King of Diamonds Preface

The King of Diamonds is a true story. In the 1950s and ’60s, a mysterious jewel thief robbed dozens of the wealthiest families in Dallas — millionaires with oil wells and airplanes, women with unlimited accounts at Neiman-Marcus. The thief slipped over fences and climbed up trees to break into fine homes. Sometimes he dropped in from the rooftop. He got away with millions in jewels. Because of his extraordinary skill, the press dubbed the cat burglar “The King of Diamonds.”

The “King” was so daring that he walked away with handfuls of jewelry while the owners were sleeping a few feet away. Or hosting a party downstairs. Somehow, he knew who had the gems and where they kept them. He stole from heiress Margaret Hunt Hill... corporate king Jim Ling of LTV... oil tycoon Clint Murchison...Herman Lay of Lay’s potato chips... and dozens more. These were not just some of the richest people in the city; they were some of the richest people in the country.

The Dallas police and the FBI pursued the jewel thief for more than a decade. Scotland Yard, the French Surete, the Mexican Federal Police, and Interpol were all on the lookout. But the cat burglar was never caught.

Crime experts were confounded by the extraordinary duration of the crime spree — the jewel thefts stretched into the terms of four presidents, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon. A half a century later, the mystique of the uncatchable jewel thief lives on. Who pulled off the perfect crime – for so long?

This is the story of the search for “The King of Diamonds.”