About

In 1985, Judge Penny Wolfgang looked over her glasses in the New York State Supreme Court, thumbed through a two-inch thick FBI jacket, and told me I better have brought my toothbrush. She said,

“Well Mr. Murphy, on paper you appear to be… A One Man Crime Spree!”

She wasn’t wrong.

I am Tim “Murph the Surf” Murphy. I was “The Kid.” The driver. The one who sat in the corner, kept his mouth shut, and learned from the masters. This isn’t just a story about crime. It’s a story about the rust belt underworld of Erie and Buffalo, the high cost of the fast life, and how I crawled out of the wreckage to build a new life.

100 Miles From Everywhere. 100 Miles From The Law.

Erie, Pennsylvania was supposed to be a neutral town, a “Gem City” on the lake located exactly 100 miles from the mob families in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo. Because of that geography, it became a den of thieves, safecracking, and fugitives hiding out in plain sight.

My education didn’t happen in a classroom. It started at my grandmother’s funeral in 1979. My grandma was the “Million Dollar Baby,” a prohibition rum-runner who drove a gold Cadillac. Standing at her casket, a hand landed on my shoulder. It was Jimmy “JR” Russell, a legend who spent 27 years in prison because he refused to rat.

He told me,

“They ain’t got your prints yet kid, and until they do you’re a virgin and you’re with me”.

The Secret Legends

I became the driver for the “Secret Seven”, a crew so secret we sometimes didn’t know who the other six were. We operated in the cracks between the major families. From the “Monday Night Football” lottery rackets to rubbing shoulders with hitmen like Ray Ferritto, the man who killed Danny Greene and brought down the Cleveland mob. I lived the history that others only watch in movies.

The Journey of a Lifetime

But you break the rules, and the rules break you. The life cost me my freedom, sending me to the reception block of Attica. It cost me the love of my life, Mary Ellen DeSantis, who died while I was locked in a cage unable to save her. This book is the unvarnished truth of how “The Life” seduces you, destroys you, and how (if you’re lucky) you survive it.

About the Author: Tim “Murph the Surf” Murphy

From The “Big Bitch” to The Boardroom

Tim “Murph the Surf” Murphy is a survivor.

Born in Erie, PA, into a family of bootleggers and war heroes, Tim was a natural mechanic and a student of the game. During his time with JR Russell, he became a master of “creative engineering”… punching safes, bypassing alarms, and programming police scanners to keep the crew one step ahead of the law.

After facing “The Big Bitch” (25 years to life) and serving his time in the New York and Pennsylvania penal systems, Tim didn’t go back to the hustle. He took the mechanical genius that made him a great safecracker and applied it to the legitimate world.

Clean for over 30 years, Tim built a successful career as a Control Systems Engineer for major corporations like Dunlop and General Motors. His reputation went from “The One Man Crime Spree” to the man who could solve the unsolvable:

“If Murphy can’t fix it, we are all in trouble”.

One Man Crime Spree is his confession, his history, and his redemption.