This is a true story, retold as a tale. Grandpa Sam and his grandson are imagined, but the heist he describes really happened, just the way he tells it.
The gem hall of the American Museum of Natural History was dim and quiet, and the cases glowed like little lanterns. Danny, who was ten, had been dragged there by his grandfather on a rainy Saturday, and he was bored.
"It's just rocks, Grandpa."
"Just rocks," said Grandpa Sam, steering him by the shoulder. "Come here. I want you to meet an old friend of mine."
In a case of its own sat a great round stone, bluish-gray and milky, about the size of a golf ball. As Danny moved his head, a glowing star slid across its surface, six bright rays, as if someone had trapped a piece of starlight inside.
"Whoa," said Danny, despite himself.
"That," said his grandfather, "is the Star of India. Five hundred and sixty-three carats of sapphire. And when I was a boy just a little older than you, somebody stole it."
Danny turned around. "Stole it? From here?"
Grandpa Sam smiled and sat down on the bench. "Sit. I'll tell you."
The Surfer From Miami
"It was 1964. I was twelve. My class had come here on a field trip only a couple of weeks before, and I stood right where you're standing, with my nose against the glass. Our teacher told us it was one of the biggest star sapphires in the world, and that a rich banker named J.P. Morgan had given it to the museum.
"Now, at the same time, there was a young man down in Miami named Jack Murphy. Everyone called him Murf the Surf. He was a champion surfer, handsome, charming, played the violin, taught swimming at the fancy hotels. And he had a taste for trouble.
"Murf and two buddies came up to New York that autumn. They checked into a hotel and threw big parties. And in the daytime, they walked around this museum, just like you and me, looking at the jewels. Only they weren't admiring them. They were studying them."
The Window and the Dead Battery
"And here's what they found," Grandpa Sam said, holding up one finger at a time. "One: at night, the windows in this hall were left open a crack for fresh air. Two: the burglar alarm wasn't working properly. And three, the best part: the Star of India was the only gem in the whole collection with its own little alarm. And the battery in that alarm was dead."
Danny's eyes were enormous. "No way."
"Way. During the day, they unlocked a bathroom window. On the night of October 29, they came back, climbed up the outside of this building in the dark, and slipped right in. In a few minutes they had filled their pockets with more than twenty gems. Rubies, diamonds, sapphires. And the Star of India. Then out the window again, and gone.
"The next morning the guards opened up and found the cases empty. It was in every newspaper in America. The jewel heist of the century, they called it. I remember my father reading it out loud at breakfast, and I felt like someone had stolen something from me."
The Locker in Miami
"Did they get caught?" Danny asked.
"Two days," said his grandfather, holding up two fingers. "That's all it took. Remember those big parties? People had noticed three young fellows splashing money around. The police picked them up fast. But the jewels were already gone. Nobody knew where.
"Weeks went by. Then, in January, one of the three decided to make a deal. He led detectives all the way down to Miami, to a bus station. They opened up a luggage locker, the kind you put a coin in, and inside, wrapped up like somebody's laundry, was the Star of India."
"In a bus station locker?"
"In a bus station locker. And you want to know the craziest part? It wasn't even insured. If they'd never found it, it would have been gone forever."
Danny turned and looked at the stone with new respect.
"Did they get everything back?"
Grandpa Sam's face grew a little sad. "Not quite. There was a beautiful diamond called the Eagle Diamond. They never found it. Some people think it was cut into little pieces and sold. Somewhere out there, Danny, somebody might be wearing a bit of it right now and never know."
The Star Still Shines
They sat together for a while, watching the star drift across the stone as people walked past.
"Grandpa," Danny said finally, "can we come back next week?"
Grandpa Sam put his arm around him. "I thought you said it was just rocks."
"Not this one," said Danny.
The Legend and the Truth
The Star of India is a 563.35-carat star sapphire from Sri Lanka, given to the American Museum of Natural History by J.P. Morgan. On October 29, 1964, Jack Roland Murphy, known as "Murf the Surf," and two accomplices entered the museum through a bathroom window they had unlocked during the day. The building's alarms were not working, and the battery of the Star of India's own alarm was dead. The three were arrested within two days. In January 1965, one of them led authorities to a bus station locker in Miami, where the uninsured Star of India and several other gems were recovered. The Eagle Diamond was never found.
Murphy's later life went badly wrong, and he spent many years in prison for far more serious crimes, eventually becoming a prison minister. He died in 2020. The Star of India is still on display in New York today.
The star itself comes from tiny needle-like crystals inside the sapphire that reflect light into six glowing rays, an effect called asterism. Antique star sapphire rings are still a wonderful find.
💡 Read more legends and true stories of sapphire in The Legends of Sapphire: The Stone of Heaven.
🛍️ No Bathroom Window Required
Find your own sapphire treasure the easy way, at our shop on Royal Street or online.
