Diamond Doris

Growing up during the Depression in the segregated coal town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, Doris Payne was told her dreams were unattainable for poor Black girls like her. After being thrown out of a jewelry store when a white person arrived, Doris used magic tricks to shoplift jewelry from local stores. Over the course of six decades, she became a world-class jewel thief, daringly pulling off numerous diamond robberies and then fencing the stolen gems to Hollywood celebrities. Doris’ criminal exploits went unsolved well into the 1970s, when she was arrested after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars. Today, at 87, Doris, lives in Atlanta, and her story is being made into a motion picture starring Tessa Thompson. She sums up her adventurous career best: “It beat being a teacher or a maid.”