#84 A FAMILY JEWEL ROBBER--COULD BE A NETFLIX MOVIE, SEASON 1
People are fascinated by the stories of jewel robbers because they often combine elements of glamour, danger and ingenuity. Jewel heists frequently take place in luxurious setting--museums, mansions or high-end shops--adding an air of sophistication to the crime. The robbers are often portrayed as daring and clever, using elaborate plans, cutting-edge tools or sheer audacity to outwit security systems or authorities. Such stories also tap into a universal intrigue with the forbidden. The idea of stealing something so valuable and rare, often without physical harm, creates a morally gray area that makes the criminal both villain and antihero. Additionally, the high stakes--valuable treasures, intense policework and possibly dramatic capture--make these tales thrilling and cinematic.
I decided to to divide my blog of Richard Pearson into two parts---not because he was an important or awesome person--in fact, he was exactly the opposite. Richard was a long-time criminal, responsible for over 350 armed robberies. (Fortunately, he was never charged with murder.) He served prison time for only a few of these crimes; ironically, his longest sentence of 10 years was for a jewel heist in which he didn't actually participate. Richard's 25 year criminal career received a lot of newspaper coverage as he associated with many nefarious individuals and there were many almost-laughable capers. That is why I am devoting a lot of undue space to Richard's story.
RICHARD "DICK" PEARSON
Richard “Dick" Duncan Pearson, born October 11, 1930,
in New York, was the youngest of the three sons of Philip Clifton Pearson and
Temple Whiteford Duncan. His father was a wealthy New York stock and bonds
trader and a keen yachtsman. When his father retired early and moved to south Florida
to indulge his sailing passion, Richard went too and lived with his parents
while he worked as a deckhand on a private vessel. In 1950, Richard enlisted
with the US Navy for four years (no further details here).
Richard was a guy who had everything going for
him—respected family, money, looks, personality. He was described as a “refined
charmer”, a “fashion plate given to slack pockets and the no-pleat Ivy League
look”, an avid collector of handguns and a fondness for fine jewelry. He owned
a boat, drove a Cadillac, lived in a two-story jungle-landscaped home. He moved
in the more elite circles of Palm Beach society; he had many women friends. But he was also associating
with those on the fringes of the Miami underworld. “The people in the Gold
Coast Burglar Club are a peculiar breed—money is for flash, for show, for
splashy high living.”
SETTING
THE STAGE FOR RICHARD’S TROUBLES
MIAMI—A BURGLAR’S PARADISE
South Florida became a burglar’s paradise for several reasons. The fabled Gold Coast climate and sun-and-surf lifestyle attracted the bejeweled and the moneyed gentry from the entire East Coast; and they, in turn, like flies to sugar, attracted rich burglars. Miami wealth, both imported and domestic, was undeniable. The Florida climate made it easy to be a burglar as sliding doors and screened pools could be opened simply. Thieves enjoyed spending their money and South Florida was a ready outlet for any pleasure money could buy. South Florida had a highly developed system of “fences”, middlemen who bought the stolen jewels and furs and could dispose of them at a profit; the recovery rate of stolen property in Florida was only 10%. Miami thieves were also convinced that their police and courts provided “easy” justice; if a thief was caught and convicted, a judge would let him post appeal bond; then the thief went out to steal some more. The system, said one frustrated detective was “steal and stall, stall and steal.”
The mid-1960s was the apex of jewel thievery. In 1963,
when a U.S. gem heist occurred on average every 32 seconds, crooks stole $41
million worth of insured precious and semiprecious stones. Diamonds were the
preferred gems. An estimated 3.5 million diamonds of 1/3 carat or more were
sold annually in the U.S. Abroad, jet-set Europeans, Arabs and Asians knew that
jewels held their value in uncertain times. Many seemingly legitimate jewel
merchants did double duty as fences; they asked no questions, routinely melted
down precious-metal settings, cut conspicuous gems to erase their identity, and
then intermixed stolen and honest merchandise.
