Original subtitles

[narrator] From behind prison walls,

International Prison Ministry presents Chaplain Ray.

How many of you fellows have heard of a man called

Jack Murphy, Murf the Surf?

How many have heard about him?

He was hedonistic.

If it felt good, you do it. If it looks good, you take it.

And he ended up in prison.

So finally, it got through to him.

"God has a plan for my life."

Jack Murphy, the alleged killer,

became "Murf the Surf," the Christian.

When his case came up before the parole board,

let me tell you who went to bat for him--his warden.

He said, "I'm here on behalf of a thousand prisoners

"who need to know

"that if a man will get his act together

"and get on the right track,

"that the system will recognize it

"and will cooperate with him.

"But if you do believe a man can change,

"here's a man that has changed.

[man] I think if you had a hundred people talk

with Jack Murphy, 50 would believe him

and 50 would say,

"Absolutely not. The man's a conman, and he's a liar."

♪♪♪

And I think at a certain point, it stops being about Jack

and it starts being about the person

kind of making the judgment

and how we choose to grant salvation to people

as sort of a society.

♪ ...grace ♪

♪ How sweet the sound ♪

♪ That saved a wretch ♪

♪ Like me ♪

[reporter] Jack Murphy used to be the surfing champ in Florida.

That's why they called him "Murf the Surf."

Murf made a name for himself back in '64,

when he stole The Star of India sapphire

from the Museum of Natural History here in New York.

Only got 21 months in jail for that.

In '68, he murdered a woman. That got him life.

He's 47 now. He was 32 when he went in 15 years ago,

but he might be paroled next week.

The warden is all for it. He says Murphy is a changed man

because "Murf the Surf" found religion.

[rhythmic clapping]

[Michael] Frank Constantino went to prison,

but then he got born again.

And he was a tremendous influence in Murphy's life,

because Frank is a spiritual father to him.

Frank really helped Jack get out of prison.

Jack Murphy has done everything that the commission has asked.

To the best of my knowledge, everything that we have asked

the Department of Corrections has asked.

And I believe that his attitude is good.

And I believe that his chances of making it

are very, very, very good.

[narrator] "Dear Mr. Chairman, for the past five years,

"I have had the pleasure of representing

"Dr. and Mrs. Lewis Kent, the parents of Terry Rae Kent,

"who was murdered by the above-captioned convict.

"These grieving parents want to be heard

"so that the vicious nature of the crime

"will not be deluded by those who now want him

"to be restored to society.

"The heads of both women were caved in,

"and their stomachs were cut open.

"Both bodies were weighted with concrete blocks.

"The executioner, who has permanently scarred

"the lives of Dr. and. Mrs. Kent

"ought not be accorded an opportunity

to again unleash his grisly propensities upon society."

[rock music playing]

[reporter 2] Jack Murphy, the surfing champion,

who became famous as a jewel thief

and then a murderer, won parole today and re-entered society,

saying he has paid his tab for the crimes.

[cheers and applause]

[whistling]

[reporter 3] A stylish Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy

walked out of prison today,

stopping to salute fellow inmates

who stood at the fence singing spirituals.

Murphy, a murderer,

says the religion he found while among them,

changed his life.

♪♪♪

Jack has indicated to me that he is going to stay on

with the ministry and that

he is going to continue in ministry.

Now he plans to open his own church in Orlando.

He still won't admit he ever killed anybody.

...wrong place at the wrong time,

that I made some bad choices that I regretted.

[man] But you never committed any murders.

-No. -The bodies of the victims

were found over the-- over the row of mangroves,

about where my finger is pointing there.

I think he's playing a big con game myself,

the biggest con of his life.

He was extremely colorful,

highly intelligent, and totally ruthless.

I don't think this guy can change.

No. I think he's a damn snake, and he'll always be a snake.

[reporter] How would you answer a cynic such as that?

I'm not the same person that came in here a long time ago.

