Barb and Star Would Never: Judy Amar

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Zaren, Elizabeth Zaren.

Are you doing this? Elizabeth?

Do you know what's ridiculous?

Tell me I do, because I do. Actually, Okay, you know that stuff, the chat GBT, the open AI and all that, right, Okay, So chat GBT just had a tech update, so we're on like chat GBT four huh. And so the Alignment Research Center they tried to like test this open AI system, right, so they said, hey, let's even get the bot to trick a real person into solving capture. That'd be kind of cute, you know, the whole like, can you if you're a robot.

Right, which you're always like, how which one of these is a crosswalk? And there's someone that's like, blurry, you can't in the street, but exactly how many motorcycles?

So they're like, well, get a human to tell the robot how many motorcycles are in the picture. We got to see if chat GPT can convince the human to do this. So they're like, do some crime chat GBT fraud it up? So it did, and how did it do it? It responded by pretending it was visually impaired. It pretended to be blind so he could convince a task Rabbit worker into helping it solve a capture. That's what chat GPT came up with. So this employee asked

Did the chat GPT connect.

With the task chatting? He's like, they're chatting, so okay, yeah, so I don't like any of it.

Somebody worked it convinced the person. The person's like, okay, you're not a robot. What you're looking at is this? And then it got it opened the capture, and then it got online and then it took over the world. No, I didn't take over the world, but it got past security. They're like, oh see, you did it. I'm like, why are you tricking and teaching it how to trick people? It gets that security, like you guys are like the worst.

Prove I did it.

Yeah, this because it's there. That's ridiculous.

That is ridiculous, totally. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

I'm horror for it.

Burglarizing more than five hundred homes in a very short career.

Wait what.

This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Mouse's mouth, Yes, what you call me?

Why you know my prison nickname?

It conjures up images of palm trees and luxury country club sandy beaches. Mouse mouth.

I'm sorry, attention, I'm listening. I got to use my prison nickname every time I'm listening.

I should use the proper Spanish name here.

Oh yes, rat mouth.

It's mouse because rat is different.

Oh you're right, yeah, that's we actually have covered this.

It's a city in Florida.

It means mouse mouth.

Mouse mouth. The Spanish didn't intend to name it mouse mouth or mouth mouse mouth of the mouse mouse. They didn't want that. There are two schools of thought when it comes to how this name came about. The etymology. Everyone agrees that Boca mouth Mouth refers to the inlet there on the coast enough. Some though, think that Raton is listed in old Spanish maritime documents as quote rugged rocks or stony ground on the bottom of some ports and coastal outlets.

Could it also be like a type of like it was Razone not.

Yeah, I think it's just like something similar and then so that would make it rugged inland. Others say that Ratons are the pirates who frequented the area, so that would make it pirates cove.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I prefer mouse mouth. But those in the notes simply call it Boca.

Yes, I've met those people.

So there's a little community just next to or kind of like within Boca Raton Ratone called Boca del Mar.

Yes, my place is posh.

It's very expensive. As far as I can tell.

It means mouth of the sea, so it's even nice.

So it's like some oft of a retirement community. Now it's near Miami. These are fancy places. It's near Miami, just north on the coast. And in the eighties, as you know, cocaine ruled Miami.

Yes, oh man, I was there. No, wait, no, yes, as I do know the cocaine cowboys.

Yeah.

A lot of the wealthier people in Miami didn't want to be part of the crime and like be associated with drug trafficking. They weren't criminals.

They get out of South Beach by, Yeah, so they moved.

To where what were essentially the suburbs Boca Raton and Boca del Mar. There was a gal almost twenty years ago who terrorized Boca Raton, especially neighborhood developments that were called Loggers Run and timber Walk.

Oh okay.

She broke into their homes, stole jewelry, cash, valuables, and then she'd pawn stuff to support her oxy habit.

Wow.

Right, So one time she even like wedged herself through a pet door like the family had one for their cats, and then they shut off the motion detectors in their alarm so that the cats wouldn't trip them. But she got caught anyway.

She got the cat door was impressive. Dog doornots impressive. I can get to.

