Police: Notorious 86-Year-Old Jewel Thief Strikes Again

ATLANTA (AP) -- An 86-year-old jewel thief who has kept jewelry sellers on their toes since the 1970s has struck again, police say - this time by slipping a $2,000 diamond necklace into her pocket.

Doris Payne, who has been the subject of a documentary and casually said during an Associated Press interview earlier this year that "I was a thief," was arrested Tuesday at a Von Maur department store outside Atlanta.

Payne was arrested after she put the necklace in her back pocket and tried to leave the store, Dunwoody police spokesman Mark Stevens said in an email. She faces a shoplifting charge.

Online jail records did not show any bond information, and it wasn't clear whether Payne had an attorney who could comment.

This story is weird. She was hinting that she had been playing store managers into showing her their best items. But she doesn’t look like a zillionaire dowager in the picture. How does she do that? Does she go in with impressive costume pieces on?

This ‘lady’ should be in jail, then scheduled for psychiatric counseling. Of course, at her advanced age of 86, one doesn’t expect her to change very much. That is just who and what she is. It’s almost instinctual. Some behavior is very likely passed on through the genes.

If she wasn’t a kleptomaniac, this lady could have gone into selling or some form of legalized gambling. She gets a high from taking risks. Nothing short of incarceration will stop her. She would steal the Stethoscope from round a Doctor’s neck if there were nothing else of value within her grasp. I can see Halle Berry playing her in a movie after this lady passes on. Halle always looks as though she just swallowed a live bug, so she may need to work on building a smile.

The 1940’s movie star Hedy Lammar was also a notorious shoplifter, even when she reached very old age.
I have met two people who were suspected by others of being kleptomanics. Both people were also Fire Bugs, or people given to arson. One was a victim of child sexual abuse. Don’t know about the other.

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