Original subtitles

I'm Jack Murphy here at Image Artistry Studios

in Sanford, Florida.

We're putting together a film that would assist

a writer doing a script, a movie script,

documentary script or a book.

The information will be of my life

through different segments as a child, then as a teenager,

then as an adult but with different chapters of...

of my life a... on the journey that I've been on.

[music playing]

[Jack] That first half of my life there

was just a picture book, all-American kid.

But now, something dramatically happened here.

And now the music changes, the atmosphere changes,

everything changes now.

[upbeat music playing]

[man] He was an all-American kid,

and he became an all-American criminal.

[man 1] Because he was very athletic,

he can do more than the average person

and he had the nerve to do it.

[man 2] He was a D1 tennis player,

a champion surfer and a jewel thief.

[man 3] It wasn't just kind of like a fairy tale thing.

He also delved into very dark areas of life and criminality.

[man 4] The crowds would applaud him and girls would look like

they were gonna faint.

[man 5] If you accused him of being a murderer,

would you be right? Yeah.

[woman] He was insane.

He was malignant, smiling, charming,

like a viper, inviting you into its chamber.

[woman 1] The people that love Jack

will never believe anything wrong about him.

Not ever.

The ones that have the negative thoughts haven't met him.

[man 6] It's not an easy story to believe.

[man 7] Big question was, well, is it real?

[man 8] Jack's story is a story of redemption.

[man 9] He could get people to walk off a cliff for him.

[man 10] You know, some of the guys thought,

"Boy, he's really faking it."

They didn't think his conversion was real.

[Jack] You don't find God because God is not lost.

He's everywhere.

He finds you.

♪♪♪

[man 11] The president's car is now turning onto Elm Street

and it will be only a matter of minutes

before he arrives at the Trade Mart.

-[gunshot] -It-- it--

it appears as though something has happened

-in the motorcade route. -[gunshot]

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

[man 12] President Kennedy has been assassinated.

It's official now. The president is dead.

[man 13] After the shots were fired,

he happened to look up at about the fifth or sixth floor.

[John] The year began less than six weeks

after President Kennedy was assassinated

and the trauma of that event and its aftermath.

Throughout the year, the country never got over

the Kennedy assassination.

Kind of like a cloud that hung over everything.

[Meryl] These were difficult, painful, dark times

for the-- for the country.

It was Vietnam. It was the civil rights movement.

It was Kennedy's assassination.

So, something about a jewel heist,

it was a lighthearted story.

[Nate] TV was hitting its stride.

The story, the blueprint was sort of an archetype

that we would see time and time again,

what the true crime genre would become.

[soft music playing]

[Corey] The American Museum of Natural History

on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The museum has its Hall of Gems.

This prize sapphire called the Star of India,

it's a 563-carat sapphire the size of a golf ball,

and at least a dozen other gems that were worth a lot of money.

[man 14] It was priceless,

really one of the marquee exhibits

from the Museum of Natural History.

[Jack] My partner, Allan Kuhn and I,

we climb over this fence. We help each other.

[Allan] I had to have guys that were as enthused as I was

that were in as good a shape as I was,

and Jack fit the bill.

[Jack] We climbed up the outside

of the south part of the building,

and it places us over the top of the J.P. Morgan gem room.

I've-- I've got a gun with me.

I've got a big rubber mallet and hammer, tape.

We've got screwdrivers. We have glass cutters.

We have everything that you need for a caper like this.

I open a window, and we drop into the gem room.

There are three display cases.

We make this round circle with the glass cutter.

You tape it up real good, then you're gonna bang it

real hard with the hammer.

Bang!

[upbeat music playing]

[Edna] They did this really acrobatic caper

out of one of these movies about international jewel thieves.

[Nate] It was like anOcean's Eleven story,

how brazen they were.

It felt surreal and cinematic.

[upbeat music playing]

[interviewer] How would you describe him

as a kid growing up?

[John] His lifestyle was a long ways away

from stealing jewels from the museum.

["Feel Flows" playing]

♪ Unfolding, enveloping missiles of soul♪

♪ Recall senses sadly♪

[John] Jack lived about two houses from me.

