William shatner: A daring hijack that ends in terror.
A baffling heist in which priceless paintings
vanish into thin air.
And an ingenious bank robbery
with a time bomb ticking down to zero.
It seems whenever there is something of great value,
there are also thieves who want to steal it.
But what really motivates someone to steal?
Is it for the money?
To show how smart they are?
Or could a criminal mastermind have other, more secret reasons
for risking everything
to pull off a seemingly impossible caper?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
on the night before thanksgiving,
northwest orient airlines flight 305 is about
to depart on a short flight to seattle
when a middle-aged man dressed in a black suit
and carrying a black attaché case
boards the plane.
But this man is not flying to celebrate
the holiday with friends or family.
He has other plans.
Geoffrey gray: As the plane took off,
he passed the stewardess a note.
The note said, "I have a bomb.
I would like you to sit near me."
and, at that point, she could tell he was serious.
Scott selby: The stewardess asked him
if she could see the bomb.
He discreetly opens up a briefcase
and show what appears to her to be a bomb.
Shatner: The hijacker demands $200,000
and four parachutes
to be delivered to him when the plane lands in seattle,
or he will blow up the airliner,
killing everyone on board.
Gray: After the plane lands in seattle,
in comes the money and the parachutes.
And all the passengers are escorted off the plane,
and the hijacker ordered the pilots to take off
towards, of all places, mexico city.
Shatner: The boeing 727 is refueled, and a 4-person crew
takes the hijacker back into the air,
headed for the border.
But during the flight,
the hijacker puts on two parachutes,
ties the money to his chest,
and opens the aft stairs.
No one knows exactly when or where,
but at some point,
he leaps from the plane,
and is never seen again.
He was gone and vanished into the night air.
Larry levine: There was a manhunt that was launched
over a two-state area where they had the fbi,
other federal agencies, the army, state police,
and they were combing that entire area,
and they didn't find anything.
Shatner: According to the plane's manifest,
the hijacker's listed name was "dan cooper,"
but thanks to a news miscommunication,
he is more commonly referred to as, "d.B. Cooper."
however, authorities soon learned
that this name was merely an alias,
and the real identity of the man was unknown.
D.B. Cooper's escape
was so ingenious
that it was nearly ten years before the fbi
got a major break in the case.
Gray: One day in 1980,
having a picnic on the side of this river,
a young boy found some money.
But this just wasn't any money.
This was the d.B. Cooper money.
It turned up in this sandbar.
The money was found in a completely different place
than the path of the plane.
So what that means is that the money
didn't just flutter to the ground
and land into the sandbar.
It means it had to get there by some kind of means.
Shatner: But why would d.B. Cooper
risk his life to steal $200,000
only to bury at least some of it in the sand?
It seems to defy all logic.
Unless d.B. Cooper had another reason for doing
the hijacking besides money.
Diane birnholz: Having money be the object of this case
doesn't make sense
because he had to have known
that this money would either be marked
or it would be somehow traceable.
So, again, you have to wonder,
what was the real agenda here?
Levine: You've got a man that
jumped out of a moving jet aircraft
that was never found,
and he was like a perfect professional.
And I suspect
that he was probably former military,
possibly part of the cia,
who had a mission that needed to be carried out.
Shatner: It may sound like a far-fetched conspiracy theory,
but according to some researchers,
there is evidence to suggest that d.B. Cooper
had military training.
For instance, cooper knew
that the boeing 727-100 aircraft's aft staircase
was a good platform for a parachute jump.
And, in fact, the cia had used this same tactic
with the same model airplane to airdrop supplies
and spies during the vietnam war.
Air america, which was the cia's airline in vietnam,
they used this same aircraft, and d.B. Had to have had
knowledge that the 727-100
had the stairwell that could be lowered,
and it could be lowered in flight.
This wasn't common knowledge.
And this is something that somebody
had to have already had experience doing
in order to pull it off.
