The following was excerpted from a New Haven, CT newspaper on March 23, ‘08 after several thefts of art from local institutions. The theft was caught on camera, but the thief was long gone by the time it was discovered. This is precisely why works should be alarmed, either exclusively or with a camera as back up.

A thief allegedly slipped this painting under his jacket to feed his heroin habit — not knowing that the public library’s cameras were rolling, and his string of remarkable art heists was about to end. Police said the thief, an unidentified 53-year-old man from Farren Avenue, ripped off 39 paintings from New Haven venues, including $40,000 in art from Yale’s Slifka Center and the New Haven Free Public Library.

The paintings were recovered during a weekend bust on a Hill area home, where a second man, age 47, had been allegedly accepting the art in exchange for bags of heroin. Police expect to arrest the thief later this week.

The break in the case came from a surveillance camera at the New Haven Free Public Library, Branfuhr said. He and Assistant Chief Peter Reichard gave the following account of how they stopped a serial thief in his tracks.

New Haven police first learned of the case on March 5, when two paintings went missing from the downtown public library on Elm Street. Two days later, the thief apparently hit again: Two more paintings disappeared. Detectives reviewed the surveillance footage, which showed a man concealing something under his jacket, standing right near the spot where one of the paintings, called “Beware Of Dog” (in photo at the top of this story), had hung. Also stolen that day was this etching (pictured) by Tony Falcone of New Haven City Hall. The paintings at the library were not secured, police said. They were just hanging there.

Police constructed a description of the suspect based on the videotape. Then, just three days later, the same man came back to the library, police said. Staff called police, who took the man to police headquarters for questioning.

In a taped conversation, the alleged thief recounted how a heroin addiction drove him to steal the art, according to police. The suspect admitted to stealing five paintings from the public library, as well as three from the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale. Those three paintings were done by Unabomber victim and Yale professor David Gelenter as well as his son, Daniel, a Yale music major.