The population probably

wasn't much more than 1,500 people, if that.

♪ Whether whistling heaven's clouds disappear ♪

We were raised right on the beach there in Carlsbad.

That whole surf scene was just something we kind of did.

♪ Whether whiteness whisks...

[Bill] He was a natural.

He happened to grow up with and surf with some major,

major surfing pioneers.

One was Phil Edwards, who was, around the late '50s,

early '60s, he was called the best surf--

surfer in the world.

♪♪♪

[John] You would have to compare Murph and his contemporaries

in the surfing world as Mickey Mantle is to baseball.

[Billy] The Bible says, "Now is the accepted time,

today is the day of salvation."

The Bible says, "Choose you this day whom you will serve."

The Bible says, "Today is the day of salvation."

And the Bible warns this.

[Jack] One day I ran through the house,

and Billy Graham was doing a crusade someplace.

He was on television, and I-- I just looked at it.

I said, "Who's that?" And my dad said,

"That's one of the greatest men who has ever walked the earth."

My dad had never been to church.

[Billy] There is no organization

that would have brought this great crowd.

There is no man that could have brought this crowd this...

[Jack] Here's Billy Graham standing in a stadium

with 80,000 people there.

He must have something going on.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to say,

"Hey, that's a special guy."

I believe this is your night with Almighty God.

[Domenic] He told me he had the greatest childhood

anybody could ever have,

but he never told anybody anything about his past.

[Kitten] When Jack was six years old,

his father put him on a horse and gave him a gun

and sent him off out into the Badlands

and said, "Find your way home."

[bird screeches]

When he first told me that, I said, "He did what?"

That's child abuse.

[woman 3] There was always a certain amount of strangeness

between Jack and his father.

His father never played games or did things with them,

and no matter how well he did anything,

his dad would criticize him.

[John] His dad was a big dude, pretty darn strict.

Went up there to have dinner with him one night.

We cleared the table and wash the dishes after dinner.

Not really expedient with getting those dishes done.

His dad came in

and just slapped him right across the face.

I never will forget that.

[Kitten] His father would go watch him play the violin.

When they came out he said, "You missed a note."

And Jack--he'd make this little motion with his hand like

somebody stabbing you, twisting the knife.

He said, "My father always had to get me,

just always had to have one thing

that I didn't do right."

[woman 3] It was a terrible time for Jack.

He used to leave for school with tears in his eyes.

We were always about to sell or about to move

or about to get another place or about to go into business

or some kind a thing.

[Frank] His parents would get into fights,

and his dad had been cheating on his mom.

He stood up to his father, held a rifle to his head.

[Kitten] He and his dad had a real bad blowup,

and he was done with him.

[woman 3] Jack and his father--

they never had too much in common

except that they were so much alike.

[John] It just seems like he has this empty hole inside him

that he's trying to fill his entire life.

[Jack] I finished high school in Pennsylvania,

and I parlayed that tennis thing into the first scholarship

ever given to the University of Pittsburgh.

But I didn't have two hours to piss off reading a book.

I wanted to go to the party, and I wanted to dance.

[upbeat music playing]

[Domenic] He left a scholarship behind.

He left the future behind. He left his parents there,

and off he went on his own.

[Jack] I just-- I just wandered out.

[upbeat music playing]

[Jack] I arrived in Miami Beach.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

It was an incredible adventure of good stuff,

fun stuff, you know, legal stuff, you know.

It was just picture-book.

♪♪♪

[Corey] He started getting jobs in these beach clubs

and pool clubs.

[Bobby] We were beach boys throwing mats

and giving swimming lessons.

[Allan] Living on the beach was wonderful,

being in the sun all day.

Women in bikinis as far as the eye can see.

"Hell, yes."

[Jack] Every time you turn around,

there's a whole bevy of brand-new ladies that are

hopefully weak in the flesh.

and they would like to have a little oil rubbed on them.

"I'm Murphy, the cabana boy and good morning, dear.

Have you been serviced today?" You know, I'm ready for this.

♪♪♪

I used to do these water shows.