What brought about the change?

It was Christians who didn't stop writing in

and telling me that God had a plan for my life.

These people have been watching me for 17 years,

-and they believe in me. -[reporter] Okay. Thank you all.

Merry Christmas. God bless you.

[man] Good luck, Jack. Thanks, Jack.

♪♪♪

[Frank] Well, he certainly put in the work in prison.

But Murphy was able to work the system.

He knew the right people.

He was able to push the right buttons.

He had the intelligence to know how to do that.

♪♪♪

[Inez] It was on television.

And I thought, he's getting out, and Annelie is still dead.

[whistling]

And Jack Murphy did not acknowledge what he did.

How could you possibly get redeemed from that?

♪♪♪

[boat horn blows]

[Jack] Good morning.

As you know, I'm on work release right now.

It's The Bridge, the only Christian work release center

in the nation.

Over 60% of the men in regular work release centers,

they go back to prison.

But at The Bridge, less than 15% of those men

get back in trouble, and the only difference is God.

Three months ago, I was at Florida State Prison.

The end of the line.

And I wondered in my heart,

"Am I going out of here standing?

Will I ever go out of here?"

I saw men cry in that hallway.

I saw men fight in the hallway.

I saw men die in that hallway.

But I saw men born again in that hallway.

I saw an Almighty God that has the power

to reach through prison bars and fences to touch men's lives.

And in His timing, those gates will open.

And you saw it.

December 20th of last year,

God opened those gates wide enough

for a freight train to go through sideways,

and I walked out of that prison.

It was a morning that was very personal

and in a big circle out on that lawn,

a hundred men joined hands and they sang that,

"This is the day that the Lord has made."

And it wasn't any politicians.

It wasn't any attorneys or any money

that the door was opening that morning

because God was in control.

A couple of guards in there who didn't want to push that button

to let me out, but God had a plan for my life.

I was a new man. I was a son of the King.

I walked out there and I told them, just like Jonah,

in the belly of that great fish and the bottom of the ocean

cried out, and God heard his voice.

I said, "God heard my voice at the end of the line

at Florida State Prison."

Every week, I put Bibles under my arm.

Fellow picks me up in the morning,

and I come down to the biggest jails,

and I walk into these prison doors.

I go to the end of the line, and I look you guys in the eye.

You've heard me tell you, God has a plan for your life.

God will change your life.

God loves you.

Praise the living God.

[applause]

[Domenic] There are many people

that will probably watch this and immediately say,

"Jack should have died in the electric chair."

But, um, I don't think the worst thing

in our life defines us

if we do something about it, and that's what Jack did.

[man] He really had a call, and he fulfilled it.

[contemplative guitar music playing]

[man 2] Jack had what you might call a star persona,

and so people would look at Jack as some kind of a movie star.

[John] Even as a child, he had a lot of charisma.

He used to always have that charisma,

and, uh, he polished that as he went on,

especially, uh, once he embraced, uh, religion.

[Nate] This was a man who had boundless energy,

who had reinvented himself multiple times

already up to that point in his life.

[Corey] The religious transformation

did turn out to serve him pretty well.

It helped him get out of prison quicker,

and you know, it was a way for him

to parlay his criminal career and his prison sentence

into something going forward.

[Sonny] What else was he gonna do?

You know, how can you keep his name out there?

How can he be famous? How can he feed his ego,

if he didn't do that?

[Michael] This book that he wrote,

it was published, you know, in the different languages

in an-- I think it was three million copies total.

[Kitten] We were at a church, and the pastor had asked

how many had read his book in prison.

Well, everybody in the church had read his book.

And anyone know how many people got saved?

Well, all of 'em got saved because of the book.

And we all wept for joy the day that

Jack Murphy came out of prison.

And he went straight into full-time service for God

and is the best communicator

with prisoners of any man in America.

♪♪♪

[Kitten] Chaplain Ray really helped Jack get started.

