Original subtitles

It's 1964, and three beach boys

turned cat burglars attempt one of

the biggest heists ever

by going after the biggest jewels ever.

[dramatic electronic music]

These gems are so expensive

that they're actually priceless.

The thieves' bold plan calls for some

death-defying acrobatics,

and that's just to break in.

They're young. They're athletic.

They can't help themselves.

They want the bragging rights.

It's all about getting away

with the most precious gems in the world.

The thrill, the glory, the money.

This is the caper of the century.

♪ ♪

The masterminds behind every great heist

see what most people don't...

♪ ♪

Risking everything to pull off the score of a lifetime.

It takes a bold plan,

the right team,

and the skill to stay one step ahead of the law.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The American Museum of Natural History.

It houses more treasure than any bank vault in the world

without world-class security.

If these thieves can get away with the diamonds, rubies,

and sapphires in this hall,

it'll be the biggest jewel heist of the century

at a time when competition for that distinction is fierce.

♪ ♪

The 1960s is considered the golden age of jewel heists

in American history because jewel heists

were happening, on an average, every 32 seconds.

High-profile thefts make headlines everywhere,

but one location has a massive collection of priceless jewels

all under one roof,

and they're not hidden away in any impenetrable vault.

♪ ♪

They're on display for all the world to see.

♪ ♪

The American Museum of Natural History

is one of the most famous museums in the world.

It is one of the biggest in New York City.

It's about a 2-million square-foot museum

just opposite Central Park.

About five million people on average a year

go and visit the museum.

It houses everything from meteorites to dinosaur bones.

♪ ♪

What makes it the most incredible

is the JP Morgan Gem Collection,

which houses some of the most precious

and oldest gemstones in the world.

The JP Morgan Collection is stored

in the Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems.

That's what it was called back in 1964.

The Hall of Gems was located on the fourth floor.

It was about 100 feet long and 60 feet wide,

and it had 20-foot ceilings.

Along the perimeter wall, there was a row of 20 windows.

On the opposite wall were two doors

covered by a decorative grate.

They were locked at night to secure the space.

Dozens of freestanding glass cases

filled the hall, luring visitors in

for a closer look at the giant gems.

The alarms protecting the cases

seemed state of the art to a casual observer,

but what's state of the art in 1964?

Does it have the security that it has today?

Absolutely not, but there was security.

There was alarms on the glass.

It was double-paned glass,

meaning it's very thick.

It's very hard to break.

Museum security guards moved through the building

locking doors, turning off lights.

And then, throughout the night,

they would do periodic patrols starting on the hour

and patrolling an assigned area.

It's a tantalizing target with just enough security

to discourage most thieves.

♪ ♪

But down in Miami, there's a talented trio

of young jewel thieves who've just started working together,

and they're already on the hunt for bigger game.

♪ ♪

These guys are bold, and bright,

and brimming with confidence...

♪ ♪

none more so than their charismatic leader,

Jack Murphy, aka "Murf the Surf."

Jack Roland Murphy was born in 1937

in Oceanside, California.

He comes from a middle-class family.

He's charming, he's intelligent,

and, befitting his place of birth,

he's a total beach boy.

He actually rises to prominence

as a nationally renowned surfer

in the late '50s and 1960s.

Oh, Murf the Surf.

He's trim. He's fit.

He's clean cut.

He's got hair that bleaches blond in the summer.

He's not afraid of things,

and he picks up that vibe

and brings it with him to Miami.

♪ ♪

One of Jack Murphy's first forays

into a life of crime is that he joins a bunch of friends

to rob $15,000 from this mansion,

and the gears go in motion for him to start thinking,

"I want to go into business for myself again,

but not a legitimate business."

While Murphy is working in upscale Miami hotels,

so he can more easily pick

the pockets of unwary tourists,

he meets a young man from the Bible Belt

with a sharp mind for crime,

Allan Kuhn, the mastermind.

Allan Kuhn was born in West Grove, Missouri.

