Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Surfer Stole Millions - The Murf The Surf story

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

Jack Murphy aka Murf The Surf became a notorious jewel thief and broke into the American Museum of Natural History

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After three months, plan auto renews and 1299 a month, terms apply. So this surfer somehow becomes one of the most notorious jewel thieves of all time. Now the guy, people call him Murph, and Murph loves to surf. And one day in Miami, Murph reconnects with some old surfing buddies of his. And these buddies, they're suddenly dressing kind of sharp. Like they used to be bums and now they got that drip. And Murph's like, when did your turds get money all of a sudden? And that is when one of his buddies explains it.

This guy, Alan. Alan explains to him that they all got this new side hustle, breaking into places and robbing them. Houses, hotel rooms, jewelry stores, mostly they're looking for jewels, so they're jewel thieves. And one night, they're about to go on a heist, and they invite Murph along. And Murph's like, sweet, let's get paid. And so he goes along on this heist, and it's successful. They steal some jewels and they sell them, and his cut ends up being around 15 grand. And Murph is looking at all this and he's like, well, that was the easiest money I ever made. Let's do it again. And so they keep this hustle going.

Murph and Alan, they surf by day and they cat burgle by night, climbing onto rooftops and jumping between balconies to steal jewelry from old rich ladies and tourists. And they're making a lot of money from this. And soon enough, they get another friend involved. This guy, Roger. And Roger ends up being their lookout and their getaway driver. And this is all working great for them. But pretty quickly, I guess they get a little bored with Miami.

I guess they robbed all the good places already. So Murph, Allen, and Roger, they take a road trip from Miami all the way up to New York City. Because they're trying to see if there are some places up there to rob. And while they're in New York, they take a tour of the famous American Museum of Natural History. And the American Museum of Natural History, it has one exhibit that's called the Hall of Gems, which houses some of the rarest and most expensive gyms in the world. And so this tour, it leads these jewel thieves through the hall of gyms, and they're looking at all these gyms on display, and they're like,

oh yeah, we need to rob this place. So they put their heads together, and they start coming up with a plan to break into the history museum and take their collection of historical gems. And these guys, they're like professionals at this, so they take the time to map out this whole heist. Like, they visit the museum, and they observe the guards while they're doing their night. They low-key check the windows in the museum for any vulnerabilities, and lucky for them they actually see one of those windows is cracked open. And while they're planning out this whole robbery, they're staying in a nearby hotel.

And since they have a surplus of money from all their Miami robberies, they're like in this hotel throwing these big ass loud parties in the room with lots of people. I mean, they're just having a great time. So the big night finally rolls around, and Roger drives them to the history museum, and Murph and Allen, they jump the fence and they run across the courtyard, and then Alan climbs up the side of the building, mostly using the fire escape, and then he makes it to the cracked window. And then he lowers a rope down for Murph. And then Murph climbs up and they open the window and they get inside and they head over to the hall of gems. And once they're there, they use a glass cutter and they cut holes in the display cases. And lucky for them, the alarms were old and outdated and no longer working.

And these guys, these surfers, end up stealing around 24 stones, including three very important gems, the DeLong Star Ruby, the Eagle Diamond, and the Star of India Sapphire, which were worth around $400,000, which in today's money would be around $4 million. Not to mention, these are historical gems, so they are literally impossible to replace. So anyway, these guys take these gems, and they take whatever else they can. and then they climb back down out of the building and they flee back to their hotel. The next morning, Murph and Allen, they fly to Miami, taking the jewels with them. Meanwhile, Roger flees to Connecticut to be with his family.

But when the news breaks that the Museum of Natural History had a bunch of priceless jewels stolen, the story blows up and it's all over the news. Here's the thing, though. Because these dudes threw so many parties back at their hotel, a hotel clerk ends up tipping off the police. Like, you know, these three guys, they seem really suspicious. And so the police goes and checks their hotel room, and they find photos of the museum, a pew-poo, and burgling tools.

So they know these guys are guilty. Two days later, the FBI shows up in Miami. And boom, they arrest Murph. And also, boom, they arrest Alan. And eventually, they go and arrest Roger too. Now, ultimately, over time, the feds do recover most of the stolen jewels. There were 24 of them in total. But they never actually recover one of the big ones, the Eagle Diamond.

Like literally, they just never found it. Now, because this is such a big news story, these guys become kind of criminal celebrities. Like people end up rooting for them. I mean, they're surfers, they're in shape, they're kind of handsome. They become like sort of local heroes. So it looks like these guys have really benefited from all this. Until All three of them

are found guilty and they're sentenced to three years in prison So they do their time And they get out And Roger, he goes on to lead a normal life But Murph and Alan, they do not They go right back into crime And they go back into their robbing houses

And jewelry stores But then one day Murph meets these two young women in Florida And they ask him for help Because they apparently just stole $488,000 worth of stocks and bonds from a financial services office that they used to work for. And now, they don't know what to do next. And so I guess Murph, being a criminal, he offers to help them sell these stocks and bonds without getting caught. And so within a few days of befriending them,

these two women are suddenly crashing at his apartment, which sounds kind of fun, but pretty quickly, I guess Murph finds them to be really annoying. Like they're all impatient and they're just driving him crazy. And so Murph and some other guy, they offer to take them out on the guy's boat. And once they're out on the water, they beat these women and they stab them and they unalive them. And then they dump them in the water. A month later, their bodies wash up on the shore of the canal. And Murph and the other guy, they were last seen with them. So they are very much suspects in this crime. And so, bam, they both get arrested. But unfortunately, at this point, there isn't any hard evidence, so they're released on bail. And while he's out on bail, Murph decides, yeah, it's time to

rob another house. And so he breaks into this rich woman's house while she's home and he robs her at gunpoint. And he's like, give me all your jewelry or I'm going to throw this boiling water on your niece's face. Jesus, Murph. But lucky for the woman and her niece, she actually has a panic button installed in her house. So she hits the panic button and pretty quickly police arrive. And Murph is still there and there's like a whole shootout between him and police and eventually bam they arrest him again and he goes to trial and he's found guilty of both trying to rob that rich woman's house and unaliving those girls on that boat and he gets back to back life sentences oh but it's not over yet because in prison murph is going to continue to be a turd in prison he actually becomes some sort of a

drug kingpin, like making sure other prisoners get their supply, I guess. But then one day, Murph gets a tip. Someone informs him that if he ever wants to get out on parole, the only way he can do that is if he presents himself as a changed man and say that he, like, found Jesus or something. And a lot of people think that this is absolute bullshit, but suddenly he starts proclaiming that he found Jesus and he starts preaching to other prisoners in the prison.

And I guess it works because then after 17 years in prison, after two life sentences, the parole board believes that he's a changed man and they ultimately let him out. Wow.