[man] ♪ If I'm gone when you call, oh, my Lord ♪

♪ My sweet Jesus, if I'm gone ♪

[Ray] And when you came back into the free world,

of course, it hit the press. There was a lot of controversy.

But you found a warm welcome, didn't you,

on the streets among Christians?

Tell us, what does Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy

plan to do with the rest of your life,

now that you're back on the streets again?

I plan on doing God's business.

[Kitten] Chaplain Ray, he's the one

who printed all the books and the literature

and put them in prisons all over the world.

Jack Murphy, the jewel thief who became a Christian

and now serves God and man.

♪ That's what you see ♪

[Kitten] Chaplain Ray was back in the days

when they used to do tent revivals,

like all those other religious men.

♪ Oh, my Lord, sweet Jesus ♪

[Billy Graham] Are you ready to meet God?

The moment you received and your name is written

in the Book of Life.

Is your name in the Book of Life?

[Kitten] I mean, we're talking '30s and '40s

where they did healing services and speaking in tongues.

♪ Oh, my Lord, oh, sweet Jesus ♪

♪ You can't hear me laugh, and you don't hear me moan ♪

♪ Oh, my Lord ♪

In the name of Jesus, jump.

Start running. Start running.

[cheers and applause]

[Kitten] Chaplain Ray--he was like a father figure for Jack.

As he told me, he said,

"Well, all those guys, they're marketable, Kitten."

He was ordained.

But he said, "My strength is in marketing."

He told them all how to do mailouts.

He gave them the days of the month

that you send letters out to receive money.

I mean, he had a method that worked.

I mean, he was a master.

And like he did with Frank Constantino

and Pat Robertson,

Jack sort of shaped himself after Chaplain Ray.

[Jack] This is the rule book right here.

This is the road map.

Nobody else is ever going to stand in here

and get emotional or get passionate

or get sweaty talking about their belief,

except people that represent Jesus Christ.

God is raising up an army, but it's your choice.

[Bob] Every eye in the room was just on him.

And I mean, he was preaching the word of God

as good as Billy Graham.

[Jack] When you get to the gates of heaven,

and if the Lord is standing there and he says,

"Why should I let you into the heaven?

What did you do with Jesus Christ?"

What's your answer going to be?

And that's not me talking. That's Billy Graham talking.

[Kitten] One of the things that people in prison want

is that you want your family restored.

They want the relationship with the father

that beat them restored.

And Jack and I prayed about that.

He only did the Larry King show

because he knew his father watched it every night.

[Larry] What's the drive that keeps you

wanting to do this?

I know this, Larry, that if God isn't a part of your life,

if He's not a foundation of your life,

if Jesus isn't your personal manager and savior,

that no matter where you are

or what you're doing, you're doing time.

This is Larry King Live, and your phone calls are next.

[Kitten] Jack and Chaplain Ray

went to Hawaii and, um, I was doing something,

and the answering machine went off.

It was his father.

The message was real short.

Before I could get there, he had hung up.

[machine beeps]

[click]

[Jack Murphy's father] I just wanted to tell you, Jack.

I saw you on Larry King, and you look pretty good, boy.

[Kitten] When Jack was sentenced,

Jack's father was humiliated.

And so he was of the mind that Jack got what he deserved.

So when he went on Larry King's show,

sort of redeemed him with his father before he died.

He still has that tape,

and periodically, I'd hear him playing it.

[Nate] He told a story about going on Larry King's show,

and he knew Larry King wanted to ask him about

the Whiskey Creek murders, but he also knew they had to go

to commercial break in a minute and a half.

So, he just talked for a minute and a half.

Did not let Larry King get a word in.

And he told me, like, "That is a strategy that I use."

And that strategy worked for Jack for a long time.

I kept reading story after story about Murf,

where there would be 15 paragraphs about this heist,

and then in the 16th paragraph, it would be like,

"Oh, and then he was convicted for murder."