THE WOMEN
Roberta: Sometime, likely in the late 1950s, Richard married Roberta (unknown last name), a "blonde well-known in the Beachboy cocktail lounges on Miami Beach”. In 1965, the press spotted the blonde Roberta Pearson visiting with Tony Ricci, the “Grand Old Man of the Mafia”—what was behind that friendship? By the time of Richard’s trial in 1966, he and Roberta were estranged, although she did attend the trial and the press described her as “the blonde, Mrs. Pearson, wearing a black dress and pink lipstick”. When she testified for just four minutes, she was dressed in a "somber black suit and platinum blonde wig." Richard said his wife had only visited him once in jail and he understood that divorce actions had been started although he hadn’t been served. Roberta officially divorced Richard in 1973. She may have become a Miami-Kendall real estate agent in the early 1970s. Her real first name might have been Helen.
Maxine: Another of Richard’s dubious female friends was Maxine Adams, 43, whom the press described as a “slightly dizzy blonde…who runs her home as a message center of sorts". Her advertisement was “Telephone Maxine and she can arrange to put you in contact with any number of people”. Maxine was an ex-convict who (weirdly noticed) “visited the A&P Supermarket in a bikini.” She married an ex-con counterfeiter who claimed to be a cemetery lot salesman. In 1965 Maxine was arrested in Palm Beach along with Richard Pearson when police stopped their car and found a suitcase full of burglar tools; Maxine, who claimed she didn’t know about the tools or guns and was only along for the ride, was acquitted after two trials.
Mary: Living at Maxine’s home was Mary Elaine Denison, a Miami ex-Playboy Bunny waitress, and Richard’s girlfriend of 10 months who was arrested with him for the 1965 Jordan Marsh jewelry robbery. At the hearing, the press was not kind to Denison. “She walks like she’s wearing a bunny tail. Very nice, this Mary Denison…She walked her Playboy Bunny walk down the hallway to the water fountain and people watched. She’s the kind people automatically watch, especially men. Very nice. Very good legs. A small girl, but chic. She went to the hard oak bench and people looked at her face now. Very good planes on the face. Jet hair. Dark eyes. She said she was scared—but not of the Grand Jury. “They ask me my name and was I ever married. Stuff like that. Nothing really. I don’t know anything” …She said she was scared because a man sent her a letter that he was going to get her and throw acid in her face. “All those creepy men hang around outside my place and wait for me to come out…these guys with beards and dirty clothes.” And Mary had strong views about the justice system. “I always thought they were supposed to be so fair and honorable. I’m learning really fast. The judges and prosecutors just want to get reelected. I wish I knew more about what’s in the law books. I’d like to learn. If they send me away, I think I’ll study it. I’d like to be a lawyer.” She said officials were harassing her only because of her association with Pearson. “Public opinion is against him, so they’re against me. They use the courts for their own ambition, their own selfish purposes, they don’t care about justice.” Mary smoked and drank water out of a bottle. For an hour, she sat there waiting, wondering if “they” were going to indict her. She crossed her legs and smoked and sipped water. Then one of the court officials came out, gave her a yellow slip of paper and told her she could go.” Mary Denison, however, had only good words for her boyfriend, Richard. “I don’t know why everybody is against him. He’s really very wonderful. He’s warm and considerate. He’s so good. He should have been a priest.”
BUSINESS ASSOCIATES
Night Club: For a brief time in the mid-1950s, Pearson had an
interest in the old Ciro’s Night Club in Miami Beach (in 1955, $7 would get you
a seat in Ciro’s so close to Frank Sinatra you could smell his aftershave;
other headliners in 1955-56 were Sammy Davis Jr and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong)
But Ciro’s reputation was a liability when hiring top draws for the nightclub. For
instance, when Pearson approached Carol Channing’s manager about her headlining at his club,
her first condition was a phone call or telegram assurance from a
designated person that Ciro’s was “a nice place.” (She also asked for $12,000 a
week, deluxe round-trip plane fare from California and a suite at the luxury
Fontainebleau Hotel. These conditions were too rich for Richard.) In March
1955, the IRS filed a $14,640 tax lien against Ciro’s for unpaid cabaret and
employment taxes. To Pearson’s apparent surprise, he discovered that Frankie
Din, a bigtime hood was one of his silent partners. So was John (Mimi) Capone,
brother of Al Capone. Another partner gave Pearson bum checks for the IRS. Said
Pearson later, “I got clipped for $60,000. But I am forgetting the whole thing.