Shatner: If d.B. Cooper was trained by the cia,
was the hijacking something he did on his own,
or could it have been a mission
that he was ordered to carry out?
And, if so, for what purpose?
Birnholz: Back in 1971, there was not much security
in terms of airline travel.
And there were a lot of hijackings
happening in the early '70s.
Selby: At the time you could have,
say, as many guns as you wanted in your duffle bag
that you carried on, on your person.
And this meant, of course, that people
were hijacking planes left and right.
It was also oftentimes political,
so the terrorism of the 1970s
in which people would hijack a plane
and then make demands
for various political prisoners to be freed,
and then you take them in the plane to cuba,
and cuba would let you live there for free
as long as you wanted.
Gray: This was like a political act,
hijackings. People would say, "take me to cuba."
so much so that the faa and agency officials
almost reconstructed a replica
of the havana airport in southern florida.
The idea was if you got hijacked to havana,
you would just fly around and then land at the fake site.
Some people theorize that the d.B. Cooper hijacking
was really some sort of false flag event
to create a hijacking spectacular enough
that it will grab everyone's attention
and lead to some regulation changes,
so that these hijackings can stop.
And that actually is what happened after d.B. Cooper,
because the faa came out
with all kinds of new regulations.
Levine: I wouldn't put it past the cia to have an agent
like dan cooper do whatever it took
to raise public perception
and public awareness on airline security.
I mean, when you really look at it,
who was hurt? Nobody.
I mean, he had all the makings
of an undercover operative.
Gray: The d.B. Cooper case-- what makes it noteworthy
is that it's actually the only unsolved skyjacking
in the world.
And what makes it so hard to solve
is that it's mysteries and mysteries.
And once you get inside those mysteries, there's others.
It's not just a story about a hijacker.
Shatner: Was d.B. Cooper a cia agent
whose mission was conceived not by him
but by his superiors?
It's a fascinating theory
and suggests that the true mastermind
behind a crime can be hard to uncover.
Like in the case of another, more recent crime.
A robbery involving $250,000,
a ticking time bomb,
and even more unanswered questions.
Shatner: It's an ordinary day at a downtown pnc bank
when 46-year-old brian wells
gets in line to see the teller.
But brian wells is no ordinary customer.
Jerry clark: Mr. Wells had a protrusion under the shirt
that was described like someone had a medical injury
that was under his neck.
Mr. Wells handed the teller a note
and said, "this is a bank robbery,
and I need $250,000 in cash."
birnholz: The demand note said there was a bomb strapped around his neck.
The teller informed brian wells
that she couldn't access the bank vault.
And so she ended up giving him about $8,000.
Shatner: Brian wells walked out of the bank
with only a fraction
of the amount of money that he had demanded.
And he didn't make it very far
because the bank called the police the moment brian left.
I get dispatched like any other law enforcement officer.
"hey, there's a bank robbery, 7200 peach,
potential, uh, explosive device used."
after leaving the bank, within five minutes mr. Wells
is located and apprehended by the pennsylvania state police,
and he advises that he does have a bomb under his shirt.
We didn't know if he was a hostage
or if he was a cooperator.
We had no idea.
He said, "I'm a pizza delivery driver.
"I went to deliver pizzas, and these people accosted me
and made me wear the device and rob the bank."
I think it's one of those real moments
that you're thinking it's probably a hoax.
Because I can't tell you how many hoax bank robberies
I was at where people indicate they have an explosive device,
and it's a hoax.
But you have to believe that it's real.
And we notified the bomb squad.
His demeanor was getting agitated
as we were waiting for the bomb squad.
He was saying, "hey, can I have a cigarette?
This is heavy."
but we still don't know
if it's fake or real at that point.
Shatner: At 3:18 p.M., without warning,
the bomb detonated...
...And brian wells died instantly.
Clark: I mean, that's just some moment
you'll never forget in your lifetime.
It's not uncommon for a bank robber
to say they have a device, and it's going to go off.
