An FBI investigation into two retired teachers whose New Mexico home owned a stolen $100 million De Kooning painting found they had other valuable works in their home and enjoyed lavish trips around the world.
It has long been speculated that the late Rita and Jerry Alter were the duo who stole De Kooning’s “Woman-Ocher” from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985.
The theft saw a woman accost a security guard while her male accomplice cut out the painting and ran away with it, but the thieves were never identified.
It was not until 2017 that police were alerted to the painting’s location by a New Mexico museum curator, who purchased the painting for $2,000 from Rita’s estate, who died that year after her husband’s death in 2012.
A follow-up investigation has since revealed that the former New York teachers owned other artworks, including two paintings that the FBI said were selling for six figures each, the Arizona Republic reported.
An FBI investigation into Rita and Jerry Alter (above), believed to have stolen a $100 million painting by De Kooning in 1985, found that despite modest salaries, the couple worked as local schoolteachers in Silver City, New Mexico, lived in luxury
The “Woman-Ocher” was stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art by two thieves. The painting hung in the Alter’s home in New Mexico for decades
The couple has been known to travel all over the world, visiting India, Nepal, China and Japan. Pictured: Jerry poses for a photo during one of the couple’s trips
Colleagues of Rita (right), a speech therapist at GW Stout Elementary School, wondered how she could afford to travel extensively around the world while making $16,171 a year
According to the FBI, Alter’s nephew told them that Rita had more than $1 million in bonds before her death, even though her annual salary as a speech therapist in Silver City, New Mexico, was just $16,171.
Christy Miller, a special education teacher who shared an office with Rita at GW Stout Elementary School in Silver City, told Republic that New Yorkers lived luxuriously in their new home in the Southwest, where they moved to in 1977.
Their one-story ranch featured a swimming pool, busts of William Shakespeare and Ludwig van Beethoven, and a blue tile-covered pyramid.
Neighbors noted that the couple would be visiting Hong Kong, Chile, Tasmania, Nepal, India, Japan and the Caribbean.
The FBI found that the alters visited about 145 countries in total.
Neighbors said the couple’s apparent wealth kept them at a distance, but when invited into the house they often spotted the stolen painting and said it was ugly as Rita and Jerry laughed.
The couple has reportedly traced their fortunes to various inheritances they received.
Although Jerry suffered a massive heart attack in 2002, the two continued to travel, most recently together on the Caribbean islands of Grenada, St. Vincent and Dominica.
Then, in 2012, at the age of 81, Jerry suffered a stroke and died.
After Rita’s death, her nephew Ron Roseman, the executor of her estate, donated the pair of expensive paintings and other sculptures to the Silver City Town and Country Garden Club charity thrift store.
The donations included originals by Joseph Henry Sharp and Victor Higgins, each of whose paintings number six.
The nonprofit was allowed to sell the artworks for $122,692, more than three times what the charity typically makes in a year.
The FBI released few details about the new items found in the late couple’s estate, noting that the case over the stolen “Woman-Ocher” was closed.
Tim Carpenter, a senior adviser to the FBI’s Art Crime Team, told Republic only the old would know how they got their hands on the $100 million painting.
“Unfortunately they took that with them to the grave,” he said.
The FBI did not immediately respond to ‘s request for comment.
Pictured: Jerry and Rita’s passports detailing a wealth of travel in the mid-1980s
One of her trips included visiting Japan’s Himeji Castle in the summer of 1985
After her death, the couple’s nephew donated her belongings to a local charity, which eventually sold the artworks for more than $122,000
The stolen “Woman Ocher” was eventually returned to the University of Arizona Museum of Art
According to KOB 4, Jerry and Rita kept a daily planner with meticulous notes about where they went, what they ate and what medications they were on. The couple mysteriously left Thanksgiving blank in 1985, the same day the painting was removed from the museum.
A newly emerged family photo also shows that Jerry and Rita, who have two children, were in Tucson a day before the robbery.
The day after Thanksgiving in 1985, a security guard at the University of Arizona Museum of Art reportedly opened the front doors to let an employee in when a man and woman came in behind the employee.
Since the museum was supposed to open that day, the guard didn’t tell her to leave. The man went up the stairs to the second floor of the museum while the woman stayed and chatted with the security guard.
About 15 minutes after entering the museum, the man and woman hurriedly left. Sensing that something was wrong, the guard went to the second floor and found that de Kooning’s Ocher Woman painting had been cut out of the frame.
The FBI has not commented on whether they believe the couple stole the painting, saying only that the case is considered closed
The painting will be on display again in a new exhibition at the museum in May 2023
When he tried to give chase, the man and woman sped away in a red sports car. The museum had no surveillance cameras at the time and the police found no fingerprints.
Authorities released a sketch of the pair, which bears a striking resemblance to Jerry and Rita, and described what they had been wearing, but no arrests were ever made.
The theft ran cold until August 2017 when David Van Auker accidentally stumbled upon the painting “hidden” behind the master bedroom of Jerry and Rita’s ranch-style New Mexico home.
He told several news outlets that he went to the couple’s home to see what they left behind after hearing about a property sale.
Van Auker is a co-owner of the Manzanita Ridge furniture and antiques store in Silver City.
Van Auker said that walking through the house he found a “great, cool mid-century painting” and bought it from Roseman for $2,000.
Van Auker and Roseman, who was appointed executor, were unaware of the painting’s history.
The painting will be exhibited again at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in May 2023 in a new exhibit entitled Restored: The Return of the Woman in Ocher.