Jerry Alter was 81 when he died in 2012; he and his wife Rita had been retired public school teachers living in Cliff, New Mexico. After Rita’s death in 2017, an antiques dealer bought the contents of their estate and found a painting behind a bedroom door identified as Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ochre, a work stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985.

A photograph reportedly places the couple in Tucson the day before the 1985 theft, composite sketches of the museum suspects resemble them, and a self-published short story by Jerry about stealing a museum emerald echoes the real theft. The Alters had extensive international travel records to more than 140 countries and left an estate valued at over a million dollars, details that investigators and commentators say fuel suspicion their lifestyle may have been funded by art theft.

The FBI investigated after the painting’s recovery and has closed its inquiry into the de Kooning theft; no arrest or charge was brought against Jerry or Rita before their deaths. Does anyone have memories, photos, or information that could shed light on the Alters’ travels or connections around Tucson in 1985?