That's not uncommon.
What's uncommon is for it to actually happen.
Brian was a very nice guy
and, for his family,
I will always be sorry for what they went through,
to see that happen on tv.
But you immediately have to gain control of the scene.
So we did a search of brian wells' vehicle.
And inside we found a series of notes.
Nine total pages.
Really bizarre notes and way too detailed and complex
like you couldn't believe.
Some were made to the teller.
Some were made to police and what not to do.
Some were made to brian wells specifically, saying,
"wells, after you rob the bank,
"this is the series of stops that you're to make
to obtain keys to get the device off of your neck."
levine: It's like he was on a scavenger hunt,
and at each location, he would find a key
or a code that would be one step closer
for him be able to remove the bomb from him.
I mean, never in our history
has a man walked into a bank
with a bomb strapped around his neck
with orders to complete a scavenger hunt
to have the bomb removed.
Clark: The design of the collar
and the box that the collar held
was very unique.
It was basically like a large handcuff
on the collar portion.
Below the collar was a box.
And the box held two pipe bombs
and two kitchen timers.
The bomb squad said it was one of the most
diabolical killing machines they had ever seen.
And that's because it was one of a kind.
It was made specifically for this event.
Initially, we had never seen anything like this.
We just had to start very much in a methodical process,
putting the pieces together.
The criminal mastermind clearly spent so much time doing this.
The mastermind is obviously delighting
in playing a game with the police,
and then when they can't solve it,
that is a huge boost to their own ego,
and the longer they could delay the police
actually finding real answers,
the more they would feel amazing about themselves,
and the mastermind behind the brian wells case
was clearly trying to do that.
Shatner: In search of answers,
investigators traced wells's movements
earlier in the day.
They went to a nearby television tower
where wells had made his last pizza delivery.
Clark: He said when he went there
and got to the back of the site,
he was accosted by a group of individuals
who told him to rob the bank,
and then he will have notes to follow
to get the keys to get the device off.
Shatner: But when the cops checked out the area,
they found that the tower was abandoned,
and the trail went cold.
That is, until three weeks later,
when local handyman bill rothstein,
who just happened to live right next to the tv tower,
called 911.
Shatner: The police determined that the body
in bill rothstein's freezer was a man named james roden,
the boyfriend of marjorie diehl-armstrong,
a woman who was all too familiar to the local authorities.
Levine: Marjorie diehl-armstrong
was almost like a black widow of sorts
where she left a series of mysterious deaths,
her husband and several boyfriends, in the local area.
Roden was a former lover,
boyfriend of hers,
and she ended up killing the man with a shotgun.
She asked rothstein to dispose of the body for her,
and he ends up leaving it in his freezer in his garage.
Clark: After interviews with marjorie diehl-armstrong
and others, we determined
that marjorie diehl-armstrong's father had a lot of money.
And she was the only child,
and she wanted the money,
and she wanted it now.
So, the whole idea to rob the bank for the money
really came from marjorie diehl-armstrong.
Rob the bank to get the money
to pay someone to kill her father to get her inheritance.
Shatner: On November 1, 2010,
marjorie diehl-armstrong
was convicted of armed bank robbery,
conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery,
and of using a destructive device in a crime.
In the eyes of many, these convictions confirmed
that marjorie was the mastermind
of the collar bomb robbery,
and responsible for the deaths of both
brian wells and james roden.
But was she acting alone?
Not everyone agrees.
Clark: As soon as I met bill rothstein,
the night he turned in the body of james roden,
after I interviewed him,
I felt he was involved in the wells case.
It was at the pennsylvania state police barracks,
and bill rothstein was in one of the rooms.
And I walked in the room
and I said, "hey, bill. Jerry clark from the fbi.
I'd like to talk to you a second."
and he said, "I'll talk to you, but I need to tell you
that I'm the smartest guy in this room."
he was so, so unbelievably into himself
and thought he was way smarter than anybody else.
