I Am a Killer (2018–2020): Season 2, Episode 6 - Pyro Joe - full transcript

It's something
that I've never intended to do,

I wish I didn't do.

If there was anything I could do
to change it, I would.

But there's obviously not.

I was kind of happy to be on death row.

Because I was treated better
than I was at home.

But I wish it wouldn't have took a victim
to get me sent there.

I pray to her every day

and ask God to watch over her soul
and to take care of her.

And I know that she's watching over
and seeing me as well.

This is a true story.



I'll start it off like that.

I just wanted to rebel.
I wanted to cause chaos.

I looked over at him.
"We'll see who kills who, huh?"

I made the choice.

I took his life.

It's something
that I've never intended to do,

I wish I didn't do.

I knew I was gonna get out
of that car and murder those two men.

As he kneeled in front of me,
all I remember is pulling the trigger.

I'd killed them both.

I'd stabbed them to death.

Hi, Joe. Do you think
you could just drop this down your shirt?

Just this front shirt.

My name is Joseph Murphy.



Number 199042.

I am incarcerated
in Ohio correctional facility.

Our home in Clay County, West Virginia,
was a tar-paper shack.

All it was was tar paper
wrapped around two-by-fours.

And that's where we lived at.

We had three rooms, which was
a living room, kitchen and one bedroom

for a family of eight.

My mother, she come from a family
of 17 siblings

and she wanted out of the house
that she was in,

so she got pregnant at an early age

and married my father, Jerry Murphy.

And they just kept having kids.

They never had no income or no plans.

We had no water, no electricity.
No gas, no phone.

We would get water from the creek.

And to use the bathroom,

we would urinate and drop feces
in gallon jugs

or gallon cans

and they would be laid
throughout the home.

The sort of person my father was

was, if I didn't see him drunk...

if I'd ever seen him sober, I would think
something was wrong with him,

because I've always known him to be
under the influence of alcohol

and he was abusive when he was drunk.

He didn't care.

My parents always said I was retarded,
but I didn't know what it meant.

I just thought that it was
something to do with the way I was.

My mother was receiving
a social security check

for mental retardation.

I was never allowed to play
with the other siblings.

My mother told them that I was sick

and, if they played with me or talked
to me, they would end up sick too.

So she wouldn't let them talk to me
or play with me,

so I was always alone.

But sometimes, my sister would...

steal a can of apple sauce
from the kitchen

and take it up on the hill and bust it
open on a rock and feed it to me,

just because my mother wouldn't feed me.

She would always try to make sure that
I didn't die of starvation or something.

The place where I would normally sleep
was at the foot of my mother's bed

and tied down to the bed.

I always thought that that was normal.

At one point, my social worker
bought me a bunch of clothes.

And she bought a big trunk
to keep them in.

And we went home
and my mother did what she always does.

She got everything
and gave it away to the other kids

so they would look nice going to school.

And she put the trunk
at the foot of her bed and put me in it.

That way, she knew I couldn't get out
at night time

and run around or do anything.

Little did she know,

that was more comfortable
than sleeping on the floor.

My social worker would come
to the house regularly

to make sure that I was okay.

And, one day, my mom beat me really bad

and I had blood marks on my back
and my back of my legs

and she told my father, she said,
"You have to fix this,

'cause she's gonna be here tomorrow,
she's gonna see it

and she's gonna take Joey away
and we won't get his check this month."

So my dad said he would take care of it
and he took me out back.

And he tied me down
to a set of box springs.

And after he'd had me tied down,

he put gasoline on my back
and set me on fire.

And I was screaming bloody murder,
because it burnt so bad.

Growing up,
I was in 17 different institutions

in four different states.

I was sexually abused whenever I went
to the institutions that I was in.

I thought it was something
that everyone deals with and puts up with.

I was happy to be in the institutions
that I was in,

because they fed me, they clothed me

and I wasn't getting beat every day
and I was able to eat.

They would have me stay there for a while.

And the judge would release me
back to my mother and father.

My family would never keep in contact
with me in any of the facilities I was in.

And they moved without telling me
that they had ever moved.

When we moved to Marion, Ohio...

our house had a bathroom in it
for the very first time.

It was a nice city.

And a lot of times, at night time,
I would just walk the streets

just to get a peace of mind,
to escape the abuse.

One time, my mother said
that she was going to whup me

and I accidentally set a stack of clothes
on fire.

