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On a summer day in 1974, a stylish light-skinned American Black woman with a polished demeanor and captivating eyes stepped out of the\u00a0Ho\u0302tel de Paris in Monte Carlo. She told those who made\u00a0her acquaintance that fateful day that she was the wife of famous director Otto Preminger, making her instantly well received. Those who knew her personally, however, called her Doris.<\/p>\n
Doris Marie Payne, then 44, had good reason to hide her real identity while in Monaco, and it wasn\u2019t because she was connected to a celebrity and craving anonymity as she shopped for pricey jewelry at Cartier during this final stop on her whirlwind European getaway.<\/p>\n
In the luxury boutique, she recalls in the documentary The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne<\/em>, \u201cThe salesperson had rounded up pieces to show me,\u201d including a 10.5-carat diamond ring worth $550,000, or around $2.5 million today, \u201cbut he set it down and went to [another] patron who had just come into the shop.\u201d<\/p>\n After she left and was safely in a cab, Payne realized she had made a huge mistake when she looked at the bauble she had just swiped: The price tag contained zero after zero. \u201cNever saw that many in my life,\u201d she says. \u201cI broke out in a sweat and everything. I was freaked out thinking I had taken something that the whole world was going to be looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n Police indeed went on the immediate hunt for her and the ring, and they found the former but not latter at the airport in Nice. Once detained, Payne managed to surreptitiously slip the ring into her mouth, starting an impressive series of juggling that kept the prized piece of jewelry from being found. First, a sneeze delivered the ring into a tissue, and it was later hidden in her pantyhose during a strip search. Despite police not locating the ring, Payne was escorted to a hotel to be held in custody (Monte Carlo had no facilities at the time for detained women), and they placed a female guard outside her door.<\/p>\n Payne, still on her game despite the setback, asked the unsuspecting officer for a nail clipper from her confiscated luggage, as well as a needle and thread to mend a hem. \u201cI used the toenail clippers to pry the diamond out of the mounting,\u201d she says of her biggest score ever. “I threw the mounting in the Mediterranean.”<\/p>\n She then sewed the ring into her girdle. Nobody ever found the diamond, which Payne later sold in New York City.<\/p>\n “I\u2019ve been a jewel thief for many many years,\u201d Payne says. \u201cI am exceptionally proud of my being the very opposite of what is expected.\u201d<\/p>\n The daughter of a Black father and Cherokee mother, Payne grew up impoverished in Slab Fork, West Virginia. Now 92, she taught herself the skills that she would use throughout her\u00a0life to pilfer jewels. \u201cFrom a little girl, I liked to dress up. I had my purse and my hat,\u201d she says. \u201cI played a game by myself called Ms. Lady.\u201d<\/p>\n Criminal reports filed over the decades detail Payne\u2019s ability to put shopkeepers at ease. \u201cShe was attractive,\u201d police wrote after one theft. In another document, officers noted Payne was \u201cso sharply dressed\u201d and \u201clooked like a model.\u201d<\/p>\n Once Payne found her ideal mark \u2014 someone who was the \u201ccombination of eager to please\u00a0and stupid,\u201d she writes in her memoir, Diamond Doris<\/em> \u2014 she pounced. The seasoned jewel thief \u2019s modus operandi was to dazzle, confuse, acquire and then quickly slip away. According to Payne, she would request to see multiple pieces and then try them on at a dizzying pace, moving the jewelry around too fast for the shopkeeper to keep track. At times, she\u2019d distract the salesperson and hide the piece, only to \u201cdiscover\u201d it when its disappearance was noted, building trust with them. With the next distraction, she\u2019d grab the real object of her desire and then leave.<\/p>\n Payne turned out to be just as good at slipping out of custody as she was stores. She escaped multiple times after she was held on suspicion of stealing. \u201cI never went to jail and stayed,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is the reputation I wanted. I knew I could get out.”<\/p>\n Her favorite catch-me-if-you-can moment occurred one night in 1980 after she \u201chad a field day\u201d stealing Rolexes from a shop in Zurich, Switzerland. Following the caper, she went to\u00a0a nightclub and broke her rule of not drinking alcohol. \u201cNext thing I know, I\u2019m up and dancing,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m having a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n Little did she know that the club broadcast the dance floor to the city\u2019s residents so they could watch the revelry at home. When she left the nightclub, authorities nabbed her and escorted her on to what should have been a nonstop train heading to the embassy in Geneva, where she was to be detained. \u201cIt stopped for water. I jumped off the train,\u201d Payne says, noting she ended up with scratches and thorns in her hair after running through a field. \u201cIt was funny too, later, because I looked so bad. I looked awful.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the years, Payne has used at least 32 aliases, 11 social security numbers and passports in nine different names. She’s unapologetic and insists her elaborate ruses and crimes have always been victimless and have “nothing to do with my moral fiber.”<\/p>\n San Diego Police Detective Thomas Jacques disagrees. In the documentary about Payne\u2019s life he admits she \u201cwas a nice old lady\u201d and \u201cseemed like my mom and grandparents\u201d after he came into contact with her following her January 2010 arrest for stealing an $8,900 emerald-cut diamond ring from Macy\u2019s. But, he adds, \u201cI think she\u2019s romanticized this beyond what it really is. She\u2019s a thief and what she does affects other people.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, California-based lawyer Gretchen Von Helms, employed by Payne as her defense attorney, once told a judge in court her client \u201cnever hurts anybody\u201d and \u201cis not forceful.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent years, surveillance video, the Internet and other modern innovations have curtailed Payne\u2019s ability to successfully camouflage her identity and operate as a criminal in cities around the world \u2014 not that she\u2019s stopped trying. In 2011, at age 80, she was found guilty of two counts of theft and sentenced to five years behind bars in connection with the Macy\u2019s case. She was released because of overcrowding less than three years later, but she\u2019s since been arrested multiple times for pilfering jewelry, including in 2013 when she lifted a 12-carat white gold ring worth $22,000 from a boutique in Palm Desert, California.<\/p>\n \u201cStealing jewelry, it was just exciting. It also became a social outlet for me. That was my everything,\u201d the nonagenarian says of her 60-year criminal career. \u201cI don\u2019t regret being a jewel thief. Do I regret getting caught? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n Read GRAZIA USA<\/em>\u2019s Winter issue featuring cover star Lizzy Caplan:<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/11\/AdobeStock_461640394.jpeg\")
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