[John] They would do trick diving

and different kind of water stunts for the members.

[Edna] He dressed like a clown and go to all these hotels.

He was a real showman, a real big favorite of the tourists.

♪♪♪

[Jack] You'd look over here,

here would be Milton Berle over here.

Here would be Bob Hope.

Here would be the superstars of the era

that were down there at the time.

It was exciting.

My bosses would tell me, "Okay,

can you get some women to go over there,

and they need some booze and some cards."

I said, "Who's there?"

They said, "The Anastasia brothers are there.

Alfred and Tony Anastasia."

They were the head of Murder Incorporated

for the Mafia.

Guys didn't get in swimming suits.

They had jackets on, and they were holding.

And so, I'd go over there and take care of them,

you know, "And what do you need?"

"You got any women?" "Yeah, what kind you want?"

I was ready for anything.

But I was a California-raised surfer,

and that was in my DNA.

I started surfing in Miami when nobody else surfed down there.

[pop music playing]

[Bill] There were other surfers in Florida

going back as early as the '30s.

But as far as bringing surfing at a time

when it was ready to explode, Murphy was right there.

[Sprint's "I Got a Line on You" playing]

♪ I got a line

♪ I got a line on you, baby

[John] He was a very good surfer.

He would enter contest and everything,

and he usually placed in the top three.

♪♪♪

[Jack] I was the national Hurricane surfing champion,

I was the East Coast surfing champion,

twice the Florida surfing champion.

♪♪♪

I went undefeated in all surfing competitions,

and today, I'm in the Surfing Hall of Fame.

♪ I've got a line

I'd go up to Daytona Beach and up to Saint Augustine,

and I'd go to all these places.

♪ I've got a line

And so, I finally I said, "I'm out of here,"

and I went up to Cocoa Beach.

♪♪♪

[Jack] Nobody was building surfboards.

Nobody is selling surfboards.

And so, I started making them.

In Cocoa Beach, I had the very first surfboard factory

on the Atlantic Coast.

My reign as Murf the Surf,

a nickname given to me by lifeguards

during a big storm when everybody

had to get out of the ocean and the police came, said,

"Get that guy out of the water."

And the lifeguard said, "Oh, no, that's Murf the Surf.

He's okay out there."

♪♪♪

If you ever had an era of your life

or a time that you could repeat, what would it be?

It'd be that time of my life right there.

When I'm making surfboards,

when I'm in the water all the time,

when we're playing, going to contests.

♪ I've got a line on you

[Frank] He started to neglect the business

and spending more and more time at the beach surfing.

♪ I, I've got a line

[man 16] He was just living the good life out there

with the girls and the surfing and the drinking.

And then the business started to go down.

[Jack] In Cocoa Beach, I had a fantastic handful of years,

and then I made some business mistakes.

[Domenic] And so it wasn't long before

they burned the place down.

♪ I got a line on you, babe

[explosion rumbles]

♪ I got a line

♪ I got a line on you, babe

[Domenic] They never knew he did it.

It's just an accidental fire.

♪ I, I got a line

♪ I got a line on you, babe

[Jack] One of the problems when I was in Pittsburgh

was it wasn't enough sunshine.

And one of the problems that I had in Cocoa Beach,

there wasn't enough party going on.

Miami Beach was where the party was going on.

I went back to Miami after about four years up there.

♪♪♪

That's when everything started changing.

♪♪♪

[Kitten] It was a different time in Miami.

It wasn't the time of the--

the rock stars and the actresses.

It was thieves.

There were lot--

there's a lot of [indistinct] going on.

[Edna] The crime rate got really high.

I was really a cub reporter then,

and it was like being a war correspondent.

Just some guys tried to rob me once on the street.

[Fred] Miami was a great crime town.

There was always a big robbery

or a double murder, a quadruple murder.

They waved a gun at me like a wand,

one in my head and one in my ribs.

Well, they come around, got me around the neck

and took my money and run off between the apartments,

you know, three times.

[man 18] With what kind of frequency

are these hold-ups taking place?

Once a day, once a week?

Oh, I would say anywhere

from five to eight or nine times a week.