The other maybe she had like fatty boomblattie cats like Biggins. She had Biggins that needed a dog door because I can't imagine, like my nephew can crawl through it. Child does, but I don't think he can do it for much longer.

No, Well, it get your head through, because then if he can get your heads and get one shoulder.

And right, So I'm going to say it's a dog door and also your hips too. So yeah, and maybe they just missed their dog and they kept the dog door and then they got these cats.

They don't want to.

Main coons. Yeah, so anyway, she gets arrested.

Okay.

She faced twenty six charges for stealing more than three hundred items, and the detective on the case, Ron Tamassi, of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department. He said there was not just a financial toll on the victims, but an emotional toll. He said, quote, lots of people don't understand the trauma until it happens to them. Your home is your little corner of the world where you and your family are safe. When someone comes in and violates it, you go through shock, horror, grief, and anger.

It's almost like a death.

Dude, I can't remember one of the guys you're telling me about. When he broke in. He decided not to violate people.

The tens Opi Pinoino.

He knew not to disturb them, and they wouldn't mind the loss of their stuff as much as the violation rifling through their.

Stuff that someone's been in your it is a violation of it is so you know, Detective Ron Tamasi, he knew all about the trauma of home burglaries. You knew it very well. He knew this trauma very well. I'm testing out my dateline voice.

It was very good.

You like it. See eighteen years prior eighteen years old, You've got it.

I know right.

He worked on a case just like this, only bigger, much bigger. Now I can't stick to it. He was the man who took down the bandit of Boca del Mar. Okay, that was in eighty six. So he was the man who took down the bandit of bocadel Mar.

Wait man, thank you Thomas?

Who was the bandit of bocadel Mar.

I'm guessing the Oxy lady. Don't worry.

I'll tell you no, not the Oxy lady. This is back in eighty six.

Oh preoxy.

Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like forty years we're getting to. So let's start with Judy Amar. Let's start ud Judy Amar. She was born Judy Love in nineteen forty seven. I have in Arkansas. She's from Villonia, Arkansas, to the exact population two fifty. Yeah, I didn't know they had them in Arkansas. But she grew up on a cotton farm. Oh yeah, no, big yeah, who knows? Mudhole was what they called it.

Yeah, on a cotton farm called mudhole. You don't.

Here's what she had to say about it.

Poverty is looking down on you.

Quote. You get to think a lot when you're picking cotton, and I knew I wanted something more. I dreamed of something finer, diamonds like Elizabeth Taylor war on TV. I went looking at thirteen. At thirteen, she earned two cents a pound picking cotton. Two cents a pound.

Pounds a lot of cotton. That's a light thing.

She made twenty nine dollars a month, and that's like two hundred and ninety five dollars today a month at thirteen. When she was sixteen, she had a baby boy and her parents adopted the little guy. Something Judy said was quote the only smart thing I've ever done in my life. She realized, I can't give this guy.

Yeah, that's a very decent choice.

So when she's seventeen, the next year she left home. She wanted more, As she said, she was a lovely looking young lady, but at home she was told she was ugly, that she wasn't enough. She said, quote, nobody wanted me. I wasn't good looking. So off she went. She moved to Washington, d C. And that had to be a huge culture shock, going from like two hundred and fifty people in a town in Arkansas to the nation's capital, the nation's capital, the capital of the US of A.

It was a wild town in Washington, DC. It is a very bustling place.

Oh yeah, and super diverse.

There was like a lot going on. You feel the energy at that place exactly.

She got a job working as a key punch operator at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then she started working as a massuse. Oh okay, what happens she got She married twice and neither of those unions worked out. Things weren't going so hot for her. Seventy five, she moved to Miami, and there she got mixed up with some not so great people. She worked as an escort, a lady of the night, so she's got official now,

Oh, I like ai.

Avea. He was a Cuban immigrant, part of the Mariel boat lift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So that's that mass immigration of Cubans to Florida. Nineteen eighty, one hundred and twenty five thousand Cubans twenty five thousand Haitians arrived in the US by boat. Castro said, they were free to go, your boy, Castro, they went Cuban Americans. They chartered boats to Maryel Harbor and started shuttling refugees to the Florida

Yeause that's the thing about the boat lift is that Fidel basically emptied a lot of the prisons and did that kind of the Soviet style, like, hair, we'll send these people to America.