If you take out Whiskey Creek,

his narrative is the perfect American kind of crime story.

Because if you just go from heist to salvation,

it is dashing and handsome and stylish and cool.

Not only are the murders grisly,

they complicate Murphy's salvation in a--

in a very real way.

That part of his life had sort of been

successfully hidden.

What does it take to make it out there?

Why-- why didn't it work time and time again?

What does a guy need to--

to-- to get established, get his feet on the ground

and get things working out there?

[Domenic] If you take a look at his life

from the time he got out of prison,

it was about prison ministry.

Why would you look at that as somebody

who did this for the fame and the glory

and the money or whatever you get out of it?

It was a thankless, sacrificial life he lived.

[Frank] I think Americans love stories of starting over.

You want to see the person change,

you want to believe in him.

And so as long as he does stay on the straight and narrow

and behave himself,

then it does become that self-fulfilling prophecy.

You see what you want.

Many of you might have heard about him

or read his book some 40 years ago,

to have the biggest jewel heist in the 20th century.

And by the grace of God, he was released from prison.

And, uh, and he's traveled with us for 25 years.

Please welcome, Murf the Surf!

[cheering]

People don't bet on guys like us that end up in places like this.

Four out of five men that come out

of the Texas Department of Corrections

go back to prison because nothing changes.

This weekend is a weekend of change,

and you have a choice to make this weekend.

What are you going to do

with the second half of your life?

What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

[Frank] You know, you're talking to a jaded, old reporter,

that I think it was a path that he fully embraced.

It becomes the first chapter of his new story,

where he is doing some good.

Jesus says, "If you'll represent me, I'll represent you.

If you'll stand up for me, I'll stand up for you."

At that point, something happens.

I don't know why. I don't know how.

All I know is it happens.

[Domenic] Jack was proof

of how someone who could do such evil things

can turn life around.

And he has affected tens of thousands of lives with hope.

[Jack] ...Blessing through this man.

[Domenic] There's hope for anyone

who's had a bad life to change and to go forward.

-Amen. -[inmates] Amen.

Okay.

♪♪♪

The clemency board of Florida

has heard from a one-time world-class surfer

turned jewelry thief turned evangelist.

Jack Murphy, better known as "Murf the Surf"

asked the clemency board for his civil rights back

so he could vote in Florida.

Others describe to the clemency board

how his life has changed since the '60s.

While in prison, Murphy became a Christian.

When he was released in the '80s,

he went on to lead prison ministries around the world.

♪♪♪

[Bob] He came by my house before he went there,

and we prayed together about it and everything.

All he wanted was the right to vote again.

It really bothered him that he couldn't vote.

[clerk] Number 61. Jack Roland Murphy is here.

I am, uh, here to speak on behalf of Jack Murphy.

I've seen what Jack has done to change his life.

I've seen him in circumstances, where it would have been

very easy to revert to the old Jack Murphy

before he became a new creation through Christ.

[Alex] My name is Alex Taylor. I'm a chaplaincy administrator

for the Department of Corrections here in Florida.

And if there is a case of rehabilitation

through religion, Jack Murphy epitomizes it.

I'm Louie Wainwright, um,

and I've known Jack Murphy a long time.

And I think that, uh, he has contributed more

to this state's correctional system

than anybody I know, including myself.

I'm, uh, sort of overwhelmed at that, uh,

at that endorsement there.

A lot of people have gone to bat for me over the years,

and I'm-- I'm just trying to do the right thing and--

and not disappoint the people

who have put it on the line for me.

[Nate] Murf, he had spent so many years

kind of surrounded by people who were willing to believe

in his salvation fully.

But how many times in our lives are we really challenged

on the stories we tell?

So the pro-commission says that, um,

your version of the offense for the murder conviction

differs from the official circumstances. How's that?

I don't know what their version is.

[Rick] Okay. Did you commit the murder?

