Star of India diamond burglar dies at 83
‘Murph the Surf’ was a jewel thief and convicted killer
Jack Murphy was a talented violinist, a college-level tennis player and, for a few years in the early 1960s, perhaps the best surfer on the East Coast. He became known as “Murph the Surf” — or, as he preferred to spell it, “Murf” — and in 1960 opened the first surf shop in Florida.
What made him famous, though, was his life as a criminal. After dropping out of college, Murphy moved to South Florida and became known as a charming, charismatic hustler, teaching tennis, swimming and scuba diving at highclass Miami Beach hotels.
He worked as a stunt diver with a troupe of aquatic acrobats and, during his off hours, put his agility to work by climbing the walls of high rises, sneaking in through windows and leaving with stolen jewels and artwork. Other times, he and his crew broke into waterfront mansions, making their escape by boat.
In 1964, he was arrested and accused of pistol-whipping an elegantly dressed woman and stealing her jewellery. The woman turned out to be actress Eva Gabor. When she did not show up at Murphy’s trial, he was released. Later that year, Murphy and two accomplices drove a Cadillac convertible to New York, living it up for a few weeks in a hotel while plotting a caper that remains one of the biggest and most audacious jewellery heists in history: the theft of the Star of India, the world’s largest blue star sapphire, from the American Museum of Natural History.
Evangelist
Murphy, whose life of crime continued for several years before he went to prison, only to emerge as an evangelist to inmates, died September 12 at his home in Crystal River, Fla. He was 83.
The death was confirmed by a longtime friend and surf-shop owner, Bill Yerkes, who said Murphy had diabetes and other ailments.
For a few years in the mid1960s, Murph the Surf was a household name, far overshadowing his two partners in the Star of India burglary, Roger Clark and Allan Kuhn. He was blond and powerfully built, wore well-made suits and seldom was seen without his sunglasses.
On the night of October 29, 1964, Kuhn and Murphy scaled an iron fence at the American Museum of Natural History on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, then climbed up the fire escape to the fifth floor. They slipped into the office of anthropologist Colin Turnbull, which was directly above the museum’s gem collection. Clark waited outside with a walkie-talkie, watching for police.
Murphy, who said his idol was the debonair jewel thief played by Cary Grant in the 1955 film “To Catch a Thief,” was wearing a green velour jacket, with a gun in his pocket, a turtleneck sweater and corduroy trousers, along with his sneakers.
“You got to have a little flair,” he told the New York Times in 2019. “If you get arrested and end up on the news, you don’t want to look like a schlub.”
Poor security
Kuhn and Murphy climbed out of Turnbull’s office window, descended 15 feet on a rope, then entered the gem room through a partially open window. “They probably thought, ‘Why do we need alarms? These jewels have been laying here for 70 years and no one’s ever tried to steal them,” Murphy told the Times.
Because the glass display cases were too thick to break with a rubber hammer, Kuhn and Murphy used a glass cutter, incising circles above the gems. When they reached the 563-carat Star of India — about the size of an egg — they saw that the batteries for its alarm were corroded. When they grabbed it, there was silence.
Kuhn and Murphy spent hours inside the museum, taking 22 items in all, including a 100-carat star ruby, a 116-carat black sapphire, diamonds and various pieces of jewellery. The value of the gems was put at $410,000 (more than $3 million today).
Early in the morning, he and Kuhn flew to Miami with the gems, which they hid under a boat. Their freedom lasted 24 hours. A clerk at the men’s hotel alerted police that they had left suddenly. While police searched their penthouse suite, Clark walked in and was promptly arrested. Police found drugs, a gun, ammunition, floor plans to various New York museums and books about gems. About 36 hours after the break-in, Kuhn and Murphy were arrested in Miami. Most of the precious gems, including the Star of India, were recovered and returned to the museum.
Years later, he and Griffith later went on trial for the murder of Frank, each accusing the other of killing her. Both were convicted in 1969, with Murphy receiving a life term and Griffith sentenced to 45 years. (The death of Mohn was never prosecuted.)
A year later, Murphy received another life sentence for the robbery attempt. He entered the Florida prison system, seemingly for the rest of his life.