Dorris Payne | Love and Death | 3

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It's August 20th, 1974, in the Nice Cote d'Azur airport.

Located on the Riviera, it's one of the busiest hubs in France.

Outside, deep blue Mediterranean waters splash against the rocky shore.

The view is postcard perfect, but Dorris Payne isn't paying any attention.

She's too focused on appearing nonchalant, sitting quietly at her gate and waiting for her flight back to New York.

She tries not to fidget with the half-million-dollar ring hiding under her glove, the one she just stole right out from under the world's most famous jeweler.

When she sees two Air France security guards heading straight for her, Doris' first impulse is to run, but she knows she's boxed in the airport.

So she deploys her usual tactic, play dumb and be overly polite.

She greets the men cordially, pretending not to know what they want, but the guards aren't interested in playing her game.

They simply motion for her to follow them and lead Dorris to what looks like an interrogation room.

Bare, cream-colored walls, a cold metal table and matching chairs.

The wheels in Doris' mind spin at top speed.

No matter what, she can't let the guards find the ring concealed under her glove.

She keeps them distracted with conversation while wriggling it off her finger under the table.

When one of the guards tells Dorris she'll be strip searched, it takes everything she has to suppress her panic and keep a straight face.

She needs somewhere to hide the ring in this totally empty room.

Thinking quickly, she asks for a tissue.

Then, while pretending to blow her nose, she wraps the ring in the wad of paper and sets it aside.

Good, but not good enough.

She doesn't just want to throw the thing away, it's worth more than a house.

She stalls some more, delaying the strip search.

Not only does she say that she feels violated, she complains that it's cold in the room.

So all while maintaining a polite, modest veneer, Doris gets the guards to agree that she can hand them one article of clothing at a time instead of taking everything off at once.

She starts with her pantyhose.

The security guards inspect them, then give her time to put them back on before she removes her skirt.

That's when Dorris realizes, the safest place to keep the ring is somewhere they've already searched.

Now that they've shaken out her tights, they won't bother to look at them again.

As she rolls the pantyhose back up her legs, she slips the ball of tissue inside.

She feels like a magician making the stolen ring disappear.

After that, it's a cake walk.

She lets the guards check her clothes one by one.

They don't find what they're looking for, but that doesn't mean Dorris is free to go just yet.

She's taken to another room to wait for the French police.

She keeps up her polite act, and with some light pleading, convinces one of the guards to fetch her a needle and thread from her purse.

While pretending to fix her hem, she loops the thread around the stolen ring and stitches it to the inside of her skirt.

The police arrive and search Doris again, but they can't find the ring either.

The cops are sure they've got the right woman, but the only evidence that a crime's taken place has vanished into thin air.

So it's a standoff.

One Doris Payne is determined to win.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In the 1950s, Dorris Payne remade herself, going from a single mother of two on the verge of poverty to one of the country's most successful jewel thieves.

With confidence, force of will, and more than a little luck, she turned her life into a thrill ride worthy of the silver screen.

While she counted on herself above anyone else, she shared her success with her longtime business partner and boyfriend, Babe.

He helped find buyers for her stolen merchandise, took care of her, and connected her to figures high up in the Cleveland underworld.

By the 1960s, Dorris Payne was a force to be reckoned with.

But despite the skills she'd honed over years, Doris' chosen field was no walk in the park.

As a black woman, she faced discrimination whether she worked inside or outside the system.

The racial tension that permeated the US also extended to the criminal underworld.

And even with her years of experience, Doris' insatiable appetite for fine jewelry led her to make impulsive, reckless decisions when she should have known better.

These choices would take her further from the family she adored and tempted her with the lifestyle of her dreams at enormous cost.

Eventually, she ended up in a place where she could no longer rely on her loved ones.

She hit her limit, but still continued pushing, throwing herself into dangerous situations without any upside.

Then, on a dime, her tale went from a Bonnie and Clyde love story to a lonely, desperate tragedy.

This is episode three in our four-part series on Dorris Payne, Love and Death.

It's the early 1960s, about 15 years before Dorris Payne is arrested at the Nice Airport.

Neon lights bathe the Las Vegas strip in all the colors of the rainbow.

Now, in her early 30s, Doris strolls through the city, arm in arm with her business partner and lover, Harold Braunfield, who goes by Babe.

