He Told Me Just to Wait Until I Get Catched Up on the Stream Until I Could Join Again
On Betoken presents: Run across folk hero and con man 'Murph the Surf' 37:50 Copy the code beneath to embed the WBUR audio player on your site
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Hi anybody. Meghna Chakrabarti here. I'm popping into your feed on a Sun — unexpected, I know — because we're trying out something a picayune unlike.
WBUR, the home of On Point, makes a handful of podcasts yous may not take heard earlier, and we desire to change that. And so we've curated a playlist of sorts for you. Every Sunday for the next month, we'll be dropping one of our favorite episodes of a WBUR Podcast in this feed.
First up: An episode from the new season of Last Seen — an anthology of stories about people, places, and things that have gone … missing. Enjoy.
Jack Roland Spud was an "enigma of fabled deeds and crimes," equally one writer put it. Better known equally "Murph the Surf," he purported to exist a violin virtuoso, tennis star, two-time national surfing champion, and a daring — albeit impuissant — thief. Importantly remembered for helping pull off the biggest jewel heist in New York City history in 1964, his checkered and complicated legacy also contains a much darker affiliate.
Our start episode of Last Seen: Flavor 2 is brought to you lot by Amory Sivertson (Endless Thread), who traces the enigmatic life of this folk hero and examines why figures like him go on to be idolized.
Show notes:
- Palm Beach Mail archival footage
- The Sneak podcast
- Christian Family Outreach Center archival footage
- "Live a Little, Steal a Lot" Trailer
- CBS Miami archival footage
- Corey Kilgannon'due south New York Times article
- 1960's hit sitcom Green Acres
- Murph in Vanity Fair
- New York Times obituary
- Murph in Sports Illustrated
Special cheers to Organized religion Salie, who convinced us to await into Murph. Check out Faith's piece of work at world wide web.FaithSalie.com
Thank you likewise to journalists Corey Kilgannon from the New York Times and Nate Scott from USA Today for sharing their reporting on Murph.
Total Transcript:
This content was originally created for audio. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. Heads upwards that some elements (i.east. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.
Nora Saks: Welcome to Terminal Seen, from WBUR - Boston's NPR station. If you tuned into Flavour one, you know it was nigh 13 priceless works of art that went missing from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum more than than xxx years agone and were never seen again.
Now, Last Seen is back.
I'g Nora Saks, and I'll be your host, or maybe curator is more fitting. Because in this new season of the show, we've got an album of stories that put a twist on the genre of true-offense. 10 new mysteries, told by ten different contributors almost unexpected people, places, and things that take gone missing.
This series explores what losing them ways, why we continue searching, and whether or non they tin can — or even should — exist found.
[MUSIC]
Nora: Organized religion Salie is someone who might sound familiar to public radio heads out there.
Faith Salie: My children, who are now seven and 9, go to something called the Science and Nature Program at the American Museum of Natural History.
Nora: Faith is a regular panelist on NPR'due south Wait, Wait… Don't Tell Me. She'southward too a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning. She just closed an Off-Broadway i-woman bear witness, and she's a mom who likes to get downwardly-and-nerdy with her kids at the history museum.
Faith: Then I get to dissect squid with my kids.
Nora: Terminal year, Faith'southward daughter'southward class at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City did a whole unit on treasures.
Faith: So it was treasures of the World, treasures of the sea, and treasures of the museum.
Nora: One 24-hour interval, the teacher mentioned something called the Hall of Gems.
Religion: It's everything from explaining the chemistry and science backside what makes a crystal, a crystal to an absolutely massive geode that looks like, I mean, information technology is as big and wide as similar a silverback gorilla.
Nora: Only this Hall of Gems? Closed for renovations. So instead, the instructor told the class a story. A tantalizing 1.
Religion: Do yous know that somebody once in the 60s stole many of the virtually famous gems?
[MUSIC]
Nora: Amory Sivertson is some other person who might sound familiar to public radio heads. She'south a senior podcast producer at WBUR and the host of our prove Endless Thread. And Amory has been thinking a ton virtually this story lately. Virtually the man, the legend, behind it.
