Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Men Posed As Utility Workers to Murder Jewelry Store Owner: Sheriff

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

A beloved jewelry store owner was murdered in his home outside of Detroit by two men who posed a utility workers to get into the house. Hussein "Sam" Murray was killed last Friday. Thankfully, cameras at the home captured clear images of one of the suspects. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at how the suspects were caught and how Murray is being remembered in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Dave Sarni https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-sarni-ba002910a/CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. We're DTE. We're checking for gas leaks. The man in that video seems legit, but the sheriff in Oakland County, Michigan, says he was a phony and murdered the homeowner. We don't think the owner or the victims knew these two, but we think they knew who they were. The sheriff is here with details about this terrifying case. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

This case is really terrifying and it really hits home because what happened to Hussein Murray and his wife could happen to any one of us. We've all had someone we don't know knock on our door. Murray was known to family and friends as Sam. And this happened in an upscale neighborhood in Rochester Hills outside of Detroit last Friday. Hussein Murray was murdered in his home. His wife was there and was also hurt. The sheriff says two men posing as utility workers committed the crime. This is Sheriff Mike Bouchard.

They showed up at the house on Thursday night and were denied admittance. And they came back to the same house Friday during the day. And that's when the crime happened. And none of the neighbors on either side or across the street were ever knocked on. Here's the clip from the Murray's ring doorbell camera from Thursday night when the fake workers tried to get in. We're DTE. We're checking for gas leaks. Thankfully, the Murray's did not let those phony workers into their home. It was after 9 p.m. But sadly, as you heard Sheriff Bouchard say, the thieves came back to the house in the upscale neighborhood the next morning. It was Friday.

Sadly, Hussein Murray was was killed. And it's my understanding his wife, she was hospitalized. She was injured. But is she out of the hospital now? Yes, she's been released. The physical injuries were minor, relatively minor, but the traumatic circumstances that she endured being duct taped and gagged in her own house and her husband murdered violently, those are things that just she'll never be able to process, I don't think. Was Mr. Murray trying to defend his home and his wife?

I mean, is this how this, you know, he has every right to do so, obviously. Yeah, 100 percent he would. But we think that, you know, this ruse at least bought some credibility when they came back the second time during the day. And he was taking them to the basement to check out this alleged gas leak where, you know, the gas came into the house and he never came up from the basement. He was murdered down there. The sheriff put out the video

and this still from the ring video that showed a man ringing the doorbell on Thursday night that led to him being identified. He's 37-year-old Carlos Jose Hernandez, and he was taken into custody in Louisiana and charged with murder and other crimes. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a statement, this was a gruesome attack on an elderly couple in their home. I have authorized the highest charge, which carries a mandatory life without parole sentence for this brutal crime.

My office will work diligently to ensure that this individual is held accountable and that the public is safe from violent predators. U.S. Marshals actually helped track down Hernandez. Yeah, so we've got a great team. Our detectives, the deputies that responded to the call, our crime lab, our DNA folks, our computer crimes, our fugitive apprehension. I mean, this was a whole of agency effort. And then of course, our partners, you know, we partner very closely with the U.S. Marshal's office and their fugitive team. Our fugitive teams work very closely with them, with Detroit fugitive team, with the state police, with, you know, you name it. And so all of that,

you know, came together. Our detectives were able, by a variety of tips, we got some video and images out as quickly as we could, which as an aside, Ring Doorbell Company was no help. But once we were able to get some of these images out, we started getting tips. Then we prioritize the tips based on the credibility or the sound or the connectivity of those tips. Then we prioritize the tips based on credibility or the sound or the connectivity of those tips. And we start to work, you know, different targets, if you will, work up different places to go, people to look for, venues, things like that. So the first individual, we had some information and they began to look for that particular person that we had a belief may have been involved in this based on some of the tip and some of the likenesses. And they were able to determine a car that he may have taken, had access to.

And then we began to share that with our U.S. marshal friends and our colleagues across the country. We had some idea, obviously, of some of this person's past, where they've been, where they might go. We just started running some of those leads down. So a lot of legwork and police work went into it. And ultimately, Louisiana Sheriff's Office was able to spot them in transit on the road and took suspect number one into custody. The stories I cover for you each day here on Crime Fix show you just how scary the world can be. And one of the scariest things that can happen is if you ever get hurt. But it's important to realize if you're ever seriously hurt or in an accident, your case could be worth millions. And that's where our sponsor, Morgan & Morgan, comes in.

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Sheriff Bouchard believes the Murrays were targeted not because the phony utility workers actually knew them, but because of what Sam did for a living. He owned the gold and glitter jewelry store. One thing I guess if there's a little bit of kind of calming is we don't think it was random. We don't think they were just like knocking on a door. No one answers. Go to the next one. We think it was more targeted at this point. That's obviously part of the investigation. But we've seen this where it's been targeted against small

business owners that there's a belief they may have cash or jewelry or other things in their home as part of that business. And this particular victim had a family business, which was a jewelry and a pawn shop. So there's a sad lesson to be learned from this. The sheriff and the prosecutor want people to be careful about letting people into their homes. It is a good reminder to everybody, regardless of whether they own a small business or whatever the circumstance, if somebody is on your front doorstep and want to gain entry, do not open your door. Don't just don't let them in. Don't open your door until you know 100% for sure that they're there on a legitimate business call and who that business

is and you want to let them in your home. So my suggestion is whatever the business they say they're representing, you independently look that phone number up, Google it, whatever the case may be, call it and ask that company, do you have an employee at my house now? And if they don't, that's when you call 911. If they do, then it's up to you to make an informed decision. But if you open the door just to talk to them, we've seen them burst their way into the house and we've seen different r their way into the house. And we've seen different ruses. This one was a utility worker ruse.