[Jack] When I got back to Miami is when I met the Rascals,

and these were all buddies of mine,

but now they were dressing pretty sharp.

Now a couple of them had some nice cars,

and the couple of them, they had some nice jewelry.

And I said, "What's going on?" "Well, we've changed--

changed lanes."

These guys were all beach boys, guys who worked on the beach.

But somewhere along the line, they became jewel thieves.

And they invited me out one night

because they might need somebody,

a specialist in the water.

[rock music playing]

[Jack] So the next night I met these guys.

We're going on a boat ride.

In between Miami and Miami Beach is Biscayne Bay.

And in Biscayne Bay, there are a number of islands.

It's a gated community.

♪♪♪

I stay in the boat. These other two guys get off.

In about four minutes later, they come running back

towards the boat, and we take off.

And right almost immediately, you can hear sirens going off.

[sirens blaring]

♪♪♪

[Jack] Let me tell you what, the whole temperature of life,

the whole direction of life took

a mighty, mighty different turn at this point.

♪♪♪

Pretty soon there's helicopters in the air.

Pretty soon, there are some speedboats that are chasing us

across Biscayne Bay.

And they told me what to do.

They gave this pouch to me, and I jumped out of that boat.

[suspenseful music playing]

[gunshot]

[rock music playing]

[Jack] I swam across Biscayne Bay to a canal

where they told me to go.

I went to a certain place that I knew where to go,

and there was a person that met me there

and gave me some dry clothes.

I got a cab back to Miami Beach.

That was it.

Couple nights later,

I'm sitting in the bar, and I'm wondering

how I'm gonna pay my bar tab,

and the guy came in.

He put an envelope in my pocket,

and I opened that envelope up, and there was $15,000 in it.

That's more money than I'd ever seen in one whack.

He said, "Did you read the newspapers?"

And I found a newspaper,

and it said, "$350,000 jewel robbery."

I said, "Wow."

I said, "Hey, listen, I sleep in a bathing suit.

Call me anytime."

[rock music playing]

[Nate] He went from being a champion surfer,

business owner to a jewel thief very, very quickly.

♪♪♪

[Jack] And within a few months, I'm driving new cars,

and I have new clothes and I have nice apartments,

and I'm happenin'.

[Bobby] He started just like I did in hotels.

We knew all the head guys that worked at all the hotels,

and we'd make master keys.

♪♪♪

[John] Most of the beach boys, I hate to say, myself included,

learned how to hustle the tourists.

And a lot of that came from Jack and his friends

from what they were doing.

♪♪♪

He would climb up the outside

of the high-rise hotel on the patio,

and he'd go into rooms.

The sliding doors were still open.

♪♪♪

[Jack] And then you become like a rock star.

The cool people know who you are and what you do.

[John] He'd go into an empty room

and then go from balcony to balcony to balcony.

So, you're hitting 8, 10, 12, 14 rooms in one sweep.

[Edna] It was just this huge, fun game.

And their feeling was that insurance covered everything.

So therefore, people would get their money back,

so nobody would get hurt.

♪♪♪

[Jack] My daddy told me that only dull people get bored,

and that's always stuck in my mind.

If you're bored, it's 'cause you're dull.

You're not thinking. You're not looking. Do something.

I am determined, never to be bored.

♪♪♪

[Edna] He had this beautiful girlfriend named Bonnie,

Bonnie Sutera, and she was crazy about him.

[Joanne] She was a little doll,

and we became fast friends.

She moved in with me.

It was my first roommate I've ever had.

I introduced her to Murphy, and that was all she wrote,

then she lived in with Murphy for a while.

♪♪♪

[Jack] And as a girl who had gone on robberies with me,

I'd taken her with me on some excitement

that very few ladies get to go on.

She was great because she was sharp,

she was classy, she was pleasant, she was funny.

[Gale Garnett's "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" playing]

♪ We'll sing in the sunshine♪

♪ We'll laugh every day♪

[Jack] You know, how you have songs

for different periods of your life.

Well, they had a song "We'll Sing in the Sunshine,"

and that was kind of our song.