Amory Sivertson: His proper name is Jack Roland Irish potato. At to the lowest degree, nosotros remember information technology's Jack Roland Murphy. Merely most people but call him 'Murph the Surf.'
Nora: If you read Murph'due south obituary or the umpteen newspapers & magazines that accept covered his story, you might remember him as something of a folk hero.
Amory: And what I wonder, Nora, is how does someone go a folk hero? Similar how does that narrative go spun in the first place, and and so what perpetuates it?
Nora: Correct, considering it turns out that Murphy's legacy is really nighttime and pretty twisted. And he did everything he could to tell it the way he wanted.
Amory: So to me, the question is what gets lost when the person at the heart of a story is allowed to command it?
Nora: Amory Sivertson brings usa episode 1.
Amory: Murph.
[MUSIC]
Amory: If you're here because you listened to flavor ane of Concluding Seen, yous're OK if I kick off season 2 with a heist, right? The American Museum of Natural History, on the other hand, would probably rather I didn't.
Religion: It is astonishing to me that I feel like I know this place so well and I accept never heard this story.
Amory: Faith Salie wasn't the only museum-regular surprised to larn about the scandal.
Corey Kilgannon: I had never heard of it, you know, and I've been covering New York for more than 20 years.
Amory: Corey Kilgannon covers New York for The New York Times.
Corey: The Times has a huge photo morgue. You lot know, we telephone call information technology the morgue.
Amory: And one day a couple years ago, the Times' photograph mortician, so to speak, plops a fatty binder of blackness and white photos on his desk-bound.
Corey: And I'm like, what's this? And he's like, yeah, Murph the Surf. And I'yard like, Murph the what?
Amory: Murph the Surf. Jack Roland Murphy. National surfing champion, and the architect of the American Museum of Natural History jewel heist. Then information technology's 2019 - the 150th ceremony of the American Museum of Natural History. The museum is touting its Teddy Roosevelt statue and its T-rex skeleton only at that place'due south no mention of the jewel heist. So Corey decides he's going to write about it. He reaches out to the museum, and they are non eager to comment.
Corey: Well, they're not exactly proud of the precious stone heist, yous know.
Amory: So, Corey, and Faith,
Faith: I had to do a little research because the museum doesn't like to talk about it.
Amory: They start doing their own excavation. And somewhen, they piece together how information technology all went down in the Fall of 1964. It starts with three men.
Corey: Jack Spud (Murph the Surf), Allan Kuhn, and Roger Clark. These guys are buddies. They're down in Florida.
Faith: And all the thieves in this story are very, very tan, similar no SPF, no sunscreen, no morals. OK.
Amory: Murph, Allan, and Roger are in their 20s at the time and eye-catchingly handsome. Murph especially, if yous ask Faith.
Faith: He is kind of sexy.
Amory: Slick dress, slicked dorsum blonde hair, low-cal, piercing eyes ofttimes subconscious backside aviator sunglasses. Murph and his crew like parties. And women. And jewels. They're robbing Miami hotel rooms and waterfront mansions. But in 1964, they gear up their sights on the Big Apple.
Faith: Get a Cadillac, drive up to New York City to see the 1964 World's Off-white.
Corey: So they're hanging out in New York City, living the high life, partying. They rented a suite.
Religion: Penthouse on West 86th.
Corey: Actually a few blocks away from the Museum of Natural History.
Faith: They're going to jazz clubs.
Corey: And they were pulling off different heists in hotels and at one point, Allan Kuhn starts talking about these gems, these priceless gems that are held in the Museum of Natural History, and he wants to effort to take them.
Organized religion: And they get to the American Museum of Natural History, they go into the Hall of Gems and they're standing around these three really famous gems.
Amory: These famous gems have names. At that place's the fiery pink-red DeLong Star Ruby, coming in at 100 carats. The Midnight Star, the earth's largest black sapphire. And, the crown precious stone of the museum'south jewel collection, the Star of Republic of india — the earth's largest sapphire, catamenia. 563 carats of milky-blueish magic. Iii stars.
Faith: And when the light shines on them, in that location is a perfect bright 6-point star.
Amory: And three thieves.
Faith: So the iii guys are at the museum and as i of them said later, they all looked at each other, didn't say anything, only with their eyes, information technology was sort of like, can we exercise this?