Dorris gawks at the towering buildings and finds herself tempted by the slot machine chimes ringing out from the casinos.

A whole city full of people dying to get rich.

These are her people.

She's almost disappointed to leave the noisy streets, but the chance to cozy up to Babe in a plush theater is more than worth it.

They've flown out to Vegas first class to see the Rat Pack live in concert.

Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

put on the best show Dorris has ever seen.

She and Babe crack up at the jokes and swing their hips to the big band music.

But even during the best of times, Doris' mind is always on business.

She makes mental notes of every diamond ring, bangle and necklace that catches her eye.

On the ride home, she tells Babe she could get used to living in Sin City and make a killing while she's at it.

As always, Babe's intoxicated by Doris' confidence and enthusiasm.

But this time, he doesn't encourage her.

He advises her to target someplace else.

Not only is security in Vegas top-notch, organized crime has a total grip on the city.

They wouldn't take kindly to an outsider like Doris moving in on their turf.

Instead, he advises her to try Los Angeles.

There, he promises she'll have more room to breathe, and just about as many opportunities to pull heists.

Plus, it's just as glitzy as Vegas.

Enough said.

Dorris already sees herself as glamorous and loves turning heads, imagining that her admirers on the street mistake her for a movie star or some other celebrity.

So, she may as well start rubbing shoulders with the real deal.

Within months, she's on the West Coast, living the high life in an extended stay motel.

Babe comes to visit occasionally, but for the most part, Dorris is on her own.

Back in Ohio, her mother, Clemmie, takes care of the kids, or else they stay with their father in West Virginia.

That's the biggest downside of Doris' job.

She spends most of her time away from her children.

By this point, her eldest, Ronald, is in his late teens.

Though no one's told him directly, he has an idea of what his mother does for a living, and he doesn't like it.

But Rhonda, who's about four years younger, deeply admires her mom.

She thinks Dorris is a badass.

From Doris' perspective, not being able to take care of her children day to day is a harsh sacrifice, but it's one she's willing to make.

She grew up poor, leaning on her mother and despising her abusive father.

Her children, on the other hand, get to be raised by Clemmie without fear and without having to worry about going hungry.

Sharing money and the luxury she never had growing up is Doris' way of showing love.

Still, living by herself in downtown Los Angeles is an all sacrifice.

Free from the obligation of caring for a family, she gets to live out her movie star fantasy.

By day, she dons figure-hugging dresses, designer sunglasses, and tasteful diamonds to strut down Sunset Boulevard.

She doesn't have anywhere to be, she just likes drawing the eyes of passersby.

She enjoys watching men and women lower their shades to get a good look at her.

She likes to think they've never seen a black woman so well dressed before.

Whenever Dorris isn't busy showing off, she's cleaning out jewelry stores in Beverly Hills.

Rodeo Drive becomes one of her favorite haunts and a regular source of income.

Her technique hasn't evolved too much over the years.

She still poses as a customer, distracts the clerk with conversation, then swipes whatever ring she can get her hands on, and disappears without a trace.

Now though, she's had even more practice.

She knows just when to strike, when her mark can be caught completely unaware.

She gets away with it for years.

The average caper isn't worth too much.

If she grabs any diamonds under two carats, Dorris sells them herself.

She spends her nights wheeling and dealing at jazz clubs, passing off the lowest quality diamonds to undiscerning patrons who aren't paying attention to things like clarity, color and cut.

Then she spends her money the way she always has, splurging on gifts for her family and keeping up with the trendiest, most expensive fashions.

No easy feat in Los Angeles.

Life starts to turn into one never-ending party.

Days are spent stealing, strutting her stuff on sunset and relaxing by the beach.

Nights are for dancing, smoking cannabis and flipping her gems.

Even with a schedule like that, Doris makes time for vacation.

Whenever she nails a big score, she calls Babe down from Cleveland.

He's always happy to fly to California for a date with Doris and help move her best loot.

Babe has a wife and because Doris has never wanted to get married, she's found comfort in keeping him at a distance.

Now that they've been together for years though, she feels that distance shrink.

It's all getting too complicated and she reacts by pushing Babe away.

She can't help but see every man as a potential danger, the way her father was to her mother.

In late 1965, she and Babe meet up in San Francisco.

While Babe slumbers in their four-star hotel room that night, 35-year-old Doris takes the elevator up to the Ritzie restaurant on the top floor.