♪♪♪

♪ I will never love you♪

♪ The cost of love's too dear♪

[Jack] We just sort of rescued each other.

♪ Oh, no, I'll never love you♪

♪ I'll live with you one year♪

♪ And we can sing in the sunshine♪

♪ We'll laugh every day♪

[Joanne] They were doing some wild stuff at night.

I was walking down the hallway, and I said to Bonnie,

I says, "Look, we have rats in the attic.

You know, there's a door in the hallway."

She laughed, and so she pulled it open,

and it was full of furs.

[laughs]

[Jack] In South Florida, this whole band of thieves

that I was a part of now stayed very, very busy.

♪♪♪

Allan Kuhn and I, we worked the south area of the--

of the rich coast of Miami.

And we, uh, had read in a socialite column

about some gal up in Palm Beach.

She had a very, very large diamond

and a fence, one of the guys that we dealt with said,

"I'll give you $350,000 for that particular stone."

In 1964, $350,000 was the lottery.

It was big money.

So we went to Palm Beach, and we got it.

We took it back to the fence.

We were popping champagne, and the guy looked at the stone

through his little magnifying glass

and he said, "She got ya." Said, "This isn't real."

He said, "You got a phony stone here."

Said, "That real stone of hers, it's worth over $750,000.

It's in a bank someplace." He said, "This is the copy."

That sort of, uh, stepped on our pride.

We had read that she had gone back to New York

to the Hamptons.

So, he said, "Well, let's-- let's take a ride up there

and check it out, see what we can do."

[upbeat music playing]

[Jack] So we went up to New York,

and the main thing we were going after was this big stone.

The museum wasn't any part of it.

But during the day we would go to the art galleries.

We'd go to the fashion shows.

We'd go to the fine bars and fine restaurants.

[Meryl] They were having a really good time in New York.

They're going to baseball games and museums.

[Jack] We're staying in a spectacular hotel.

[Corey] They rented a-- a penthouse

on the Upper West Side, not far from the museum,

and they were throwing parties there every night,

inviting whoever they met.

[Meryl] They were certainly not keeping a low profile.

They were tipping the bellboys a gazillion dollars

to run out and get beer.

♪♪♪

[Jack] To get to the Hamptons from Manhattan is a long drive,

and we'd gone out there several times but were unable

to negotiate a transaction with this lady

because there were too many people,

and it was just too hot.

And Allan is saying, "Let's go down to the museum,

check out the museum."

[camera shutter clicking]

Going through the Museum of Natural History,

we're on a tour.

This woman tells us that

this is the largest black sapphire in the world.

This is one of the most famous rubies in the world.

And this is the Star of India.

We just looked at each other, and we just smiled.

Allan says the stones were talking to him.

I said, "What'd they say?"

He said, "They said, 'Take me to Miami.

Take me to Miami.'"

[funk music playing]

[glass smashing]

So we left there with 28 or 29 stones.

We had to retreat the same way.

We had to go over the spike fence

into a little park.

We divided up the jewels.

Allan went one way, and I go through this little park.

Here come two policemen down this sidewalk

right towards where I'm going.

I've got the Star of India in my shoulder bag.

I've got these other stones, and I've got this emerald.

I've got 125 feet of rope over my shoulder here.

I've got a gun on me. I am a walking disaster.

There's a man, and he's walking his dog.

I walked up by him and I...

[whistles] I whistled for the dog,

and the dog jumped up and I'm petting on it.

And I said to the guy, "Whoa"

and "Beautiful night. Isn't it great?"

And he's wondering, "Well, who the heck is this guy?"

And about that time, the cops walked by us.

"Hey, good evening, officer." He said, "Hey, back at ya."

Just kept on walking. And I walked out to the street,

and I was taking a left to go down to the corner.

Four more policemen down there,

and there were more policemen up on the other corner.

So I walked right across the street,

and there was a truck over there with a rig on the side

that a plumber uses to put pipes and all.

And I just dropped that rope off on there.

Looked like it belonged there.

Turned around and there was a cab.

So, we go down to Broadway.

They had a place called the Metropole,

which was one of the most famous jazz bars in history.