I was there. I was involved in that.

I introduced some secretaries

who had stolen half a million dollars

worth of stocks and bonds and showed up in Miami

and, uh, made some calls, and I got some people involved.

And we were out in a boat,

and they were talking stocks and bonds and it got haywire.

And I'm driving the boat,

and all of a sudden there's gunshots and mayhem

and an absolute nightmare occurs.

And I'm right in the middle of that whole thing and, uh...

[Pam] I'd, uh, like to clarify.

Mr. Murphy, um, it went awry

because they threatened to talk, correct?

-[Jack] Correct. -Okay.

So witnesses were eliminated.

These two women were beaten to death.

And then just to make sure they were dead,

they were shot and stabbed postmortem.

Their necks were tied with electrical cord.

-[Jack] Mm-hmm. -Tied to cement bricks,

and they were dumped in the water, correct?

-[Jack] Correct. -You realize today

you probably would have been electrocuted by now

for these crimes or lethal injection

under today's death penalty scheme.

[Bob] The governor wanted to allow Jack to vote.

But Bondi-- she just believed that he-- he didn't deserve it.

Doesn't matter that the girl getting murdered

was a thief herself, and Murphy claimed

that he didn't have anything to do with it.

But she got that other guy to vote with her.

Any questions?

Right, I move to grant restoration of civil rights.

[Pam] Disagree.

So, it's denied.

[Jack] Thank you, sir. Thank you.

[Kitten] The nature of the crime was too violent,

too severe to meet the criteria for clemency.

[Nate] It took the clemency hearing

for him to realize, "Oh, wait.

"Okay, I can't just tell my little version of the story

and point to my good works."

That hearing had woken up something in Jack

that he couldn't hide this.

And so, he needed to come up

with a narrative for Whiskey Creek.

[jaunty piano music]

This man right here is my dear friend.

His name is Domenic Fusco.

He's a film genius and, uh, travels all over the world.

He and I are involved in a movie thing right now.

We're talking to big boys.

Now, we're talking Matthew McConaughey,

good Texas boy.

We're talking Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.

We're talking the guns, you know,

and it's, uh, it's on its way.

I'm Jack Murphy with Domenic Fusco

here at Image Artistry Studios in, uh, Sanford, Florida.

We're putting together a film that would assist a writer.

Doing a script, documentary script or a book.

♪♪♪

[Domenic] A big part of Jack's life

was the impact that movies had on him.

So, we started putting some notes together,

and I would structure 'em in screenplay format.

The information will be of my life

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

then as an adult.

♪♪♪

[Domenic] Jack's story is all-American guy

goes really bad, becomes the most infamous jewel thief

in American history.

His associations caused him a lot of problems,

including the Whiskey Creek murders.

So, you can look at him and say three years of his life.

Now that will tell you who he is.

He's a criminal, he's a bum, he's this and that.

That's not who he is. He turned around.

That's a really strong storyline.

[Louie] "I've seen many good men go bad,

"but I've also seen a lot of bad men go good.

"I believe old dogs can learn new tricks.

"And Murphy-- I believe a man can change."

♪♪♪

[Domenic] And then we wrote a script.

We got this movie.

We went to Mel Gibson, and that was a no.

Kathleen Kennedy was a name thrown around,

but we never got to her.

♪♪♪

We met a couple of people from Hollywood,

probably about six or seven, eight producers,

and we had hundreds of thousands of dollars on it.

They want to do the movie, but like many people,

they wanted to show chopping the bodies up.

You know, they just made it into a real slasher

because that's what sells.

They just didn't get the redemptive story.

♪♪♪

[Meryl] I always love it when you see a movie

and at the very end, they tell you whatever happened to.

I had been aware of the robbery when I was a kid.

I remember what a big deal it was.

And I remember sitting there thinking, "Oh, my gosh,

it's going to be the 50th anniversary."

So my curiosity was, whatever happened to these guys?

