Re-visiting a (now-deceased) individual’s fascinating life story, after the jump …...
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Ten years ago(!!) I wrote in this space about a name I recalled from my youth, and stumbled upon his incredible life story. With his death this week, I will (largely) re-print my original essay … and at the end, add any updates from the past decade.
As a child, I recall my parents discussing a certain criminal with a very colorful name - something our very own Eddie C recalled as well. Many years later, I was astonished to learn that Jack Roland Murphy - better known as Murph the Surf - by the age of 30 had accomplished more in life (both good and evil) than many people do in a lifetime. To think that he was able to convince Florida authorities that he could be paroled from a life sentence ... and become a role model ... well, let's have a look at a fascinating life.
Born in Los Angeles in 1937, his family moved often due to his father's job as a lineman. An aspiring violinist, Jack played in various youth orchestras and guest spots in adult ones. He also was a tennis prodigy who did quite well in various youth tournaments. And then of course, came the surfing: with two youth championships.... not for nothing did he obtain that nickname.
As a 17 year-old, the family moves to the Pittsburgh area. No problem, he had the chance to perform the violin with the Pittsburgh Symphony and earn the first tennis scholarship ever awarded by the University of Pittsburgh. But he decided to forego that scholarship and settled into the good life at a Miami Beach hotel. He served alternately as a tennis pro, a swim instructor, playboy, acrobatic diver and then had a marriage along with two sons.
But his marriage broke up, and he settled in the Melbourne Beach area, re-married and began Murf the Surfboards - the East Coast's first such factory. Yet due in part to his drinking and playboy partying (a second marriage went by the wayside) the company went under ... and Jack Murphy returned to Miami Beach, where his life went south (in more ways than one) at age 25.
Reuniting with old friends, he fell-into a gang that set out by boat at night to rob the homes of wealthy part-time residents for their jewels. It starts off small and Murph contents himself by saying,
We take the jewels, they get the insurance money and their picture in the paper, nobody gets hurt …….. and then, margaritas for everyone!!
Yet the ante kept getting raised to the point that they eventually want the big time, and they set out to achieve it: the J.P. Morgan Gem Collection at New York's Museum of Natural History.
He and his friends noticed that (in 1964) the museum's security was quite lax: an inoperative burglar alarm system coupled with an open window in the jewel room to assist in ventilation. They used that window to gain entrance, and make off with $400,000 worth of gems - known as the Jewel Heist of the Century - including the 563-carat Star of India sapphire. Yet they were caught within a few days and Murphy spent two years in prison. A 1975 film called Murph the Surf was made about the heist, starring Robert Conrad and Don Stroud (as Murphy).
He returns to Miami and yet continues the life of a thief - and in one of those cases, murders a woman involved in an armed robbery he participated in. For all of these crimes, he receives two life sentences at age thirty-one in 1968 (escaping the death penalty by a narrow margin). Even when he became a born-again Christian in 1971 (only for appearance’s sake, he later admitted) there seemed little future for Jack Roland Murphy.
Then in 1974, a former pro football player named Bill Glass brought his prison ministry group to the prison where Jack Murphy was. It was only then that Murphy seriously began the process of rehabilitation. Over the next twelve years, he served in the prison chaplaincy program and became a mentor to other inmates. Incredibly, the man who was barely spared the death penalty (and whose original parole date was set for November 2225) so impressed prison officials that he was paroled in 1986 - albeit with 'lifetime probation'.
Upon being paroled, he dedicated himself to prison ministry and has since spoken in over 1,200 prisons around the world. He said that he hated going into prisons but that "I do it because people visited me and it meant a lot. I'm not doing anything different - it's just my turn". He wrote a 1989 aptly-titled memoir Jewels for the Journey and directed a 1997 TV documentary San Quentin Homecoming Reunion (with sixty ex-cons returning to meet the inmates). Reflecting his good works: the 'lifetime probation' requirement was lifted by the State of Florida in 2000 - only fourteen years after his parole.