From my perspective,
the mastermind is bill rothstein,
because he masterminded how to do this
and the notes, and the bomb, and making the bomb,
and the intricacies that went into it.
Unfortunately for the case,
bill rothstein died in July of 2004.
I think rothstein-- he knew he was dying of cancer,
and I think he wanted to go out saying,
"I'm the smartest guy around,
and I pulled one over on law enforcement."
shatner: Was the collar bomb robbery bill rothstein's attempt
to pull off a crime that would outsmart the police
before he died?
Unfortunately, marjorie diehl-armstrong
also died in 2017,
so it's hard to say for sure.
But there are other robberies that,
while the motivation behind them may be more clear,
are no less baffling.
Like in the story of the largest property theft
in american history,
a museum heist in which priceless pieces of art
were taken and, to this day,
are still missing.
Shatner: Police officers responding to a call
arrive at the isabella gardner museum
and are shocked to discover
that several works of art have vanished into thin air.
Wittman: Many of the pieces that they stole were paintings.
Some were drawings and some of the pieces
they took were priceless.
One of the pieces they stole was a rembrandt seascape
called the storm over the sea of galilee.
It's the only seascape that rembrandt ever painted.
Another piece was a vermeer.
Uh, it's called the concert.
Both of these pieces are considered almost priceless.
All told, 13 objects of art were stolen.
The total value, as of today, is over five hundred million,
making that the single largest property crime
in u.S. History.
Shatner: Police found the two security guards on duty
handcuffed and tied up in the basement of the museum.
After questioning the guards,
they learned how the heist had been carried out.
Sherman: Two thieves dressed as police officers
entered the museum at 1:24 a.M.
They approached one of the security guards
and told him that he fit the description
of a suspect in another crime.
They asked the guard
to lift himself up from the security desk
so that they could get a better look at him.
And when he did, they grabbed him,
they shackled him, and they tied him up in the basement.
Shatner: Once the guards were subdued, the two thieves
spent the next 81 minutes methodically stealing
the 13 masterpieces
and then disappeared into the night.
The fbi immediately launched a full investigation,
and there were several persons of interest they looked into.
One of those persons was none other
than james "whitey" bulger,
the leader of the notorious winter hill gang.
Sherman: James "whitey" bulger was the godfather
of boston crime in 1990
when that heist occurred.
So, immediately, the fbi and the boston police
pulled bulger in and all of his associates
and asked them, "where are the paintings?"
wittman: Whitey bulger was intensely questioned at that time
about knowledge about the gardner heist
and claims he had no knowledge.
So, there's no reason to think he was involved
because there was no evidence of that.
Shatner: As the years went on
and the fbi was unable to charge anyone with the crime,
museum officials offered a $10 million reward
for information leading directly to the return
of all 13 works of art.
No one came forward,
and the case continued to stump investigators,
but fbi agent robert wittman
was determined to solve the mystery.
My active investigation into the gardner heist
started around 2005.
In 2005, I was contacted by a parisian police officer
who told me that a frenchman
uh, was interested in selling the vermeer and the rembrandt.
The thieves were actually connected to two brothers
from corsica who were actually in prison.
They were waiting for the right time to sell
these paintings for the right amount of money
that they could set up their families for life
because they were never going to get out of jail.
They wanted, uh, $30 million
for the paintings to come back,
uh, and I was willing to pay it as far as being
a shady undercover, uh, you know,
criminal dealer in the united states.
Shatner: 15 years after the isabella gardner heist,
fbi agent robert wittman believed that he was on the cusp
of recovering the stolen works of art
and, hopefully, finding out who originally took them.
But before the corsican brothers would sell him
the gardner museum pieces,
they wanted to unload other artwork first.
They decided to offer me, uh, four more paintings
that were stolen from the museum of fine arts in nice, France.
We took them up on their offer
and were able to recover those in marseilles.
The problem was, though, in that recovery,
one of the french policemen told the individuals
that, uh, I was an fbi agent.