He grows up really poor.

When he's 15 years old, he gets arrested

for breaking into the neighbor's homes.

He joins the Navy.

And then after that, he goes down to Miami,

and he becomes a swim teacher at one

of the beachside hotels.

When Allan Kuhn and Jack Murphy meet,

they have a lot in common.

They're both working the entire hotel circuit.

You know, scrubbing pools

and handing towels is not cutting it.

Honing their skills as a team,

the two begin robbing mansions all over South Beach.

When the job calls for a getaway driver or a lookout,

they have the perfect go-to guy for that as well,

Roger Clark, the Jack of all Trades.

Roger Clark is from Meriden, Connecticut,

and he's a high-school lifeguard.

He serves a stint in the Navy,

and then he goes down to Miami

where he paints houses and works

a bunch of other odd jobs.

Roger's role, he's the getaway driver.

He's also the lookout,

and, if need be, he's their muscle,

if push really comes to shove.

The team gets bolder and better,

and Kuhn starts to think about stepping up

to the big leagues.

Allan Kuhn is, without a doubt,

the mastermind of the American Museum

of Natural History heist.

This is really a dream of his.

Murphy, who always dreams big,

loves the idea, too,

so the three partners in crime decide to take

their show on the road.

♪ ♪

So Murphy, Kuhn, and Clark traveled to New York

in October 1964 for the express purpose

of casing the museum and looking

for other places to burglarize--

any place where they think that they can score

and not be caught.

But soon, Murphy and Kuhn begin casing

their real target...

the Museum of Natural History.

They went in acting as tourists.

They went in on a different schedule

so that they would not be all seen together.

They're kind of surveying

what's at the museum, what's in this collection

that they might want to take.

The highlight of the collection

is the Star of India sapphire.

It displays the six pointed star,

and that star pattern is very, very rare.

It's a huge stone,

really the size of a golf ball,

over 500 carats.

Then you have the Eagle Diamond,

which is the largest diamond ever found in America.

It's more than 15 carats, and it was found

in Eagle, Wisconsin back in 1876.

Another highlight of the collection

is the DeLong Star Ruby.

It looks like a piece of candy.

It's over 100 carats

and also has the asterism star pattern.

And then there's a Midnight Star,

which is often described as a black sapphire.

And it's about 116 carats, and it was found in Sri Lanka.

A huge potential payday from a handful of small rocks

is all the motivation they need.

The three men begin planning

their most ambitious heist ever.

♪ ♪

While they're eating, sleeping, and breathing,

they're researching and casing this heist,

they're also having fun.

You've got to remember, they're in their twenties.

You're in New York in your twenties.

They're going out. They're drinking.

They're having parties in their hotel room.

The men are not just living it up.

They're also bragging to anyone

who might be impressed.

They are not covering up their tracks,

and they make themselves vulnerable to being revealed.

It's at one of these parties that Kuhn finds himself

a different kind of partner.

♪ ♪

Janet Florkiewicz is a 19-year-old stenographer,

and she's in New York staying at the same hotel

as the thieves.

And while she's there, she and Allan Kuhn

strike up a bit of a romance,

and they kind of become an item.

♪ ♪

The second time they case the museum,

Kuhn is laser focused on the mission.

Allan Kuhn, in particular, is especially fascinated

by the Hall of Gems,

and he spends hours in there at a time.

In fact, there's one instance

where he takes Janet Florkiewicz with him

on a date to the Hall of Gems.

Kuhn notices that the battery packs

that are connected to the security system

are corroded, and there may not be an alarm.

It's kind of an unknown still.

For weeks, the men have been partying

and flashing cash all over town.

One night at a bar, someone recognizes Jack

as the nationally renowned pro surfer

Murf the Surf,

and it rattles him.

Right before the heist, Murphy gets cold feet.

♪ ♪

He finally realized, "Oh, wait a minute.

"Maybe we talk too much. Maybe we did too much.

Maybe we shouldn't be doing this."