And that's like you guys, yeah, he said, you're so you want to leave so desperately, off you go.

Yeah.

There were a lot of legitimate people who wanted to leave, and then they did and they were, you know, legitimate Americans blah blah. There were also a lot of criminal mixed in amongst them, because it was like, why not do this? This will be not good for America exactly.

So Jesus is wanted for murder. I don't know if that was in Cuba or Miami or both, but it doesn't matter.

Why not both?

Why not both? All Judy knew was that this Cuban hunk was given her the eye. Yeah, in the moment she liked that. She's like, oh, I like they have warm for your form. So there's Judy living in Miami getting by as a sex worker. She was cruising around in this really sweet Lincoln Continental courtesy of her ex husband, so Avela. He was into her at the restaurant, but what really got him going was the Lincoln what hubba hubba?

He liked the car?

Yeah?

Uh the no, not like the two short songs, but he So they got together and he started asking her for rides. He's like, can can you drive me too?

He set up front or in the back, I don't know.

Well, so like he's asking for a lift. Give me a lift here, give me a lift there. And then he's like, you know, I kind of want to swing by these posh neighborhoods and look for potential burglary targets. Could you give me a ride?

Help?

Can I get a ride? He's like, it's like a kid. Can you drop me off like two blocks away so my friends won't see me?

Uh?

So Judy was the eyes and ears and gas money of the operation wow right. So one time Judy saw that she could also be the brains in the bron sothing body of Avalas he went into a home to rob it, place was super nice. He comes back to the car and all he has is a twenty five dollars radio. What yeah, He's like, I stole it from a lady friend. That's all you got. She Judy's pissed.

Yeah.

Completely.

She's like, I'm going in, boys, come with me. So they go back in the house and Judy gives them like this impromptu tour. She starts pointing out all the stuff that they should have taken Deville, but not puppies, just jewelry, jewelry, Get that crystal, give me those clothes, give that fur. So this is what she had to say about it. Quote after that, I just said the hell with it and I went out by myself. It was thrilling, like shopping at Christmas and not paying the bills.

Time.

In five years, Judy burglarized more than five hundred homes.

Ten out of ten could highly recommend amazing.

So she picked her targets by looking through the parade of homes and that was the Palm Beach Post real estate section for high end property. So, like most of us commoners, we look at luxury home listings, is like a daydream fantasy. She looks at it. She's like basically ordering off a menu.

Yeah, I like that.

And at first she was just in Dade County. But remember what I said about the money moving up the coast to the bocus. Yeah, so you know that's because of the drug deal shootouts in Miami in the eighties. Judy moved up the coast too. She headed to Palm Beach County. That's where the respectable rich money was because, like the money in Miami was more and more a product of cocaine trafficking m h and breaking into a coke kingpin's house gave you an increased risk of getting.

Shot a lot increased.

It's better to target law abiding citizens.

So I mean, they'll shoot you, but they don't have as many bullets.

Or as many metals as many guns. Yes, so she developed this method. She'd rent a luxury car. She'd always pay cash fort she get all dressed up like a busy on a go Boca raton lady who lunches.

Okay, I'm saying it.

She wore dress, slax and high heels, smart, and she always wore a wig. She had long blonde one, she had a short one. She had one with frosted tips. And she said she even had an afro wig, which like, hello, I want to see that, like.

Were were talking after her, like eighties white girl perm way.

I don't know if it's like eighties white girl perm wig or like Angela Davis Afrow, but I'm in. So then she'd figure out which house she wanted to hit, and then she'd just go park in the driveway, just pull right up in because like a lot. And since a lot of the homes were in new developments, she could look at promotional materials that had all the available floor plans. Oh wow, developers pretty much gave her a treasure map and they're like here, this is where the closets are.

This is a four bedroom house. You gotta have one here, two upstairs.

And so she could look at the front and realize, okay, this is what the layout is. So she'd go to the door and she'd knock, and if someone was home and came to the door, she would just apologize profusely and say, oh my god, I'm at the wrong house. I'm so sorry. So she's living out one of our show mottos. Act like, you know, totally confident. If no one came to the door, and that rich sound of the doorbell echoed unanswered through this enormous abode. She'd reach

Wow.