And, at that point, we kind of lost the possibility
of working with them to get the rembrandt and the vermeer back.
That was done.
It's very difficult to infiltrate
corsican society.
Uh, french police have had a hard time
with that for many, many years.
So, we can't go any further with it at this point.
Shatner: Fbi agents believe they came tantalizingly close
to retrieving two of the stolen paintings
from the corsican brothers only to have them
slip through their fingers at the last moment.
But then, on March 18, 2013,
on the 23rd anniversary of the heist,
the fbi made a surprise announcement.
Fbi agents developed crucial pieces of evidence
that confirm the identity of those who entered the museum
and others associated with the theft
who belonged to a criminal organization.
Shatner: Although they claimed to know the identity of the two thieves,
the fbi refused to name them,
and in 2015, they further announced
that both of them are dead.
I think the fbi knows exactly
who committed the crimes in 1990,
but they have no idea where the art resides today.
So I think the fbi wanted to provide a carrot
to the public to say,
"hey, we're still working on this case."
they need the public's help to solve this crime.
Wittman: I've heard some people have said
that all 13 pieces are sitting in somebody's attic
two blocks from the museum.
I don't believe that.
I've never seen that happen.
After doing investigations
in art crime for 30 years,
what I've found is that when you have
13 pieces out there, the paintings have been divided up.
They're in different places.
Sherman: Now it's been 30 years,
and there has been no sign of the artwork.
And that's the enduring mystery
of the isabella gardner museum heist.
Thirteen paintings that vanished in thin air.
And those empty frames sit there like gravestones
today in the museum.
If the fbi knows
who did the isabella gardner heist,
then why won't they name names?
Could it be because the perpetrators are dead?
Or is there another, even more incredible reason?
One that won't be revealed until the paintings
are all recovered safe and sound?
Shatner: Not all outrageous robberies involve stealing
large amounts of cash
or valuable works of art.
In recent years, there have been an increasing number
of so-called "cybercrimes,"
in which criminals illegally exploit computer systems
to do everything from stealing a single person's identity
to manipulating the global financial system.
Jeff lanza: Cybercrime is a huge issue today.
Companies are getting their computers hacked into
on a daily basis.
Fraud is a regular part of their lives.
And every ceo of a company knows that.
And my biggest worry is not just these individual cyberattacks
but also cyber threats on our infrastructure,
the flow of money on a nationwide basis.
And what we've seen, uh, over the years
is an increasing, uh, capability
of the cyber criminals
to stay one step ahead of law enforcement.
Shatner: 32-year-old sindri thor stefansson
and a group of thieves
break into the advania data center,
which is home to one of the largest concentrations
of computer power in the world,
and steal 550 computers.
The value of these devices is about $2 million,
but the bigger score is not the computers themselves,
but the information stored inside them.
What these devices could do is mine bitcoin.
And mining bitcoin can produce
millions and millions and millions of dollars.
These computers are basically like gold.
But they're not mining gold.
They're mining digits and mathematical formulas,
which, in the 21st century, is something of value.
Shatner: Released in 2009,
bitcoin was the first of a new kind of money
known as cryptocurrency,
a form of digital cash
that eliminates the need for traditional banks.
Unlike normal forms of currency
like the dollar or the euro,
the value of a bitcoin
is not tied to any nation or government.
For sindri thor stefansson,
the benefit of stealing 550 bitcoin computers
was in the future bitcoins
they could create.
What you get for the risk
is essentially a money-printing machine.
And the difference is it's not printing cash,
it's printing billions of dollars' worth of bitcoins
at a very rapid rate.
And all that information
is encrypted and untraceable.
It's the perfect crime if you can pull it off.
Shatner: Less than a month after the bitcoin heist,
stefansson was arrested and charged
with stealing the computers.
After confessing, he was sentenced
to four and a half years in prison.
But the case wasn't resolved
because the stolen computers were never recovered,
and stefansson claims to not even know where they are.
