Matt Murphy (The Book of Murder) is a former Homicide prosecutor and current legal analyst for ABC News. Matt joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the importance of telling the victims stories over the killers, the craft of picking a jury, and his nerves the first time he was at a crime scene. Matt and Dax discuss the parallels between their childhoods, the experience of working with detectives, and the horrific crimes of Rodney Alcala. Matt discusses how his job skews his worldview, the mental toll of not having enough evidence when you know someone is guilty, and if murder is reflective of the times. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who is Matt Murphy and what is his background?
Anthony Kiedis in Scar Tissue. Did you ever read that book?
I haven't, but I know Anthony and I know his story. That's a good read. So he actually talked about my dad in that book.
Oh, he did?
What drove him maybe working in the county prison?
No, no, no. He was, like, a hopeless alcoholic for a long time.
Your dad was? Both my parents, yeah.
Oh, interesting.
I'm a thoroughbred, baby. Did your dad get sober? Yeah. And then he wanted to open a treatment center.
Yeah, he was sort of like a passion in life, big AA guy. In 1975, he got a DUI, and it was an undignified experience for him. And he was a prominent dude, and he got sober.
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Chapter 2: What are the challenges of being a homicide prosecutor?
My cities of Newport, Costa Mesa, Laguna, and Irvine are all small police departments. And when you go in, it's like that day. I think in a way, Byington was trying to freak me out a little bit. It was a little bit of a hazing the new guy and can this guy hang sort of thing. Rite of passage. It's a rite of passage.
And right when I walked in the door and I left this out of the book, they were literally, it's like seeing straight out of TV, they forensically processed the living room part of this townhome and they were eating a pizza. And the guy said to Matt, he goes, she killed the shit out of him. Yeah, basically stapled him to the floor. And this guy is, a lot of detectives are fucked. Funny as shit.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got to.
You have no choice. The gallows humor. Another interesting thing about the best detectives and the best prosecutors, too, I think, it's the guys that are one bad decision away from being the same people they're investigating. A thousand percent. Those are the ones.
Well, because you can understand... I have this too. I'm a scumbag. I'm a recovering addict. I can drop into a mindset pretty easily of feeling like I'm owed something. I'm justified for this.
As far as detectives go, there are detectives who literally are Boy Scouts that live this very Joe Friday life. You know, just the facts, ma'am. And you encounter those and they're great at the documents, the police reports. There's no spelling errors in them and they have their advantages.
When it comes to the really bad, the serial killers you got to catch, the cases that are impossible that nobody else wants to take a run on, give me the mutant that almost got fired a couple of times. And that's the person.
Yeah, you got to get in their head.
Well, that's the person that's going to win it for you. And that's the one that you can also, when they're sitting next to you during jury selection, that's the person you can lean over to. I keep saying guys. A lot of these are women. Some of the best investigators I worked with were women.
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Chapter 3: How does picking a jury work?
And that's the way it should work. It gets problematic when we get into the serial killers that are going to victimize other people.
I think it gets into a problem there. And I think where jurisprudence is most problematic is in sexual assault. It's still almost impossible to prosecute. 100%. In my opinion, let me hit you with this. I was reading Missoula, the John Krakauer book on the kind of rape epidemic at Missoula.
The problem prosecuting these kids and then the problems with the juries, even if they get the stuff they need, it needs degrees like murder. I think that's one of the problems is you have these jurors looking at these young people and there's no degree. So it's all in or all out. And they have a hard time finishing a young person. Not that they shouldn't be finished. That's not what I'm saying.
But I think if there were degrees within it, it could move the needle.
That's a really interesting idea. Because you're absolutely right. Like a 288, that's sexual abuse of a minor. There's one charge. I mean, there's different subsections of rape, but that word is a heavy thing. And a lot of jurors, you're right. I prosecuted, my niche was date rapes. And you don't want to tag a kid as a rapist for life for a misunderstanding or a drunken miscommunication.
Two people in a blackout or reconstructing two people's blackouts. And it's a really tough thing. Words are important. Maybe if there were degrees.
But who's going to come up with the degrees? That's very tricky, too. To me, there's some things that are worse. I'm going to get in trouble for just saying that. Worse than others. But there are.
Look, I was molested. There's worse versions of the way I was molested. I can tell you if someone was molested, if that was my parent, that's fucking worse. If it were reoccurring for years, yes, if there was violence.
For me, there's degrees of what I experienced for sure. But you know what's interesting about that? A lot of people, you encounter that, not to spin off on a tangent, a lot of people think that that's like a zombie bite. So many people have been molested. I still don't think the public understands that.
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Chapter 5: How does Matt Murphy deal with the mental toll of his job?
In thriving long-term relationships? No, not in homicide. They're not. And my mentors, and I don't really mention this because I kept them out. The rule is you're either a genius, and there are a few that came through the unit that are able to balance out and be great husbands, wives, and fathers and mothers.
But generally, you go into that unit, if you're single when you go in, you're single when you come out. And if you're married, you're probably getting divorced. Yeah. Because you can't do the job, at least me, I wasn't smart enough to have good bandwidth on both. And I decided that I had to go all in.
Well, how can you be at dinner not thinking about this thing that has to get done in order to get this person off the street? Like to be able to... leave that at the valet is a tall order.
Yeah, when you have the responsibility to the moms, that's what it always came back to me, is when you meet the mom and they want you to bring it home for them. And for me, I'd wake up in the middle of the night. What's hard about the dinners is when you get the call-outs. You know, I talk about this in the book.
I had a notorious case out of Costa Mesa, and I got the call in the middle of the woman I was dating at the time. It was her birthday. And for me, being awesome boyfriend that I was, it was just like, all right, we're out. That's tough on relationships, but in retrospect, I was a lousy romantic partner for a lot of that time.
Obviously, it's hard to watch people you know are guilty and you don't have the evidence. But what about the opposite? Is there ever a time where you're like, God, I hope it's the right one?
So that's a great question. And thank you for asking me that. The answer is no, because your ethical obligation, your sacrosanct duty is to do justice. It's not to get convictions. And when you entertain a doubt, especially if you're working for a good office like I was back then, It is understood as soon as you say, I have a doubt.
But a lot of times it's not just whether the person did it or not. A lot of times it's on an enhancement. Like I had a case where we go and it was a very wealthy couple, Newport Beach, about to get divorced. And I filed a murder for financial gain because you only need any part of the motive being financial that satisfies the element.
And the guy was so rich, we were afraid he was going to run anyway. And UK citizenship and all that. And then we get into the computers. And as soon as the forensic analysis comes back, like six weeks later, FYI, so maybe eight weeks if you were asking for it, and four.
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