♪ ♪

But Allan Kuhn, he really has his heart set on this,

and he is not going to let Jack Murphy ruin this for him.

At this point, this would really be

a betrayal, for Jack Murphy to back out.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

It's a week before

the Museum of Natural History heist,

and Murf the Surf wants to bail out,

but Allan Kuhn is in too deep to just let him walk away.

Murphy and Kuhn are arguing. They're going at it.

Kuhn really feels betrayed by Murphy's sudden reticence

about all of this.

In the back of his head,

he's probably saying to himself,

"There's too much heat on us."

He starts second guessing everything.

If Jack Murphy drops out, the dream is dead.

♪ ♪

Kuhn reminds Murphy

they've already spotted a weakness

in the alarm system.

All they need to do is find a way in.

Kuhn urges him to case the museum one more time.

Jack Murphy being in or out, it makes all the difference

between being able to pull this off,

and having to just give it up and go home.

♪ ♪

Murf agrees to one more look,

and the guys return for one last recon mission,

keeping their eyes out for any way

into the Hall of Gems after hours.

These three guys weave in and out of the hall

throughout the day.

They split up and kind of divide and conquer.

These guys are smart.

They know they can't just walk through the doors

of the Museum of Natural History

for a multitude of reasons, and one of them is because

there's an iron gate outside the Hall of Gems.

Once it's shut, you're not getting in.

So the only way in

is through those giant windows.

There are 19 windows in the Hall of Gems,

and every single one of them is left open

about two inches at the top.

For ventilation purposes.

I mean, these are old days

before central air conditioning.

So they're thinking this is going to be their way in,

but it also means that this is going to be

incredibly physically demanding

because they're going to have to get up to those windows.

♪ ♪

While Kuhn is spying a way in,

Murphy and Clark are clocking how the guards patrol.

And they realize that the security guards

come through the hall once every hour on the hour,

and they stay there for just about five minutes.

With a way in and ideas on how to beat

the alarms and the guards,

Kuhn and Clark love their chances.

Now they just need to know,

does Murphy want to go big or go home?

Murphy caves.

He's on board. They're going to do it.

♪ ♪

The night before the heist,

the men hash out the plan to grab the jewels.

They know they need a lookout

and they need a driver.

So Roger Clark, he's the guy

that's going to let them know

what's going on outside the museum walls.

He's also the getaway driver.

Clark will drop off Murphy and Kuhn

on the 81st Street side of the museum.

They need to climb a fence, sprint across the grounds

without being seen, and scale a fire escape

up to the fifth floor.

They chose the fifth floor because there's a ledge

that runs around the back of the museum

from the location of the fire escape

over the gem room.

♪ ♪

The plan is to repel down from the fifth floor

to the fourth floor and swing

from one window to the next.

The stakes are high--

125 feet high, to be exact.

They have great confidence in their physical abilities

to pull this off.

♪ ♪

Once inside, it will be all about stealth,

as they play a cat and mouse game

with the guards.

Between each patrol, they should have

a 45-minute window to break into

the display cases.

They have a tool kit. It's glass cutters.

It's hammers.

It's all sorts of things that you're going to need

to bust open a jewel case.

After they grab the jewels, they need to climb up the rope

and do it all in reverse, rendezvous-ing with Clark

at the edge of Central Park.

There's a lot of jumping. There's rope climbing.

There's vaulting. There's running.

I'm kind of out of shape. I couldn't do it.

♪ ♪

Shortly after sundown, on the night of the heist,

the three men gather their tools

and get dressed for success--

or, in Murphy's case, for failure.

You'd think these guys would want

to put on the usual all black,

maybe a ski mask, a little inconspicuous,

but Murphy has this personal philosophy

that if he's going to get caught,

he's going to look good.

♪ ♪

So he's got on this dark green velour jacket.

He has a turtleneck sweater on,

corduroy pants,

And he is ready to look good if he gets caught.

