FBI files suggest the 2018 WFAA documentary Discovering The de Kooning spurred the tip that might be the smoking gun in the case.
DALLAS — Dozens of pages of recently unclassified FBI files reveal new details about the mysterious discovery of a $160-million-dollar painting found hanging behind a bedroom door, raising new questions about the couple at the center of a decades-old art heist.
WFAA obtained the FBI case files for Jerry and Rita Alter, more than 100 pages in all, through the Freedom of Information Act.
When Rita Alter died in 2017, five years after her husband Jerry, the masterpiece was discovered hanging behind her bedroom door in rural Cliff, NM.
The oil painting, known as Woman-Ochre by Willem de Kooning, had been cut out of its frame during a daring heist at the University of Arizona Museum of Art 32 years earlier – in 1985.
The FBI case files now add new clues to the mounting circumstantial evidence against the Alters and suggest the 2018 WFAA documentary Discovering The de Kooning might have spurred the tip that could be the smoking gun in this case.
“On January 2, 2018, a Dallas Documentary named “Finding De Kooning” was released on a local television station,” an agent wrote in Rita Alter’s FBI case file.
A link to the film was posted on Facebook pages for residents of Cliff, New Mexico and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, the agent explained. That post got neighbors and friends talking in Southwestern New Mexico.
Two people who knew Rita and Jerry Alter began to privately discuss WFAA’s groundbreaking documentary and what it revealed about the eccentric couple, their world travels and the acclaimed artwork found in their home after they died.
One of the two people came forward to the FBI. She even shared screenshots of text conversations they had about the Alters after watching the film. Agents redacted their names from the files obtained by WFAA.
“One of the stories Rita mentioned to [REDACTED NAME] was about how… [she] and her husband, Jerry, went to a school to get Jerry’s art back,” one person texted the other. “When Rita referred to a school, [REDACTED NAME] assumed Rita was referring to the school her husband once taught music at, in New York, New York. Rita also advised that her husband had written a book about it.”
In fact, Jerry Alter did write a 2011 fictional book that is, perhaps, the most startling clue that was left in plain sight.
One of the short stories inside was about a couple who stole a 120-carat jewel from a museum by distracting the guard and then fleeing in a getaway truck. The couple then hid it behind a wall in their home.
The details are strikingly similar to what happened decades earlier in the de Kooning theft.
But the FBI files contain more first-hand information from a home healthcare provider, who met with Rita just before she died.
“While walking with Alter, about a week prior to Alter’s passing,” the case file said, Alter said “her husband had gone to a school to ‘get his art back’. Alter referred to the art by name. [REDACTED NAME] could not recall the exact name Alter used for the artwork and thought Alter had referred to it as ‘Woman Ogre’. Alter said this artwork had been painted by her husband and later stolen from him.”
Willem de Kooning painted Woman-Ochre in 1954. He was an abstract expressionist artist, and this was part of his famous “Woman” series that he created in New York during the 1950s.
Jerry Alter was apparently a fan of de Kooning. Alter had even sketched some of de Kooning’s work himself, which was later found in the couple’s New Mexico home.
In November 1985, the day after Thanksgiving, two people arrived at the University of Arizona Art Museum just before it opened that morning.
They tapped on the glass door to summon the security guard. He walked over and opened the door. The man asked if his wife could use the restroom. The security guard reluctantly allowed the two inside for a moment.
The man stood with the guard by the door and chatted while the woman slipped away — supposedly to the restroom. Minutes later, she reappeared, and the couple hurried out.
Moments later, the guard discovered that the woman did not go to the restroom but instead, she ran upstairs to a second-floor gallery and used a blade to cut the canvas of Woman-Ochre from its frame.
By the time the security guard got back downstairs, the couple was driving away in a red sports car.
Examining the Alters photos, provided by the family, WFAA discovered that the couple owned what appears to be a 1985 Toyota Celica Supra. It was dark red.
Another recollection that the museum security guard shared with police in 1985 was that the man and woman who stole the painting might have been wearing disguises.
