Bill Briska just forwarded this story from one of the local newspapers. A really bizare story and not the one we would have guessed.
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A Search for Watches, a Manhunt, a Suicide

By Christine Byers
Daily Herald Staff Writer


With federal marshals hot on his trail, Robert Anderson turned off a highway in Amarillo, Texas, into a service station.

He pointed the gun he was carrying to his head.

And pulled the trigger.

A lifetime of running was over for the man dubbed “The Traveling Collector,” a man who stole valuable items from museums around the country.

With his death Nov. 16 also died any hope of recovering all of the 15 watches he took last year from the Elgin Area Historical Society and Museum.

“I don’t think anybody wanted it to end this way,” said Elgin police Detective Brian Gorcowski.

After more than 20 years on the run, however, no one was surprised that’s how it did end.

In 1984 in Colorado, Anderson was arrested for aggravated assault after pointing a gun at a sheriff’s deputy who tried to question him about writing fraudulent checks.

He posted bond and began life as a fugitive — and a traveling, wandering thief.

One of his final stops came in June 2005 at an exhibit of railroad watches made at the Elgin Watch Factory.

A display of high-end watches made between the 1880s and the 1920s sat sparkling in an Elgin museum case, which was unmonitored at the time. Anderson simply unscrewed the lock and took 15 watches valued between $300 and $2,000 each.

Museum curators reported the watches missing to Elgin police, who then canvassed pawn shops and antiques collectors looking for leads, Gorcowski said.

Nothing turned up.

“It just seemed like a lost cause,” said Elizabeth Marston, museum director.

Then, Gorcowski received a call in September from a woman who said she was Anderson’s ex-wife and that she knew where he could find the missing watches. The couple recently had divorced, and she was on a mission to call every place that he had stolen from in an effort to return various missing items from guns to watches.

Gorcowski traveled to Aurora, Colo., around Halloween and worked with the National Park Service to secure a search warrant for Anderson’s home. The park service was trying to recover a rifle that went missing from a town museum in Estes Park, Colo.

The Aurora police enlisted their SWAT team to raid his house, as they knew his history with firearms.

When Gorcowski confronted the 6-foot-tall, 400-pound man, he was sitting on a leather chair with a tube pumping oxygen into his nose.

“I asked him if he’d ever been to Elgin, Illinois,” Gorcowski said. “That’s when he said he wanted a lawyer.”

Anderson’s home looked, not coincidentally, like a museum.

Hundreds of Hummels, Lladros and other collectible statues as well as vintage Pepsi machines and spy memorabilia were cataloged and organized throughout the house.

But there was no sign of the Elgin watches or the missing rifle. And authorities did not have an arrest warrant at the time, Gorcowski said.

Anderson’s brother then told police that he also had a storage locker.

Jackpot.

Not only did Gorcowski find eight of the 15 watches, but agents also seized about 30 firearms including the Estes Park rifle, dozens of documents including passports and Social Security information he probably used to steal identities.

But by the time agents returned to Anderson’s home to arrest him, it was too late.

He was on the run, again.

Federal marshals then took on the case and learned he planned to meet family members in Dallas. But before he got there, marshals blocked his vehicle in the parking lot of an Amarillo, Texas, motel, said David Davidson, an assistant chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service.

Anderson then rammed the car blocking him and dragged two marshals who had surrounded him on both sides of his car, Davidson said.

Marshals then began firing at Anderson as he sped away from the lot, he said.

A short while later, he turned off into the gas station.

An autopsy showed Anderson died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. No evidence on the scene suggested he fired at the marshals, Davidson said.

Gorcowski expects the watches will be returned to the museum sometime this month or in January. As for the remaining seven watches, Gorcowski said he suspects Anderson may have sold them to other unsuspecting collectors. He is pursuing possible leads on auction Web sites.

“Now we may never know,” he said.

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With or without the recovered watches, the museum's Elgin collection has been significantly improved by this chapter.

Ron

Ron,

What a sad and as you stated bizarre story. The life of crime never really pays off. It only gives you a little time before you end up in prison or in the grave.

On the flip side of the coin it is great news for the Elgin museum. Initially recovering half of their loss is wonderful news and along with your work and some of our Chapter 185 members donations the Elgin museum has made a nice recovery.

Thanks for the update and all the work you and our members have done!!

Mike

Hello Ron:
What a story! Very bizarre to say the least! Thank you for posting!
Cheers!
Joel

Wow -- that's really dramatic. I'm glad at least some of the stolen items were recovered. Thanks for posting that update.

Thanks for posting the story it is a relief to get some of the items back with hope they might find more.