Corey: And Murph describes Allan as maxim, similar, 'they're talking to me. They're talking to me. They're begging to exist taken to Miami and they're maxim take us to Miami.' And Murph says, OK. Allow's have them to Miami.
Faith: On Oct. 29, 1964, they expect for a night where information technology's cloudy, low visibility. And, as Murph the Surf puts it, he wanted to wait snazzy in instance he was nabbed.
Corey: He told me that you lot've got to accept a little flair if you go arrested and end up on the news. Yous don't want to wait similar a schlub.
Amory: Corey Kilgannon heard the story of the heist straight from Murph'due south mouth.
Corey: Murph said on the night of the museum heist, he was in a night green velour jacket, a turtleneck, corduroys, and lawn tennis shoes.
Faith: They all bought new sneakers and they spray painted them black and they've already gone out to different hardware stores in town to get all the necessities one needs for a heist, right? So, nosotros get rope at one identify. You go glass cutters and duct record in another identify.
Amory: Ooh, very smart, OK.
Faith: Right. One of the guys, Roger Clark, drives around the cake repeatedly in the Cadillac considering he's going to be the getaway car. And Kuhn and Murph the Surf, they scale the walls in their fancy beatnik duds.
Corey: And, you know, walked forth ledges and, you know, got spooked by a agglomeration of pigeons that, you know, kind of suddenly, you know, took flight when these guys stepped around a corner on the ledge and they managed to go upwardly to the fourth floor where the Hall of Gems is and commencement to head towards these slightly open windows.
Faith: The window is freaking open up. It's the museum. The window was open.
Amory: Once Murph and Allan are within, you'd remember they'd want to get as many jewels as they can as quickly as they tin can, and and then go the hell outta there. Merely instead,
Corey: They but stood and they hid in the shadows and they waited to see when the guard came because like they felt they didn't have to rush this. This wasn't like a smash and grab.
Amory: They figure out the guard comes by about every 45 minutes. And then in one case the guard's finished his latest round of the Hall of Gems, Murph and Allan walk over to the glass cases of jewels and get to work.
Corey: First they scored the glass. They scored a circle in each case so they put record over it so information technology wouldn't shatter and make a loud noise. And then they took the mallet and they broke information technology.
Amory: But another pattern they became aware of while waiting in the shadows and timing the guard was a flight pattern — planes flight noisily over the museum to and from JFK and LaGuardia.
Corey: In club to, y'all know, shroud the sound of the cabinets breaking, they waited till a airplane was flying overhead and so they smashed the glass.
Amory: Things seem to be going smoothly. And then, they go in for the Stars — the iii largest, most coveted jewels in the collection. Again, they score the glass, tape it, break it, repeat that process for a second panel of glass. But when they reach in to grab the gems, they notice a footling needle sticking up inside the case.
Organized religion: Which they realize, oh, that must be similar the tripwire warning organisation. Nosotros've got like five minutes to go out of here. They do discover that the batteries to the warning system appear to exist corroded, but they notwithstanding retrieve that needle is going to be their demise if they don't become out of at that place fast. So they, like put their artillery in and they just scoop out all the jewels they tin can get at. Information technology was about two dozen jewels in all.
Corey: The lot that they wound upwardly taking was evaluated at what'southward today like maybe three and a half million dollars. Only substantially they were priceless because they're historic, basically irreplaceable famous gems.
Amory: So one time they accept the gems in paw, how do they get out and where do they go?
Corey: Right, and so this is where it really gets near comical.
Amory: Comical and possibly embellished, seeing as the play-by-play of the rest of the night comes straight from Murph. Allan Kuhn catches a cab. Murph has the jewels in a handbag over his shoulder. He encounters some constabulary officers on the street, simply he plays it cool. Strikes upward a conversation with a passerby to blend in, and carries on.
Corey: This is not a nervous guy, you know? This is not a prudent guy. This is a guy who, after he robs, pulls off the heist of the century, what the tabloids called the heist of the century in New York City. Instead of going back and doing the smart, cautious thing, he decides to go downtown and grab some jazz, you lot know, and accept a drink or two.
