FBI looks into thrill-seeking teachers alleged to have been international art thieves | New Mexico | News World

The mystery of a nondescript, middle-aged couple who hung a stolen $150m Willem de Kooning painting behind a bedroom door in their Cliff, New Mexico, home may be closer to being resolved after the FBI agreed to assist in tracking down two other paintings that had been in the couple’s possession.

A new twist to the story of Jerry and Rita Alter, a pair of New Mexico teachers who somehow funded a life of travel and adventure to the point that they are suspected international art thieves, emerged recently when the US’s top federal law enforcement agency confirmed it was getting involved in the case.

The couple, both of whom are now dead, are believed to have conducted a series of art heists in the mid-1980s. In one, the couple allegedly walked into a Tucson, Arizona, museum and stole the de Kooning using a deceptive method. A woman distracted museum staff with questions while a man in a fake moustache lifted the painting off the wall, put it under his coat and walked out.

The heist of Woman-Ochre was never decisively pinned on the Alters – the painting was recovered in 2017 after Rita died and now hangs back in Tucson. But the FBI’s involvement in another heist in the same…