♪ ♪

Murphy and Kuhn have broken into dozens

of hotel rooms, homes,

and even a jewelry store or two,

but they're about to attempt the biggest,

most daring heist of their lives--

breaking into an iconic museum

to steal the world's rarest gems.

The last three weeks have led to this moment,

and the heist is on.

♪ ♪

Now it's showtime.

♪ ♪

And they get in Kuhn's white Cadillac convertible,

and they drive down to 81st Street

and Central Park West.

They're going to approach the museum

near the planetarium.

♪ ♪

Murphy and Kuhn hop out,

and they head right to the museum.

Clark parks the car around the block,

then takes up his lookout position

on the edge of the park.

He has a walkie-talkie to communicate

with Kuhn and Murphy.

Once Murphy and Kuhn are on the museum grounds,

there is a spike fence that they need to hop over.

♪ ♪

But the problem is that there's a 14-foot drop

on the other side down into a sunken courtyard,

and they've got that upper body strength

from being swimmers, so they kind of

just vault over it like gymnasts.

♪ ♪

Murphy and Kuhn

jump the fence and go down a driveway.

As they get down the ramp,

they see the fire escape

that they are intending to climb.

The fire escape then helps them get to a ledge.

♪ ♪

And the ledge is going to bring them

to those giant windows that they saw

that lead them right into the promised land,

the Hall of Gems.

But the ledge is so narrow and so long

that it's going to take all their core muscles,

all those things that they have been working on

on the surfboard, they're applying

the same muscles to this ledge.

♪ ♪

But this isn't the ocean.

They're 125 feet above hard, dry land

and several yards away from the Hall of Gems.

Murphy is so focused.

There is nothing that's going to stop him.

He's just so hell bent on getting inside the museum

that he doesn't notice the small gathering

of pigeons on this ledge.

He startles them.

They fly away.

They in turn startle him,

and he's now rocking on this ledge

and could fall at any moment.

One false move, this heist is finished

before it even started.

♪ ♪

Jack Murphy and Allan Kuhn are 125 feet in the air,

clinging to the side

of the American Museum of Natural History,

as they edge their way toward the Hall of Gems.

This is a horribly treacherous, nerve-racking way

into the museum.

As he's shimmying across this narrow ledge,

he encounters this flock of pigeons.

I've spent enough time on 77th Street

to know that pigeons are an obstacle.

These pigeons take off, and Murphy loses his balance,

and his whole upper body is kind of,

like, swaying off of this ledge,

more than 100 feet in the air.

He's now rocking on this ledge

and could fall at any moment.

Then at the last minute-- somehow--

he manages to swing his upper body back around

against the wall of the museum,

just like a surfer catching his balance again--

and he's OK.

He's a little bit more conscious

of his surroundings now,

but he sees these giant windows

that he's been dreaming about getting in.

Murphy sees that the window is still open,

so he is fairly certain that there's

no alarm that's going to activate

when he lowers the window.

Murphy has a rope, and he ties it to a pillar.

He's going to have to lower himself from this ledge

down into one of those windows that's in the Hall of gems.

And remember, Murphy is carrying an airline bag

containing the burglary tools as he's lowering himself down.

He puts his foot on the sash, and the window goes down...

Far enough so that they can slide into the window

without breaking the glass,

and then they're off to the races.

♪ ♪

Jack Murphy and Allan Kuhn's daredevil act works,

but before they rush over to the JP Morgan Collection

and get to work, they need to answer

a multimillion dollar question.

Do the night guards follow the same patrol schedule

as the day shift?

They hide out in a dark corner of the hall,

waiting to see when the security guards come by.

How often? Is it still an hourly rotation?

They take their time.

They've taken enough time to plan this heist.

What's a couple more hours?

And that's what they do.

They wait until that security guard is gone,

down the hall, somewhere else.

And then they're feeling, like, OK,

they can finally make their move.

Murphy and Kuhn learn that the guard's patrol pattern

is different from the day shift,

but it's good news.

The night guard doesn't even enter the hall.