At least one person told the FBI that Rita recounted that same story to her. The FBI files redacted the individual’s name.
“She told me her husband and [REDCATED NAME] dressed up in disguise and took his ‘art’ out of the school. She told me the story of her giving him her clothes to put on and they went in there together to ‘take it home’,” according to Rita’s FBI files.
“To be honest,” this person added, “if you wanted to hide out, Cliff [NM] would be a good place.”
The Alters home was full of art and photographs. Jerry is said to have enjoyed painting and drawing himself in addition to collecting. Framed pieces lined the hallway and bedrooms.
But Woman-Ochre stood out, hanging behind their bedroom door.
In her later years, Rita Alter told one woman, whose name the FBI also redacted, that the couple owned other valuable pieces, as well.
“[Rita] told me there is more art! But it’s not displayed on the walls. It was hidden,” the woman told FBI agents. “She said she kept the expensive art hidden. She used to tell me not to go in the room with the jacuzzi because the floor could give in. She said it was hollow under it.”
In 2018, as WFAA was shooting the documentary inside the Alters home, the documentary crew had also heard a similar rumor about art hidden under an outside building.
Next to the patio, there was a small shed that stood between the house and the swimming pool. When WFAA’s documentary team tried the door, they discovered it was locked and, even though the house was vacant, did not attempt entry.
The FBI Art Crime Team later searched the property, the files reported, without finding any artifacts.
Still, the Alters case files paint a complex picture of the couple.
They apparently accumulated a degree of wealth that appears unusual for two public school teachers. Jerry was a retired public school music teacher from New York and Rita only worked part-time as a speech pathologist at a school in a neighboring town.
Rita’s nephew, Ron Roseman, lived in Houston at the time but was the executor of her will.
As he liquidated her estate, including unknowingly selling Woman-Ochre and a host of other belongings to an antique store called Manzanita Ridge in nearby Silver City, NM, Roseman also gave away other personal items that belonged to the Alters.
He gave turquoise, silver and more artwork to the Town and Country Garden Club in Silver City, NM, the FBI said.
Some of the items were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that left recipients there concerned about their safety after discovering where it came from, according to the case files.
“On or about July 18, 2017, [the] club had received donations of turquoise, silver, and various artwork. [REDACTED NAME] stated she was concerned about having possession of these items since they came from the same estate as the famous painting. [REDACTED NAME] stated the donated artwork was being stored in three different locations and that the individuals storing them were elderly and concerned for their safety. [REDACTED NAME] described the artwork as mostly Native American with individual values of anywhere between hundreds of dollars to several hundred thousand dollars. [REDACTED NAME] advised some of the individual artwork pieces were from the following artists: J.H. Sharpe, [William] Victor Higgins, Allan Houser, and R.C. Gorman.”
Baffled by the discovery of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ochre in his beloved aunt’s home, Roseman first “thought the painting could have been planted in the home by someone wanting to get rid of it without facing the legal consequences,” according to the FBI notes.
Agents said Roseman even offered several of the couple’s bonds, valued at more than $1 million, as restitution to the FBI.
The newly obtained case files on the Alters only span from 2017-2018. The couple had never been on the radar of law enforcement prior to that.
“As an investigator, an art crime investigator, I’m 96-98% sure they were involved,” said Bob Wittman, a retired FBI agent in Philadelphia who launched and led the FBI’s national art crimes team.
In a 2022 interview with WFAA, Wittman said he thought the Alters might also have been involved in more thefts.
“There are cases where individuals do a shoplifting and they will steal one item. But in the case of the Alters, because of the way did it and they had the courage to go in there and do it, I wouldn’t think that’s the only thing they ever took,” he continued.
But no other stolen items have ever been linked to Jerry or Rita Alter.
The Alters FBI files make no conclusions about who stole Woman-Ochre.
Instead, the documents only deepen the mystery about the eccentric couple who died – leaving a $160 million stolen painting behind their bedroom door and a trail of clues about how it got there.