And that gave me the idea to try to pursue it as a story.

Jack and Domenic have been trying for many years

to try to sell a movie of his life,

and so I think he hoped that any kind of press he got

might lead to that.

[Meryl] He wanted everything to be about his redemption,

but people had trouble stomaching the murders.

So I think he was hoping that I would present

his version of events in a sympathetic way.

I was more interested in understanding what happened.

[upbeat, jazzy music playing]

I spent three days with him.

And you really didn't know which Murf you were going

to be spending time with.

He had honed skills to keep people off-guard.

He enjoyed toying with me.

♪♪♪

Murf seemed to have delight in implying,

"You're gonna get on a boat with me,

"just like those girls,

and anything could happen on this boat."

♪♪♪

And while he was teasing,

there was just a bit of an iron glint in his eye.

Could see the guy who was pretty scary and threatening,

and he would do that on purpose

because he wanted to show you who he could be.

[Frank] I'm working on this story

about "Murf the Surf,"

so I called him on the phone, and we ended up talking.

When I started asking about the ugly part of his life,

he ended the interview.

It's a story that he stays away from not only in his book,

but in every speech that he gives.

He always steers clear of the two murders.

Back before this story ran,

all of a sudden, Murf was standing at my desk.

Even back then, our office doors were locked

for security reasons.

I tried to ask him some questions,

but he was interested only in coming to my desk,

introducing himself, and then walking away,

that he's in charge. You know, he's the big man.

The guy did not seem like the most, uh, religious fellow.

[Nate] We ended up making a podcast

about Jack and his life.

And that first night I was with him, he tested us.

He offered to drive us home, so we got in his car.

We drove away from our hotel,

pulled up to the water's edge, and just sat there in silence.

No idea what message he's trying to send.

We're just, you know, overlooking the Everglades,

car off, sitting in the dark with a guy

we know is convicted of murder.

Hanging with Jack was a lot about, like,

power and control.

And you knew there was strategy.

And he always needed to have the power.

[midtempo jazz music playing]

And Jack, I think, could see me kind of processing.

And he said something like,

"I ran the clock on you there, huh?"

After a while, you really see that

he was always running lines.

And just as in that poster that I did of Jonah,

Jonah cried out, "God heard him in the belly of the whale."

God used Jonah's experience to put him in a whale,

to get his priorities and his mind right.

He said out of the belly of hell, cried,

"And you heard my voice," Jonah, talking to God.

And this guy said, "Murf, did you ever cry out

"and ask God for some help?"

He said, "Murf, if you're not in the belly of hell

"at the end of the system like Jonah, I don't know who is."

He said, "Did you ever cry out?"

That God had a plan for you,

but you went and did your own thing?

And now, there you are, in the whale,

in the belly of the beast.

He said, "Did you ever cry out?

Did you ever ask God?"

[Nate] His story is a performance.

The same story, the same inflection,

the same phrases, the same punch line.

If you're not doing God's business,

you're doing time.

Because if you're doing God's business,

you're not doing time.

If you're not doing God's business,

no matter where you are, you're just serving time.

[Nate] He could have just lived happily

in Florida with his wife, making a decent living,

speaking on behalf of these ministries,

and no one would have bugged him.

And we were able to climb up

to the top of the fourth floor and...

[Nate] There was something in him

to need that recognition.

Notorious jewel thief was on campus

at the University of South Florida today.

I know that the crime thing was a--

was a dead end road, but I didn't care.

[Nate] It speaks to Jack's arrogance

and that he really thought he could control his narrative.

But in the end, he would have to confront, you know,

the very part of his story that he didn't want to confront.

That's when things got bad.

[Buck Owen's "Act Naturally" playing]

♪ They're gonna put me in the movies ♪

♪ They're gonna make a big star out of me ♪

[Jack] After beating our head against the wall

for about 10 years, we just prayed on it

and all of a sudden, Ron Howard calls.

