New Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Audio Tour Retraces Steps Of Famous Heist

BOSTON (CBS) -- It happened in 1990, 30 years ago this month. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist remains the largest unsolved art theft in history. Now, for the first time, visitors can retrace the steps of the robbers who got away with priceless works of art. It's a chilling reminder of what was lost.

The frames are still empty at the Boston museum, a stark testimony to an infamous robbery that cost the museum 13 exquisite pieces of art. Now, a new audio tour gives visitors a step-by-step look at how it happened.

"You're about to hear the story of a horrific robbery," the audio tour begins.

The tour guide is the best you can get: Anthony Amore, the museum's director of security for the last 15 years.

"The audio tour is an opportunity for visitors to come to the museum and be told exactly what was here and how the pieces that were stolen were taken," he said.

The robbers came through a side entrance to the museum in the early hours of March 18, 1990, disguised as Boston police officers and convinced two security guards to let them in.

"They immediately overtake the security guards, cover their eyes and mouths with duct tape," according to the tour audio.

The thieves head down a hallway. "This room, the Dutch room, is where the two thieves went directly after getting inside the museum," the audio says. They begin stealing Rembrandts.

The museum knows where the robbers went because motion detectors tracked their movements. "And based on that information, we're able to see the path that the thieves took in the museum from the time they entered to the time they departed. And this audio tour, in some respects, recreates their path," Amore explains.

One of the robbers then goes into to the Short Gallery where he snatches a number of works by Degas, including a series of drawings. Then he heads to the Blue Room where they take the final painting they would steal.

"It is the biggest property theft in the history of the world. Estimates of the value of the art go from $500 million to much beyond that," Amore says.

It lasted 81 minutes, an eternity for art thefts, which are usually hit and run affairs, lasting only about 10 minutes.

"There's not a day goes by that we're not still working alongside the FBI on the case. We're still hopeful that the pieces will be recovered," the tour audio says.

Anthony Amore said he remains optimistic the case will be cracked, and there's still a $10 million reward leading to the recovery of the artwork.