These are a tough bunch of people.”
Broker: Pearson then
became a Miami yacht broker, a professional who facilitates the buying, selling
and chartering of luxury yachts. When acting for the seller, the broker would assess
the yacht’s value based on its condition, age, size, brand and market trends;
he would create listings, promote the yacht to potential buyers, negotiate the
price, handle the contracts and ensure compliance with local and international
regulations. When acting for the buyer, the broker would note the buyer’s
needs—intended use, budget, preference of style, size, features; he would then
locate a yacht, arrange for the sea trials and surveys to assess condition and
suitability. A broker needed a good knowledge of yachts, the marine industry
and market trends, needed strong negotiation skills and connections within the
yachting community. Richard was managing quite well until
Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1962 which changed the tax rules and made it
impossible for big corporations to write off yachts as a business expense. Richard
began calling himself a “boat salesman” but he listed no office address or
telephone number for this business; for two years he was not gainfully
employed.
Beachboys: Richard, aged 32, was associating with many shady Miami individuals. He was a “beachboy” pal of Jack (Murph the Surf) Murphy, Allan Kuhn and Roger Clark. They were described as tan, fit beach boys in their 20s, full of swagger and Rat Pack chic. Murphy, specifically, was an all-round talent. At age 15, he played violin for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; he was a world-class surfer, taught tennis and swimming. He was a movie stunt man and a high-tower trick diver in hotel aquatic shows. But he also fell in with local hustlers and thieves who robbed mansions along the Intercoastal Waterway; they relied on Murphy’s special talent—he would swim the jewels to a car on the mainland. Murphy became skilled at break-ins, quick getaways, car chases. (While the press would often glamorize surfer Murphy, he wasn’t such a good guy—in 1969, he was convicted of a double murder of two women whose weighted-down bodies were found in Whiskey Creek. In prison Murphy became a born-again Christian and after his 1986 release, he dedicated himself to prison ministry.)
JEWEL HEIST OF THE CENTURY
These three Miami beachboys--Kuhn, Murphy and Clark-- were jewel thieves (including the robbery and pistol-whipping of actress, Eva Gabor). But they were soon bored with mere personal thefts and felt that a museum heist could be a real adrenaline rush. On the night of October 29, 1964, Murphy and Kuhn crept onto the grounds of New York’s American Museum of Natural History.(Clark was in the get-away car.) The two men, “talented, brazen and sure-footed”, scaled a fence into the museum courtyard, scrambled up a fire escape to secure a rope to a pillar just above the fourth-floor windows of the J.P.Morgan Hall of Gems and Minerals. (Murphy said he almost fell when he startled a covey of pigeons that burst into flight) Clinging to the rope and edging along a slanting 14 inch window ledge, one of them swung to an open window, used his feet to lower the sash and they were in. Their first attempt to smash the display cases with a fat rubber mallet was loud and unsuccessful so they used glass cutters to score a circle which they covered with duct tape to prevent shattering and to muffle the sound. They timed their work with the guard’s predictable rounds and constantly swept the floor to hide evidence of the break-in. They worked carefully for many hours hitting one case after another, synchronizing the smashing with airplanes overhead.
Around midnight, Kuhn and Murphy gathered up about two dozen jewels—prize emeralds, diamonds, aquamarines—and several diamond bracelets, brooches and rings. Their haul included the milky-blue Star of India the orchid-red DeLong Star Ruby, the purplish-blue Midnight Star and the Eagle Diamond. The pair retraced their steps to the street and caught separate getaway taxis. Then Murphy went to a jazz club, Clark to visit friends in Connecticut and Kuhn picked up a 19-year-old girl, who was unwittingly convinced to fly to Florida with him carrying an overnight bag in which were stashed the jewels. The thieves planned to pass the gems to an airline friend for quick resale to wealthy and anonymous foreign collectors in Asia.