So anyway, that's how this God thing in my life works.

♪ Well, I'll bet you I'm a-gonna be a big star ♪

[Jack] But here's something that, uh,

that I'm concerned about is, um,

it's very difficult to make me look like a real good guy.

♪ 'Cause I can play the part so well ♪

[Jack] Uh, the trick is going to be

to tell the story, flip some of that stuff in there,

some of that crime stuff,

some of that crazy stuff in there,

and then we slide out of it.

So by the end of it, I'm doing all this good work.

I'm doing all this work with the homeless

and the helpless and the prisoners and all.

And what I want to do

is we do a movie that's got some real guts to it,

like what they did in the movieBonnie and Clyde.

♪ 'Cause I can play the part so well ♪

Here's this funny, fast-moving thing,

and it's going and you're laughing

and it's exciting. And you're sort of giggling.

And then all of a sudden they run around the corner

to the bank, and the guy runs out of the bank

and jumps on the car and bam, bam, they blow him away.

And what they did with that movie,

they jerk with your emotions.

I-- I would like RJ to be able to take this movie,

and we do that.

[Nate] Walk me through

what happened that day out on the boat.

[Jack] Here's the thing.

You'll hear about that in that movie script that talks about

the Whiskey Creek murders.

Okay? Did you-- did you get that?

[Nate] Yeah, I know that you've said that

you've driven the boat.

[Jack] No, no, no. That's not part of the deal.

Like you're asking me questions.

Well, if you'll read the script,

it'll tell you exactly like it was.

This story right here, I never, ever told anybody.

No one had ever, ever asked me this-- this story.

My attorneys never asked me.

Reporters never asked me.

My partners didn't ask. No one asked me about this.

You read the newspapers.

You get this story. You get that story.

Let me tell you the real story.

We're on a boat.

I've got another partner, Jack Griffith.

And we've got this other guy with this Player,

and they're sitting in the back of the boat.

Finally, they wanted to talk business,

and it got a little heated,

and I can hardly hear it because I'm driving the boat,

and it's making some noise.

But I hear one of these secretaries say,

"If we don't have some money by Thursday,

we're going to the FBI."

Now in the world that I live in,

you don't go to the FBI.

You don't talk like that.

And within a couple of minutes,

I had two dead people in that boat.

I did what I had to do. I had to clean up that mess.

And, uh, I don't go any further than that.

[Nate] Is that gentleman still alive today?

Do you know what happened to him?

[Jack] Yeah. I know what happened to him.

We were paranoid about him and his situation,

and it was a decision to be made.

And so he had a-- he had an accident

that, uh, eliminated our problem.

[Nate] If he's no longer here,

uh, why protect his identity now?

[Jack] In this business, when you're doing bad stuff

and you're with bad people, you better keep your mouth shut.

Let me tell you something.

Everything in that movie script is where we're going

with that particular situation there.

We're not going any further,

and we're not going to make a giant thing

out of this like Sports Illustrated magazine did.

People who are Christians can read the article,

and they know that he's sort of floundering

with the message here.

That's not what this movie--

what movie or documentary is about.

You want action? I can give you action.

I'm going to give you the biggest jewel robbery

in America's history at the time,

but I'm not going to elaborate and go through some

psychiatric evaluation on, "Why did you do this and--

"Who did that?"

The story is this, a couple of years of my life,

I got off the track and-- and just went haywire.

But for the last 35 years of my life,

I've been working.

And there are 50 years' worth of publications that say that--

that I was involved.

It doesn't say that I killed anybody.

[Meryl] His defense lawyer,

Jack Nageley, said to me he had no memory

of ever hearing about the fifth man.

[Meryl] Mm-hmm.

[Meryl] So I thought that that was kind of

a strange phenomenon, that he would suddenly

invent someone seemed to be out of thin air.

[Nate] Did you talk to him about the believability of that?

[Meryl] I didn't push him.