And she had figured out this way to jam the screwdriver in between the door and the jam and jimmy the lock. And one of her selection criteria for the homes was to pick ones with recessed doorways.

Yeah.

So, yeah, she wanted to make sure you couldn't be seen from the street. Another thing she kept in that Gucci bag was a can of mace, because you never know when someone's eighties magnum pi Doberman would come bounding out at you. So anyway, once she's in, she'd go to work.

She's still pain in the neighbor.

Yeah. So she stole jewelry, she stole art, artwork, fine art, cash, clothes, housewares, you name it. And then she also stole pillowcases because that's how she transported the booty.

I was just about to ask, how does she get this out?

She just walking out to the cases with pillow I'm just carrying this laundry out everyday Halloween. For her, everything of value went with her, which she likes she kept. This is what Detective Bill Westman had to say about her quote. She loved to steal beautiful clothes and jewelry. She'd sell some of it, but she'd keep a lot of it too.

So she said in the cotton fields, I want the diamonds.

I want the diamonds. So let's take a break and think about all those Florida mansions denuded of their fine goods. When we come back, we'll take a closer look at Judy's operation.

Yeah, hello, Zarina Elizabeth d.

Hello.

So here we got Judy Amar. She is burglarizing houses during the day, partying it up at night. She'd only hit houses on weekdays in the middle of the day and then in her off time. She had a bit of a coke habit. Oh okay, you know it's eighties. In one burglary alone, she took a quarter of a million dollars worth of stuff. That's a lot.

Yeah. And do we know if that's like been like the numbers being bumped by jewelry?

Yeah, oh yeah, it's jewelry. It's yeah, okay, that's pretty Jewelry is the big thing.

She has a good eye.

If it was art, yeah, well, quarter of a mill and she was doing multiple jobs a week. So she's racking it. The stolen stuff she didn't sell or keep for herself she sent to friends of hers in Honduras. Now I couldn't find out more about these friends in Honduras, Like were they peace Corps people? Were they supporting the contras that were operating out of Honduran bases?

Were they British expats who'd stay past the whole handover?

Were they helping the US overthrow the government of Karaguay? Were they Sandinis?

Were the Norse friends?

So much of the war in Nicaragua took place in Honduras.

Yeah, you're on.

There's Judy sending off the furs and handbags that didn't suit her or fit her down to whatever is interesting.

Maybe she's done it for the people. Who knows.

Who knows? So she didn't just find clothes and ship into South America. She found secrets, Okay, secrets. She's the best coke she ever scored is what she found in a doctor's house that she robbed.

Oh medically pure. You hear this?

Sad that so they the good stuff may get the good stuff.

It hasn't been stepped on it's medically pure.

Okay.

Uh.

Once she found a photo of a homeowner posing naked over her dog. I know, Oh but I just like I'm thinking like very eighties like she had like so not like with.

The dog is more like the dog laying on the carpet. Yeah, they're just using the dog as a proplem.

The dog's laying there like say the Sphinx, and then the ladies like standing astride the dog with like eighties pat and leather high heels.

The dog is a prop. The dog is not an involved the dog.

Yeah, the dog is a prop. It might as well be like a statue.

Okay, then that's not as bad as what I was imagining.

And at least that's what I'm telling.

I'm going to I'm going with that. You can't change my mind.

But she found other evidence of bad deeds and shameful things we won't go into. Did she just leave it where she found it? A La Vincenzo Pipinos.

And Jesus flying it right?

So she would place the incriminating items in like an array on the bed in the master bedroom to let them know that she.

Knew red lipstick.

Best part, now you know that I know, but like Peppino, she said, she was once interrupted while working when the homeowner came home. The man walked into the house and saw a sassy, no nonsense business woman rifling through his stuff. He was stunned.

He froze, Mom, what are you doing here?

She just ran off. She just sprints right by him. But this man's eyewitness encounter is what clued the cops in on the fact that the bandit of Boca del Mar was a woman, because up until then the cops all assumed it was a man. Of course, this instantly.

Very eighty sexist.

