BILLINGS, Mont. — Virginia Heaton had barely opened the Daniels County Museum and Pioneer Town to tourists for the day when he arrived — nice-looking, polite, anxious to see the antique car collection. He was wearing a corduroy jacket — odd, she thought, given the July heat.

During the tour of the small, northern Montana museum, he repeated his interest in seeing the antique cars out back. Eventually she left him alone but got antsy when he didn't return to the visitor center.

She checked out back and saw him trying to make off with parts from a vintage vehicle.

"What are you doing?" she yelled.

He left, but Heaton scribbled down a license plate number.

The plate number, along with surveillance footage taken from another museum 100 miles southwest of Scobey in Glasgow, helped lead investigators to Jeffry Stevens, a gray-haired history buff from Fallbrook. They say that over decades, he stole American Indian artifacts, Civil War-era memorabilia, guns and other valuables from small museums in at least six states.

Stevens would enter the museums like any other tourist and chat up the older workers, authorities say. When they weren't looking, he stuffed loot in his baggy slacks and corduroy jackets.

Stevens died last November at age 59. At the time, he was cooperating with investigators, revealing a trail of stolen items going back to the late 1960s. His death left state and federal investigators with unclaimed items and unanswered questions.

"Was he remorseful and so forth? Yes, he was," said one investigator, Glasgow Police Capt. Bruce Barstad. "But was he being completely truthful? I don't know."

Authorities call Stevens a serial thief and opportunist who stole from low-staffed, less secure museums.

But his attorney says he also was a legitimate collector and trader whose behavior stemmed from a disorder often marked by obsessive behavior, diagnosed shortly before he died.

"He really was a tortured person," attorney Chuck Watson said. Had he not died, the attorney said, "I think he would have lived to rectify his mistakes."

Some who considered Stevens a friend admit knowing little about him. Stevens' wife, Linda, declined to be interviewed, saying she felt no obligation to satisfy the curiosity of strangers. Authorities say she was unaware of her husband's stealing.

By all accounts Stevens was a gentleman — smart and with a keen eye for antique firearms and voracious appetite for all things Civil War. He was reclusive and didn't have a steady job. He would leave home for weeks at a time to travel the country, often attending gun shows and antique shows. He often slept in an unkempt van, though Watson and others say Stevens had plenty of money.

Watson said he "never got into the particulars" of Stevens' financial situation.

Stevens became enamored of history at an early age, and, as a young man, honed his eye for antiques buying items for a dealer, Watson said. He told authorities the first item he could remember stealing was a Civil War uniform from a museum in South Carolina in 1969.

"He just saw it and wanted it and took it," said Salt Lake City Police Detective Suzanne Williams, another investigator.

But Stevens didn't attract the attention of the law until the summer of 2003, when he came through Montana. Investigators say he stole items from at least six small museums. A surveillance camera in one showed Stevens leaving with a stiff shuffle; investigators say that was because of the rifle stuffed down his pants.

Barstad, the Glasgow policeman, said Heaton's plate information helped lead authorities to Stevens. But there was some skepticism.

"He didn't fit the typical mode of a thief," said Bart Fitzgerald, a special agent in Billings with the Bureau of Land Management, which was involved because of the theft of artifacts. "We didn't know if we had the right guy."

After more digging, Barstad and Fitzgerald went to Utah, where Stevens once lived and belonged to a club of military vehicle collectors. Interviews there led them to a Salt Lake City antique store where Stevens was a consignor.

"It was like, bingo! It was full of antiques and, by the way, a lot of it had Jeffry Stevens as the owner — guns, rifles, Indian artifacts," Fitzgerald said. "So we figured, at that time, this had to be our guy."

A brief tour of the store turned up none of the items reported stolen from Montana. But an Internet search and serial numbers indicated at least two items had been stolen from museums in Indiana and Ohio.

With that information, Utah authorities got a search warrant and seized more than 1,890 items — valued at about $1 million — consigned in Stevens' name, Williams said. She said Stevens admitted taking only about a dozen of the items. The rest were returned to him shortly before he died with the understanding that they could be seized if anyone came forward with proof they were stolen, Williams said.

A search of Stevens' home and van found a tool kit — "burglary-theft sort of stuff," according to Fitzgerald — corduroy jackets with extra pockets and a check to Watson. Fitzgerald said the attorney earlier told authorities he had a client interested in returning items stolen from Montana — no questions asked.

Stevens led investigators to a storage locker in Sun City, Calif., where they confiscated about 30 more items, including pieces stolen from Montana.

Stevens confessed to taking pieces investigators weren't aware of — like a cannon from a museum in Dillon, Mont. Other museums weren't even aware of missing items; a museum in Ohio didn't report a missing 1855 rifle, worth about $10,000, Fitzgerald said.

Peter Shea, president of the Museums Association of Montana, said thefts are a concern for all museums. But he said small museums, with limited budgets and often volunteer help, are vulnerable because "not everyone can afford fancy security or someone there all the time."

"This may be the best thing that's happened to some museums, to wake them up and to realize what they have in their collections," he said.

Edward H. Able, president and chief executive of the American Association of Museums, declined to discuss security, calling it a "sensitive topic."

Investigators are still trying to place several items. Since publicly discussing the case for the first time last month, they have received calls about other missing items.

Stevens' estate has paid $5,000 to each of the nine Montana museums Stevens stole from over the years, Fitzergerald said. But the federal investigator said he doesn't think all the items Stevens stole will ever be accounted for.

Watson contends the vast majority of what Stevens did was legitimate.

"Unfortunately, the whole story will never get told," Watson said. "He took it to the grave with him."

For more information or questions on missing pieces, contact the Bureau of Land Management in Billings, Mont., at (406) 896-5258

On the Net:

Bureau of Land Management: http://www.mt.blm.gov/

Museums Association of Montana: http://www.montanamuseums.org/