John Mark Tillmann, right, charged with possession of stolen property, is escorted by sheriffs from provincial court in Dartmouth on Feb. 27, 2013.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
A Nova Scotia man who filled his suburban lakeside home with historic artifacts and art stolen over decades of pilfering so stealthy that many of his targets didn’t even know they’d been victimized has died.
John Mark Tillmann was 57.
The wealthy Mr. Tillmann – he owned both a Porsche and BMW – stole from universities, libraries, museums, antique dealers and private collections across Atlantic Canada.
Among about 1,300 items seized by police from his two-storey home in Fall River, north of Halifax: Early editions of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 classic Robinson Crusoe and a 1758 letter written by General James Wolfe.
There was also a spear. A gas mask. A glass lantern. A model canoe. Paintings depicting centuries-old scenes. A brass telescope. An 1819 watercolour from Nova Scotia’s legislative library.
Many of the institutions weren’t even aware the items had been stolen.
Mr. Tillmann was caught when RCMP pulled him over in a July, 2012, traffic stop and found the Wolfe letter, which the British general had written to an uncle in Dublin.
It had disappeared from Dalhousie University’s archives years earlier.
Dalhousie archivist Mike Moosberger said they realized the letter was missing after a 2009 inventory, but no one knew whether it had been stolen or merely misplaced. Similar Wolfe letters have fetched US$18,000 at auction, he said.
The letter was returned to Dalhousie after Mr. Tillmann’s arrest, but it had been torn and was missing some writing.
Mr. Tillmann also stole a letter that George Washington wrote while he was the commanding general of the Continental Army, before he became U.S. president.
MR. Moosberger refused to comment Thursday on Mr. Tillmann’s death, other than to note “enhanced security protocols … have been put in place” since the theft.
“Beyond that, I don’t believe there is anything else to say,” he said.
Mr. Tillmann died two days before Christmas in Musquodoboit Harbour, N.S., according to a certificate of death obtained by CTV, which first reported the story of the infamous art thief’s death this week.
Mr. Tillmann had been charged with attempting to murder his mother in 2009, and also served a two-year sentence for extorting, assaulting and threatening an ex-girlfriend. Media reports have also documented a history of racism and anti-Semitism.
But it was the art and artifact thefts that drew the most attention to Mr. Tillmann.
When he was arrested, police held a show and tell of the seized items. Corporal Scott MacRae said officers found a trove of artifacts worth well over $500,000 in a home that had been turned into a veritable museum.
“When we first arrived, it was almost set up to be on display,” Cpl. MacRae said at the time.
“Lots of the items were from antique dealers, so there’s historic value. There’s value to personal collections, universities and just people in general in Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada.”
The stolen items included a suit of armour, stolen from Borden House Antiques in Port Williams, N.S.; a Prussian helmet, stolen from the Shand House Museum in Windsor, N.S.; several paintings, including one belonging to St. Mary’s Cathedral in Halifax; and an anchor ship lantern and telescope, stolen from the Halifax Citadel Museum, where Mr. Tillmann once worked; and a canoe, stolen from Blue Shutters Antiques in Chester, N.S.
At the time of his arrest, police worked with authorities in the United States to determine whether some items had been sold, including a first edition of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.
In 2013, Mr. Tillmann pleaded guilty to 40 charges and was sentenced in Nova Scotia Supreme Court to nine years in prison.
Mr. Tillmann was also ordered to forfeit his home – valued at between $400,000 and $700,000 – and all of its contents including the two luxury cars, as well as $300,000 in his bank account.
He was granted parole in 2016.