There, she sips a drink by herself and looks out at the Bay Area skyline.

She doesn't have much time to ponder her life before a well-dressed man invites her to dine with him.

At the end of the meal, he asks for Dorris' number and she gives it to him.

She soon finds out that he's the financial minister for Molly in West Africa.

The next day, she goes out with the minister a second time.

She tells Babe about her date, probing him for the possessive jealousy she saw on her father.

It's both a relief and a bit frustrating that Babe seems completely unaffected.

In fact, his thoughts turn to money first, suggesting that the minister might be Dorris' next mark.

She dismisses the idea, she doesn't want the man's money.

Still, the exchange leaves Doris feeling a little happier, secure in her independence and confident that Babe isn't getting too attached.

But later that same year, in November 1965, her freedom is threatened in a totally different way.

Dorris is lounging in her LA motel room when she gets a frantic phone call from her son.

She knows right away it's important.

Ronald has just finished basic training for the army and is stationed in Germany.

He wouldn't call her over nothing.

Her suspicions are confirmed when he tells her that he just read an article he thinks is about her in Jet Magazine.

Curious and a little worried, Doris grabs a copy as soon as she can.

Ronald is absolutely right.

The piece is about a Pasadena jewelry theft which netted Doris a $4,000 diamond ring.

The story is a roller coaster.

At first, Doris is relieved to read that the LAPD arrested another woman for the crime, Marguerite Mays, the ex-wife of baseball legend Willie Mays, and a recognizable celebrity.

Usually Doris would love being mistaken for someone famous, but as she keeps reading, the other shoe drops.

Marguerite has already been cleared of all charges thanks to a rock-solid alibi.

Now, it's common knowledge that a well-dressed black woman is robbing jewelry stores around LA.

Doris knows this kind of press can't be good for her.

She decides the article is her cue to move on from LA, but it turns out that the news has reached her just a little bit too late.

Before she can get to the airport, the police pound on her door and she's arrested for the Pasadena robbery.

When she finally gets her phone call, of course it's to Babe.

Trying to suppress the panic in his voice, he tells her to keep her mouth shut and sets her up with an experienced Los Angeles lawyer.

The attorney arrives at the police station and assures Doris the cops have nothing on her.

After the Marguerite Mays debacle, they're just looking for a black woman to pin the theft on and Doris fits the bill.

Luckily, the ring the cops are looking for has long been sold off, so there's nothing physical they can use to tie her to the crime.

The only reason she's still locked up is because the authorities are under a ton of pressure to find the culprit now that Marguerite's been cleared.

Even without evidence, the police keep Doris in custody for a few days.

Thanks to her lawyer, she's eventually able to get out on bail.

She tries to fly back to West Virginia, but for some reason, the FBI gets involved.

Agents detain her during a layover in Arizona.

Once again, Doris has to call Babe for help.

After that, she's hauled back to LA, where she's eventually let out on bail a second time.

For a moment, the nightmare seems to be over, but her luck goes from bad to worse.

People start paying attention to Dorris' back-and-forth trips to jail because of the whole Marguerite Mays debacle, drawing the eyes of a ravenous media.

All of a sudden, Dorris' picture is in major newspapers, and she's terrified she'll become a household name.

She might like it when people assume she's a movie star, but actual notoriety would be a disaster.

A jewel thief who can't blend in is no thief at all.

That said, the attention on the case isn't all bad for Dorris.

There's talk that Marguerite Mays is planning to sue the Los Angeles police over the mix-up, and the LAPD desperately wants to avoid any more bad publicity right now.

A couple of months ago, an officer made international headlines after striking a black man who was pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence.

The public backlash triggered the Watts Rebellion, a six-day series of riots that resulted in 34 deaths, as well as thousands of injuries and arrests.

And the police response to the unrest further tarnished the department's reputation.

In other words, the LAPD is feeling the heat of public scrutiny and arresting a black woman without any evidence doesn't make them look any better.

So, to make matters go away, the city rushes Dorris' case through the courts and the judge ends up letting her off.

No matter how it happened, Dorris is relieved to put the matter behind her.

The only nagging issue is that her picture's been in the paper, attached to stories about a jewel heist.

Doris knows that before she steals again, she'll have to be completely sure that she's not recognized by anyone.

She may have to lay low for years before the heat dies down.