Eagle Diamond...16.25 carats (3.25 grams) one of the largest diamonds found in continental USA...never recovered and experts believed it was most likely recut into several smaller stones.
The theft was not discovered until the Museum opened at 10 a.m. the next morning. The Museum later admitted that their security was “not good”. The batteries in the display-case burglar alarm were corroded and had been dead for months. Windows to all rooms were left open 2 inches for ventilation and had no alarms. A huge steel safe was located near the display cases, but a museum spokesperson said "it was not the practice to put the jewels in the safe overnight." There were no guards in this room, and only seven patrolling the whole museum.
The Museum valued the stolen jewels at $410,000 ($4.2 million today) but really, they were priceless and because the premiums were prohibitive, none were insured. In fact, the museum did not even have a solid inventory of what was stolen. Experts said that the burglary could be one of the greatest of its kind in history because gems of that quality were no longer in private hands but only found in museums and among royal crown jewel collections (or secretly by "eccentric" collectors). But the experts also said that while the thieves stole priceless gems, their choice did not not indicate great knowledge as they took easily identifiable stones, difficult to cut, while ignoring other costly gems that would have been more salable on the black market.
The three young thieves were not discreet and less than 24 hours after the theft was discovered. they were arrested—two in Miami and one in New York. But before they were nabbed, Kuhn and Murphy showed the jewels to a fence who took the smaller, marketable stones for disposal but who "sneered at the three great glittering stones--the Star, Midnight and Delong Ruby; he called them Mastodon Teeth and liabilities as they could not be cut up, reshaped, sold or fenced. Kuhn and Murphy offloaded the jewels to their friend, Richard Pearson, for safe keeping. Richard buried them in the garden of his fancy house near King’s Bay Yacht Club.
Two weeks later, Pearson paid for his friendship with Kuhn and Murphy. Pearson, his wife, and another couple arrived home to find two gloved hoodlums, with stockings over their heads, waiting for them. The hoodlums beat all four, tied them up, ransacked the house and kept asking “Where’s the Star?” Pearson remained silent. To keep the episode from becoming a total loss, the intruders stole part of Richard’s gun collection and Mrs. Pearson’s eight-carat diamond ring valued at $15,000.
All kinds of charges were filed against the three beach boys in New York and Miami; their bonds were increased to the point where they couldn’t put up the cash. (Police set a trap for Kuhn and Murphy when they returned for their NY hearing. This time they were arrested for the earlier unsolved jewel robbery and pistol-whipping of actress Eva Gabor and this bail was set very high.). Kuhn decided to negotiate—the jewels for a reduced sentence. In January 1965 and after a crazy goose-chase, the police found the jewels in a locker in a Miami bus terminal; they were in a waterlogged suede pouch, a clue that the jewels had been stowed underwater. The Star of India, the Midnight Star, five emeralds, two aquamarines were found but not the Delong Ruby nor other lesser jewels.
In April 1965, Kuhn, Murphy and Clark were sentenced
to three-year terms at Rikers Island. (The Eva Gabor case was dropped as she
refused to testify).
A few days later, the Star of India went back on
exhibit, this time in a thick display case on the museum’s main floor; each
night the case pivots out of sight into a black two-ton safe.
RECOVERY
OF THE DELONG RUBY
But still missing was the DeLong Ruby and some other lesser jewels. Detectives gave the ruby only a 50% chance of recovery. Pearson had held back the ruby. In the spring of 1965, hard-pressed for money to pay numerous debts and to finance his affair with an unemployed Playboy Bunny, Richard hocked the ruby to the Chicago Cosa Nostra for a $18,000 personal loan.
