved, quiet couple from New York who retired and left
New York to live in Cliff, New Mexico, to escape what
they referred to as "the rat race."
He was a schoolteacher. He played the clarinet.
He played the sax. He taught music.
Everyone describes her as really adorable, loving, kind.
So Jerry and Rita Alter did appear to be a normal couple,
but because the Alters have passed and never confessed,
it leaves really unsettling questions that are still out
there as to who actually did this, or did anyone help them,
or were there any other crimes committed?
Sabba believes Jerry left behind a confession of sorts,
hidden within a book of short stories he wrote and published
in 2011, titled "The Cup and the Lip."
In his book, "The Cup and the Lip,"
he describes the couple that steals artwork, that he says
this couple fills their psychological need
by stealing, by creating larceny, and then they hide it
in their house where only for their viewing pleasure only.
I think he is borderline sociopath.
And there is a feeling of power
when you get away with something like stealing
the important painting.
That whole book pretty much gave us
the psychological profile of him.
Was Jerry's motive really just about the satisfaction
of committing the perfect crime?
A closer look at the couple suggests that, in private,
they also seemed to enjoy living large.
These modest retirees somehow owned
a bronze Remington statue,
a prized Western sculpture worth
tens of thousands of dollars.
They also traveled to over 140 countries, thanks to a secret
bank account containing over a million dollars.
There was something very strange about
the Alters' lifestyle.
Even though they had modest incomes and modest careers,
they went from having a piece of property with a trailer,
to a beautiful home with a built-in pool.
It was very suspicious and caused a lot of talk.
Not exactly the financial profile of two retired
school teachers.
How did they have a million dollars in their account?
How did they travel the world? How did they buy a Remington?
How did these people with such modest income...
become collectors and house owners and, you know,
world travelers?
To me, it means that they were finding another means to fuel
that lavish lifestyle.
The suspicions are valid.
But if Jerry and Rita never sold the "Woman-Ochre"
for profit, where did all that money come from?
Could they have been secretly stealing
and selling other artworks?
In 2023, a researcher spotted two paintings on an art auction
site that looked oddly familiar.
And then he remembered a photo from inside the Alter's home.
Zooming in, there they were.
"Oklahoma Cheyenne," by Joseph Sharp,
and "Aspens," by Victor Higgins,
stolen from the Harwood Museum of New Mexico, in 1985.
The theft of these two paintings had all the same
hallmarks of the "Woman-Ochre" heist, a disguised couple,
paintings cut from their frames,
and a clean getaway.
I strongly believe other works will come up with the odor
of the Alters on them.
If the Alters really did snatch not one,
but three paintings, who knows how many other
masterpieces they might have stolen and sold.
As for the painting at the center of it all,
"Woman-Ochre," it triumphantly returned
to the University of Arizona Museum of Art, in 2022.
Worth noting, the museum has now significantly
increased security.
Smuggling it out under your jacket is, thankfully,
no longer an option.
I'm Josh Gates.
I'll see you on the next expedition.