[JAZZ MUSIC]
Corey: The bands playing and Murph goes up to the bar with these jewels in a bag on his shoulder, and he orders a drink and he sits in that location and catches some music.
Amory: Wow. The hutzpah.
Corey: Yes. The hutzpah.
Amory: And then Murph and his comrades have gotten away. At least, for now. As for the bag of jewels,
Religion: Past that morning time, they had already fenced it. Somebody had come to assess how much they're going to get and where it's going to go. By the way, I don't know what the discussion contend means, do you? I simply know that nosotros're supposed to say that in this context.
Amory: If you, like Faith, or me, until very recently, don't know what that ways, fencing is selling stolen stuff. So, the jewels got fenced, and the thieves skipped town.
Faith: Ii days later, the FBI arrests them in Miami. They've gotten tipped off by somebody who lived in that building who was like those three guys were actually noisy and annoying and then they merely took off.
Corey: So, the law respond to this and they get they observe the identities of the 3 men.
Organized religion: So, the guys are arrested. But that'south not the cease of the story. There are no witnesses. In that location are no jewels. And there's only the slimmest circumstantial evidence, which was when the FBI went to the flat they rented on the Upper West Side. There were some sneakers there with glass in the soles. That'southward all they got.
Amory: Allan and Murph make bail and become back to Miami pretty quickly, where they try their paw at lying to reporters. Here'south Murph speaking in archival footage from the Palm Beach Mail.
[ Palm Beach Post archival footage:
Jack Murphy: It is very embarrassing to be accused of something like this. And meanwhile, in New York, the jewel robberies continue to continue and on and they're all down here trying to get something on u.s.a.. We call up it's a shame that they don't concentrate their efforts up there in the city where this happened — maybe they could grab the people who did this.]
Amory: But despite their denial, Murph and Allan take to go on coming back to New York for courtroom appearances.
Corey: Every time they come dorsum upward for an appearance, a court appearance, you know, at that place's a media frenzy and they get their picture in the paper. And Murph takes out a cigar and holds courtroom, and has a field day.
[ Palm Embankment Mail archival footage:
Newscaster: The pair became the most photographed twosome in Miami for most a month. They came equipped with what every accused should take: pretty girls and a big-time defense force attorney, Harvey St. Jean.]
Faith: The press falls in love with them. They are then handsome. They are and so adventurous. They are and then brazen. They dress to the nines. And a twenty-iii-twelvemonth-former Wellesley graduate named Nora Ephron.
Amory: Yes, that Nora Ephron.
Faith: It'southward her first embrace story for the New York Post and she even says they belong, they should have their own ABC prove. Like everybody's in beloved with these 2 obnoxious, handsome Beach Boys.
Amory: These two, not three, obnoxious Beach Boys because, by this bespeak, Roger — the getaway car guy — he starts spilling the beans about how the heist went down. But Murph?
Corey: Murph idea he could beat information technology. Murph idea that they could beat the charges, y'all know?
[ Palm Beach Mail service archival footage:
Newscaster: And at present they say they may open a Miami Beach nightclub to cash in on the publicity, appropriately naming the club the Star of India.]
Amory: But where is this confidence coming from? This ego, this swagger? Who is Jack Roland Murphy?
Corey: If you were to accept Murph at his word, you know, he played violin in a symphony orchestra in Pittsburgh.
Faith: Similar a first-class violinist.
Corey: He played, y'all know, high-level competitive lawn tennis. He helped start surfing on the East Coast.
Faith: World champion surfer.
Amory: Ehhh, national champion, as far every bit I can tell, simply Murph the Surf took to hyperbole similar he did to waves.
Corey: And he came to Florida and he became instantly an expert in trick diving and, uh, a lot of different water sports at beach clubs and that type of thing. It was like almost similar there'southward goose egg he couldn't do, you know.
Amory: Nothing except get away with stealing the world's near precious jewels.
Corey: He did not.
Amory: In part because he got Gabor'd. Eva Gabor'd. Eva Gabor as in the sister of Zsa Zsa Gabor? As in the star of the 60s sitcom Green Acres?
Corey: Yous know, dah-ling, that'due south how she talked.