He just peers through the night gate

with his flashlight and moves on.

It's go time.

They're in position now, right in front

of the Star of India.

They're staring at it.

It's so beautiful, and it's almost theirs.

To see if the case's alarm is truly off,

they perform one last test.

Allan Kuhn has this rubber hammer,

and he hits the case,

and the glass doesn't break, because it's double-paned,

but it does make this sound, almost like a gunshot,

reverberating around the whole hall.

And so he grabs all of his stuff.

He thinks this is it, that someone's going

to come running for them, but nobody does.

No security guard comes.

So this tells him, one,

it's probably not that well guarded,

and two, that that alarm on the case

really isn't working.

To make sure they haven't tripped

any silent alarms elsewhere in the museum,

they check in with their lookout.

They're in communication with Clark,

who's on the ground, via walkie-talkie.

He's like, "I don't hear anything."

So they just keep going.

Murphy and Kuhn break out their burglary tools

and set to work, confident they're minutes away

from getting their hands on the biggest jewels

they've ever seen.

One of those devices is a glass break.

It has a suction cup that attaches to the glass,

a rod, and then a scoring device.

And then they make a perfect circle scoring

around the center of the case,

but it doesn't break out as easily

as they had hoped it would, because it's double-paned,

laminated glass.

So it takes them a lot longer

than they had anticipated to cut through.

After 30 frustrating minutes,

finesse isn't getting the job done,

and the clock is ticking,

so they try a different tactic--

brute force.

They take duct tape,

and they tape over the circular area

that they want to punch out.

And this will muffle the sound, and it will also prevent,

if the case breaks out, the shards of glass

go crashing down to the floor and make a lot of noise.

Because of how loudly the hammer rang out last time,

Kuhn and Murphy need something to mask

the noise of breaking glass,

and they find just what they need

among the relaxing, natural sounds of nighttime New York.

[jet engine whooshes]

The museum is in the flight paths of both the JFK Airport

and the LaGuardia Airport.

The airliners come in on the Upper West Side,

and turn and go into LaGuardia.

So they timed the breaking of the glass

to the arrival of an airplane overhead.

[glass shattering]

Murphy carefully reaches inside

the broken case and removes

the 563-carat sapphire,

the Star of India.

Not sure if they've tripped any other alarms,

they retreat to their hiding spot and radio Clark

to tell him they've got one of the stones.

They are synchronizing their work

on the cases with the movement of the guards.

As a guard comes through on patrol,

they stop work, stay quiet.

The guard will come by, maybe shine

his light in through the gate, and then move on.

Once the guard is far enough away,

they head straight for the DeLong Star Ruby.

They repeat the process on the next glass case--

score, tape, smash,

and grab the goods.

♪ ♪

With the Star of India and DeLong Ruby in hand,

it's already a very lucrative score,

but these guys didn't come all this way

for just two stones.

The Eagle Diamond is really important for the thieves

because a rough diamond is easily cut,

and so from there, they can cut the stone down,

losing just a little bit of weight,

and sell the piece as a faceted diamond.

They're stealing not just the three that they planned

to steal, but when they see how easy it is,

it seems to me that they decided we're going to

stay here as long as we can without being caught.

We're going to continue to smash the cases

and take as many gems as we can.

They decide to push their luck

and try for the Midnight Star and the many smaller gems

displayed alongside it.

So far, everything's been going smoothly,

but hours have gone by.

Something is destined to go awry.

Murphy and Kuhn approach one of the gem cases,

and then, just out of the corner of their eye,

they see a little flash of light.

It's the guard, and he's early.

Kuhn and Murf can't make it to their usual hiding spot

without being seen.

Instead, they sprint towards the corner

next to the gate as the guard rakes his flashlight

around the hall.

So if the light captures them, the jig is up.

♪ ♪

More than four hours into the heist,

Jack Murphy and Allan Kuhn have their hands

on three of the most valuable gems in the world.

But while trying to snatch even more,

they're surprised by a night watchman.

