Vera Krupp wore the diamond everywhere.
It didn’t matter if she was tending to her cows and chickens at her 263,000-acre estate, Spring Mountain Ranch, or driving into the glimmering heart of nearby Las Vegas while donning her usual blouse and slacks. The sophisticated German socialite, who had recently divorced a munitions baron, was used to living luxuriously, and the massive ring on her finger proved it. Little did the cosmopolitan actress know that soon, it would also launch her to fame for reasons completely unrelated to her entertainment career.
With two baguette-shaped diamonds flanking the blue-white center stone, Krupp’s enormous ring weighed more than 33 carats and was worth $275,000, approximately $3.1 million in today’s dollars. Described by news outlets as the size of either a marble or a walnut, the rock was so large that people around her began to take notice, which is likely what led several strangers to her doorstep on the night of April 10, 1959.
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That evening, Krupp and her foreman, Harold Brotherson, were just finishing a cup of after-dinner coffee at her isolated mountain estate when they heard a knock at the door. At the time, they weren’t expecting anyone, and the maid had already left, so they were completely alone. Krupp asked the visitor to identify themself, and a man’s disembodied voice responded, “I came about blacktopping your driveway.”
Spring Mountain Ranchin Nevada,June 7, 2013.
Vera Krupp with calves at Spring Mountain Ranch in Nevada.
Krupp opened the door, where she was greeted by a brown-haired man wearing a sports jacket. But before she could tell him she wasn’t interested, he forced himself inside. So did two other people behind him.
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The phony pavement contractors then pulled out guns and gave her a stern order. “Don’t worry, Vera,” one man with a Southern drawl told her. “Just do what you’re told and no one will be hurt.” The chaotic events that followed made national headlines and spurred a massive interstate investigation, becoming one of the most notorious heists in FBI history.
Source: Drudge Report