And it set the kitchen on fire,

which engulfed
and caught the wall on fire.

And here comes a bunch of fire trucks
and police.

The sirens was going
and the lights was flashing.

We had to go stay somewhere else

and I realized that my mother
had forgot to beat me.

So I learned from an early age,
if I set a fire,

I'm not gonna get beat.

After that, I believe
I was sent to a institution

and they was running tests on me
and said that I was a pyromaniac.

But that wasn't the case at all.

No one really knew
why I always set the fires.

My brother-in-law told me,

if we can get her
to the Columbus Hospital,

then she could make it,
'cause they would take better care of her.

So he said that we needed to go somewhere
and do a crash and grab.

Just grab something and then run out.

And he came up with the, um, item
as being a VCR.

And I told him, I said, "I know someone
that has one. I believe she has one."

And he said, "Who?"
And I said, "Ruth Predmore."

The lady that
we had done odd jobs for before.

So we went down to the house.

And he was trying the back door
and I was trying the front door.

I was thinking, "If she's in there,
she's gonna hear us.

She might call the police."

So I took a knife out of my pocket

and went beside the house
to cut the phone line.

But when I went back onto the porch,
to the door,

Ruth Predmore was there and she said,
"What are you doing? Get away from here!"

And it startled me and I was scared,
so I just swung the knife and I ran.

About two hours later,
I went back to the house.

And I was walking...

really slow and scared,
not knowing what to expect.

And when I went to the front door,
I opened it real slow

and I could see her body
was laying on the floor.

I was scared.

But I still was in need
of helping my sister,

so that's why I proceeded
to go through the house

and get what I thought was of value
and then exit out the back door.

Miss Predmore should have never died
at my hands.

She was a very sweet, caring,
generous, giving person

and I'm very remorseful
for what I had done.

And it should have never happened.

During the trial, we had caseworkers
and social workers come to trial

to give testimony.

And that's when I realized that, "Okay,
what I went through, that's not normal.

It's not right and...

now I'm gonna be sentenced to death,

not even knowing
what a real family is like."

They call it "The Little Chicago,"

because Chicago is full of drugs
and gangs and stuff.

Now, Marion...

it's ended up that way, too.

This is the bar
I got my teeth knocked out at.

And Miss Predmore, the lady he killed,
lived right here.

The little house right there.

I'm Michael Murphy.
I'm Joey Murphy's brother.

I'm... I'm the youngest
out of the six kids.

When we moved from West Virginia
to Marion, we... we changed worlds.

Down in West Virginia,
you had a bunch of hillbillies.

Up here, you had a bunch
of different types of people.

People you don't run into
in West Virginia.

And everybody always picked on us
because we had a hillbilly accent

or we never had no good shoes,
no good clothes, no nothing.

My dad was an alcoholic.

When he couldn't get no alcohol,
he would literally go to the bathroom

and get a bottle of rubbing alcohol
and take a couple swigs of it

and get sick, but keep drinking it.

We could spend $100 for a microwave
and, the next day, it would be missing

for a $2 bottle of wine.

Joey was a troubled kid, really. I mean...

he would get in trouble.

Stealing or whatever.

And he'd get sent away.
Six months at a time, a year at a time.

I just wanted him to stay home,
but he never did.

He would catch a fire or...

He killed a dog.

He killed my dog, Snoopy,
when we lived in West Virginia.

Um... Threw it out in front of a truck.

Another time,
I walked up on the mountain

and he had another dog
sitting there hanging.

And he'd get whippings for it.

And that didn't do nothing to Joey.
He didn't cry.

He'd look at her and say,
"I'm still gonna do it."

There were multiple fires
going on in Marion.

A whole bunch of just buildings getting...
burnt down.

And it was all over the newspapers
about an arsonist being in Marion

and it turned out it was him.

From what was told to me, it was...

I liked candy when I was a kid.

He liked fire.

Joey asked me, "If you was gonna try
to rob somebody, what would you do?"

I said, "I wouldn't do it.
I'd put a note on their door saying,

'Give me all your money
and leave it in a brown paper bag.'"

That's what he did.
He left her a note saying,

"Leave all your money.
Leave it in a brown paper bag."

And she didn't,
and then he went in and killed her.

I can't see an action of surprise

to slice somebody's throat.

And the lady was nice to me.

I would go down and mow her yard
every week,

shovel her sidewalk every week.