It's a security guard who's just a little bit early

for one of their rotations.

So they quickly make a beeline to a dark corner and hide out.

The guy flashes his flashlight.

You know, if they're spotted by the guard,

then the jig's up,

and they might have to scamper out of there.

The two men huddle motionless in the corner

counting on the guard to get on with his rounds.

To anybody else, that might be frightening,

but they are a lot cooler than most of us.

♪ ♪

You're just expecting sudden disaster.

♪ ♪

And then, when that doesn't happen...

♪ ♪

It feels like this magic trick.

The security guard moves on.

The two men could make a getaway,

but decide to get back to work...

[glass shattering]

Breaking into the Midnight Star's case.

They've got the Star of India sapphire,

the DeLong Ruby, the Eagle Diamond,

and the Midnight Star.

But they didn't just come for clout.

They also came for cash.

And so now it's time to take things

that they can really sell.

Inside this last case is a rainbow-colored

assortment of smaller gems--

emeralds, aquamarines, opals, and more.

These should be much easier to fence

than four of the most famous stones in the world.

You can't cut the Star of India.

You can't cut a star sapphire. It won't shine anymore.

It won't-- it won't have a star,

and it will be of no value.

Nearly five hours after the heist began,

Murf the Surf and Allan Kuhn are finally satisfied.

With more than two dozen gems tucked into their tool bags,

it's definitely the biggest score

of their lives.

All that remains is a clean getaway.

They go back out the way that they came in.

So the rope that they shimmied down,

they're now going to climb back up.

It's a much more difficult task climbing up a rope

than it is climbing down a rope,

particularly with their bag of tools and gems.

Back outside on the ledge,

they once again have to inch their way along the length

of the building.

If they fall, all the hard work

they just did is for naught.

So it's pretty treacherous for these guys.

And they know that.

They go back over to the fire escape

and down the face of the building,

and they're back in the courtyard.

I cannot imagine what was going

through these guys' heads when they make it back

to the courtyard, because they've just pulled off

the biggest heist in New York history,

they haven't set off a single alarm,

and they don't have a single guard

coming after them, as far as they know.

So they're feeling pretty darn good about themselves.

It's this feeling of euphoria.

We did it. We're in the clear.

We pulled off the impossible. - They had a great plan.

They got in quickly, they got out quickly.

Once they were over the fence,

they radio Clark with the good news

and tell him to clear out.

There's just one last bit of business to take care of.

So they're in the bushes,

and they start dividing the jewels.

The purpose of this was,

if one of the guys does get caught,

the other guys can fence the jewels,

get some money for bail,

and try and help each other out.

♪ ♪

Once Kuhn and Murphy leave the museum,

they decide they're going to split up.

They hope that this makes it less likely

that they're going to get caught.

It kind of becomes an every man

for themselves scenario.

As Murphy walks away from Kuhn,

he marvels at his own success, the heist of his life,

a pocket full of rare jewels, and not

a single police officer in sight.

At least, that's what he thinks.

As Murphy is leaving the museum grounds,

he encounters a whole group of police officers

gathered together.

Now he's freaking out.

Did we trigger a silent alarm?

Were we too loud? How did Clark not call us?

Is Clark backstabbing us?

Like, all of the worst fears that could happen in a heist

are beginning to bubble in his head.

Here they are. They're just waiting for me.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

Jack Murphy and Allan Kuhn

have just escaped the Natural History Museum

with millions in stolen gems and no alarms raised.

Then, suddenly, Murphy is face to face

with a dozen NYPD officers.

Murphy happened to encounter a gaggle of cops.

He thought, "OK, maybe the jig is up."

Being Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy,

and a guy who manages

to get himself out of every situation,

he sees someone walking their dog.

And remember, he's not dressed like a cat burglar.

He's dressed like a tourist.

So he tries to remain calm, play it cool.

And he whistles so that the dog jumps up on him,

and he starts to strike up a conversation

with the dog owner so that,

as the police officers are walking past,

he can just kind of say, "Good night, officers."

