The King of Diamonds

Back in 1970, I finished graduate school and started a job with United Press International in Dallas. Because I was the youngest employee, the newest employee, I got the worst schedule. I worked the overnight shift from 10 o’clock at night till six in the morning, and yes, I was bored and sleepy most of the time. Then one night I read a story about a jewel thief who couldn’t be caught, and he was called the King of Diamonds. He took millions and millions in jewels from some of the richest people in Dallas, who at that time were some of the richest people in the country. He stole from oil millionaires Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt and tech titan Jim Ling. The FBI was looking for him, Dallas police, even Scotland Yard, for over a decade, but they couldn’t catch him, and they never recovered a single jewel. So I was hooked when I read that. For the next 50 years, I wondered who was the King of Diamonds. So at the age of 70, I decided I’ll just go get that jewel thief.

Most of the evidence had been thrown away, so I had to track down the families and the policemen one by one. In the process, I interviewed more than a hundred people. But I learned a lot. I learned that Dallas in the 1950s and ’60s was full of people who had made oil money. So what do you want when you suddenly have a lot of money? You want to look rich, right? There were more Cadillacs sold in Dallas in the ’60s than any place in the world. True story: a woman walked in from the oil fields to Neiman Marcus barefoot and walked out in high heels and a mink coat. Thanks to Neiman Marcus, Dallas got the image as a city full of beautiful, fashionable women with a lot of jewels. And that was a recipe for danger.

The burglary that vaulted the King into the headlines happened in 1959 at the home of Josephine Herbert Graf, an oil widow. She was going with her new husband that night to Fort Worth, to the Jewel Ball, where women were expected to wear their very best jewels and show them off. Well, they did. There was a lot of drinking, a lot of dancing, a lot of showing off. They got home at three o’clock in the morning, and Josephine went to bed. When she woke up the next morning, she realized all the jewels she had worn that night were gone. Someone had walked right by their bed, scooped up her best jewelry, and walked back out. It was the biggest jewel theft in Dallas history. He got her diamond earrings, her diamond necklace, her diamond bracelet, and a 20-karat diamond ring — a diamond as big as the Alamo.

The head of the burglary department, Captain Fannin, came to the scene in person, brought his top detective with him, and he assigned every detective in the burglary department to the case to look for the King of Diamonds. They searched the city. They sent out search parties. They checked the hotels. They checked the jails. They checked everything they could. And what did they get? A big fat nothing.

But the jewel thefts continued. The mystery continued, and a pattern developed. The thief always wore these waffle footprints. He didn’t leave fingerprints. He took only the best and left a lot behind. And most importantly, he came when people were in their homes — while they were watching TV or while they were having dinner with friends. The King slipped in and walked right by them. Most burglars didn’t do that. It was too risky. The King was more daring. He was also more nimble. He climbed across trees, he climbed across rooftops, and he somersaulted through windows. At the home of Jim Ling, he climbed up the side of the wall like a rock climber, went down the hall, grabbed a gold bracelet that was encrusted with diamonds and rubies, and walked out. At the time, there was a guard patrolling the house with a dog, and he never saw the King.

Well, poor Captain Fannin — aren’t you feeling sorry for him? He’s questioned thousands of people, polygraphed hundreds of people, tried dog patrols, tried stakeouts, tried aerial patrols. He even tried consulting a fortune teller. But then he realized that the thief had to be one of them. He was one of the social set, because he knew the social calendar, and he knew women would have their best jewels out during the social season. This started a guessing game that was the equivalent of high-society Clue. Was it a hairstylist? Was it a society writer? Was it the jeweler who sold a lot of the jewels? Or was it the handsome gigolo who took out debutantes? But still the police couldn’t crack the case.

They realized then that it was a why-done-it, not a whodunit. Why would somebody steal from their friends? Why would he hide in their closets? It was very peculiar. So they got a psychologist to come and go out with them on the cases. He hypothesized it was a man in his early thirties. He was athletic, but not from a contact sport — just nimble. From a family of means, very well-mannered, a member of the elite social circles, had access. He only took women’s jewelry, so they hypothesized he was a mama’s boy. He must have grown up in the neighborhood, because he knew all the area like his own backyard. And lastly, he had some kind of a grudge: when he would take a pair of earrings, sometimes he would take just one and spoil the set. It was very vindictive.

I loved the idea of a profile, so I added some items of my own about things I had learned: that he was obsessive-compulsive, he had some kind of personality disorder. He stayed out all night, so he must not have had a day job and probably wasn’t married. The dogs didn’t bark when he was in the house, so he probably had pets and knew how to control them. He was meticulous, and he was also vain. He liked to keep leaving the waffle footprints so people would know that he had been there. He even called one woman and told her that he had been there, that she had been robbed. When I added it up, one man checked all the boxes. I had cracked the case.

It took longer than I thought — it took nearly six years. Long days in libraries, long nights online. Some people hung up on me. Some people threatened me. But in the end, it was very worthwhile, because I learned a lot about the city that I lived in then. I learned a lot about the underbelly of the city and human psychology. So it ended up being very worthwhile, and it was actually fun. You know, solving mysteries is fun. That’s why there are so many detective shows on TV. It’s fun to solve a mystery. So if you ever get intrigued by a cold case, let me encourage you to go for it. No matter what your age or how long it takes, you will have an experience that you will never forget. Thank you.