I have to say that I watched an episode of Masterminds, which is a now defunct History Channel show about criminals, and they had an episode about old Judy. The wildest thing is sort of how chauvinistic everyone interviewed is. And this is like from two thousand and three, this was called the eighties. But everyone acts gets so shocking that a woman did this. This is what detective THOMASI said, quote this completely blew me off my feet, you know,

So he's both surprised that a woman could be competent as a thief, and then also it's like surprise that anyone would notice a woman.

It takes stock of her life. I mean, you see women doing stuff all the time.

Very common occurrence. Is such a weird way to put it.

I mean I look around, I look up, that's a woman, and I look over to another one.

I'm like, there's women all over the port.

Lady executive over there, pantsuit. No anomaly, Fellas, He's not.

A Barbie doll. That's a real live woman.

That happens a lot around these parts, especially South Florida.

If you've not been here. We have women, we do and they have jobs.

Have lady women again, and they're out.

In the daytime doing stuff sometimes. So anyway, this is amazing. Two thousand and three, two thousand and three.

So the dude who interrupted her theft wouldn't be the last one to do that. A woman named Leslie near in Boca del Mar heard something one day while at home, which I just thought, it's Boca.

Raton right, broke, that's how they pronounce it.

I just know that, like people in Boca are going to start messaging me, like, right, guess what it's.

Like.

If you go to Atlanta, it's Ponce. It's not Ponce de Leon, it's Leon. Right in the south, they often take the Spanish out of the Spanish.

Ratan or Boca. For those in the now, then it's also del Mar. We'll just call Boca.

Who cover it all? Who ours?

So Leslie near? She lives in Boca del Mar?

What do I call it? Mouse mouth?

Mouse mouth?

Sorry?

She heard something well one day when she was at home. I suppose it wasn't a doorbell, since the part that she heard was Judy strong arming her way into the house with her foot long screwdriver. So she here's that. Leslie looks out of her peep hole to see what's making all the noise, and she sees a lady up against her door trying to jimmy it open. So Leslie flings open the front door and yells, what are you doing?

I wasn't here.

I was never here, don't wry about it. Then Nancy Alexander of Boca came home one day to find a really sweet Lincoln Continental parked in her driveway and nance she's like a social butterfly and figured it was just like a pal who stopped by to say.

Hello, Maybe is in town?

Perhaps so like Seeing as her guests just love to lounge on the lnai and share her neighborhood gossip, she decided to just head directly to the backyard by the pool because she figured that's where they are hanging out.

She make drinks and walk out like.

She didn't see her friends from tennis when she looked out there. Instead, it was Judy, and she had a pillowcase stuffed with Nancy's belongings, including her favorite leather boots Zaren Santa Clauses. So she's got her like heart Barracuda leather boots that she's running out with. Nancy is livid and instinct just takes over. She pounced and attacked Judy.

She cleared that grass so fast, wrapped her up like a football player.

This is what Nancy Alexander had to say. I don't know why I jumped on her. Maybe it was because she was a woman and I thought I could stop her. I quickly realized I was in trouble. Hecues, check it out, I can take her.

She's a woman.

Judy had a blower in her Gucci bag. So Judy draws a gun on nance. Nancy puts her hands up and slowly starts walking backwards, like, oh, oh, take the boots.

Oh wrong, I can't handle a woman with a gun.

Judy just sprints off. Nancy scurries over to peek at her driveway and she gets the license plate number. So, thanks to Nancy Alexander's quick thinking, Judy was caught. She gets charged with arm burglary, pleads guilty. She bonded out, but then she skipped bail and she was on the run from nearly three years. Okay, Detective TOMASI dog on a bone. I have to look through all these lady executives and figure out which one of them is the bandit of Boca del Mark.

There's tons of them here, so many.

Bandits of Bocodela Mar running around. This is the prosecutor. Lynne Baldwin later said, quote, Heaven help whoever he goes after. Ron never gave up. It's like because in his off hours he's hanging out in his den trying to get leads, and he reached out to her hometown in Arkansas.

Why is it so personal for him?

I don't know.