And I had a buddy named Gene Krupa

that was playing that night.

[jazz music playing]

[Jack] And I go in and have a few drinks.

I got a bag over my shoulder, says, "Irish Airlines" on it.

It's sort of coordinated with my cool outfit

because that's the way Cary Grant would have done.

I've got a pistol in there.

And I've got the largest sapphire in the world in there.

So, I have a few drinks then I got a cab

and I went back to where we lived on 86th Street.

[jazz music playing]

There comes that place,

especially when you do a very challenging thing.

There's a line that you step out of where, you know,

I've done it.

I made it. I did it. I'm gonna survive.

It's the same way in surfing

and you're riding great, big, dangerous waves,

and any minute it can all fall apart.

And then all of a sudden, you make it.

The whole flood of relief and joy and challenge is there.

[jazzy music playing]

[Allan] We've just taken off and the pilot announced,

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've just been informed

that the Museum of Natural History

has been robbed and blah, blah, blah."

And the Star of India, it was on this plane.

[laughs]

Oh, God.

[Jack] Allan had brought a girl with him.

Her name was Janet Florkiewicz,

and she carried all the jewels in a women's overnight bag

that belonged to my girlfriend.

And so, when I got off the plane in Miami,

my girlfriend was waiting for me,

and there was a bar there.

And I said, "Step in the bar."

So, we went in the bar

she said, "Well, where's Allan?"

I said, "He's coming."

So pretty soon, here comes Allan with this girl.

Bonnie, she says, "That looks like my overnight case."

I said, "It is." I said, "What do you think's in it?"

She said, "Oh, boy."

Janet didn't have any idea what was in it.

We told her to carry it because

it looked a little too feminine for us.

[suspenseful music playing]

[man 19] Would you say that the thieves knew

what they were looking for?

Oh, definitely. Because, uh...

in addition to the exposition of these precious stones,

there is a brief history

of each one contained in the case.

[John] I was like a rookie.

At that time I probably had

five years of detective maybe.

I was notified at, I think, 10 o'clock in the morning.

It was insane. It was-- it was broken glass all over the place.

The curator and that they were-- they were devastated.

And there was absolutely no security.

And it was so ridiculous.

We went to get the inventory, and they didn't have one.

[Meryl] There was a tremendous amount of-- at the museum,

a lot of, you know, "How could we have let this go wrong?"

[man 19] Inspector, can you tell us how these thieves

got into the cases?

It would appear that a professional burglar

would have a little better tools than we now find here.

[man 19] Have you found any way in which the thieves

may have gotten into this room in the building?

[John] Well, we have some theory,

which is being explored and exploited

at the present moment.

[man 19] The window was slightly open.

[John] It was open. Yes.

[Joanne] It was a kind of free-for-all the following day

because the police really let in reporters,

and suddenly it was pretty hard to get fingerprints

'cause so many people were touching so many things

and making a mess of the place.

[John] A friend of mine who was a plainclothes police officer,

he got a call from the manager of the Cambridge House,

and he told them that there had been

a lot of parties going on in the penthouse suite.

We went up, and we talked to the manager,

and he gave us enough information

to get a search warrant.

We found, uh, a lot of incriminating evidence.

Jeweler's scales,

sneakers with broken glass residue

embedded in the sneaker.

They had pictures of the museum.

We found one or two guns under a mattress,

and we found some narcotics.

Some of the girls who remained as tenants

in the building were concerned

because their girlfriend, Janet Florkiewicz

went along with the occupants of the apartment.

Janet Florkiewicz at the same time

was calling back to a girlfriend,

telling them that they were staying

at the Brickell apartment in Florida.

[woman 4] Jack said the biggest mistake we made

was taking Janet with us

because she was not happy to be there in Florida,

that she got panicked, um, talked to her roommate,

and kind of said that she was

being held there or was-- Whatever it was,

she was kind of freaked out about the whole thing.

[John] She was unaware that she had carried the gems down

in the makeup bag.

And we figured that was enough and we called the FBI.

[Jack] We're sitting there getting ready

to go out on the boats and have a party,

and all sudden there was a knock at the door.

