9/26/2023 0 Comments Uncut jewels![]() ![]() Their biggest prize was the Star of India, a 563-carat sapphire, the largest gem-quality star sapphire ever discovered, which had been donated by Morgan himself. They also carted away two engraved emeralds, two aquamarines, a number of uncut diamonds, and several bracelets, brooches, and rings. Their haul included the 100-carat star ruby donated by Edith Haggin DeLong and the 116-carat Midnight Sapphire. Using a glass cutter, duct tape, and a hammer, the thieves took two dozen of the most valuable of them. Morgan and other Gilded Age benefactors, the collection of the American Museum of Natural History included some of the rarest gems in the world. They then descended by rope through an open window into the Hall of Gems a floor below. As Clark stayed behind in the getaway car and communicated by walkie-talkie, Kuhn and Murphy timed the rounds of the museum guards. Kuhn and Murphy entered the fifth-floor o ffice window of Colin Turnbull, a curator of African ethnology, who kept a harpsichord by his desk to play at lunchtime. Scaling a fence at West Eighty-first Street, then an exterior staircase, then sidestepping along a hundred-foot-high ledge, at around 9 p.m. Oliver, director of the Museum of Natural History, inspecting the case that held jewels stolen from the museum, 1964. Morgan Hall of Gems and Minerals, at the time an antiquated fourth-floor room of open windows and unalarmed cases, was an easy mark. Whitlock (who had been the curator of mineralogy at the museum from 1918 to 1941), all the while searching for targets. ![]() They took up an expensive penthouse suite at an Upper West Side hotel as they patronized jazz clubs and passed around a copy of The Story of the Gems by Herbert P. Flush from these capers, the gang lived large in New York. He had also used his aquatic skills to swim away from the many mansions he looted along the Intracoastal Waterway. Living in Miami, Murphy had helped popularize California surf culture on the East Coast. By the time they targeted the museum, they were accomplished swimmers, aerialists, and burglars. ![]() Allan Kuhn, Roger Clark, and Jack Roland Murphy-a champion wave-rider known as “Murph the Surf”-had that rare combination of talents. By the next morning, they had pulled o ff the biggest jewelry heist in U.S. O n the evening of October 29, 1964, a trio of beach boys sidled their white Cadillac up to the American Museum of Natural History. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |