One Woman Pulls Off Mastermind Heists - Masterminds - The Bandit Queen (Judy Amar Crime Documentary)

a lone woman pulls off the biggest home burglary spree in American history this criminal mastermind that became the sort of bold hero in South Florida stealing over six million in jewelry furs and artwork she's basically shopping through these people's houses she changed her appearance like a chameleon and let the police helpless to stop her and I said to myself my god airhead where is she not hitting about the Bahamas are they safe how is this woman not getting caught find out how she did it next on masterminds [Music] [Music] [Music] during the early 1980s cocaine Wars caused an unprecedented urban crime wave in Miami to escape the affluent moved further north to gated and patrolled communities like Boca del Mar and Boca Raton it was people getting out of Miami but they were people with money there was a lot of wealth fabulous wealth along the intercoastal but in 1984 these well protected communities were hit by a spree of over 500 home burglaries it was not uncommon for us in a five-day period to investigate anywhere from 10 to 12 burglaries in Boca Delmar or in the Boca Raton area the frequency and the dollar mall started to mount real quick the people of Boca del Fire could not go to work do their shopping without having to worry that their homes are being paralyzed the loss was not only staggering in dollar amount but it was alarming in that it wasn't just the typical jewelry and or say expensive electronic equipment it was just about anything of value all of South Florida it was being racked by the swine burglar wasn't your typical run-of-the-mill crook that we were dealing with I mean burglaries went unsolved police discovers similar emmos in all the crimes the burglaries always occurred during Monday through Friday the point of entry was always through the front door work and that pillowcases were missing from the master bedroom there was no witnesses there was no Lake Princeton the perpetrator was obviously the same person the police were unable to identify the perpetrator because they assumed the crimes could only have been committed by a man this is completely blew me off my feet here I'm dealing with a prolific burglar who's a woman and very good at what she does that was what was so cool about it you know she wasn't the person that I imagined stealing my VCR judy amar was the mastermind behind America's largest home burglary spree stealing over six million dollars in furs jewelry and artwork it was just an exciting feeling I just thought wow this is marvelous catch me if you can the question is how did she do it [Music] judi amar is the mastermind behind the greatest home burglary spree in US history leaving the police helpless to stop her amar grew up poor on an Arkansas farm herd boring not adventuresome it was a farming community that really didn't like what I was doing after an unwanted teenage pregnancy she leaves her child to be raised by her parents and moves to Miami I was told that you know nobody wanted me I wasn't good looking the same thing that most girls get in trouble for in Miami desperate to support herself she accepts an offer from a boyfriend to help him rob homes so I needed money he asked me to drive him somewhere because no one would be suspicious of a woman you go in the house you look for the jewelry that's it you come back to the car he wasn't really that good at it he always seemed to mess up everything during a burglary Judy and her accomplice are arrested by the police however due to insufficient evidence all charges are dropped come on if I'm taking a chance of getting arrested and I'm blowing alone was better because I didn't have to worry about him messing up something or getting in my way so that's when I started she had a lot of different abilities that made it a natural choice so to speak for her she had a plan and a scheme and that's what made her different than your average burglar amar now sets out to revolutionize home burglary starting with how she finds her targets Sunday real estate section was Judy's guide the burglary it's where developers of housing projects try to tout the amenities they're offering in their homes basically they lay out all these floor plans which were a burglar in hindsight it's incredible information she used that to her advantage she could see whether these homes were being sold for instance with security systems installed she could see if the doors were recessed just from looking at the house diagrams she could plan 30 burglaries and 30 different branding neighborhoods sitting there with the Palm Beach Post having determined her target amar now creates the perfect persona for herself the wigs were by far and away the greatest asset she had in trying to disguise herself I had several different ones I had long straight with bangs one that was done with curls it was frosted I had an afro I had a short one but I would just change Judy knew how to dress when she went out high heels she always wore high heels slacks she didn't know that she might have to make some sort of getaway she just looked good and then she took like she belongs no one would give her a second thought because professional business woman's are very common occurrence here in Boca Del Mar in Boca Raton very common to see a woman executive or woman a real estate agent dressed this way she could go into gated communities and just you know wave at the guard hi how you doing and she'd look like she belong there which is something that that her compatriots couldn't pull off the next step in Amar's plan is to obtain untraceable transportation the idea is to change the automobiles as often as possible if the police are looking for a red plymouth you come back in a blue Chevrolet you completely befuddled everyone they're not looking for that car at least once a week she rents a different car and always pays in cash so give them three hundred five hundred dollars and you take the car as long as you keep the payments up to further ensure her vehicle is untraceable Ammar changes the license number to prevent witnesses from correctly identifying her car having found her target and secured transportation Ammar now determines the perfect time to strike she would look for our deputies and she'd stay back several car let's have just watch them and follow them [Music] and if he went into a particular restaurant she knew that darn well that the deputy was now going to eat that's a good 30 minutes for amar this is the window of opportunity she heads immediately to her target she has chosen this house because it's recessed front door helps conceal her activities because that would have covering and the people that store really couldn't see anyone standing there she would put that Gucci bag on her arm and strides right up to the door like she belongs there she knew where she was going she would knock on the door she could think on her feet someone caught her in the act of something she would say oh I've got the wrong house I'm so sorry I bothered you she leaves but there's no one there no one answers but not know dogs are barking she goes to work and inside of her purse was her 12 inch long screwdriver she knew exactly where to place the screwdriver to get this door open she would insert the blade of the screwdriver between the frame of the door and the locking mechanism and jam it jam it as far as she could possibly get it and begin to bend it and eventually the lock is wide open and she uses the screwdriver to push the lock back now she's got an injury in the house the only problem is she's triggered the alarm system judy was not afraid of alarms the vast majority of alarm calls are false alarms and the police know that and Judy knew that the master bedroom was first at that point she knew she had about 60 seconds before the alarm system would go off [Music] she'd go to the closet hit the designer clothes grab a pillowcase off the bed she knew what she was looking for things that would sell well it was a strand of pearls was a piece of jade in the middle and it had sapphires and diamonds around it she's basically shopping through these people's houses there was to push a watches beautiful antique pieces things that she would like it might keep for herself Ammar is in and out in 90 seconds but she's so bold she goes back for more after I got that in the car I had seen the Remington statue on the way we've been out and I went back get into a bit judi amar is at the height of her powers stealing a quarter million dollars worth of goods in a single burglary the only problem is her past is about to catch up with her America's most prolific home burglar Judy amar has broken into hundreds of houses and scored over six million dollars in jewelry furs and art now they've increased from one reported on Tuesday and one on Wednesday to through two or three on Monday four on Tuesday two on Wednesday I mean she was just having a field day she was going a while then in 1985 the police finally get a lucky break in a man came home from work and actually found Judy in his house and she literally ran right past him got the car drove away for the first time the police realized the criminal they're searching for is a woman one of the other detectives had remembered a woman who years before had been arrested for the same thing in the same area when the police searched their database for that period it reveals Judy's name I lit up just like if you hit seven seven seven on the slot machine in Vegas we got Judy's picture put it in the lineup brought to him and yet instantly he picked her out said that was the woman the police also established the make and model of Judy's car the issue a statewide bulletin [Music] despite her close call Judy brazenly targets a second home that day one of our deputies had been alerted we were looking for a particular car that Judy was using as a blue Chevrolet he's yelling into the radio that he had found the car and was unoccupied so he took up a position and waited for the troops to get here and there was police dragnet forming and she knew that she was about to get cornered amara escapes out the back then breaks into the house next door where she finds a set of car keys and I pull the wig off and up because if someone had seen me and gave a description they're giving the wrong one I look nothing like it there's a Mercedes sedan parked in the garage and she's so brazen she waved to an officer got the stir of waves back and she got away she just dredged right through the police dragnet but one of the detectives was she drove by he had no real clue what she looked like that day because she changed her appearance like a chameleon today she could be a redhead tomorrow she's a blonde and on Friday she would be a brunette this woman was good when we realized that she had given us the slip and I remembered the temper tantrum that I had which wasn't pretty I was livid it was I was angry at no one but Judy and pretty much said to myself okay you just made this personal now this case then came home with me I had a closet in my house and I used it as a little mini office and I would work on this thing at night on my own time and this became an obsession with me scanning burglary reports from across the state Tomasz d recognizes Judy's mo and realizes she's hitting a much larger territory than he suspected she likes to travel the city of Delray Beach is notifying us that they're having burglaries have matched Judy's mo to the T city of Boca Raton in the city of plantation is the city of sunrises and then the city of Naples which is on the other side of Florida is telling us that they have cases that match and I said to myself my god we're hit where is she not hitting about the Bahamas are they safe I mean you know just how is this woman not getting caught it was a lot of work you had to get up in the mornings just like you were going to a job you had to find an area to burglarize sometimes it was from 8:00 to 6:00 or 7:00 at night as Judy spree continues police trace her abandoned blue Chevrolet back to a car rental agency near the airport they identified her said yes she comes in here on a regular basis so now they knew she was wanted they no longer wanted to do business with her and they said if she comes we're gonna call the police - mozzie now ups the ante we found out about her family in Arkansas did a background on her son at his request the FBI detains Judy's son we kind of figured if we put pressure on her family that's gonna be her Achilles heel so we started talking to her son do you really want to have your mom resisting us and getting herself killed we don't want your mom getting hurt she's the one who's upping the ante on this every week the son refuses to give his mother up when Judy learns the FBI is leaning on her family she's outraged that hit a sore spot with you that was her Achilles heel was her son because she became livid with me and he called me from somewhere in Miami and told him to leave my family alone that my family had nothing to do with this and I was not in Arkansas she was furious at me for reaching out for her family but if that's what it takes then that's what it takes he said you need to turn yourself in I said I can't do that Judy Omar's refusal to surrender however it's about to threaten both her life and run to Massey's [Music] sixteen months pass in the Ammar burglary investigation without the police getting any closer to catching her they didn't know where to find her they were being driven crazy well Ron Tomas II mean he became obsessed with finding Judy to the point where little things that she would do would irritate him to no end and he just get more and more stressed I said I'm living this case I'm eating this case I'm breathing this case I can't sleep at night because of this case [Music] and I love police detectives but they're the most macho you know guys in the world they don't want anyone to get away with anything but here's somebody who's clever and smarter and a woman and they can't catch that girl you know there was just something that was galling about that Bush to the point of exhaustion Tomasi suffers a heart attack and is forced off duty for weeks he was so obsessed with it I think that was his problem he had his hands full his children even in my name the very day that I went back to work I was notified that Judy Omar had been identified as hiding in a motel and Surfside from an informant in Miami [Music] I think if it had not been for this guy and a drug charge you know trying to get a lenient sentence well he told autumn he told her where she was with an army of undercover agents Tomasi stakes out the motel so we had snipers and everybody in place we don't know what we were gonna deal with whether she was going to quietly submit to us well we would have to shoot it out she came home at about 8:20 8:30 in the morning she comes to her door and the moment she put the key into the motel door to open it everybody came out I remember turning around and I the blind guy I think had the chain with his badge around it he's in a squat position with a gun like this she was so completely stunned she said that she looked around there with guns everywhere just thank God she just surrendered it was old the room was filled from top to bottom from wall to wall with statues clothing shoes apparel jewelry you just couldn't imagine just it looked like a little warehouse a little store [Music] I remember when we sat as close as we are now and I looked into her eyes and she was crying and then she said to me she was glad it was over she actually told me I'm glad it's over now and I told her I same thing I'm glad it's over judy amar pleads guilty to multiple charges of burglary and is sentenced to 10 years in 1990 she is released from prison it was an obsession I would go buy a house yeah it was just this haunting feeling and then I decided that I was going to do things right no matter what and I was determined not to burglarize anybody anymore since her release the Bandit Queen has used her unique skills to teach Americans how to make their homes more secure [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: TOP BOX TV

Views: 435,949

Keywords: masterminds tv show, the bandit queen, heist, tricking security guards, security systems for home, true crime documentary, true crime series, crime documentary, judy amar, judy amar documentary, crime tv series, best thieves, best thief in the world, criminal mastermind, criminal masterminds, documentary now

Id: 8wFZVN454w8

Length: 21min 56sec (1316 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 02 2020