The King of Diamonds

In 1970, journalist Rena Pederson arrived in Dallas to work at United Press International and read a teletype dispatch about an elusive jewel thief nicknamed "the King of Diamonds." The thief had stolen millions in jewels from some of the wealthiest families in Dallas over more than a decade, eluding police, the FBI, and Interpol. He vanished around the time Pederson arrived, and no jewels were ever recovered. Nearly 50 years later, Pederson reopens the cold case, interviewing more than 200 people and using internet research tools unavailable to investigators in the 1950s and 1960s. Most official records, including FBI files, had been destroyed, and a former agent hints that someone powerful did not want them preserved. Pederson's investigation reveals layers of organized crime, political corruption, and a hidden "culture of complicity" beneath the city's glamorous surface.

The case began on a cold January night in 1959, when Bruno and Josephine Herbert Graf attended the Jewel Charity Ball in Fort Worth. Josephine, a wealthy oil widow who had remarried the Swiss-born Bruno, wore some of her finest diamonds, including a 20.4-carat ring. After returning home past three A.M., she placed the jewels in a dressing table drawer instead of a safe. While the couple slept, a thief entered their second-floor bedroom, passing within feet of them, and stole $215,000 in jewelry, equivalent to $2.2 million today. Police found waffle-sole shoe prints on a 10-foot wall, indicating the intruder had run along the top and leaped to a second-floor ledge. He left no fingerprints and no dirt inside, having apparently worn gloves and removed his shoes.

Captain Walter Fannin, head of the Dallas Police burglary and theft department, assigned detective Paul McCaghren to the case and put more than 50 officers on a nationwide manhunt. McCaghren, a Korean War veteran who survived the brutal Battle of Chosin Reservoir, brought physical toughness and sharp instincts. Fannin theorized the thief was a local amateur who struck it rich, noting the burglar left valuable items behind. When detectives examined their files, they discovered similar unsolved thefts dating to 1954 across the upscale Dallas neighborhoods of Highland Park, University Park, and Preston Hollow. A clear pattern emerged: waffle-sole overshoe prints, entry through second-floor windows, selective theft of only the best women's jewelry, proximity to creeks used as escape routes, and no fingerprints.

Over the following years, the thief struck with increasing daring. In 1961 alone, he hit six homes and stole $155,000 in jewels. His most audacious victim was Clint Murchison Sr., sometimes called "the Richest Man in America," whose home yielded 62 pieces of jewelry. Instead of calling Dallas police, Murchison called his friend FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Pederson traces the deep entanglement between the two men, documenting free vacations, oil investments, and political favors, as well as Murchison's ties to organized crime figures including New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. This web of relationships leads Pederson to realize the story extends far beyond missing diamonds into organized crime and political corruption.

Pederson explores the social world the thief exploited. Dallas in this era was a boomtown fueled by oil wealth, where conspicuous consumption reigned and the debutante season provided the thief a calendar of opportunity. He operated from October to April, when elaborate parties ensured women had their best jewels at hand. Newspapers printed home addresses and jewelry descriptions, giving the thief a virtual shopping list. Family dogs consistently failed to alert owners during break-ins, suggesting the thief was experienced with animals; at one home, the intruder addressed the family dog by name. In one striking burglary, the thief scaled business magnate Jim Ling's mansion, swung on a light fixture to reach a second-story balcony, and stole jewelry while the family watched television downstairs.

The investigation was complicated by what Pederson calls the "culture of complicity." Gambling permeated every level of Dallas society, from exclusive country clubs with slot machines to an estimated $10 million wagered illegally each week. Strip clubs and prostitution networks connected several suspects to organized crime, and police fraternization with lawbreakers normalized corruption. More than 50 officers maintained ties to nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The Kennedy assassination in November 1963 further disrupted the search: The lead FBI agent on the jewel case was reassigned to interview Lee Harvey Oswald, and McCaghren was pulled to security duty. Despite the national trauma, the thief struck again within weeks.