Then in September 1965, an anonymous tipster said that an underworld Miami gang had the ruby and would surrender it for a ransom. The gemnappers had realized that the ruby was too hot to sell and feared that Kuhn etc. might rat them out for a more lenient sentence. This information was relayed to writer Francis Antel, who was researching a magazine series on famous jewelry thefts; Richard Pearson offered to act as middleman in the exchange. Antel called Pearson a “respectable stock broker” , someone he had spoken to many times. Multi-millionaire John MacArthur agreed to pay the $25,000 ransom ($21,000 payment plus $4000 “costs”) as a public service to prevent the ruby from being cut up. But MacArthur insisted that the ruby had to be verified before money was exchanged so an interesting plan was struck. Antel picked up the money, in 20 bundles of $100 and $50 bills, from MacArthur; he drove to a Miami phone booth for instructions where he was then told to send MacArthur to another phone booth off the Palm Beech turnpike. When MacArthur drove up, the phone was already ringing, and he was told to reach up over the booth door. He found nothing and was told to keep looking. “The man tore the top of the booth apart, then reaching over to the left, where the door closes, his fingers touched something that felt like a pebble. He pulled it down and in the brilliant sunshine, saw he was holding a brilliantly colored gem. As he held it, the sun struck it and the six rays of the star shone clearly.” A jeweler who had accompanied MacArthur, but did not know why he had been invited, weighed and verified the stone as the DeLong Ruby. Antel was now called and told to hand over the cash under a plan he had set up with Pearson; there was another wild series of instructions—leave his car, pick up another car in which he would find a waterproof pouch for the cash, then drive to a series of shopping centres, phone booths and restaurants; his final instruction was to hide the pouch of money in the toilet tank of a Howard Johnsons near the airport, then retrieve his own car outside. The gemnapper(s) escaped with the ransom money.
After it was recovered, the Ruby was taken to the First Marine Bank of Riviera and displayed under glass and under guard, in the lobby of the bank. More than 1000 men and women came to see it. (One woman asked if she could pick it up and kiss it as it was her 65th birthday and she was allowed.)
At the New York American Museum, the ruby would be displayed beneath ¾ inch of bulletproof glass along with the Star of India and Midnight Sapphire.
POLICE NOTICING PEARSON
Richard had been involved in criminal activity--selling property with a lien, vagrancy, driving without a license, burglary-- for a
while but he had escaped detection and arrest. Police now started to pay more attention to his
movements. For instance:
In April 1964, as Florida police were
questioning a convicted Chicago thief in a parking lot, Pearson walked up
carrying a tear gas gun in his pocket, he was charged with carrying a concealed
weapon, but the case was later tossed out.
Richard’s sleek-hulled yacht “Flipper”
received considerable police scrutiny in the spring of 1964 after a $850,000
strongarm robbery of a millionaire in the Bahamas. Specifically, police found a
red Volkswagon, like the one used in the getaway, had been rented to Pearson in
Nassau before the apparent escape by sea of the robbers.
In September, Pearson was
picked up on Miami Beach in the company of playboy-gambler Frank Rosenthal and
armed robber Gerald “Ding Dong” Curusiello. As the police started toward them,
they ran. A search of the beach turned up a .38 revolver, a pair of gloves and
a black cap wrapped in a napkin. Vagrancy charges against Pearson were dropped.
In February 1965, police were
tailing Gerald Carusiello, when he decided to make a run for it. Speeding away
at 110 mph, Carusiello tossed a revolver out the window. It turned out the car
was registered to Richard Pearson.
Pittsburgh police wanted to question Pearson about the June 24th murder of Abe Zeid, 57, a long-time hoodlum and racketeer. Zeid had just been convicted of blackmail when he was beaten--both legs broken, skull crushed, then was shot in the head. Pearson had been living with his girlfriend, Mary Denison, (under an alias as Mr. & Mrs. R.Pierce) in the Pittsburg-West Virginia area and was an associate of Zied’s, but police could not find him.
In March, Palm Beach police arrested Carusiello, Pearson and Maxine Adams as they drove through an exclusive neighbourhood. In the Cadillac that Pearson was driving were a pair of .38 revolvers, a screwdriver, a wirecutter, a crowbar, dark clothing, 3 pairs of gloves, a handcuff key, two Halloween masks. Pearson posted bond and was released.