♪ ♪

Murphy was so focused on this museum

that he never actually studied the neighborhood

around the museum.

There's these two police precincts just blocks away.

And then, luckily, a cab pulls up

alongside him at a stoplight.

So he just slides in and slips away.

After the heist, Clark immediately

drives to his parents' home in Connecticut to lie low.

Back at the hotel, Murphy and Kuhn

are preparing to get the gems and themselves back to Miami.

The plan is that we're going to fence

the jewels after the heist.

We're going to make some money,

and we're going to open a bar or a club in Miami

called the Star of India. And that's documented.

That was really their plan.

Early the next morning they head to the airport,

and they decide to travel with more

than just the stolen jewels.

Their next move is probably

as cavalier as the actual heist.

Kuhn was dating a girl, an innocent bystander

named Janet Florkiewicz.

What she doesn't know is that they're about

to draft her to work as a courier.

♪ ♪

She agrees to go to Miami,

but he says "You have to use a fake name.

"You have to pretend not to know us.

Oh, and can you carry this bag, and don't ask what's in it."

And of course, the bag has all of the gems,

unbeknownst to her.

While they're flying to Miami,

the museum staff discovers the Hall of Gems in shambles.

Within minutes, the NYPD and the FBI

are scouring the crime scene.

What evidence is left behind?

Not a whole lot.

There's broken glass, and I don't think

they said anything else.

The value of the stolen gems is difficult to calculate.

They're estimated at $410,000,

roughly $3.9 million in today's dollars.

But other experts say the jewels'

one-of-a-kind nature

makes them ten times more valuable.

The gems were not insured at the time of the robbery.

The museum director stated that the insurance

was too expensive, because they were

considered to be priceless.

The embarrassments for the museum

pile up when investigators realized their night guard

missed spotting the thieves.

And that was just one of many security lapses.

For all practical purposes, the museum

had no functioning alarm system

in the gem collection at that point.

There were no alarms on the windows.

And in the gem case where the Star of India was on display,

there was an alarm system, but the batteries

were all corroded on that

and hadn't been changed in years.

♪ ♪

Less than 24 hours after the heist,

investigators catch a break.

Murphy and Kuhn's pre-heist party

and liquor-fueled bragging catches up with them.

There was a young man at the party

who, for one reason or another,

informed on these guys to a uniformed police officer

at the local precinct by the museum.

With this lead, NYPD detectives

obtain a warrant to search

the thieves' suite at the Cambridge Hotel.

Detectives find some of the burglars' tools.

They find books about the gems.

They find the floor plan.

26 hours after the heist,

Roger Clark has no idea the police are onto them,

and he returns from his parents' home

to the Cambridge Hotel to retrieve his things.

Although it's the middle of the night,

detectives are still in the suite gathering evidence.

For Clark, the jig is up.

And Clark starts to sing almost immediately.

And it didn't take long for all of this

to start to unravel.

The next morning, law enforcement in Florida

rushes to intercept Murphy and Kuhn

before they can fence the gems.

They become people of interest for the police,

but now the FBI is involved.

And the FBI raid Kuhn's apartment.

They come in, and they are looking in every

nook and cranny for these gems.

After a flawless heist in New Yorkc]

and a smooth getaway to Miami, it takes less than two days

for the FBI to link the Natural History theft

to Jack Murphy and Allan Kuhn.

The FBI tear up Allan Kuhn's apartment in Miami

after the heist, and they don't find a thing.

When Kuhn returns home,

they arrest him and demand that he reveal

where he's hidden the stones.

The gems haven't been fenced yet.

They're still in the possession of Kuhn and Clark.

But where are they? The FBI can't find them.

But Kuhn keeps mum.

And when Jack Murphy gets back to the apartment,

he too stays cool under pressure.

According to Jack Murphy, they hid the jewels

in a trash can inside the apartment.

According to Kuhn, he had hid them

in the ceiling in the hallway of the apartment,

but the FBI is none the wiser.

