SUSPECT IN THEFT OF MUNCH PAINTINGS DIES

One of the three masked gunmen who stole the Edvard Munch paintings The Scream and Madonna from the Munch Museum in Oslo two years ago is believed to have been a twenty-seven-year-old Norwegian man who died last month, the New York Times‘ Campbell Robertson reports. The Oslo police said they had learned of the man’s role in the theft when an undercover officer infiltrated his circles; the officer secretly recorded him admitting that he had been one of the robbers. The man, whose name was withheld, died of a heroin overdose on November 3 without knowing that he was suspected by the police. The paintings were recovered in August, two years after they were stolen, but the police have not disclosed how they were found.