[Excerpt from Green Acres:
Eva Gabor: Dah-ling don't get so excited, I'm only trying to make the place livable.]
Corey: And and so she claimed that those guys you lot arrested whose picture was in the paper, these guys held me up at gunpoint and took my jewels, a necklace or something
[ Palm Beach Post archival footage:
Gabor: Then then this other guy pointed this gun at me and I, with my terrible temper, went later on him. I thwacked him but I didn't hurt him. And so he hit me, this ungentlemanly bum.]
Faith: So the prosecutors are like, now nosotros got you, now we got you because Eva Gabor just identified you. So they go to jail. And while they go to jail, that's when each of them starts turning on the other and confesses the crime. Now we got to find these jewels.
[MUSIC]
Amory: At present this is where the story of the Gardner Museum art heist and the Museum of Natural History jewel heist diverge in a big way. Because the about precious items taken from the Hall of Gems in 1964 were recovered. Including the Stars, those three monster gems. In office because the thieves cooperated in helping become them dorsum. And thanks to a determined assistant district attorney and an elaborate programme involving a snorkel, a Miami bus terminal, an airline barf bag used to transport the jewels, and a $25,000 bribe for the DeLong Star Ruby paid for past John D. MacArthur, the jewels by and large plant their way back to New York. Every bit for the three thieves, they establish themselves on Rikers Island. Behind bars. Miraculously, they simply spent two years there. Perhaps because the evidence confronting them was mostly circumstantial. Perhaps because of their office in helping become the jewels dorsum. Whatever the reason, they did their time. And after that,
Corey: The other 2 fellows basically went straight and Murph did non get direct.
Amory: Coming up,
Nate Scott: I only saw this kind of nigh tossed aside mention of a murder.
Amory: More than in a minute.
[SPONSOR BREAK]
Amory: How did yous starting time hear nigh Murph the surf?
Nate: My mom, really.
Amory: Nate Scott is a reporter. It runs in the family unit.
Nate: My mom is a former announcer and is ever sending me story ideas and I usually say, oh, Mom, but--
Amory: But, like a good son, Nate humors his mom and surfs the web for the jewel heist.
Nate: And and then I saw that The New York Times had written about it recently.
Amory: Corey Kilgannon'south piece.
Nate: And Vanity Fair had covered it and I thought no, it's been washed also much, but then--
Amory: And so, Nate notices a brief mention in both of those pieces of something more sinister. Something that doesn't fit the colorful, folk hero narrative of Murph the Surf.
Nate: It simply was a more than confusing story, a harder story to tell, a more than violent and grisly story. And and so information technology just kind of was in part able to exist kind of brushed under the rug a piffling bit.
Amory: Nate hosts a truthful-offense podcast for United states of america Today called The Sneak. And he didn't know it and then, merely his mom had but sent him the story thought that would become the whole next season of his podcast. Considering there was some other chapter to Jack Roland Murphy'due south life story, waiting to be told. And Nate wanted to hear it from Murph himself.
Nate: It was a chip bizarre because I had heard from reporter after reporter that he's prickly. He'll cut you off like you lot won't fifty-fifty know. I called him up. He answered in Home Depot. I said I'd love to come down to Crystal River, Florida, and run into him. He said, alright, come on down.
Amory: So in early 2020, Nate and his co-producer, do but that.
[Excerpt from The Sneak
Jack Murphy: You gear up? Are we on? My proper name is Jack Irish potato, and we're taking you on a trip that has already been in the papers and the magazines]
Amory: They spend 4 days in Florida with Jack Murphy, who — at this bespeak — is in his early 80s.
Nate: Still handsome. Hawaiian shirt, buttoned-down, tan, charming, flirting with the waitress. And dominating.
Amory: As nosotros know, Murph loved media attention. Just only if the media loved him.
Nate: He asked us many, many times, are you here to tell my story the correct manner or the wrong way? Then he'd kind of express mirth and kind of give united states of america a punch on the shoulder. Simply then he'd stare, making you feel uneasy, just to make you feel uneasy, like that was that was it. There was a lot of that.
Amory: At that place was good reason to feel uneasy around Murph. He could be threatening. Nate'south first dark in town, Jack drove him and his colleague off the route and to the h2o's edge late at night, unannounced.
