The Artifact Thief Steals History
Robert John Kea was a discerning kleptomaniac
Somewhere below the rank of art thief lies the artifact thief. There are many small museums and libraries in the world that lack proper security or manpower to guard their treasures. Indeed, many museum treasures in towns large and small stay intact because of the honor system and/or the perceived, rather than actual, security of these historic objects.
Robert John Kea's Ebay handle was "traveling collector". He was also an obsessive-compulsive thief who traveled around the United States stealing tempting treasures from small museums and exhibitions.
He was a little over 6-feet tall and weighed 375-pounds. The fact that he was obese made his portable oxygen tank more believable, as he used it as an empty prop to hide his loot in on exiting the museum.
Kea had several aliases and a knack for evading authorities who have been tracking him for more than two decades on charges other than artifact theft.
It was Kea's estranged wife, Lisa, who called the authorities and led them to uncover a large cache of stolen collectibles missing from museums in Colorado and Illinois. Not only did Lisa have damning tales of the trips together where his thefts were fairly obvious, but she also gave up the location of the storage unit where John Kea had stored his stolen goodies.
At a self-storage facility in Colorado, investigators found 15 missing Elgin watches and 30 missing weapons, all believed to have been stolen from small museum collections in Colorado and Illinois.
Knowing that authorities were closing in on arresting him, Kea took off for Texas where he was tracked by federal Marshals to a small hotel. When Marshals confronted Kea he rammed them with his car, the Marshals fired shots and Kea drove off. He drove about a mile on the interstate and then pulled into a parking lot and shot himself.
There are definitely more Robert John Kea-like art and artifact thieves out there. Perhaps these specialized thieves are just high-class kleptomaniacs, but they are especially insidious because they are stealing history and denying museum-goers and/or scholars the opportunity to enjoy, appreciate and become educated from the object. Given the fencing possibilities of Ebay and the internet, it is also impossible to track the sales of stolen artifacts. Let the buyer and the museum beware.
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