She'd pay me, I'd walk her groceries
back from the store. She...

You know,
she's like a grandma to me and...

when that happened, I was just...
I didn't know how to act.

You know, I loved the woman
and my brother did it.

So...

it's kind of hard...

...to deal with your brother and somebody
you considered like a grandma.

My name's Wayne Creasap.

I'm a retired police officer
for the City of Marion.

Once we determined
what was taken from the residence...

and, uh, then canvassing
the neighborhood...

the name came up real quick.

Joe Murphy was very well known

to the law enforcement community
in Marion County.

A lot of the officers, uh,
referred to Joe Murphy as "Pyro Joe".

In his younger days,
he liked to play with fire.

He was known
to set small animals on fire.

A small-time thief.

Just liked to get in trouble.

Joseph Murphy resided
just a few houses down from Mrs. Predmore

and it was determined that
he had written a note to Mrs. Predmore

the day before her body was discovered.

And, uh, the note basically said,

"You are to leave your money out
or I will kill you."

When the money wasn't put out there,
then he followed through with his threat.

It's been a long time
since I've seen these.

I still see her, uh...

lying there on the floor like that, uh...

in my mind.

It sticks there like a photograph forever.

This was a very, very horrific crime.

I don't feel that it was a case
where he accidentally tried to harm her...

in an act of surprise.

Uh, it's apparent
that he stood behind her.

The cut on her throat was so deep

it darn near took her head off.

It was just hanging on by a thread.

So, you know, there was a lot of force.

You know, standing behind someone
and pulling that knife in

and spinning her around
and cutting her throat.

I can't say I had any sympathy for Joe.

People had tried to work with him
over the years,

through children's services,
trying to get him turned around,

trying to get him away from doing,
you know, criminal activity,

trying to help him,
trying to help the family.

You can only be helped
if you want to be helped.

My name is Linda Richter

and I am a mitigation specialist
here in the state of Ohio.

My job is explaining
how someone's background

can mitigate against a horrible crime.

Uh, to let the jury see that these people
have been victimized themselves

long before they victimized anyone else.

I think that Joey's was probably
one of the most impoverished

and emotionally-sterile backgrounds
I had come across.

The cleanliness of the house was awful.

Roaches, animals.

Animal feces.

It smelled.

This was all in Marion. I mean, this was
a step up from where they had come.

Um, because we knew this family
had been rooted

historically in south central
West Virginia

with a very high poverty level.

And we took these pictures
because I wanted people to understand

that this really was
no more than a tar-paper shack.

I mean, we're talking a poverty

that I had never experienced or seen
in my lifetime.

The psychologists that worked with us
on this case

thought that, because of the amount
of rage that Joey was exhibiting

in setting fires and killing animals,

that he most likely
had been sexually abused.

And that was the fuel
for a lot of the rage that spills out

in these kind of impulsive,
not well-thought-out murders.

I was devastated
when the jury returned a death verdict.

I just did not feel
that Joey was the worst of the worst.

I thought Joey needed to be in prison.

But I did not see that taking Joey's life

was doing anything
but victimizing him one more time.

Even though he committed
a horrendous crime.

The first time
I remember being sexually abused,

it was a black man in Clay County.

He made alcohol for the residents around.

He was called a moonshiner.

And my dad loved going there,
getting drunk,

and, one day, he took me with him.

And we went to a bus
that was abandoned beside the road,

and that's where, um, Al lived at,
who made the moonshine.

And my dad took me in the bus
and said he wanted some alcohol

and Al said he don't have none.

And my dad said,
"Well, I've got my son here

and you can have your way with him.

Just give me a jug of alcohol."

So...

Al took me to the back of the bus
where they had a mattress

and he undressed me.

And I wasn't thinking anything of it

and then he got undressed
and laid me on the mattress

and got on top of me and...

raped me anally.

And I was screaming for my dad,

"Please help me, Dad.
He's hurting me, help me."

And he just sat in a chair,

drinking his alcohol
and acting like he couldn't even hear me.

And then...

after he grunted like a pig
and got off of me,

I ran out of the bus
and ran home butt naked.

And it was about a half a mile away.

And when I got home, I was yelling,
"Mom, help me, help me!"

And then, whenever I got to the house,
she come out on the porch

and she said, "What's wrong?"
And I said, "He hurt me, he hurt me."

And then Mom took me in the house
and whupped me,

because she thought I was playing
in the creek and took my clothes off

and got cut by glass that was in the creek

and that's why I had blood on my buttocks
and the back of my legs.