Nate: Nosotros sat in that location in silence, staring out over the h2o. And and so he turned the car back on and collection us dorsum to the hotel.
Amory: What? Did he say anything?
Nate: No words were exchanged.
Amory: Then do you think that was, similar, an intimidation tactic? Kind of like, I'1000 in command?
Nate: I think so.
Amory: But Nate was too uneasy because of what he knew about Murph, later on his time at Rikers. Within a year of getting out, Jack went from moving jewels, to drugs, to moving millions of dollars. And finally, to committing his most violent and heinous act.
[MUSIC]
Amory: A heads up that this next part of Jack White potato'south story is pretty upsetting. It's too very murky. Lots of allegations and he-said-he-saids. Only, hither's what nosotros think happens. In 1967, Jack Spud conspires with two secretaries at an Fifty.A. brokerage business firm to steal about half a meg dollars in stocks and bonds. Later on the theft, these two secretaries — Terry Rae Kent Frank, and Annelie Marie Mohn, both women in their early on 20s — they abscond to Miami, where Murph offers them a place to hideout. Merely when it comes to getting Murph's assistance turning those stocks and bonds into tangible money, things go amiss. Jack Potato and an associate take the two women out on a boat to talk over the deal. Simply at least one of the women isn't happy with it, and they threaten to go to the regime.
Nate: And the adjacent day they were discovered in the waters off of Whiskey Creek off the coast of Florida. The coroner testified that both women had been struck in the caput and so thrown overboard where they kept fighting. Information technology was at this moment that Annelie Marie Mohn they believe was shot. And the two women were still fighting afterwards that and the actual cause of death for both women was drowning.
Amory: The women's stomachs were slashed to preclude their bodies from rising to the water's surface. A concrete block was fastened to Terry Rae Kent Frank'due south neck with wire. Information technology was cruel. It was ruthless. And it seemed worlds away from the embankment boy jewel thief the media had fallen in honey with in New York only three years prior, and even from the crime that had gotten him that attending. Jack Murphy denied killing the women, and would later claim there was a fifth person on the boat who was responsible. He admitted to helping dispose of their bodies, simply at that place were eyewitnesses who said they saw but Murphy and the three others on the gunkhole. In 1969, Murph the Surf became Murph the bedevilled murderer.
Nate: He received, uh, double life sentence plus xx. It was for i of the murders and and then some other break-in he committed even after he was under abort for murder, he actually got out on parole and and then committed some other burglary.
Amory: 2 life sentences, plus an additional 20 years, could take essentially been the end of Murph'due south story, as he faded from the public'southward consciousness into incarcerated obscurity. Only so, about 5 years into his sentence, Murph meets someone in prison. Or maybe, finds is a more appropriate discussion. Someone even more than charismatic and beloved than him.
[CHOIR OF ANGELS MUSIC]
Faith: He finds Jesus hard. He is evangelical.
Amory: Faith Salie over again.
Organized religion: And I am non here to say that Jack Roland Spud did not fall on his knees and have Jesus as his Lord and Savior. And I'm non here to say that Jesus didn't modify his life. Jesus, in fact, very much changed his life.
Amory: Enter, Murph the government minister. Jack Murphy is born again. He starts preaching to his boyfriend inmates.
Corey: To accept Jesus Christ and to get straight and to, you know, similar kind of forsake their lot, their criminal lives.
Amory: Corey Kilgannon again.
Corey: And he caught the attention of some big shots on the outside. Some rich guys who adult, helped him develop a ministry building and helped persuade the authorities to parole him. And he got out earlier than he would take.
Amory: Now, to get out at all is earlier than he would accept. Only Murph was paroled later just 19 years. It was… a miracle?
[Christian Family Outreach Centre archival footage :
Spud: Well what was happening right then, the holy spirit had moved into my cell. And the holy spirit was giving me some sense that I didn't have.]
Amory: Jack Murphy traveled widely as a government minister, preaching to prisoners, giving talks. But Nate Scott says he had endless people under his spell.
Nate: Jack did get to give big, of import speeches in front of like very wealthy people and come across famous athletes and meet, as he put it, Hollywood stars galore. That was his expression.
