Murp The Surf Loved Surfing and Stealing
Murp The Surf Loved Surfing and Stealing
He was a surfing legend, but not necessarily for his board work. Jack “Murph the Surf” Murphy was born in Los Angeles in 1937, and traveled throughout Southern California during the Golden Age of Surfing. His dad was an electrical contractor, so the family was always on the move. Murphy ended up attending 12 grammar schools and three high schools. “We were always in the ocean,” Murphy once said. “When we could, we rode mats — the inflatable rubber ones you still see at the beach today.” By the time Murphy was a teenager, the lighter balsa surfboards had become available, so he and his surfer friends began to travel up and down the California coast to surf.
At some point Murphy’s family moved east to Pennsylvania where he graduated high school. Jack next attended the University of Pittsburgh on a tennis scholarship and also played the violin. He played so well, he was invited to perform with the Pittsburgh Symphony. However, in his mind Pittsburgh was too cold and too far from the ocean. Murphy had seen a movie about Miami Beach. The white sand, blue water and palm trees looked appealing, so Murph headed south in 1955. That was long before Florida began producing world champion surfers.
Murphy found the waves of the Sunshine State nothing like those in California, but he liked the laidback Florida lifestyle. Every now and then, a winter cold front or summer tropical system would roll through and kick up some waves, and Murphy would hit the water. It wasn’t long before the lifeguards gave him the nickname that the world would come to know him by. “Murph the Surf” soon met Dick Catri, the captain and coach of the legendary East Coast Hobie (surfing) team of the 1960s. The friendship led to surf travel antics up and down the East Coast and to California. Murphy ended up opening a shop in Indialantic called Murf’s Surf Shop. He was also a dangerous competitor. In 1966, he won the Men’s division at the East Coast Surfing Championships in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Unfortunately, Murphy started dabbling in crime. He took part in an infamous burglary at New York’s Natural History Museum. According to The New York Times newspaper, “On October 29, 1964, the world’s largest star sapphire, the Star of India, was stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Billed as the "Jewel Heist of the Century," the theft was orchestrated by a group of young men led by surfing champion Jack Murphy and accomplices Allan Kuhn, and Roger Clark.” The media described them as the Florida "beach boy burglars," They cased the museum during public hours and unlocked a fourth-floor bathroom window. The surfers returned after hours, scaling the exterior and came in through the same window later that night. The heist was made easy by poor security. The museum had no working alarms in the display cases because the batteries were dead, and the main alarm system was non-functional due to budget cuts. Along with the 563.35-carat Star of India, the thieves took 21 other gems, including the DeLong Star Ruby and the Eagle Diamond.
The trio was apprehended in Miami just a few days later after a hotel staffer in New York tipped off the police about their high spending habits (they should have tipped the hotel staff better). In January 1965, Kuhn led authorities to a bus station locker in Miami, where the Star of India was found in a wet leather pouch. While the DeLong Star Ruby was later ransomed for $25,000, the Eagle Diamond was never found and is believed to have been cut into smaller stones. The three men pleaded guilty to burglary and were sentenced to three years at Rikers Island. The heist was just one of several crimes the FBI linked to Murphy in that time period. In 1967, Murphy received a life sentence for his involvement in a murder, then, in 1970, a judge handed down a second life sentence for another murder.
In prison, Murphy painted and dreamed of surfing. He studied philosophy and theology. One day, a fellow inmate gave him a Bible, which sent Murphy on a path to personal salvation. In 1986, after nearly 20 years behind bars, Murphy was released. The born-again surfer began to travel to prisons spreading God’s word to men who had also chosen the wrong path at one time or another. Murph lived in Crystal River, on Florida’s West Coast, and spent the majority of his time spreading the gospel to inmates traveling to jails and prisons around the world. He spoke mostly about faith and redemption, but when prompted, he couldn’t help but talk about the sport that kept him alive during his darkest hours. Murphy passed away in September 2020.
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