There was a greater conspiracy
behind this bitcoin heist,
and he blames it on a guy
whose identity he's never revealed.
Hochman: Mr. Stefansson has said that the idea of doing it
did not come from him.
But there's this mr. X
that he mysteriously ascribes the mastermind role to.
There are a lot of wild theories about who mr. X could be.
One of them is it could be satoshi nakamoto.
Shatner: By all accounts,
"satoshi nakamoto" is an alias, a pseudonym,
for the shadowy creator of bitcoin,
whose real identity is unknown.
Hochman: We don't even know if satoshi nakamoto
is a he or a she or a they
because satoshi nakamoto has never come forward.
Wittman: In 2009, when this started,
nakamoto was very enthusiastic
about spreading his ideas,
spreading out this code.
This allowed him to establish a new currency
called bitcoin, which was not government controlled.
Around 2011, he just went dark.
And no one knows who he is.
Shatner: There are those who believe
that satoshi nakamoto and mr. X are one and the same.
And that this unidentified person, or group of people,
has been hoarding and manipulating
the value of bitcoin from its inception
to the heist in iceland right up to today.
Hochman: Every single state and every single country
is doing its best to rein in the wild west of cryptocurrency.
So the irs, in the last couple of years,
is very much stepping up its enforcement
to go after people who are not reporting
their cryptocurrency transactions.
Because they, by themselves,
could crash the market or they could grow the market.
Lanza: Cyber fraud-- it's one of the top three priorities of the fbi.
And in order to really get ahead of this problem,
we need to be thinking more in an innovative way, uh,
just as the criminals do in the cyber world.
Ebner: Somewhere on this planet,
those computers are humming
and they are creating bitcoin revenue
for somebody somewhere.
Is it just some amorphous mr. X?
We don't know.
But those 550 computers--
I can guarantee you
they didn't wind up in a waste dump somewhere.
Whoever this mysterious "mr. X" may be,
it appears that, for him, crime does pay,
at least in bitcoin.
But is money, in all its forms,
the ultimate drug for the criminal mind?
Or are there some things
that are even more enticing?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining
the case of the man who stole the brain
of the world's smartest man,
albert einstein.
Shatner: Albert einstein, the celebrated physicist
considered to be the father of modern physics,
dies at the age of 76.
While einstein's wish is to be cremated,
princeton hospital chief pathologist thomas harvey
must first determine the cause of death.
But with the body of albert einstein
on the autopsy table,
harvey's interest is drawn to something else.
He wanted to find out
what made albert einstein tick.
And he sees, "wow, there's the source
of it all. The brain."
lepore: There was something about the brain that fascinated him.
And with no small amount of effort,
he cut the skull, removed the brain,
perfused it with formaldehyde,
and the next morning the new york times says
that thomas harvey has preserved the brain for scientific study.
Shatner: Thomas harvey believed
that somewhere within einstein's brain
was the secret to his genius.
So he persuaded einstein's son, hans albert,
to let him do a study of his father's brain.
Lepore: Hans albert and einstein's executor
came down to speak to harvey about it.
And harvey impressed upon them just the uniqueness
and criticality of looking at einstein's brain
as a way of approaching how people
of intellect and genius think.
Shatner: Harvey took more than a dozen photos of einstein's brain,
dissected it, and shaved off thin slices
for microscopic study.
But years passed, and harvey never published
any papers or scientific observations.
He also never returned the brain,
but, rather, stole it
and kept it for himself
with no intention of ever giving it back.
Once thomas harvey had the brain,
he didn't let it out of his sight.
He left his position as chief of pathology
at princeton hospital,
and he headed out to the midwest,
and he went into general practice.
But the brain was always with him
stored in two large glass jars
and in cardboard boxes.
Ebner: There's been a historical trend
of examining the brains or the gray matter
of geniuses to try and find out
what makes them tick.
