The Star of India Sapphire Theft

On October 29, 1964, two young men — Jack Roland Murphy and Allan Kuhn — used a ladder to scale the wall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and steal twenty-four precious gems from the J.P. Morgan Hall of Gems display, including the world-famous Star of India sapphire, the DeLong Star Ruby, and the Midnight Star sapphire. The thieves found an open window and spent approximately thirty minutes selecting and removing gems worth an estimated $410,000 — equivalent to several million dollars today. The theft was remarkably brazen and the museum's lack of security alarms made it shockingly simple.

Murphy and Kuhn, both connected to the Miami Beach party scene and known for flamboyant lifestyles, were arrested within days after boasting about the theft to acquaintances. A third accomplice, Conrad Benedetto, was also arrested. Murphy — later known as "Murph the Surf" — became the public face of the crime and would go on to have a long criminal career before a dramatic religious conversion. The arrest was aided by the men's remarkable indiscretion; they had been openly displaying and discussing some of the gems.

Most of the stolen gems were recovered through negotiation — Jack Murphy's attorney arranged the return of the Star of India and several other stones in exchange for leniency considerations. The DeLong Star Ruby was ransomed back to its donor for $25,000 paid through an intermediary. Several smaller gems were never recovered. The three thieves received relatively light sentences of three years in prison, reflecting both their cooperation and the relatively lenient sentencing norms of the era for property crimes.

The Star of India theft became a celebrated caper story — colorful, non-violent, and resolved relatively quickly — and was adapted into the 1975 film "Murph the Surf." Jack Murphy himself became one of the most remarkable post-criminal figures of the twentieth century: after subsequent convictions for robbery and murder, he underwent a genuine religious transformation in prison, became an evangelist, and was paroled in 1986 after serving fifteen years. He has spent subsequent decades as a prison minister.