But as is often the case with Doris Payne, her attempts to fly under the radar only draw her deeper into the criminal underworld.

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It's 1966, and 36-year-old Dorris Payne is overjoyed to be boarding a plane heading out of Los Angeles.

She leans back in the first class cabin and sips an iced tea.

In just a few hours, she'll be in Ohio, reunited with her beloved mother and her lover babe, safe from the unrest brewing in California.

But the racial tension she encountered in LA isn't limited to the West Coast.

The home she bought in Cleveland a decade ago lies in a predominantly black neighborhood called Hough.

For years, residents there have dealt with high prices, overcrowding and incidents of police harassment.

Then, on July 18th, 1966, a white bar owner refuses to give a black customer a glass of water.

In response, an angry crowd gathers outside, throwing rocks and vandalizing the business.

Police are unable to quell the unrest, which turns into a string of riots that claim four lives.

Doris lives right in the middle of the chaos.

The experience leaves her shaken, and she decides it's time to move, to find a safer area for herself and her mother.

She has her eyes on a place in Shaker Heights, an upscale neighborhood where few black families own homes.

Her dream house is a brick Tudor-style place with two stories and a driveway.

But the price tag is a major speed bump.

At $20,000, it's almost triple the median household income at the time.

Dorris' issue isn't the asking price per se.

In fact, she has more than $20,000 sitting snug in her bank account already.

She could buy the home outright, but not without prompting questions from the seller about how a black woman got a hold of so much cash.

The less conspicuous route would be to take out a loan, except that too would force her to answer some uncomfortable questions from the bank about her occupation.

She's between a rock and a hard place.

So Babe jumps in to take the wheel, and Doris is happy to let him help.

It just so happens that over the years, he sold several of Dorris' stolen jewels to her bank's president, Maury Nidus.

Babe really does know how to make connections.

On the strength of those transactions, he sets up a private meeting between himself, Doris and Maury.

Behind closed doors, Maury asks Dorris how much she makes from her line of work.

Dorris slides Babe a glance, worried this is some kind of setup, but Babe just nods at her to go ahead.

Doris tells Maury that she pulls in around $50,000 per year.

That same day, Doris walks out of the bank with a loan for her dream home.

After she moves to Shaker Heights, she and Babe start entertaining potential buyers for her stolen jewels at her new house.

This gets Dorris in deeper than ever with Ohio's underworld, and she even brushes shoulders with the Lenardo brothers, the two top dogs in the Cleveland Mafia.

For a while, Babe handles all the details with the mob, but one day Doris goes with him to pick up some cash from an old jewelry sale.

She still hasn't done a job since the Marguerite Mays debacle, so she could really use the cash.

The two of them walk into a bail bondsman office run by the younger Leonardo, Frank.

At first, Frank acts like Doris doesn't exist.

He hands Babe an envelope with some of the cash he owes, minus around 10 grand.

He asks if he can pay the rest later.

Dorris ruffles at Frank's coldness, but keeps quiet.

She's dealt with this kind of treatment before and tells herself to let it go.

Focus on the money.

Still, she feels a swell of pride when Babe checks Frank, telling the mob boss to direct his questions to Doris, not him.

Frank scoffs, throwing Dorris a look of disgust that almost sends her into a rage.

Then he calls her the N-word.

Fast as lightning, Babe slams a right hook right into Frank's jaw.

Dorris stands, stock still while a clerk down the hall runs for the door.

The mob boss narrows his eyes, rubs his chin, and walks out of the room without a word.

When he's gone, Doris suppresses a satisfied smile.

More than anything else, Babe has done for her over the years.

This is what proves to her he's a man.

But she also knows full well that both of them are in danger.

Babe shakes like a leaf as he and Doris run back to the car.

His mouth runs a mile a minute, planning out loud.

He needs to put his wife in a hotel and lay low for a while in case Frank comes looking for revenge.

He asks if he can stay a few nights at Dorris' house, but she stops him short.

No way.

She loves Babe for punching Frank and absolutely thinks that's what he should have done.

Even so, nothing will move her red line.

No man will ever sleep over at her house.

Babe is dumbstruck but he knows better than to press the issue.

He drives off and goes into hiding.

Neither Doris nor his wife Myra hear from him over the next few days.

After a week of no news, Dorris takes matters into her own hands.

