The Bluefield Beat
Steve Murphy did not start his career in a high-speed chase through Medellin. He started in Mercer County, West Virginia. After a brief stint at WVU that ended in academic probation, he found his calling in the criminal justice program at Bluefield State. By the age of 19, he was a Bluefield police officer who could not even legally buy the bullets for the gun he was carrying. His early days were filled with patrolling “hog stomps” at the city auditorium and breaking up fights at the Greyhound bus station. Even then, he had a knack for the job, having decided at age 10 that he would rather go to jail than face his parents after getting caught by the cops for a childhood prank.
“You either go with us and go to jail for the rest of your lives or we can take you home to your parents. We all looked at each other said, ‘Take us to jail.’ Cuz we knew what was going to happen when we got home.”
From Two Ounces to 880 Pounds
In 1987, Steve finally realized his dream of joining the DEA. He was hoping for a quiet post in the Carolinas, but “Murphy’s Law” landed him in the Miami Division right when the “Cocaine Cowboys” era was in full swing. He quickly went from a country boy in West Virginia to a “deck hand” on a million-dollar undercover boat wired for sound and video. On one of his first major cases, he jumped from seeing a few ounces of powder to seizing 400 kilos of cocaine in a bust that involved tracking planes from Cuba and almost indicting Raul Castro.
“I went from 2 oz to 400 kilos which is 880 lb of cocaine. And I jokingly say I was addicted to cocaine at that point but just in a different way. There was one most exciting thing I felt like I’d ever done in my life.”
Hunting the World’s Most Dangerous Man
By 1991, Steve was stationed in Colombia with his partner, Javier Pena. They were not just fighting a cartel, they were fighting a man worth an estimated 30 billion dollars who thought nothing of drowning a waiter over a piece of stolen silverware. Steve and Javier became such a threat that Pablo Escobar put a $300,000 bounty on their heads. For 18 months, they lived with an elite 600-man force known as the Search Bloc, whose only responsibility was to find the kingpin. That mission finally ended on a rooftop in Medellin on December 2, 1993, when the man who had terrorized a nation was finally brought down.
“He put bounties on police officers down there Pablo did. A man or a woman who’s brave enough to put a uniform on and their life is worth a hundred bucks. Well then he put bounties on me and Javier $300,000 each.”
Think you’ve seen it all on Netflix? You haven’t heard the half of it until you hear the real stories about the “stick” from West Virginia who took on the world’s most notorious drug lord. You’ve got to see the full interview to believe some of these stories.