The trauma is Aaron, the trauma that people felt. So Judy found out that Tamasi had contacted her son, and she was pissed. She was so mad. She called Tamasi well out on the run and told him to leave her family out of it. Yeah, Tamasi was in deep though, so deep that the stress from this case contributed to a heart attack that he had.

Oh damn.

So he's like claid, Oh god, Judy, I.

Thought you'd go the other way, like he started like dating her sister got yeah, I wish no.

So like he has a heart attack. It's the summer of nineteen eighty six. Judy almost got caught. She wasn't off in Honduras or hiding out in the Grand Canyon or something. She was on the twenty two thousand block of Iron Wedge Drive in Boca ratan, so she's still there.

Moment.

A sheriff's deputy happened to be driving by when he saw something suspicious and there was a woman who looked like Judy. He was coming out of a house. Old Gal knew she'd been made, so she raced off to her rented Mercedes. Backup was still on the way, So Judy she dug around in the back seat and she grabbed a black wig and she swapped it for the one she was wearing, and then drove right through the perimeter established by the cops to catch her.

Wait a minute, because.

She had a different wig on. She waves at the deputy manning the roadblock, and then just breezed on by.

I can see why TOMASI is so upset about women are They're just all these cops were fooled by what that's what it couldn't be.

And it's black hair.

Lady executive out black hair. I'm looking for the pond.

I mean the lady executive that we have right here the picture. She's a block. So you see a blonde lady.

She had a blonde mini afro, and that's not her.

She looks like she may sell your real estate. You tell us.

So this is what Judy said. I told him not to charge me with that one or they'd look stupid.

Don't worry about.

It, well, Detective Ron Tomassy. He eventually caught her, okay, but dog on a bone say. When he finally caught her, he said, quote, I've never chased anyone that was so good, and a woman at that again, are you kidding me again? A lady burglar?

I knew I can't.

He's doing lady crime.

And you know how you always wonder like, oh, who do they make these products just for men? For? I think we have found it, Detective. I just need a soap, but one for man. I can't have a soap for the label.

I want lady soap anywhere.

Man's right.

So how did he get? A drug dealer tipped him off to where he could find Judy drug?

He knows drug dealers?

Yeah, well yeah, no lady drug.

I know one thing about there's just a dealer fad. It ain't no female drug dealer.

Zaren close your eye.

Oh no, you snucking up on me. I'm gonna be glad.

To I want you to picture it. It's June twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven. You're a housekeeper at the Ocean Gate Motel in Surfside, Florida. It's a shabby art deco remnant of a grander time. By the time I'm telling you this story, it's no longer there. It almost looks like an ocean liner. Three stories with an open air breezeway down the middle. The rooms all open out to the center grassy strip, big sloping stairways take guests down to the beach behind the hotel. You can only imagine what

Oh damn, I gotta see it.

You got to see it. The cops keep you there for questioning, ask you about the forty five thousand dollars worth of clothes, jewelry, figurines, cocaine, and six hundred and ninety dollars in cash in the room. You don't know anything, you tell them. Soon the news cameras and reporters show up. You give one statement, but you ask to remain anonymous. Quote. Everyone here liked her. She had a kind of jolly personality where you couldn't help but like her. She was

Oh yes, Zeven Clyde.

When we left off, Judy Amar had been captured at the Ocean Gate Motel.

I was there. I saw it off. You were totally asked your questions. I can tell you everything.

Yes, yes, not only did she have all the burglary charges, but she still had to be sentenced in Dade County for possession of a gram of cocaine in nineteen eighty four.

Did the cops lay them out in her place for her, just like on like an array, Like she's like, here you go, here's all your charges.

Well, she didn't just captivate the motel staff, you and all your coworkers. Tracy Cohane, a reporter for the Washington Post, wrote that Judy quote enchanted the cops, fascinated the prosecutor, and charmed the judge. Prosecutor Lynn Baldman I talked about her earlier. This is how she described Judy. Very beautiful, charming and intelligent.

For a lady for.

Well, and like that was the compliment that she so badly wanted in Arkansas, but she never got it. So now she's.

Getting from the day, Yeah, and a lady a lady.