Jack Murphy helped support his ministry in part by selling his paintings of his adopted state of Florida and - in a blast from the past - was inducted into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame in 1996.
Now, I don't know if his ministry extends beyond prison mentoring; no idea whether he has ventured into less savory Christian Right brimstone hectoring of non-believers territory or not. Regardless: this is one of those incredible human interest stories that I find compelling; a prime example of JFK's favorite line from Luke 12:48 - "For of those to whom much is given, much is required". And his story should be required reading for any lock-'em-up type running for office.
Now …... an update.
In a truly comprehensive Sports Illustrated story just this past April, it seems that the genesis of his rehabilitation came early in his stay in prison:
At the beginning of his sentence, at Florida State Prison in Starke, Murphy says he ran a gambling operation. He smuggled in drugs and spent seven months in death-row isolation for triggering a riot. (Prison officials, citing outdated records, were not able to confirm these details.) He got through the most mentally taxing stretches, alone in his cell, by meditating. And by dropping acid. At rock bottom, Murphy recalls, he was approached by Louie Wainwright, Florida’s secretary of the division of corrections, who admonished him for not having used his considerable abilities for good. Here was a man, Wainwright saw, with substantial clout among his fellow residents—couldn’t he use that to benefit others?
Interestingly, when Louie Wainwright headed the Florida Dept. of Corrections in the early 1960’s: it was he who was named in the famous Supreme Court case of Gideon vs. Wainwright— which guaranteed the right of counsel for any criminal defendant unable to afford one. I did an essay on that case— plus a follow-up on Bruce Jacob, the state’s attorney who supported the cause for which he lost 9-0 in the Supreme Court — and Louie Wainwright just turned age ninety-seven.
In 2012, at the age of seventy-five: Murphy petitioned the governor of the State of Florida for clemency, to have his civil rights restored (backed by Louie Wainwright and other activists). Yet there was an interesting split amongst the right-wingers on the four-member board who heard his appeal. Then-governor Rick Scott was willing to grant it, yet was not able to obtain the necessary support from at least two of the others: including former attorney general Pam Bondi (who felt he should have been executed, and should settle for being free).
He seems to have led a quiet life in the past decade:
Murphy lives these days with his wife, Kitten (whom he met in prison, when she was working for a local news crew), in a modest home in Crystal River, Fla., famous for the manatees that drift through the town’s warm springs. Hindered by a balky lower back, he hops on a board only occasionally, and now he surfs boat wakes, not waves. He spends far more of his hours volunteering in local prisons and work-release centers, helping people find temporary housing, jobs, clothes. He’s been known to rise at 4 a.m. to pick up leftover food at the local Publix for some homeless people living in the woods nearby.
Jack Roland Murphy died this past weekend at the age of eighty-three.
A very apropos closing … is the late Fred Neil’s song “The Other Side of this Life”.
Now, on to Top Comments:
From A Siegel:
In the front-page story on Barr's equating mask requirements to slavery— Indyada has it right in this comment when it comes to Barr's moral, intellectual, and ethical bankruptcy.
From smileycreek:
In the diary by BethesDave about the pollster Charlie Cook declaring that the presidential contest is largely decided — sometimes a diary's comments veer into unexpected musicographical territory: Was "Seasons in the Sun"really one of the worst songs ever? First commenter Roger B dares to differ with a hilarious run-down of the song's twisted history (which continues in the follow-up comments).
Your correspondent’s opinion: Two worse songs in my opinion: “Jingle Bells” by the Barking Dogs (in the children’s/novelty category) and “Feelings” by Morris Albert (in the normal/serious song category).
Highlighted by Reader Ray:
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And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In today’s Thursday Pundit Round-up by my esteemed T/C colleague Chitown Kev— methinks NorthBronxDem speaks for many of us in hoping he is given front-page status for his yeoman service.
TOP PHOTOSSeptember 16th, 2020 Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo.
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And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
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