Sam Murray's grandson posted on Instagram about the Sundays that they spent together as a family and what a good cook his granddad was. Part of the post reads, It is hard to put into words the level of generosity and kindness that my grandfather possessed. A man who spread so much warmth and joy to everyone in his family and someone whose smile could make you feel like the world was yours. Almost every Sunday, our family tradition is to go to our grandparents' house and eat dinner. When you'd pull up to the house, you could see my grandfather working on his yard.

The people who took him away from this world don't know they took someone who was selfless and compassionate, a man who's respected throughout his community, both in America and Lebanon, someone who I've loved and will miss for the rest of my life. It's been a really confusing and painful few hours for me, and I can't believe he's gone. David Sarney is here with me. He's a retired NYPD detective. Dave, this really terrifies me, this case, because this can be any one of us. Your reaction when you read about it and you saw the videos, obviously, you know, the Murrays trusted these people and let them into their home.

Yeah, that seems to be an issue when we deal with these type of burglaries and they turn into home invasions. The perpetrators prey upon the fact that people are very trusting. You really have to start looking back and not realizing you can't trust everybody. And you have to really be on guard at any given time, even behind your doors, because you don't know who is out there who's looking to do hurt, looking to damage, looking to steal from you. And in this case, murder. I mean, they murdered the poor guy who did nothing wrong. What really bothers me about it is the fact that they were there the night before. They would not let them in, which is very smart. It was after nine at night.

They come back the next day and the sheriff says he thinks they were targeted because Sam Murray owned a jewelry store. So they knew this is somebody with some means. And that's what's so disturbing to me. They could have just left. They could have just moved on down the road. But they came back. What does that tell you? It tells you they had they were motivated. There was a motivated operation that they were looking to get as much as they could. They had a target in mind. And I guess in their mind, the perpetrators minds that this is the best way and opportunity because they didn't want to give up. And we see that a lot of times, even with break-ins and like these individuals, when they find that target, they're going to do what they can no matter what. I mean, that's how they, that's why they went in because their expectation was,

we're going to get what we need to get out of this house. The cameras were key in this case. They would not have found these people as quickly as they did had the Murrays not had that ring camera. And that ring camera was a crystal clear picture of this perp, even though part of his face was covered. And they were able to track him down somehow. Somebody had to have called in and said, hey, I know who that is. Yeah, any type of evidence that police can gather, especially video surveillance, is another tool to gather information to find the people who did this. And that was a benefit. And, you know, we see this

becoming more and more of a positive thing in law enforcement's perspective is these ring cameras are another tool. And the difficulty is they can't avoid the observation. I mean, the camera, the ring camera is there. They saw it. They didn't even attempt to block it. So that in the sense that they're looking to say that we're professionals and we are electrical workers or whatever, you know, whatever they're going to pretend. In New York, we have guys who pretend to be other utility employees, too. So it's, you know, that was helpful. And I believe that more people who have surveillance around their house, it enables them. One, it's sometimes a deterrent, and it's also sometimes that tool that law enforcement can use to find

these people to apprehend them. We were talking before we started talking, and you said you think this is going to be happening more and more with people using these ruses to try to invade people's homes. Yeah, we've seen organized gangs and organized crews doing this on a regular basis. They ebb and flow. But in this case, we've seen people posing as Amazon workers to gain access. So a lot of these things, you're going to see this happening more, given also the fact that people are getting packages to their homes more often. You're going to see these individuals utilizing that opportunity. Again, the trustworthiness, you know, an Amazon worker, a utility employee. It's like they have an expectation. And you really, unfortunately, in this society now, you can't trust what you think anymore.

You have to really be on the side of caution at all times. Makes you not want to answer your door. I know I always do a double take and try to be very careful when somebody's knocking on my door because people will come up to your door trying to sell anything, or maybe they say they've got a deal for you. Or they're my favorite these days is the, I have a better deal for you on your utility rates with this company than I do, than you're getting now. And I just, it's a little scary, the number of people who will approach your door these days. Yes, definitely. There's not if there's no fear anymore of law enforcement. There's no fear of criminal prosecution for a lot of these people. So they're going to they're going to dare in a sense to do that.

You know, there may be some people who are actually legitimate workers and gym employees doing either canvases for politicians and the like. But the reality is you still have to err on the side of caution. I you know, when people ring the bell, I don't answer the door either. I just, I look to see who it is. And you don't open the door immediately. And that's one thing you have to do is take a step back before you answer. Ask who they are. I know within New York City, you can actually, you know, this was a gas leak they were checking. You can actually check online if there's a gas leak in your area that has been reported.

So this is another way of protecting yourself. But, you know, if you don't feel comfortable letting them in, don't let them in. That's the reality is, you know, don't let these people in. They were able to track these guys down fairly quickly. They found Hernandez in Louisiana on Sunday, I believe. This crime occurred on Friday. So that's actually fairly fast. Yeah, absolutely.

And that's why when you talk about law enforcement working as fast as possible, you know, we can't always stop crime, but we're going to sure as hell find the people who did it. And I think the law enforcement in this case, the sheriff and all, did a fantastic job in moving as quick as they did in getting the person, one of the people who did this. Yeah, working with the Marshal Service and all of those people.

Dave Cerny, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.