She puts on her finest diamonds, wraps a fox fur around her shoulders, and visits a bar owned by Frank's older brother, Dominic Leonardo, the real top dog in Cleveland.

The way Doris sees it, Frank still owes her 10 grand, and she knows the mob has rules about the family paying their debts.

She breezes into the bar with her head held high.

Without so much as a hello to anyone else, she goes straight to the back office.

She can just make out the top of Dominic's head peeking out over a mountain of paperwork.

She knocks on the door frame, and after a moment, he steps out to meet her.

She can tell he has no idea who she is, so she gives him a shortened version of her confrontation with Frank.

Dominic's lip curls.

He tells Doris to wait just a moment, then disappears into the back office.

Doris can hear him arguing with Frank through the walls.

A few minutes later, Dominic re-emerges with Dorris' money in an envelope.

He hands it to her without a word and turns his back.

That's good enough for Dorris.

She doesn't need their friendship.

She just needs them to respect her.

She smiles and leaves the bar feeling like she's in a gangster film.

From that point on, she and the Leonardo brothers have a new kind of relationship.

They respect her as a thief and do business with her directly rather than going through babe as a middle man.

They even have a few meals together.

Over time, Doris grows to trust the Linnardos.

She knows she can count on the mob's help if she ever gets in a tight spot.

Though the tension with the mob resolves peacefully, the encounter changes babe, and not because of the Linnardos.

He tells Doris that he's genuinely hurt, that after almost a decade together, after he risked his life defending her honor, Doris still won't let him sleep in her bed.

He can't understand it.

But Dorris is terrified of any man controlling her.

And no matter how long she's been with babe, she still sees herself as a free agent, single and unattached.

But things prove more complicated than Doris ever expected.

One night after the mob business clears up, Doris meets a friend of a friend at a bar, a tall black man named Kenneth.

She admires his taste in rings, and he charms her with some thoughtful conversation.

When he admits to selling drugs for a living, that he's got a couple of arrests under his belt, she's put off a little at first, but knows she isn't in any position to judge.

The two of them party all night.

Doris smokes some weed and ends up high as a kite, too gone to drive home.

So Kenneth takes her car and drops her off.

Of course, she won't let him sleep over, so he borrows her ride to get himself home, promising to return it the next morning.

But on his way home, Kenneth gets pulled over.

The police nab him using an obscure old statute, one that's never actually been enforced.

Apparently, it's illegal for a convict to enter Dorris' neighborhood, Shaker Heights, for any reason.

The next day, Kenneth is let out on bail, but he still has to face court.

Weeks later, Doris is called to court to testify that she knows Kenneth, that she invited him to visit her in Shaker Heights, and he still racks up a trespassing charge.

The whole episode infuriates Dorris, especially because she likes Kenneth and wants to keep seeing him.

Through Babe, she knows the police in her area and the local prosecutor.

She's not used to her friends being harassed, and she feels betrayed by a system she thought she'd mastered.

Around the same time, Babe starts calling Doris late at night just to check in on her, asking if she's out with other men.

It's oddly possessive behavior from a man who's always respected her boundaries in the past.

All of a sudden, it hits her.

Babe must be the one to blame for Kenneth being pulled over.

He's been watching her.

He denies it when she accuses him outright, but she doesn't believe his excuses.

This is exactly what she's worried about all these years.

In some ways, it's what she's been waiting for.

Babe is jealous.

He's interfering in her life, trying to dominate her.

This is a major trigger, a turnoff for Dorris, and she stops inviting Babe to her house and pumps the brakes on anything romantic.

Theirs is a business relationship now, nothing more.

The move is as petty as it is effective.

It drives Babe crazy because he knows Dorris is still seeing Kenneth.

All of a sudden, his insecurity flares.

He's gained some weight over the past few years, and so he decides he can win Doris back by getting in better shape.

But instead of working out and eating better, he takes drastic measures, getting an experimental tummy tuck procedure.

It's supposed to be a simple one-day operation, but there are problems.

A couple of days after the procedure, Babe's primary care doctor phoned Dorris to tell her Babe isn't taking care of himself.

The doctor thinks Babe has a blood clot, but he's refusing to go to the hospital.

Babe knows most of the administration, and he's embarrassed about what they'll say if they find out he had a tummy tuck.

Worried about him, Dorris tries to convince Babe to follow the doctor's advice, but he won't budge.

