It almost was a murder mystery, spiced with family conflict, jealousy, greed and skullduggery.
But an undercover cop foiled the plot.
It's now a 25-year-old puzzle: Where is the 17th Century Rembrandt etching that a thief lifted from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville?
Rembrandt's "Christ and the Woman from Sumaria" was the first of four artworks stolen in 1979 from gallery and lobby displays around the campus.
The history of the Rembrandt at SIUE begins with a murder. It was purchased for a bargain $90 at a poorly attended art auction on the day in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Linked to the art heist 16 years later were graduate students Gerald Emerson Miley III, of Watersboro, S.C., and Ben Olsen, a trust-fund baby from Stronghurst, a small village on the western edge of central Illinois.
The two companions longed for a more extravagant lifestyle, authorities said.
The pair wanted to get rid of Olsen's stepmother and half-brother so Olsen would have all of the trust set up by his late father.
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