At this time when this happened,
I was six years old.

I've heard that story before.

And it just makes me as sad
as it did the first time.

I can't imagine...

feeling...

so betrayed and so helpless
by the one person in your life

who's supposed to be there to protect you
and love you and keep you safe.

Um...

All for some moonshine.

I mean, when you're traumatized like that
as a child...

your sense of safety,

your sense of security,
your sense of any humanity...

is shattered.

I don't know how anyone...

at that young age
goes through that kind of a...

violent act perpetrated on them...

and then relates to the world normally.

Because now
the world isn't normal anymore.

It's a hostile and mean and scary place.

I'm Kathryn Sandford.

I am a public defender

in the death penalty department

and I do capital appeals for my clients.

These are five boxes of, I think,
15 probably that we have.

This is just for Joey.

I had not read or seen
a background as horrible as his.

All that he went through and...

just what a horrible situation it was.

There was no doubt
that Joey had committed the murder.

So we were not trying
to get him a new trial.

We were trying to get him a new sentence.

I do believe
that someone with that background

cannot be judged at the same standard

as someone
who does not have that background,

that there is a difference there.

We started working on his clemency case

roughly eight to ten months
prior to the execution date.

I do remember thinking that...

if he was executed
that I didn't know if I would be able

to continue doing this work.

Because I thought
there really is no justice then.

There's me with my glasses.

Buddy with his checkered pants.

Jerry is his real name.

Drema, Darris,

David, Mom and Joey.

Mom would whip you
with a belt or a switch.

Back in the seventies,

that's how everybody was punished,
I guess.

You've got to learn your lesson.

A lot of kids...

don't get punished and you can see
the big difference in the way they act

compared to somebody that gets punished
and the way they act.

But him, I don't know. It's...

It's like I remember him telling stories.

Majority of the time, they're not true,

but there's some truth-ness to it.

My dad said he'll take care of it
and he took me out back.

And he tied me down
to a set of box springs

and, after he'd had me tied down,

he put gasoline on my back
and set me on fire.

And I was screaming bloody murder
because it burnt so bad.

Now, I remember the fire on him.

Everybody was in the living room.

He was in the bedroom.

Nobody tied him down.

He caught himself on fire.

Nobody else was even in the room.
He, uh...

He scared everybody.

Mom took him to the emergency room.

But I recall, plain as day.

He's been saying that since the trial.

That was his defense...

to get off of death row.

My dad took me in the bus
and said he wanted some alcohol

and Al said he don't have none

and my dad said, "Well, I got my son here
and you can have your way with him.

Just give me a jug of alcohol."

The truth,
wasn't nothing to do with him.

My dad did take Darris to Charleston.
Not to Al's.

And sold him to a whorehouse.

Left him there.

Went home.

But Joey confused...

Dad trading Darris for wine or whiskey
for him.

You see what I'm saying?
He's taking two stories

and combining them together
to make it look like... him.

But Darris has...
Dad did sell him for some whiskey.

If some of this stuff was true...

it makes me feel even sorrier for him.

It saddens me. I mean, he's my brother.
I love him.

I wouldn't have been able to deal with it.

I would have ended up
hurting somebody myself.

My name is Michael Gelbort.
I'm a clinical neuropsychologist.

Joey Murphy is a case
that I became involved in

because his attorney, Kathy Sandford,

was looking for an assessment
of who this guy is, how he functions.

Joey will pass the test.
He can look reasonably normal.

But in terms of understanding nuance
or subtlety...

um, more complex issues...

if you took 100 people and lined them up
from smartest to least intelligent,

he would be way at the back of the line.

There were stories told, um...

about his father,

who was apparently
a very significant alcoholic...

um, lending Joey to other people
in exchange for alcohol.

Everything that Joey said
I'm not going to believe...

hook, line and sinker.

On the other hand,
it was consistent enough,

and it also goes with his behavior

that I suspect, by and large,
it's... it's accurate.

And I'm pretty comfortable saying
that the history of abuse he relates

is pretty much on target.

It's actually very common

for family members to report
a different history.

You know, it would be one thing
if Joey's brother said,

"That never happened.
My father would never do such a thing.

That's not the kind of man he was."

But the fact that his brother says
it happened, it just wasn't to Joey,

it's like, okay,
he's establishing that the father

is the sort of person
who could do such a thing.