Clark's confession is enough to arrest Murphy and Kuhn

and fly them back to New York,

but with no gems as physical evidence,

the two men are free to go.

Meanwhile, the Museum of Natural History heist

is becoming one of the most sensational

news stories of the decade.

The press and the public love these guys.

They're tan. They're handsome.

They're charming. They're bold.

Everyone is eating it up.

When the media learns of Murphy, Kuhn, and Clark,

they become folk heroes.

They are lavishing in their celebrity.

How do I explain this to my family

and--and my--and my friends all over the country?

And the same with Jack and Roger?

We--we didn't care for all this.

The men denied taking part in the heist,

but they're also talking too much to the media.

I think it's a shame that they don't

concentrate their efforts up there in the city

where this happened.

If I was their lawyer,

I'd say, "Just shut your mouth."

But that's not in their nature.

Murf and Kuhn's newfound fame

in New York rankles Manhattan prosecutor

Maurice Nadjari, who works this case

with laser-focused tenacity.

Maurice was motivated.

And he would be damned if he wasn't

going to solve this case.

It was not going to be the heist of the century.

He views this as a crime against the people

of New York, and he sees these three

pompous jerks almost thumbing their nose

at him and authority, and it's driving him mad.

♪ ♪

So he starts looking back through the records

of other jewel thefts

both in New York and in Miami.

He comes across a theft that involved

the actress Eva Gabor.

She's robbed of her jewels. She's pistol whipped.

At the time, it makes headlines.

So he sees this story, and he goes

and has a chat with Eva Gabor.

He shows mug shots, and she's able to point out

that it's Jack Murphy and it's Allan Kuhn.

Gabor's testimony sends Murphy and Kuhn to jail,

and the judge sets bail at 150,000 each.

They can't pay.

So they're taken to the Manhattan Detention Complex--

aka "The Tombs."

Suddenly, being associated with the heist

isn't much fun anymore.

It didn't take more than a day

or two for Kuhn to come forward and say,

"OK, I want to cooperate.

I'll go to Florida and recover the gems."

Based on intel from Kuhn,

Maurice Nadjari recovers the Star of India

and the Midnight Star,

along with several smaller gems,

from a bus station locker in Miami.

The Eagle Diamond is not so fortunate.

This is probably an item,

because it was a rough diamond,

that it immediately was sold and recut,

and it's now gone forever.

The DeLong Star Ruby is recovered.

John D. MacArthur, the billionaire,

pays a $25,000 ransom to get that back.

About six months after the heist,

Allan Kuhn, Jack Murphy, and Roger Clark

plead guilty to burglary and grand larceny.

They're each sentenced to three years at Rikers Island.

♪ ♪

After prison, the three friends

go down very different paths.

Roger Clark moves back to Connecticut,

and he lives a quiet life.

He had his thrill in the underworld,

and it was more than enough for him.

Allan Kuhn, on the other hand, he gets in trouble again.

He serves one year

in a California federal penitentiary.

And after that, he actually goes back

on the straight and narrow.

Jack Murphy does not go straight.

He enters, in fact, a darker chapter

of his criminal history.

In 1969, he's convicted of a double homicide,

and he says he didn't do it,

but he gets a double life sentence.

And then, in 1986,

just 17 years into that double life sentence,

he gets paroled.

Each of the thieves has since passed away--

Roger Clark in 2007,

Allan Kuhn in 2017,

and Jack Murphy in 2020.

As for the Hall of Gems--

It still houses the DeLong Star Ruby

and, of course, the Star of India sapphire.

So anyone can go and see these two gems.

♪ ♪

In 1964, Jack Murphy, Allan Kuhn, and Roger Clark

pulled off a perfect heist

using their physical strength, agility,

and a whole lot of luck.

And they looked good doing it.

From the high profile of their priceless targets,

to their bold style and the media frenzy

it inspired, the American Museum of Natural History caper

will always remain among history's greatest heists.

♪ ♪

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