Pederson examines and eliminates several suspects. George Owen, a sports booster and fixer for Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison Jr., had gambling connections but likely lacked the refined taste and social access the crimes required. Jeweler Dudley Ramsden and society editor Ann Draper were secretly helping police rather than committing thefts. Hairdresser Jack Weisenhunt, known as "Mr. Jack," endured years of rumors but lacked the physical profile. Evelyn Lambert, a flamboyant arts patron, drew suspicion but lacked the physical ability to execute the break-ins.

The three Kirksmith brothers receive extensive scrutiny. Jasper, Jim, and Jack arrived in Dallas in the late 1940s with no apparent means of support, their mother Netta having owned shares in the El Cortez casino in Las Vegas alongside associates of mobster Bugsy Siegel. Jim married Nancy Ann Smith, niece of billionaire oilman Sid Richardson, in a lavish 1957 wedding, but rumors about the jewel thefts followed the couple. Jim took a lie detector test with inconclusive results, and the marriage lasted only three years. He later died at 43 with a blood-alcohol level nearly seven times the legal driving limit; the cause remained ambiguous, attributed variously to suicide, accident, or foul play. A police memo from January 1963 reveals that Jasper was trying to dispose of loose diamonds and had cut up and remounted stones for sale, but police still could not tie him directly to the thefts.

At McCaghren's suggestion, Southern Methodist University (SMU) psychologist Dr. Robert Stoltz created a behavioral profile of the thief: a young man in his early thirties, athletic, possibly a "mama's boy" who took jewels to admire rather than sell, from a family of means with social access, and someone who felt snubbed. Pederson uses this profile and McCaghren's revelation that police once followed the thief's footprints to a Highland Park house belonging to a "hardware store family" to identify her primary suspect: John Taylor Higginbotham Jr., son of a prominent Dallas business leader.

Higginbotham fits the profile precisely. He was deeply attached to his mother, who had a mental health condition and died of self-administered barbiturate poisoning when Higginbotham was young. He was a gay man in an era when such identity had to be repressed. As president of the Idlewild Club, the organization that selected debutantes, he had access to party details and prominent families' addresses. He collected jewelry, displayed gems in his homes, and kept an eccentric menagerie of animals, including numerous snakes. Sergeant John Chism discovered that Higginbotham did odd jobs for one victim's family, placing him inside the burglarized home. McCaghren confirms: "Yes. We all thought it was him." But Highland Park's police chief blocked a search warrant, not wanting to embarrass a prominent family. McCaghren later admits that Dallas police could have obtained a county warrant to bypass the objection but did not, due to political pressure.

A late twist emerges when Chism reveals that he observed Higginbotham and Jasper Kirksmith together at bars in the late 1960s, raising the possibility they were partners. Pederson discovers further connections: shared social events and Higginbotham's purchase of Netta Kirksmith's house. FBI documents from 1961 to 1962 classify both Jasper and John Gillin, an eccentric millionaire, as "Top Jewel Thieves" suspected of transporting stolen jewels across state lines. Pederson concludes that Higginbotham likely started the burglaries to satisfy a compulsive desire to possess beautiful things, then fell in with Jasper and, to some extent, Gillin.

The King of Diamonds made his last known appearance on New Year's Day 1970, breaking into the Park Lane home of Frank Schultz for the second time in exactly seven years and stealing $60,000 in jewelry. The burglaries then stopped entirely. McCaghren believes the King knew police were closing in: "He knew that we knew who he was." Pederson traces the fates of the key figures. Higginbotham turned to real estate, lost his properties in the 1980s crash, and died of heart failure at 69 with no published obituary. Whether his collections included stolen jewels remains unknown. Jasper Kirksmith died by suicide at 78; a CIA response to Pederson's records request indicates classified files exist on him, suggesting he may have been an informant. Fannin retired after 36 years, his daughter noting he "didn't like things unfinished." Pederson concludes that the King of Diamonds "was next door the whole time."