His reputation is everything to him, and his masculinity is a key part of that.

After some back and forth, the doctor puts Babe on blood thinners as a compromise and sends him home to recover.

Doris doesn't see him for a few weeks, but he calls often to check in on her.

One night, the phone rings and Doris rolls her eyes.

She picks up, and before Babe can even say hello, she assures him she's not out with any strange men.

To her surprise, it's not Babe on the other end of the line.

It's his wife, Myra.

In a strained voice, she drops a bombshell on Doris.

Babe's dead.

The news flattens Doris.

She drops the phone and starts crying harder than she ever has in her life.

She spends the next few weeks doing some belated soul searching.

Dorris realizes she doesn't let many people get close to the real her.

Looking back, Babe was really her number one.

For many years, he was all she needed.

Now that he's gone, it's all so clear to her how hatred of her father has twisted her relationships with men, how Babe protected her and loved her, and how in their final months together, they pushed each other away.

More than anything, Doris wants to go back to do it all over again, to open up and truly give Babe her heart.

But before he died, she'd been too afraid to even admit to herself that she'd loved him.

Doris has to confront her true feelings and try to move on alone.

Not just in love, but in business.

She hasn't stolen anything since her picture hit the paper two years ago, but she's itching to get back in the game.

Now, she'll have to find a new buyer for her stolen jewels.

Jobs from here on out will be much riskier without Babe's connections to fall back on.

To survive, Doris Payne will have to embody a true master thief.

No slip ups, no mistakes.

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It's 1968, and the sun shines high over West Virginia.

Dorris Payne, age 38, rolls into her old stomping grounds in her Cadillac Fleetwood, winding through streets lined with black oaks, locusts and tupelo trees.

She's there to reconnect with her daughter, Rhonda.

Now 16, Rhonda's been living with her father mostly of late, but she wants to move in with Dorris in Cleveland instead.

Doris' mom, Clemmie, has recently remarried and moved out, so Doris is glad for the company, especially now that Babe is gone.

Once Doris gets back to Ohio with her daughter, things start off on a high note.

Rhonda is awed by Doris' fancy house and her new bedroom, decked out with the fluffiest pillows money can buy.

But she's also a teenager and getting used to asserting her independence.

One night, she tries to go out late with her friends and Dorris stops her.

All of a sudden, Rhonda declares she wants to go back to West Virginia to live with her father again.

Doris is hurt, but she's used to living on her own.

The very next morning, she drops Rhonda off at the bus station and kisses her goodbye.

It only takes a few days for Rhonda to decide she'd rather live under her mother's rules and return to Shaker Heights.

From that point on, she does what Dorris asks.

Feeling like she might have a knack for parenting, Dorris decides to commit whole hog to the quiet life.

She has enough in the bank for now, and ever since her picture was all over the papers, she's been trepidatious about stealing again.

Instead, she spends her days getting to know her teenage daughter better and getting closer to her new boyfriend, Kenneth.

While the relationship isn't free of drama or arguments, she appreciates that Kenneth never raises his voice to her.

He respects her, even after she tells him about her criminal past, and he repays that respect with trust.

It's the closest she's ever felt to a man, but it's still not enough for Dorris to change her ways.

Even though Kenneth is clearly crazy about her, she won't let him stay the night at her place.

Some boundaries are permanent, and so are some habits.

By 1974, Dorris is ready to get back on the horse.

She can't go down the boring straight and narrow any longer.

But like Babe taught her, preparation always comes first.

To shake off the rust and get back into character, she takes a three-week vacation to New York, staying in a pricey hotel she used to visit with Babe.

While there, she studies the high-class women strutting up and down Fifth Avenue.

Dorris is over 40 now and knows that people don't look at her the same as they used to.

She notices all the small ways that wealthy middle-aged women carry themselves differently from the younger ones.

She starts dressing more mature, with understated patterns and more opulent jewelry.

She brushes up on the latest fashion magazines, and learns how to fully embody a stereotype.

Once again, she becomes the kind of woman no one expects to be a thief.

All the work is in service of her biggest score yet.

While making the front page may have stifled her prospects in the US, Dorris knows she won't be recognized overseas.

She doesn't have much experience in Europe, but she's seen staggering images of Monaco in old movies.

A sovereign state in the south of France, Monaco's home to some of the wealthiest people in the world.