Who's to say
it didn't happen to Joey, too?

Who's to say
it didn't happen to Joey then?

But, at the very least, you know,
the brother's confirming

that, "Yes, Father would do such a thing."

It's not about whether or not
we feel sorry for the individual.

But rather that maybe he didn't have
the ability, based on his upbringing.

Maybe he didn't have the capacity

to do better than he did.

I'm of the opinion
we come into the world blank slates

and the training we have
from those around us

is pretty important
in determining which way we'll go.

This is not a psychopath.

This is not someone
who is out to kill people.

This is someone who was a victim himself
in many ways.

And I know there are those who...
"You know, sure, he was a victim,

but still he shouldn't go killing."

It's not that his background
made him kill anyone.

It's not that anyone
who has this background

absolutely will kill someone.

But they're eminently more likely.

They have less opportunity
to stay out of trouble

or to... to act
in a socially appropriate way.

They're closer to the edge, if you will,
and some of them fall over the edge.

He fell over the edge.

We had all this material ready
to present at Joey's clemency hearing.

But you never know
what the board is going to recommend.

You never know what the governor
is going to actually do.

But some years prior,
I had read an article

where the victim's niece said
she had never heard from Joey.

She didn't know if he was sorry.

So I thought,
"We need to reach out to her."

And then she and Joey ended up meeting

for offender
and, um, victim family dialogue.

If we could have a victim's family member

say that he or she did not support
execution of our client,

that would... that would be huge.

So the federal public defender

had someone go
and videotape Miss Kavanagh.

And we received the video
the night before the clemency hearing.

When I first met him, I was looking to see
a hard-nosed criminal.

Mm-hm.

But then,
after learning about Joey's past life...

and how abusive it was,

I came away from there feeling
that our system has let him down terribly.

As it also let my aunt down.

When Miss Kavanagh first met with Joey,

she was of the view
that he should be executed.

But during her meeting with him,

her mind changed.

Do you want Joey executed?

- No.
- Why not?

I feel that he's very...
I feel that he is remorseful.

And I do feel that he could be
of use somewhere.

And I want the board to know
how angry I am at the whole system itself.

And what it's done to my family.

What it's done to Joey and his family.

It wasn't just Joey being on death row
these 25 years.

I sat on death row and so did my family.

My visit with Peg Kavanagh,
the victim's niece...

was very emotional.

I just started crying
and she started crying

and she said, "Honey, your parents
should be the ones locked up. Not you."

And then we really embraced each other

and it was a true, honest, love,
forgiveness hug

and it made us both cry even more.

And, um...

she took part in getting me
off of death row.

I was within my last 30 days of life.

So I was isolated from everyone.

And the warden came and he said, uh...
"Murphy, we've got something for you."

I said, "Okay. What's up?"

He said, "The governor granted clemency."

And...

I almost just wanted to fall down
and start crying

and he said,
"Murphy, I don't want no hug."

I said, "Okay."

After that, he asked me...
do I want to call my attorney

and I said, "Yeah, I need to."

And from the sounds of it,

there was a room full of people
at the Ohio Public Defender's office.

They was all in there celebrating.

She said, "We did it. We finally did it.
It was worth fighting for."

And it was as tearful for her
as it was for me,

because she had worked really hard
to get me off of death row.

It was very emotional and overwhelming
that finally people care.

A lot of times, I would walk
on the walkways in the prison yard

and just look at the sky
and walk through the grass

and give thanks to God that I'm there
and that I'm alive and...

somehow is there a way
that I can make a difference?

Now I actually have a life.

So, given that chance, I'm doing
everything that I can possibly do

to make that chance count for something

and to do something constructive
and meaningful.

Making friends with inmates,
understanding their problems

and trying to help them.

Hi, Duf.

This is the dorm cat, Duf.

Nicknamed for Andy Dufresne
from the movie Shimshom Redemption.

And he's our dorm cat.

We rescued him when he was four days old,
almost frozen to the ground.

And he likes to stay around the shoulders.

A lot of people relieve stress and anger
from playing with him

and interacting with him and...

it's just comforting to go up
and play with a cat

or watch him outside...

playing around in the grass
or chasing birds.

If I was to ever leave prison,
it would be God's will

and it would be something that he wanted.

But, for myself,

I am content just living a life in prison,

because I've adapted to prison.

I accept this punishment.

And I'm okay with it.