[laughs] Jack Murphy is not someone you really want to push.

He didn't want the world to see him as a murderer.

[Nate] Who did what on the boat? I don't know,

but Jack Griffith had a history of violence.

Jack Murphy now says it wasn't him or Griffith,

but it was this unknown man.

The number of wounds that happened to these two women

and the way that they were both killed,

the lawyers in the case made a pretty compelling argument

that it could not have just been one of them to do it,

that both men had to be involved.

But that's something only Jack Murphy

and Jack Griffith knew.

Are we on? We're cooking-- Oh.

[Walt] Why would he make the story up of a fifth man?

To polish his image.

I believe the guy is a sociopath,

and I believe that he sees the image of himself

being a murderer of a girl

as being a serious stain upon his image,

and that has to be erased.

[Domenic] He's fed up with people

writing about, you know, him being a brutal murderer.

There were five people in the boat, not four.

And Jack has told me a bunch of times

that he was driving the boat.

I can't imagine why Jack would shoot the girls

and be involved in a murder.

I believe Jack, no "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s.

[upbeat gospel music]

♪ God is my comfort ♪

♪ Heal the problem when my life is goin' wrong ♪

I believe that the evidence is overwhelming

that he is who he claims to be.

-♪ Jesus is a friend ♪ -♪ To me ♪

[Nate] Did he ever talk to you about Whiskey Creek

and his role in it?

[John] No. He was safe talking to me.

I wouldn't say anything.

But he never, ever brought it up.

But I cannot prove it scientifically.

[Rick] I-- I probably would have liked to know more,

but he never wanted to talk about that.

And I just kind of left it alone.

But I can prove it by the lives that he transforms every day.

[Bill] He was driving the boat.

So how do you drive the boat and kill somebody?

I don't-- I don't know.

Because in my heart, I don't say, "I think, I hope."

I say I know.

-♪ God is my comfort ♪ -♪ He's my comfort ♪

[Nate] You have any reason to believe that Jack

would have made up a story like that?

[Bob] He'd have no reason to lie to me.

He's told me stuff he's done that'll curl your toes, man.

♪♪♪

[Michael] But it wouldn't change my mind either way.

Murder's no bigger a sin than a lie to God.

He was forgiven for everything.

Forgiveness is forgiveness, regardless of what the sin is.

A man before he was born again, you know,

he was the old creature.

All things become new.

His past is his past, and that's just what it is.

[vocalizing]

♪♪♪

[somber string music playing]

[Nate] That version of the fifth person conflicts

with the facts that came out of the trial itself.

[man] Then, what did-- what did the trial say?

[lawyer] Whose boat was it?

[woman] It was Mr. Lawrence's.

[lawyer] How many folks were in that boat?

[woman] Four.

Two women and two men.

[Nate] And the fifth man wasn't mentioned

until decades later.

[Domenic] Well, that's--

That's news to me.

I never heard that story.

I can only tell you

what he's told me over the years.

There may have been something that just he couldn't face.

I'm not sure.

But, quite frankly, it's--

it's history and, uh--

I guess only God knows what happened.

[Kitten] People will tell a story,

and they'll tell it three times.

And by the fourth time,

they believe what they've said, whether it's true or not.

I had brought up Whiskey Creek with Jack

on more than one occasion.

Jack never said he murdered them.

He was always vague,

and he finally said that that part of his life was over.

He didn't want to dig it up anymore.

Jack and I were together 45 years.

And, um, whether he was guilty or not,

I don't know. I will never know.

And people that knew Jack either forgot

or they said they never knew about the murder.

He'd wake up every now and then.

When he had nightmares, they were-- they were doozies.

You know, not that it was Whiskey Creek

or anything, but I mean, who knows?

[Jack] Your whole life is one of repentance

for mistakes that you made.

You're always trying to do something

that will soften that memory or that guilt.

Everybody bends the truth to their advantage.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