WASHINGTON (AP) – Philip Johnson was dying of pancreatic cancer when he brought his former wife, Thanh Tran, to the basement of his home in Venice, California. Under a tarp that was weighted down with bricks was a violin case with a combination lock.
He gave the case to Tran. He didn’t say a word about it, and she assumed it contained an antique violin that she had once bought for him.
It wasn’t until nearly four years later that Tran learned the truth: The case contained a famous Stradivarius that had been stolen from renowned violinist Roman Totenberg in 1980, likely by Johnson, who died in November 2011 at age 58.
Totenberg died the following May, at age 102. The last time he saw the Stradivarius was in 1980 when he left it in his office after a performance at a music school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Tran said her biggest regret was that she didn’t discover the instrument sooner and return it while Totenberg was still alive.