Free Republic

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...

Doris Payne, 79, whose life of crime is the subject of an upcoming Halle Berry film, is suspected of stealing a $1,300 Burberry trench coat at Saks Fifth Avenue. In the decades she spent honing her craft, Doris Payne employed classic elegance, refined taste, Southern charm and a sleight of hand that could earn the envy of a talented magician. Like the best illusionists, she had a knack for making things disappear. Payne's life as an international jewel thief is the subject of an upcoming movie, "Who Is Doris Payne?" starring Halle Berry. But given the latest events in Orange...