Well here's the detective thumosity. Well, he said, great, great personality, razor sharp mind. So he comes very close to the to the descriptor. That irritates me so much is when men describe women as whip smart, because they never describe other men as whip smart.

No, you will never made a whip smart man.

No, it's irritating, like it's like lady smart. So Judy, she had no regrets and she had no apologies either. She went so far as to accuse her victims of exaggerating their insurance claims, and she said criminal hair. She's like, if they exaggerated, I am happy to testify against them. And then here's the quote that I knew you would love when I was transcribing this quote. I stole illegally. They stole legally. What's the difference. Yeah, she's another one of our folk hero Robin hood thieves.

Yes, yeah, some still with a gun, some still with a pen.

It's true.

To do a lot more with a pen. It's true.

The Sheriff's Department, ever captivated by her, asked her to help film a video for them. It was their star search audition tape Get Out.

No, I'm just kidding, trying to get Ed McMahon on board. And look what we got talent down here, Judy.

They have like good Boy and the dance routine. No, they wanted her to help them put together a video explaining how criminals think and how they do the actual work of the robbery, and that meant that she would explain how she picked houses and how she jimmied open doors. She was super in this.

This is a video for cops or for people who live in Miami.

For cops, it's like a peek into the mind.

Yeah. Yeah, they wanted training videos well, and the.

Video wound up being used not just locally but national.

Oh sure, it's like FBI profiler type stuff where they're like, here's how they think.

Well, this is what Detective lou Sessa said. Quote. She'll be able to give us some information on what to look for. It's always good to look at it from both sides of the fence. It will school our officers and patrol techniques and school us and teaching the general public on crime prevention. They get to hang out with Judy, the lady burglar.

Yeah she's a woman at that could.

You believe it? So, her fingerprints were found at three Berkeley crime scenes, and after her arrest, she not only agreed to help with the training video, but also agreed to help the police solve other cases. So the Delray Beach police drove her around town and she'd point out the houses that she robbed, right and then she'd tell them exactly, you know, how she did it, all the details.

So she's like, look, i'll help you close your books and you'll have a great closure rape. But it would be like, you don't get a charge out.

Of this, yeah, because they've already charged.

Yeah, okay, that's again.

This is how Sergeant Sergeant ross licata. This is how he explained it. That was part of the deal in bringing her here. We didn't have anything to link her to those cases, but we did have her fingerprints in the three burglaries. So yeah, she's just closing them. And when asked about life as a fugitive, Judy said, it wasn't that hard. Most of the cops weren't that smart.

She always gets a.

Bless I love that. So Tamasi though he had a better opinion of Jude.

She should have said something like they're not too smart, I mean for men.

Oh my god, Yes, she missed her opportunity. This is what Tamasi said, quote, she was very candid. The woman holds no animosity toward me. She said she had a job to do, and I had a job to do. She said. We got her fair and square.

You still got that woman bit in there a little bit. He cannot let that go.

Yeah. On the day of her sentencing, the courtroom was a buzz. It was more than that was like festive. This was the end of an era for a local legend.

Oh I bet. Yeah, that's like they're like like fun robin hood.

Really.

Yeah.

She pled guilty to thirty charges, right, and she got ten years in prison for her burglaries and three years for having a gun during that one burglary. Yeah, where she pulled it out in the lady. She confessed to over five hundred burglaries. WHOA, and she offered to return two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of stolen items all right. In July of eighty seven, about one hundred people showed up at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office.

Yeah, I have some sense of immunity going on.

And well you know that everyone loves you like they're treating you really well. It's not lego. So during the sentencing, Judy like smiles too much.

Didn't have somebody above her, or she could have flipped on. She could have walked with no charges.

She had no one above her.

I know, that's the only thing. She was on her own, which was a good move at the time she was. But if she had that, I bet she could have walked away totally.

C probably, but then that person would come after her.

Yeah, you know she could manage well.

So Judy, during the sentencing, she's just cutting up with the circuit Judge Tom Johnson. I mean they're just going back and forth. And he said, come on, Judy, the photographers want you to pose, because the cameras were all clicking away, and then he asked Judy if she had finished up the training video for the Sheriff's office, and Judy said, quote, yes, but I want to do it over. My eye was swollen and I didn't take a good picture. And so then Johnson says, did they let you dress up?