CAUGHT
Jordon Marsh in Miami was marketed as Florida’s high fashion department store and “the store with Florida flair.”
During the night of Sunday July 18, 1965, the store was looted by a team of burglars. They cleaned out display cases of valuable gems, then used portable torches to peel off two safe doors and steal a cache of jewels worth $150,000. But later that week, an informer called the FBI office, described a Sabena Airline flight bag, said it was in Locker 706 at the Miami Grey Bus Terminal and would be picked up in the next few hours. Five Miami detectives, posing as waiting passengers, staked out the Terminal. At 6:45 am, Richard Pearson drove up in a white Ford, parked in a taxi zone, and while his girlfriend and ex-Playboy bunny Mary Elaine Denison waited in the car, Pearson went to the lockers just inside the station’s glass door. (This locker was five away from the locker where the Star of India had been retrieved.) The officers waited until Pearson pulled out a blue and white Sabena Airlines Flight Bag and then arrested him and Denison. Store officials said most of the stolen jewelry was in the flight bag and only a few uncut stones and diamond rings were missing; most of the watches, necklaces and bracelets still carried the Marsh store price tags. Also in the flight bag were three pairs of socks, probably used by the burglars as gloves when they cut open the two safes; there were no fingerprints at the scene. And tellingly, Pearson had burns on both hands, “the sort of burns a safecracker working with an acetylene torch might get.” When caught, Pearson said a friend had asked him to pick up the flight bag, but he would not name the “friend” in fear of “getting bumped off.” It was reported that “Mary Denison, 21 and bosomy in a pink pullover and skin-tight toreador pants took a husky swing at a photographer while she was being booked at Miami Police Headquarters. She missed.” The two were arraigned and bond set at $110,000 each; this was later dropped to $25,000 for Pearson and $10,000 for Denison. There had been a similar $100,000 burglary at Burdine’s department Store in Dadeland Mall the previous week, but there was no evidence to connect to Pearson.
Already out on bond for possession of burglary tools in Palm Beach, Pearson was then arrested in September, Macon, Georgia for allegedly drilling through the wall of a jewelry store there. Among the $8000 in tools found in his car was a diamond-toothed drill, used for making holes in reinforced concrete and steel and a gun with a silencer. This was the first time that Richard spent a few days behind bars. Also found in his possession were seven of the $100 marked bills from the DeLong Ruby ransom. In November 1965, a Grand Jury decided that Pearson should be charged for the DeLong ransom.
As Pearson's various crimes were in different locations, courts argued over which jurisdiction (federal or state) had the right to set his bond (which now totaled $175,000), but that was mostly moot as Richard was claiming bankruptcy and unable to pay. While she did attend her husband’s trial, Roberta “wagged her blonde head negatively” when asked if she had any money to help Richard in his appeals. Their South Dade house, valued at $50,000 but with a $42,000 mortgage, was in her name. (She was trying to sell it for $100,000) The $3500 Cadillac was in her name. Roberta disposed of his boat for $3000. Richard said he had a $7500 judgement against him from his first wife (no idea who this was--Helen?) and he owed $700 to a car rental firm. The US District Judge refused to declare Pearson a pauper because then the government would have to cover his legal expenses so with no bail money, Richard was sent back to jail to await his various trials.
For the Jordan Marsh jewelry robbery, Pearson, aged 35, was found guilty of break and entry, grand larceny and receiving stolen property, and he was sentenced to five years. (Girlfriend Mary Denison was acquitted. She wasn’t present when the jury gave its guilty verdict.) Richard stood trial for the ruby ransom, was found guilty of possessing, concealing and disposing of the DeLong Ruby in interstate commerce and was sentenced to ten years. (Interesting that the three men who actually took part in the heist—Kuhn, Murphy and Clark- only received three year sentences.) Richard was sentenced to 16 years, (10 years and 6 years probation) and sent to the Federal Prison in Atlanta, a low-security prison for male inmates. On hearing his sentence, Richard slumped and uttered a deep sigh.
To be continued
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