Born on Jan. 7, 1934, in Gainesville, Ga., Murphy was a standout on the football, basketball and baseball teams at Gainesville High. In 1948, he played third base and outfield on the school’s state championship team. He also quarterbacked the football team the year before future Masters champion Tommy Aaron took over as the program’s signal-caller.
Murphy later graduated from Mercer University and began a long and distinguished career in journalism, first with the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. While editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Murphy received a phone call in 1974 from a man looking to donate 300,000 gallons of heating oil. One of Murphy’s editorial roles at the time was to network with prominent local figures, so he set up a meeting with the man.
On Feb. 20, 1974, the man in question, William Williams, told Murphy he was headed to his lawyer’s office to sign some papers, and asked Murphy to join him. Murphy agreed to go. But as the Ford Turino began heading in the opposite direction of downtown Atlanta, Murphy sensed something was wrong.
Steering with his right arm, Williams leaned a handgun across his forearm and said, “Mr. Murphy, you’ve been kidnapped.”
Bound with tape, Murphy was stuffed in the trunk of the vehicle for several hours. Williams, who called himself the Colonel, told Murphy he was part of the American Revolutionary Army and its goal was to stop what he perceived as falsehoods spread by newspapers in America. Only two weeks earlier, Patty Hearst, the daughter of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, had been abducted in Berkeley, Calif., by a militant group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Murphy later recounted in a Golf Digest piece that his abductor disagreed with the anti-Vietnam stance of the newspaper. Eventually, the Atlanta Constitution agreed to pay the $700,000 ransom and Murphy was freed. Only six hours after his release, Williams and his wife, Betty, were arrested in their home outside Atlanta and all of the ransom money was recovered.
The hours spent in the trunk combined with a lack of food caused Murphy to lose 10 pounds. From photos of suspects, Murphy identified Williams, who was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in jail, although he only served nine.
“I now have claustrophobia,” Murphy said years later, “but I’ve never suffered any nightmares. Once, 10 years ago, while walking in an outdoor mall in Atlanta, I thought I saw the Colonel, but it must have been a trick of the brain. I’ve told the story many times to many people, and I think unburdening myself so frequently has enabled me to shed any psychological baggage that might have ruined my life the way other people have had their lives ruined by trauma.”