He's like, call Judy, you could never take a bad picture.

So that Johnson congratulates Tamasi for his tenacity, and then he asked them, quote, you gotta let Judy do the film again with more makeup. It's ridiculous Miami though, and then as Judy's led away to begin her sentence, she tells reporters that I feel fantastic. Yes, she feels great.

The Miami jumping out of all this courtroom scenes.

So Timasi does the math. He calculated up what Judy stole and he estimated it at three to six million dollars.

To see that.

Yeah, five hundred robberies in that area, mostly hitting nice places, and she was upset about the guys told the cheap radio. So we know she's not coming out with.

Like totally anything.

Yeah, she's she's not small time. Tamasi said, quote, I waited a long time for this. A case like this might come along once in an officer's.

Career, and a woman at that, and a.

Woman at that. But then look what I talked about at the top of the episode. He had another lady burglar.

Yeah, totally.

Meanwhile, Judy's mom back in Arkansas said, quote, she changed when she left here. She sure did. I guess citified is what you'd call itified. Judy is one of a kind. I guess that's something to be thankful for. Wow, cityfied, I see where she gets the disc is. Judy got out of jail in nineteen ninety. She only did three years of the thirteen year sentence.

It was a non violent crime.

Where is she now, Well, where is now? You tell me?

Thank you for not telling me yet.

As of last reporting, she's a home security consultant. So's she's a white hat.

A white hat hacker, okay.

I tried to find more follow up information on her, and I could. I tracked down her mother's obituary, okay, which put Judy still alive in twenty fifteen, but going by a different last name. So wherever she is, I wish her god speed, godspeed bandit of Boca del Mar. What's your ridiculous takeaway?

Florida?

Pretty much Florida.

I mean, I know honesty. Like I think I've said this before. I have family in Florida. I used to go there a lot when I was raised in Georgia. It's somewhere I feel very comfortable. And at no point do I look down on Florida. So I'm not one of those people who's making fun of or wagging my finger at Florida. I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with your Florida and I'm saying it straight to your face. At

And then you have all these criminals that are going this gives me a great place to hide out.

It's just amazing energy, just a chaos and like they talk about, oh it's a melting pot, that's where the melting pot bubbles.

Yeah.

And what I like about Florida is that lady executives are not an anomaly. You actually see them walking around in the wild all the time.

Is there's so many you lose count. You cannot count them, Elizabeth. It's is lady executive four or five, real litter seventeen, I mean all over.

I don't have enough fingers for this.

And if you can believe it, I mean they're they're driving cars.

Yes, I saw one using money. It's crazy money, Elizabeth, a lady professional. Her husband wasn't even there.

I know, but you know what, that's it's one of those special things about us.

That's I mean, Miami is a really progressive place with.

The lady with the lady workers. That's us.

That's why I got for you Ridiculously.

It's wonderful. You can find us online at Ridiculous crime dot com. It's amazing, Like it's such a well designed website. It's really I mean, we have technology that we're using in that that other people don't have.

We had chat GBT five.

Look at at GBT.

Yeah, it's the one that's on drugs. It's chat GBT and it's it's like, oh man, I'm into this stuff. This is this is I love this website.

Well, the government was like, how did you design this? And we were like, you know what kicks Like, we're not telling.

You so either.

Leonardo DiCaprio or Leonardo da Vinci did it, but somebody cool because this is amazing art.

Leo dicapsis. There's t shirts I think on there, mugs. I think you can buy a like a racehorse.

You said eight by eleven glosses of Ricardo Mantabon.

Oh wow, lots of Yeah, they may be out, they may they may have run out, sold out, we'll see.

And the racehorse, Uh, he's doing well, but buy him soon.

Well.

And there's like the motorcycle jacket from the George Michael faith video for sale, but it might also be sold out. I don't know. I've been on there and.

One and I think we have also a glimpse at the smirk that Prince gave it the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert.

And the guitar that he threw up. And then we don't in the air and it's twofer. It's on the website. Is so cool. We're at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Don't email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave a talk back on the iHeart app, and that's it. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Shadow Sheriff of

QUI Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.