Faith: He has that swagger when he tells his story. At that place are endless videos of him being interviewed on Christian television and giving speeches and being like a keynote speaker at Christian men'southward breakfasts.
[Christian Family Outreach Heart archival footage :
Murphy: And with this event of Jesus Christ, the about important of all issues, y'all have got to have some serious help, and that's what we're called to do! This is not a spectator's sport.]
Amory: Maybe most chiefly, Jack's spiritual calling — the greatest transformation in his life — likewise marked the greatest shift in how his story was told and would proceed to be told. His by misdeeds, the burglaries, the jewel heist, even the murder confidence… those were in the past.
Nate: This guy gets caught upwardly. He's doing the debonair thing he does the heist, he goes to prison house, he comes out hard then things went south until Jesus came. Yous know, that'southward kind of the narrative. Information technology was a lot more complicated than that.
Amory: Simply in the eyes of mainstream society, Jack had been redeemed.
Religion: What is disturbing to me, Amory, is that he not but loves telling his redemption tale because you can tell he'southward reveling in the crazy stuff that he did. Right? In the same way that I told you the story. It'due south kind of a fun story to tell. And he tells it with like zilch remorse. He relishes information technology.
[Christian Family Outreach Center archival footage :
White potato: A gentleman and his married woman approached me at a banquet in Pennsylvania recently, and he said, 'I've always wanted to encounter you again.' I said, 'Again?' He said, 'Yes, I was a 20-year-old security guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York Urban center the night that you lot stole the Star of India and the JP Morgan gem collection. And I said to him, 'Caught yous sleepin', didn't I?']
Amory: And Jack Murphy wrote it all down in his 1989 memoir, "Jewels for the Journey." On the outside, y'all see a James Bond lookin' photo of Murph — tan every bit e'er in a cream-colored adjust with a sparkling diamond just over his shoulder. On the inside, Nate says,
Nate: Information technology is non a great read. I can't recommend it, only the murders are non mentioned, not i give-and-take.
Amory: At present, it'southward not surprising that a convicted murderer might leave out the gruesome double homicide chapter of his colorful, self-serving narrative — maybe not one who's supposedly found Jesus — but, why have the residue of us left it out? Why did the 1975 film "Alive a Fiddling, Steal a Lot," which billed itself equally "The True Story of Murph the Surf," only tell the story of the jewel heist?
[Excerpt from "Live a Picayune, Steal a Lot" Trailer :
Murph the Surf: Can you imagine the largest blood-red in the world, the largest sapphire in the world, the largest black sapphire in the world. It's incredible, people don't even realize what'south in this identify.]
Amory: Why have the murders of Terry Rae Kent Frank and Annelie Marie Mohn been, more than or less, a footnote in Murph's story? In his podcast The Sneak, Nate Scott tried to change that. He reached out to Terry and Annelie'due south families, who by and large didn't want to talk. And, despite Murphy's claims of innocence and redemption, Nate held his feet to the fire and chosen him out on inconsistencies in the story.
Nate: And Jack just absolutely lost information technology on me.
[Excerpt from The Sneak
Nate: I just want the truth, Jack.
Jack: Why?
Nate: Because that's what I do. I'g a reporter.
Jack: For who? You want the truth for what? What are you gonna do with the truth?
Nate: Yous don't… And then, then are you telling me that you're not telling me – what are you lot saying hither?
Jack: I'grand maxim that you're, information technology's like I'm sitting in an interrogation room for every little this, every petty that, everything. Move on!]
Nate: For 30 years, I take talked to dignitaries and traveled the world preaching, and I have met famous people and I have been commended equally a four-time Christian of the yr. You know, any.
[Extract from The Sneak
Jack: I've worked with 25 guys with Superbowl rings on, with globe champion boxers, world champion rodeo guys, with superstar athletes and entertainers and all. Merely nobody gives a damn most that.]
Nate: It reminded me of kind of like a cornered animal like it was just it was it didn't make any sense what he was even maxim. And, that was information technology, we hung up.
[Excerpt from The Sneak
Nate: Alright Jack, we tin end information technology there.
Jack: Goodbye.]
