{"id":688,"date":"2014-05-07T10:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T10:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=688"},"modified":"2015-01-09T16:05:32","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T21:05:32","slug":"pittsburghs-unsolved-diamond-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/05\/07\/pittsburghs-unsolved-diamond-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh\u2019s unsolved diamond theft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An <\/a>
An arrow in this photo pointed to where the diamond used to be. (Robert J. Pavuchak\/Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This was the front-page Pittsburgh Press story about the theft Kurt Fischer read in July 1981. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"August <\/a>
August 1984: Kurt Fischer worked as a Pittsburgh city detective for 10 years. The missing Carnegie Museum diamond was one of the cases he never solved. (Thomas Ondrey\/The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"August <\/a>
August 1984: The Pittsburgh Press ran a large magazine spread with Fischer featured prominently on the steps of the Carnegie Museum three years after the theft. (Thomas Ondrey\/The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Pittsburgh city detective Kurt Fischer was reading the Sunday paper on July 26, 1981, when a story about the Carnegie Museum of Natural History caught his eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuseum \u2018Out\u2019 $75,000 Gem,\u201d read a Pittsburgh Press headline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sure hope to heck I don\u2019t get that one,\u201d thought Fischer.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, when he walked into his office, the case was his<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was going to be a bear,\u201d Fischer said in a phone conversation yesterday. \u201cSometimes you get the easy ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

And other times you\u2019re tasked with finding a pale-yellow, 16-carat diamond from India valued at $75,000. The gem apparently went missing on Friday afternoon, July 24, 1981, but officials discovered the loss on Saturday during a daily walk-through.<\/p>\n

Later in the week, Fischer received a call from a woman. She said her husband had recently been jailed in Pittsburgh, and while there he met a man who was bragging about stealing a giant diamond. The man had since been released, was living back in Erie, and police there knew him well.<\/p>\n

Stealing a diamond sounded like something the man might do, Erie detectives told Fischer.<\/p>\n

It was the best lead he would get on the case, and it went nowhere. The Pittsburgh chief of detectives at the time declined Fischer\u2019s travel to Erie. The trail has remained cold, though Leigh Kish, the museum\u2019s current marketing director, said a replacement diamond has since been purchased.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026but no other updates on the case. I\u2019d guess I\u2019d assume that nothing was ever solved,\u201d Kish wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Fischer, 64, retired from the city in 2001 and now works as private security at federal offices around Pittsburgh. The 1981 diamond theft is a case he still thinks about.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statute of limitations has long since expired,\u201d Fischer said. \u201cIt would be nice just to get it back and parade it over to the museum and say, \u2018Here it is!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMuseum \u2018Out\u2019 $75,000 Gem,\u201d read a Pittsburgh Press headline.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesPittsburgh\u2019s unsolved diamond theft<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[947],"tags":[989,1025,1016,1021,1046],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/tumblr_n5627eTYCF1rr5swxo4_1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C877&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2281,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/11\/16\/photographer-stewart-love-atop-the-gulf-building\/","url_meta":{"origin":688,"position":0},"title":"Photographer Stewart Love atop the Gulf Building","date":"November 16, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"He often climbed some of the area\u2019s tallest structures to make pictures.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/tumblr_mdjxzuOpCI1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1158%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/09\/01\/pittsburgh-post-gazettes-newsroom-in-transition\/","url_meta":{"origin":688,"position":1},"title":"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s newsroom in transition","date":"September 1, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"This is the same floor that Post-Gazette reporters work on today, but the scene couldn\u2019t be more different.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/tumblr_nb2zr7F8cv1rr5swxo4_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C956&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":364,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/08\/13\/market-square-pittsburghs-original-gathering-space\/","url_meta":{"origin":688,"position":2},"title":"Market Square: Pittsburgh\u2019s original gathering space","date":"August 13, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"The area has remained Pittsburgh\u2019s restless epicenter.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/tumblr_na7pdb9XsD1rr5swxo6_r1_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C749&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/10\/04\/evolution-of-the-andy-warhol-museum\/","url_meta":{"origin":688,"position":3},"title":"Evolution of the Andy Warhol Museum","date":"October 4, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"The Andy Warhol Museum, which opened in 1994, is located in a distinctive building that once served as a warehouse for oil well, mill and mine supplies.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/tumblr_mu3olxGqZU1rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/04\/30\/2006-the-august-wilson-center-being-built\/","url_meta":{"origin":688,"position":4},"title":"The August Wilson Center being built","date":"April 30, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"The August Wilson Center for African American Culture isn\u2019t quite a decade old, but its fate is already on the line.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_n4tedz6m041rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=719%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2452,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/10\/04\/july-13-1961-circus-parade-in-downtown\/","url_meta":{"origin":688,"position":5},"title":"Circus parade in Downtown Pittsburgh","date":"October 4, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"This photograph was not published in the newspaper.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/tumblr_mbah13e1751rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C811&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3983,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions\/3983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}