Chap­ter 31 of The Art Thief takes a deep dive into the after­math of Breitwieser’s arrest, focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on the reac­tions of his moth­er, Sten­gel, and the dras­tic mea­sures she takes regard­ing the stolen art­works. The chap­ter begins in Novem­ber 2001 when Sten­gel, after dis­cov­er­ing the full extent of her son’s crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, reacts in a chaot­ic and emo­tion­al way. Dur­ing this peri­od, Anne-Cather­ine, who was present dur­ing Breitwieser’s arrest at the Wag­n­er Muse­um, tries to dis­tance her­self from the entire ordeal, remain­ing out of the reach of the author­i­ties. In May 2002, Anne-Cather­ine is ques­tioned by the police and main­tains her inno­cence regard­ing any direct involve­ment in the dis­ap­pear­ance of the art, offer­ing only a brief account of her actions with regard to the attic clean-out. At the same time, Sten­gel, dur­ing her own police ques­tion­ing, admits to act­ing alone when deal­ing with the stolen art­work and express­es deep remorse for the actions tak­en dur­ing what she describes as a “cri­sis.”

As the nar­ra­tive pro­gress­es, Bre­itwieser reflects on the eight years he spent steal­ing art, a peri­od in which he com­mit­ted more than 200 thefts. The stolen items, which were kept in his mother’s attic, now rep­re­sent not just a legal prob­lem but a psy­cho­log­i­cal bur­den, one that weighs heav­i­ly on him. Con­fined to prison and unable to com­mu­ni­cate freely with his moth­er, he seeks details about the fate of the art­work, hop­ing for some clar­i­ty. Through indi­rect chan­nels, he learns that Anne-Cather­ine informed Sten­gel about his arrest, prompt­ing Sten­gel to go to the attic for the first time in years. Upon see­ing the vast quan­ti­ty of art in her pos­ses­sion, Sten­gel becomes over­whelmed by the fear of the legal con­se­quences she could face for har­bor­ing these stolen items. This fear, com­pound­ed by guilt and con­fu­sion, leads her to make rash deci­sions in an attempt to cov­er up the sit­u­a­tion.

In an impul­sive and fran­tic act, Sten­gel engages in a “destruc­tive fren­zy,” dur­ing which she dis­pos­es of the art­work in a bid to destroy the evi­dence and erase her involve­ment. Pack­ing the stolen pieces, she dri­ves them to a remote area by the Rhône-Rhine Canal dur­ing the night, where she dis­cards the major­i­ty of the items into the water. Among the dis­card­ed pieces are valu­able works, includ­ing a 150-pound stat­ue of the Vir­gin Mary. As the objects sink into the canal, Sten­gel jus­ti­fies her actions by stat­ing that the art holds no emo­tion­al val­ue to her any­more. Lat­er, she claims to have car­ried out the dis­pos­al alone, a claim that Bre­itwieser finds hard to believe giv­en the scale of the actions tak­en. The sit­u­a­tion takes an even dark­er turn when police divers find addi­tion­al stolen art­works on the prop­er­ty of Jean-Pierre Fritsch, Stengel’s new part­ner, imply­ing that he may have been com­plic­it in the dis­pos­al of the art.

The chap­ter delves deep­er into the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of Stengel’s actions. While there’s an evi­dent attempt to pro­tect her son from fur­ther legal trou­ble, it becomes increas­ing­ly clear that Sten­gel’s actions were moti­vat­ed by more than just con­cern for him. There is an unde­ni­able ele­ment of anger and resent­ment toward her son, as well as a desire to pun­ish him for the pain and chaos his crimes have caused her. The final act of the chap­ter is a dra­mat­ic one—Stengel, in a fit of grief and rage, burns the remain­ing art­work, ful­ly destroy­ing the last of the stolen col­lec­tion. This act of destruc­tion sym­bol­izes her inter­nal strug­gle, as she simul­ta­ne­ous­ly tries to sev­er all ties with her son’s crim­i­nal past while con­fronting the emo­tions of guilt, grief, and betray­al. It also high­lights the com­plex and con­tra­dic­to­ry nature of her mater­nal instincts, as she seeks to pro­tect her son while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly reject­ing the life he led.