The target of the heist was the Translyvania University Rare Books Room in Lexington, Kentucky. Spencer Reinhard had toured the room during a tour during his freshman orientation, and he learned about the library’s collection of folios from John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. These ultra-rare originals were some of the most valuable books in the country, and the library had minimal security for such treasures.
Reinhard and Warren Lipka started planning a hypothetical theft of the goods. Reinhard was initially less than serious about the plot, but Lipka, who was dissatisfied and burnt out already during his first year of college, wanted to do it. The Audubon collection was only guarded by an elderly librarian named Betty Jean Gooch, and Lipka found a potential buyer for the stolen goods in Amsterdam.
It took time, but after recruiting Eric Borsuk and Chas Allen and “perfecting” their plan, Lipka arranged a meeting with Gooch under the false name Walter Beckman to see the rarest items in the library’s collection. The meeting would take place on December 16, 2004, near the end of the university’s finals week. He would arrive at the meeting disguised as an old man, and he would knock her out with a stun gun. Borsuk would also be in an old man disguise and would come to help carry the heavy folios. Allen would be waiting in the parking lot with a getaway vehicle, and Reinhard would provide lookout support from a nearby location.
When they tried to put the plan into action on December 16, quite literally everything went wrong. Chas Allen was unable to secure the original vehicle planned for the heist and had to settle with another. He also could not find a parking spot close to the library. The stun guns the crew ordered to knock out the librarian had not arrived yet, so Lipka had to find a replacement. As for the old man disguises, they were not convincing. Reinhard, a talented artist, did not have time to make Lipka and Borsuk look good, as he, seriously, had to take a final before the heist. Once the wannabe thieves were in the library, they decided it wasn’t going to work, so they rescheduled.