And smack dab in the middle of its shopping district, Monte Carlo, is Cartier, one of the finest jewelry stores there is.

We already know what happens next.

In the summer of 1974, Doris flies to Monaco to steal a Cartier diamond ring.

She gets away with the loot, but is detained at the airport.

The police can't find the ring, but the Cartier employees are almost positive Dorris is the thief.

So the cops take her to a kind of holding area, not a jail, more like a cottage where she's confined to a bedroom.

The other rooms are occupied by other foreigners accused of crimes.

And if it wasn't for the circumstances, Dorris would probably quite enjoy her stay.

From her balcony, she can see the glittering sea and even hear faint music drifting in from the nearby city.

A kindly old couple brings plenty of food to her door throughout the day.

For Dorris, it's almost like vacation, at least for the first few weeks.

But over a month in holding, with no word about her case, she starts to worry.

Eventually, a serious blonde woman from the US.

Embassy starts visiting Dorris to talk to her about the case.

She lets slip that the only other customer in the jewelry store, a white man Doris thought looked like a hippie, had been following her around.

He was actually Jan Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine.

He told the police that he'd never seen a black woman in Monte Carlo before, so he followed Doris inside the Cartier store to find out who she was.

Afterwards, he gave a solid description of her to the cops.

Dorris is livid, but tries to stay positive.

As long as the police don't find the stolen ring, they can't prove anything, and they can't hold her forever, or so she thinks.

Week by week though, she starts to lose her certainty.

After nine long months stuck in the cottage, she decides she needs an escape plan.

The night before a scheduled visit from the US.

Embassy employee, Dorris skips dinner, then skips breakfast the next morning too, and curls up on her bed, clutching her stomach like she's in terrible pain.

The blonde woman arrives, finds the scene just as Doris intends her to, and takes her to a hospital.

Doris makes sure to bring along a change of clothes, including the skirt that still has the stolen Cartier ring sewn inside the hem.

At the hospital, Dorris lies in bed, moaning softly and waiting for a doctor to come check in.

A nurse, who's also a nun, comes in to comfort her.

They get to chatting about Doris' jewelry.

She's been wearing her finest pieces ever since she was arrested.

The nun is particularly enchanted by Doris' wedding band, a key conversation piece she wears when pulling a job.

The nun tells Doris wistfully that while she's married to Jesus, she's always wanted to wear an engagement ring like that.

Doris seizes her opportunity.

She hands the ring to the nun, telling her she'll have to take her jewelry off when they x-ray her anyway.

Then, while the nun admires the diamond, Dorris slips into the bathroom and changes into her sophisticated clothes.

She manages to get back out into the hall without the nun or anyone else noticing.

With her nose in the air and her high class costume on, Dorris has no trouble walking right out the front door of the hospital.

A driver in a luxury car is waiting outside for customers and Dorris spins him a yarn about being stranded without her husband or wallet.

She begs him to take her to Paris, swearing she'll be able to pay him back later.

It's a long drive, over 500 miles, which means a major potential windfall for the driver, if he takes her at her word.

And people always do seem to take Doris at her word.

He opens the door and ushers her inside.

Not for the first time, Doris imagines herself as a character in a movie as she rolls through the picturesque French countryside.

In fact, movie star is exactly the cover she gives to the driver, promising to pay him back as soon as she can get in touch with her agent back in the States.

She has to ask the driver to spot her some money to get her by and when he ends up booking her a motel room, she can tell he expects to sleep in the room with her and subtly encourages his affections until they get to the door.

Then she manages to stave him off for the night, all according to plan.

Once she's safely behind the locked door, Doris breathes a sigh of relief, but it's not over yet.

She's out of jail, but she needs to leave France as soon as possible.

And without any money or a passport, that's a tall order.

On top of that, the cops will surely be on her trail soon.

She needs help.

So she picks up the phone, her finger poised to dial, she hesitates.

She needs to call someone who can get her what she needs.

Fast.

And these days, there's only one person that could be.

From Airship, this is episode three in our series on Doris Payne.

On the next episode, Doris makes the greatest escape of her career, but it's all downhill from there.

If you'd like to learn more about Dorris Payne, we recommend Diamond Doris, the true story of the world's most notorious jewel thief by Zelda Lockhart, and the documentary, The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne.

This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.

And while in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shazi.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Terrell Wells.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callen, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham for Airship.