Janet went over and opened the door

and the FBI kicked the door off the hinges.

The door fell in, and here they come.

And it was J. Edgar Hoover's boys,

and everybody had their gun out and it got quite serious.

♪♪♪

So, I'm handcuffed, Bonnie's handcuffed,

everybody's handcuffed,

and the big dance started then.

The bondsmen, the lawyers, the headlines.

It was a real circus.

♪♪♪

[man 20] These beach boys

appear confident they will beat the charge

of stealing the priceless Star of India sapphire

and other gems from a New York museum.

It is very embarrassing to be accused of something like this,

and meanwhile, in New York, the jewel robberies continue

to go on and on, and they are all down here

trying to get something on us.

We think it's a shame that they don't concentrate their efforts

up there in the city where this happened.

Maybe they could catch the people who did this.

[Corey] He was like thumbing the authorities in the eye.

He was kind of snubbing them by saying,

"Oh, this whole thing is just nonsense

and it's messing up our surf trip."

Has your popularity picked up

along the beach where you surfboard?

-We were always popular. -[chuckles]

[Corey] It was really frustrating, the authorities,

the prosecutors, but really gratifying reporters.

We went to all the points of interest,

including the museums, while we were in New York.

It's a fact. Everyone knows this.

[man 21] Do you like museums, too, Mr. Murphy?

I am-- I am an avid museumgoer.

We've been to museums all over the country

and art galleries.

We go to all the points of interest.

That was the main reason for going to New York.

[man 22] Harvey St. Jean, they had hired him.

He was a famous lawyer at the time.

[man 19] What's the next step, Mr. St. Jean?

We intend to fly to New York tomorrow

and respond to the grand jury indictment

issued by the State of New York Grand Jury.

You're ready to face the music whenever called upon?

Oh, definitely. We're certain, uh, we're not, uh,

we're not scared a bit about going up there.

We just want to go up there to show our good faith

and hope that we're able to get the trial over with

and maybe find who-- who really took these gems.

[Corey] Just this-- the notion that

they could go into this museum, a very prominent spot

and take some of those most valuable things

in the whole museum, just snatch them and run,

was almost like, too ludicrous to be believed.

[rock music playing]

-Not up here. -[reporter] No?

[Corey] The tabloids went crazy, you know, front page news.

And the story only got bigger because of who they were.

They were photogenic, they were charismatic.

[Joanne] Just like a Robin Hood type thing.

It was a caper, and nobody got hurt.

[man 23] I mean, this kind of had everything, you know?

It's... it's sexy, it's funny, it's weird.

It's kind of audacious.

[woman 5] These guys were very sharp, slick dressers

with good haircuts.

And they were beach boys, so they had great physiques,

they'd been swimming and working out.

This level of-- almost this movie star

quality of them going out in public.

Everything they did was news.

Kind of the promise of American youth

except for American youth gone wrong.

♪♪♪

We appeared before the Judge of the state Supreme Court

in New York this morning,

at which time we responded to the indictment

handed down by the New York grand jury.

And the judge set a bond for $20,000 each,

which was made and we return this evening.

[Edna] It was like this fabulous homecoming.

They came back like royalty.

They were like local heroes.

[man 24] You two have suddenly, uh,

achieved a certain amount of notoriety.

[Jack] It has helped, uh...

helped us a little bit through the publicity.

[Jim] He was kind of like a folk hero, if you will.

They had bumper stickers--

"Save Murphy" and "Murf the Surf,"

shit like that.

And that kind of pissed me off.

I worked most of my career in the Detective Bureau.

We were unorthodox to say the least.

We had a license to do about anything we wanted to.

We've been picked up before.

I was driving Allan's car one day,

and, uh, we were driving down the street

with my girlfriend Bonnie,

and, uh, the same officer picked us up,

and he's the same one that seems to pick us up all the time.

He's made it sort of a personal thing.

[Jim] He wanted to be known as the baddest fucker in the world.

I think all through history,

America has loved the bad guys, John Dillinger,

Billy the Kid, assholes like that.

