Charles Hill

Charles Patrick Landon Hill (born Patrick Charles Landon Hill; 22 May 1947 – 20 February 2021) was a British-American art crime investigator and Vietnam veteran. He is best known for recovering Edvard Munch's The Scream three months after it was stolen. Hill also played a crucial role in the recovery of many of the paintings stolen by Martin Cahill from Russborough House.

Early life Patrick Charles Landon Hill was born in Cambridge to Zita, a ballerina, and Landon Hill, a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Vietnam War In 1968, Hill dropped out of college and volunteered to fight as a paratrooper in the Vietnam War with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, despite his opposition to the war. During a raid on an enemy encampment, Hill and two fellow soldiers found it deserted except for a wounded elderly Montagnard man, who had likely guided North Vietnamese troops through the mountain passes. Hill's companions intended to kill the man, but Hill intervened and saved his life. Following this, he taught high school in Belfast and pursued further studies in theology at King's College London.

Metropolitan Police After joining London's Metropolitan Police in 1978, his career in law enforcement evolved into undercover work, particularly focusing on art-related cases. He spent over two decades at the Art and Antiques Unit. During investigations, he often disguised himself as an illegal art dealer with a Mid-Atlantic accent. Hill played a crucial role in recovering many of the eighteen paintings stolen in 1986 from Russborough House by mob boss Martin Cahill. Norwegian authorities extradited an English prisoner to the UK to complete the remaining five years of their sentence. Upon their release on parole, they contacted the Norwegian embassy in London, claiming they had obtained information about the theft through connections made while incarcerated in Norway.

The former prisoner facilitated communication between British and Norwegian authorities, enabling Scotland Yard to gain a credible lead in the case. Over three months, Hill, using the alias Chris Roberts, posed as a Getty Museum representative and interacted with intermediaries linked to the Norwegian thieves. Hill convinced them that the Getty Museum would pay £500,000 for the return of the painting. he resigned and worked as a private investigator. In 1993, Hill worked on recovering Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by Johannes Vermeer in Paris. He posed as an art dealer and traveled to a Belgian parking lot to retrieve the painting.

In 2002, Hill led the search that resulted in the discovery of Titian's Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a painting stolen in 1995 from a drawing room at Longleat House in England. After offering a £100,000 reward in exchange for a tip-off, it was found in a plastic shopping bag at a bus stop in London. In addition to the Vermeer, he assisted in recovering Francisco Goya's Portrait of Doña Antonia Zárate and pledged that he would locate the remaining stolen paintings.

In 2020, his efforts to recover three Rembrandts, five Degas, a Manet and a Vermeer that were stolen 30 years ago from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, were documented in the BBC Four documentary The Billion Dollar Art Hunt.

In 2021, Hill died in a London hospital at age 73 from a torn aorta following unsuccessful surgery.

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