For instance, the brain institute in moscow
has kept the brains of dictator vladimir lenin
and around 200 russian scientists
on a dusty shelf for years hoping that
they may, too, one day
unlock the secrets of genius.
But there's a fine line
between science and grave robbing.
Harvey got a little bit greedy here, because
not only did he swipe einstein's brain,
it was basically a memento for him to have on his shelf.
You'd think that the next of kin might have something
to say about it.
Lepore: Harvey segued from his job,
which is to determine the cause of death of a patient
at princeton hospital, and he did that
when he completed the autopsy.
And at that point, all we know is that
he didn't want to hand it over. And that's why he said,
"I keep einstein's brain.
I'm the pathologist, and I'm studying it."
shatner: Two decades after the death of albert einstein,
the rest of his body had been cremated,
his wife and children had passed away,
and the world had all but forgotten
about what happened to the famed physicist's brain.
But that all changed in 1978,
when a young reporter named steven levy
tracked down the whereabouts of einstein's brain
for a magazine article
and discovered that thomas harvey
was still in possession of einstein's brain.
Ebner: Levy wrote about this,
and all of a sudden,
it brought renewed interest
to what in the hell was going on with albert einstein's brain.
So the medical community was scratching their heads.
They were like, "okay, he's got the brain,
"in pieces as it were.
Let's have a closer look."
shatner: As it turns out,
when harvey gave back the dissected pieces of the brain,
scientists made a remarkable discovery.
A discovery that could finally reveal the secret
behind einstein's genius.
Shatner: Neurologist frederick lepore is given the rare opportunity
to photograph the remains of einstein's brain.
The pathologist brought out two jars
containing little gauze-wrapped cubes
which were the remaining sections of einstein's brain.
That's a very interesting and provocative moment.
How did that inanimate brain tissue
develop world-shaking theories?
And the process begins
by looking at the anatomy
and trying to see if it can give us
some answers to the question of,
"why was einstein such a profound genius?"
shatner: What made albert einstein different?
It's a question that thomas harvey first asked
in 1955 and one that led him to steal
einstein's brain in hopes of getting an answer.
I had the opportunity to meet with thomas harvey
in retirement in the spring of 2000.
He had never really had given up that dream
of trying to,
from every possible avenue,
look at this piece of tissue
and try to come up with answers
as to einstein's genius.
Shatner: In 2007, thomas harvey died
of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Ironically, because thomas harvey
stole einstein's brain and preserved it for so many years,
scientists had the opportunity
to examine it with modern technology.
And when they did, they discovered that the brain
of this visionary genius was, in fact, different.
John martin: Neuroscientists found that einstein's brain
had enlarged parietal lobes.
And, in addition, they found
that part of the parietal lobe,
instead of having all these grooves,
it was sort of an enlarged, flattened area.
Uh, and so it looked quite remarkable.
Lepore: The parietal lobe is an area of the brain
that helps us with visuospatial recognition,
and neuropathologist's conclusion
was the exceptional brain of albert einstein
was due to the parietal lobe being
anatomically different from the human norm.
Ebner: I think that thomas harvey
might have been pleased that by just
hanging on to that brain for so many years
and having it looked at by professionals,
some sort of credibility had rubbed off on him,
so that he, in turn,
could become more respected
as a man of science.
Levine: People want to stand out.
They want recognition.
And the bigger the crime,
your notoriety of committing that crime lasts forever.
Ho: In understanding the criminal mind,
it's a certain type of psychological profile
that makes people feel like they can sort of
not follow society's rules.
They kind of buck authority,
but they have their own authority, and their authority
is their internal sense of right and wrong.
Shatner: It seems that no matter how hard we try,
we just can't seem to figure out the criminal mind.
But, then again, do we really want to?
Because if we could truly put ourselves in the shoes
of someone who is always
scheming, and plotting, and thrill-seeking,
then we might just be tempted to take a chance
and carry out a daring heist of our own.
So perhaps it's better for us
that the mind of a master criminal remains...
Unexplained.
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