[man 24] And the FBI obviously thinks that

you or someone brought some jewelry,

namely the Star of India, down here.

They keep a pretty close watch on you all the time now?

They try to, uh...

We understand they've assigned quite a few more men

down here because of this.

I think they realize that they're more or less

wasting their time when they sit up

on the beach all day long

and watch us swimming and surfing and, uh,

and, uh, and just lounging around with our friends.

[Jim] Allan Kuhn, we found out he was staying at a motel

on the beach, and he had a brand-new Cadillac.

We went got some gas and poured it all over his car

and burned his car.

He came out in his underwear and he said,

"Call the fire department. My car is on fire."

I said, "Shit, Allan, we're sorry,

but our radio isn't working."

[soft music playing]

[Edna] Bonnie was really depressed about Murphy.

When they were facing the charges up in New York,

Murphy said he didn't want her to wait for him.

[Jack] I told Bonnie, I said, "Bonnie,

you're gonna have to get a life."

I said, "This-- this dance is over."

[Edna] She was heartbroken.

She called up her girlfriend who worked in the bar

at the Bel Air.

And she was over on the Miami side

somewhere in an apartment,

and she called and she was groggy

and she said, "I just took pills.

I don't want to live without Jack."

So her girlfriend went rushing to the rescue.

And when she got there, Bonnie was still warm,

but she was dead.

[Jack] Bonnie killed herself.

♪♪♪

[Edna] I know she didn't want to die.

She wanted to-- just wanted to get Jack back.

[Joanne] He was like sunshine in-- in-- in her life.

[man 25] And do you think Murph loved her?

[Joanne] No. Not at all.

[Jack] She was a very important part of my life.

I still go to her gravesite all the time

and take some flowers out there.

Has the recent publicity about the museum jewel robbery

markedly changed your way of living?

That's-- we find people in the restaurants.

They notice you on the street and notice you at parties.

[Fred] Everybody knew that he was a jewel thief.

That was part of his allure.

[Corey] I mean, the public loved Murf and the legend of Murf.

I mean, first of all, the name itself, Murf the Surf.

I mean, you can almost just picture the guy,

you know, just riding a wave through life.

[man 26] You're going to court tomorrow morning

on a federal charge.

What do you think is gonna happen there?

It should take about five minutes

to throw it out of court. That's all.

[Bob Dylan] ♪ Ain't it hard to stumble

♪ And land in some funny lagoon? ♪

[man 27] Do you have a jewel?

Do you have-- where you going?

Where you going?

♪ To land in some funny lagoon ♪

[Fred] The media gravitates towards things the public

is interested in.

And let's face it, the public is interested in criminals.

He was a celebrity even when everybody knew he was a thief.

♪♪♪

♪ Ain't gonna hang no picture

[Jim] The guys that hit the front page of newspapers

in the crime world are-- are not your ordinary criminals.

There's something special about them.

♪ Gonna hang no picture frame

♪♪♪

[John] We live vicariously in so many ways.

♪ Look like Robert Ford but I ♪

♪ Feel just like a Jesse James

Elvis Presley got up there and wiggled and sang for us.

Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis,

we live vicariously through them,

but we also lived through Jesse James.

Al Capone, he was the bad guy. We'd go see the movies. Why?

♪ Ooh, I wish I was

[John] Here's this guy who's a free spirit,

an all-American kid, a tennis champion,

twice the East Coast surfing champion.

He goes and pulls off the jewel robbery of the century.

♪ Imagine it would be some kind of change ♪

[Jack] I'm in the front page of the newspapers.

I'm in television. I'm a big deal.

♪ I got for good luck my black tooth ♪

♪♪♪

[Edna] I think we all think it would be fun

to be able to get away with something.

But, you know, there's-- there's outlaws

and there's outlaws.

[man 29] When you hear the name Jack Murphy,

what-- what words come to mind?

[Jim] Murderer.

[man 29] Did you ever think you'd be caught up

in something like that?

[Jim] I was shocked.

I didn't think he had it in him.

I thought a burglar is a burglar, you know.

When he did that to young girls, that was shocking to me.

♪ Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'♪

♪ I just might tell you the truth♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