Herman Jerome “Jerry” Alter and Sara Rita Sinofsky married in 1956 in New York City. Jerry and Rita both worked for high schools in New York and New Jersey; Jerry was a music teacher, and Rita was a speech therapist. In 1974, Jerry retired at the young age of 47 and he and Rita bought a 20-acre mesa overlooking a mountain valley near Cliff, New Mexico, about 30 miles northwest of Silver City. In 1979, they built a ranch-style home on the property overlooking the valley. Jerry and Rita coauthored three independently published books, all of which were published in 2011. The first was a blend of fictional and non-fiction adventure travel. The second was a twist on Aesop’s Fables set in verse. The third was a book of poetry based on their travel experiences. The books sold poorly. In the “about the author” section of the books, Jerry claimed that he had “visited over 140 countries on all continents, including both polar regions.”
On April 9, 2012, 81-year-old Jerry died of natural causes, followed by 81-year-old Rita on June 5, 2017. Rita’s nephew Ron Roseman, a resident of Houston, Texas, was the executor of her estate. Ron contacted real estate agent Ruth Seawolf the following month to sell the property. In an email discussing the property Ron said, “Ruthie, I’ve gone through the home, and I don’t think there is anything of value, but help yourself.” Ruthie visited the home in preparation for putting it on the market and noted that it was “a little dated, older home,” but one she thought would “be fairly easy to sell.” Ruthie contacted the owners of Manzanita Ridge Furniture & Antiques in Silver City, to visit the house to see how best to dispose of its contents. Everything in the home was old and covered in dust. When they removed the pictures and paintings from the walls, it was evident by the dust patterns that they had been hanging in the same positions for decades. The antique store owners saw nothing they considered especially valuable and bought the entire contents for around $2,000.
The antique store owners carted a few select items including furniture, small art pieces, and paintings back to their store and donated most of the contents to a local thrift store. David Van Auker, one of the antique store owners, liked one of the paintings which had hung behind the Alter’s bedroom door for decades and intended to display it in his guest house. Back at the store, customers were drawn to the painting in the cheap gold frame and said they recognized it. After several customers independently expressed their belief that the painting looked familiar, David did some internet research. He was stunned to learn that over three decades earlier, on the day after Thanksgiving in 1985, a man and woman who resembled Jerry and Rita stole a Willem de Kooning painting called Woman-Ochre from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson. The painting was valued at over $160 million, but David returned the painting to the museum of art and refused a reward. This was just the first of many valuable paintings that the FBI learned that Jerry and Rita Alter had stolen. Everyone, especially their friends and family, were stunned to learn that Jerry and Rita Alter were professional art thieves.
Sources:
1. “Herman Jerome ‘Jerry’ Alter,” FindAGrave.com, accessed June 7, 2026, https://www.findagrave.com/
2. “Sara Rita Sinofsky Alter,” FindAGrave.com, accessed June 7, 2026, https://www.findagrave.com/
3. Arizona Daily Star, November 30, 1985, p.1.
4. Silver City Sun-News, August 18, 2017, p.A4.
5. The Santa Fe New Mexican, September 10, 2017, p.A2.
6. Carlsbad Current-Argus, December 28, 2024, p.3.