Jack Roland Murphy first gained infamy in the 1960’s for his surfing prowess but that quickly turned into a life of crime.
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00:00From Hanging Ten to Prison, the story of Jack Rowland Murphy is absolutely fascinating and
00:09featured in today's Daily Cover.
00:11For more, I'm joined by its writer, Brian Burnside.
00:14And Brian, this is a story of murder and ministry?
00:18That's correct.
00:21So Jack Rowland Murphy, best known as Murph the Surf, gained fame and infamy through the
00:2660s.
00:27For his surfing prowess, he was among, kind of on the vanguard of pro-surfing before it
00:32became a bigger sport.
00:34And that turned into a life of crime.
00:37To try to go out and make more money, he fell in with a group of essentially bandits in
00:41South Florida that would do these high-stakes, daring robberies along the intercoastal waterway
00:47in and around Miami Beach, and was eventually imprisoned in New York for the largest jewel
00:55heist in history at that point, at least in U.S. history.
00:59And then later on, that criminal life kind of took over and got grislier and grislier,
01:04and eventually was implicated in a pair of murders, served 20 years.
01:08He was convicted on one of those murders, served almost 20 years for it, but converted
01:15while he was in prison, and has since devoted the last 30 years or so of his life to prison
01:20ministry.
01:22You know, it's got to be super intriguing to be up close and personal and get this story
01:27told to you.
01:28Have you started working on a screenplay?
01:30No, I haven't, but I know that Murph himself, that he prefers to go by Murph, he has started
01:39on one.
01:40He said he's trying to get in contact with some folks in Hollywood, some producers may
01:42be interested.
01:43So, I mean, his life story certainly is rich, lots of fascinating stuff, certainly some
01:49really grimy, ugly stuff that we get into in the piece, and I think it would lend itself
01:55well to a movie one day, sure.
01:57And he claims innocence, even though, you know, he's implicated by the evidence?
02:02That's correct.
02:03So he, it was a pair of secretaries that had stolen nearly half a million dollars worth
02:08of securities.
02:09They worked for a brokerage in Los Angeles, and they came to Murphy and his associates
02:14in South Florida for help offloading them, profiting off them.
02:19They went on a boat ride one day, Murphy, another man, and the two women, and the two
02:23women were later found in the intercoastal waterway.
02:28Concrete anchors tied their bodies down, they were sunk to the bottom, they'd been beaten
02:32and shot, and all the evidence pointed to it being Murphy and a co-conspirator named
02:38Jack Griffith.
02:39Murphy, though he's copped all his other crimes, the robberies, and talks about them in detail,
02:44still insists to this day that there was a third man on the boat that carried out the
02:47murders and that he was merely a bystander.
02:49He does admit to helping dispose of the bodies, but there was no evidence at trial that pointed
02:54to there being a third man on the boat that day.
02:57Almost hard to believe, but a true story.
02:59Brian, appreciate your time.
03:01Thank you very much.