Nate: I didn't speak to him again after that, and about 6 and a half weeks later, I retrieve he was dead.
Amory: Jack Murphy died of organ failure in 2020 at the age of 83. Most of the news coverage at the time sounded a lot like this from CBS Miami.
[ CBS Miami footage:
Newscaster: Hall of Fame surfer and gem thief Jack "Murph the Surf" Murphy died in Florida. He was 83 years one-time. Murphy is best known for the daring heist of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1964]
Amory: Why do nosotros remember Jack White potato as Murph the Surf — a nickname he supposedly gave himself — or equally Murph the "Heist Mastermind" equally his New York Times obituary headline referred to him. Why not Murph the Murderer? How do we properly remember a man whose own narrative blurs truth and fiction on purpose? And why practice we let prominent and powerful people to reshape their own legacies? Here'southward Nate Scott.
Nate: His ability to be charming and charismatic and ridiculous and prevarication to your face up and say horrible, hateful things, just then kind of charm y'all anyway reminded me a lot of someone who was in function at that time. And I thought, I just, there was something nearly the two characters and this idea of if you are brazen enough, you can reinvent yourself in whatever manner you want. That was very interesting to me and made it a story that I really wanted to tell.
Faith: I mean, expect at this psychopath like he is still compelling united states of america to tell his story. There's no denying it.
Corey: Hither's a guy who he's cracking to listen to. Yous know, if he was down at the stop of the bar that you were at in Florida and yous somehow, you know, started hearing him tell these tales, you'd call back, wow, this guy is the guy's amazing, y'all know?
[ Irish potato: I traveled with Barnum and Bailey Circus doing loftier tower diving into a tank with flames shooting off the tank, and I was a trip the light fantastic toe instructor and a tennis instructor, I went to higher on a tennis scholarship, and I was a musician]
Corey: Yes, he'due south charismatic. But he likewise has this, real big, you know, sinister evil blemish against him.
Nate: And now welcome, you're part of this weird fraternity of people who have spent way too much fourth dimension thinking near the story of Murph the Surf. And we all get to a different identify.
Amory: What conclusion did you reach?
Nate: I thought Jack Murphy was a very successful con man who kept the cons going right upwardly until his death.
Amory: Jack Murphy'due south story will continue to get told. In that location'south a four-role docu-series in the works right now, as a thing of fact. Murph isn't here anymore to effort to control or bedazzle the narrative, and so it's upward to us to make sure that pieces of his story and others similar it don't get blurred or romanticized, or lost. The American Museum of Natural History has an opportunity here, too. They reopened their newly renovated Hall of Gems and Minerals only last June. Faith Salie and her kids were there for opening nighttime.
[Organized religion and her children: Oh my gosh! Await at that geode!]
Amory: Lifelong New Yorker Corey Kilgannon says, it might be time for the museum itself to unearth the long-buried story of the 1964 heist for a new generation of museum-goers and history lovers.
Corey: You know, I would call up that maybe an establishment would be like, yeah, this happened. That happened more than 50 years agone. Information technology happened in another era. Let'due south ain this, you know, and, you know, permit's comprise information technology into our story.
[Faith and her children:
Faith: (GASP) At that place information technology is! There information technology is! There it is! That's the Star of India!
Religion's children: The brawl? This is it? Oh my gosh.
Faith: Aye. Expect at that. Await at that.
Faith's children: That'south a sapphire.
Religion: Do you lot come across why it's called a star?
Faith'southward children: Oh my gosh.]
Nora: Adjacent week, I'll bring you a story about the vast network of black site storage areas where fine art goes to disappear. And the people who keep information technology out of view.
John Zarobell: Well, it'southward kind of like you lot keep your treasure in the dungeon, correct? You don't, you don't put it in the front yard.
You tin can find all of Concluding Seen's stories and prove notes on their website and follow them on Twitter at @LastSeenPodcast.
Yous tin pitch story ideas nigh people, places, and things, that have gone missing. Nosotros're interested in pitches from contributors or just folks who want the states to tackle the story. Drop a line at lastseenwbur@gmail.com.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/04/03/on-point-presents-meet-folk-hero-and-con-man-murph-the-surf
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