GLYNN WASHINGTON, HOST:
Welcome back to SNAP JUDGMENT, the "Contents Unknown" episode. We're letting our curiosity get the better of us and speaking behind closed doors. In fact our next guest, Trey Smith, he did a lot more than simply sneak around. SNAP's Julia DeWitt has the story.
JULIA DEWITT, BYLINE: In Christian TV, there are a handful of pastors that preach the prosperity gospel. It's the idea that if you show your faith in God by giving money to those pastors and ministries, God will pay you back for that faith 10- or 100-fold. One of the pastors that preaches this prosperity gospel is a pastor named Mike Murdock.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE MURDOCK: I believe that when you get involved with God, he gets involved with you.
DEWITT: He promises that if you give his ministry money, God will repay you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MURDOCK: Newspapers have flown over my house - taken pictures of my house. I didn't know how nice it was until I saw how my enemies saw it. When I saw what they were looking - I said, wow I am blessed; I didn't known how good God had been to me.
DEWITT: And from God, a miracle.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MURDOCK: In eight months, my house was debt-free. Do y'all clap around here? Is anybody happy over here, or is there just the spirit of jealousy here?
(APPLAUSE)
MURDOCK: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
DEWITT: But this isn't a story about Mike Murdock. It's actually about a guy who knew him, Trey Smith.
TREY SMITH: I grew up with Mike Murdock's son Jason.
DEWITT: Growing up, Trey and Jason were best friends. They went to college together near Mike Murdock's house. Mike Murdock was often out of town preaching on the weekends.
SMITH: And on the weekends, Jason and I, we would end up at Mike Murdock's house, an enormous hacienda estate - had a pet zoo. He had a pet lion whose name was Kay Kay - saunas, Jacuzzis - you name it, it's there.
DEWITT: With the place to themselves, they could basically do whatever they wanted. They could swim in the pool, play with the animals, watch movies in the home theater. But their favorite thing to do was dig through Mike Murdock's closet.
SMITH: This is a very big closet. You've got these four cabinets. You got one of them that had stamps in it. You have one that has coins in it, different types of loose jewelry, and then you had one of them that had unmentionables in it. The box in the back, this was stuff that was not-so valuable, probably was mainly junk jewelry.
DEWITT: Attached to each piece of jewelry was a note that said that the donor was sorry, but this was all he or she could give.
SMITH: Little tie slips that would say, I didn't have the $58 to give, or I didn't have the $101.
DEWITT: Trey spent hours digging through the jewelry, and during the months that he was going in and out of that closet, he was taking things. I should say here that by now, Trey had been kicked out of school. He was doing way too many drugs. His life had gotten kind of out of control.
SMITH: The point that I was at at that point in my life was certainly not really sanity, by any stretch of the imagination.
DEWITT: So you felt like - I mean, you didn't really feel bad stealing from him.
SMITH: I certainly didn't have any remorse about it, so I would have to admit that's true. And I already walked into the situation being biased about Mike Murdock. So I would have to be honest about that part because, you know, it's my opinion that the prosperity gospel was screwing so many people (laughing) over.
DEWITT: He was just taking small stuff at first - maybe a ring or a rare coin. But eventually his eyes turned to something much bigger.
SMITH: At the back of the closet, you had the safe. When Jas and I would go in out of that closet, you know, we would shake it from side to side so you could feel the contents shift around.
DEWITT: At first, it was just a fun game to wonder how many stacks of money and what kind of bills were in there. He and Jason joked that maybe it was $1 million. But eventually Trey started to wonder something else. What would it be like to actually steal that safe? If he could just get it out the door, he could be a 20-year-old millionaire.
SMITH: This was something that was tossed around as a joke ever since first seeing that safe. It just at some point materialized not to be a joke.
DEWITT: It materialized on a night when Trey was alone. After a couple of drinks, Trey decided that he was going to try and get that safe.
SMITH: I drove a Cadillac through his gate. I'm a 20-year-old kid; I just smashed into this property - right? - so I'm trying to do this as quickly as I can.
DEWITT: It was the middle of the night, and no one was home. So he snuck in to the side entrance.
SMITH: Just to get into the master bedroom upstairs, you have to go through two electronically locked doors. I didn't know the code to those doors, so I removed the hinges. Then I was in the bedroom. This was the first time that I had ever been in that room by myself. I was really nervous, but I was too far in to turn back. I took my crowbar, I hung it on the back of my belt and walked inside of that closet. At the back of that closet was the safe. I tumbled the safe down the stairs. I'm knocking over pricey looking lamp stands and all sorts of crap this direction and that, trying to get this thing into the back of a Cadillac. There was not a lot of thought in any part of any piece of those processes, other than, get it done, get it done, get it done.
DEWITT: Trey got in his Cadillac, and he headed for Houston.
SMITH: And this mind you, this is a several-hundred-mile drive. I get the safe back to Houston.
DEWITT: He got a jackhammer, and he drilled off the lock. He reached out and pulled open the door.
SMITH: It's got cut paper in there that was wrapped up with rubber bands so that it felt like that it was full of money.
DEWITT: All that money that he had imagined - it was just stacks and stacks of paper.
SMITH: I grabbed that stuff, and I literally screamed. I mean, I had scraps of paper going everywhere. It was an explosion of little scraps of paper.
DEWITT: He dug through all of it - every last piece until at the bottom...
SMITH: There were three $2 bills, and there was a note inside that safe in an envelope that said, thank you for supporting my ministry. I mean, I felt like it was a personal message basically stating that, you know, I got you. Here I am, and the reality is sinking in that I'm empty-handed, I'm screwed and the reality of what I've done is sinking in.
DEWITT: He had to leave the country, and he might never be able to come back. He risked his entire life to get rich, but now all he had were scraps of paper.
SMITH: It just makes the heart stop. I don't know if Mike Murdock put pre-thought into that and set me up, but it sure did feel like he anticipated. I think he was clever in that ,and I also think that another thing as well - I think I deserved it.
DEWITT: The cops were after him, and he was totally broke. He was forced to flee to Mexico where he lived in fear of being caught for years. Mike Murdock, on the other hand, continued his TV ministry just as before. If he was out to entrap Trey, he had won.
SMITH: I felt like I couldn't come back from that moment for a lot of years. And I actually blamed - and this was unfair by any stretch of the imagination - but I blamed Mike Murdock in my own mind.
DEWITT: But now looking back at it, Trey also thinks there's another possible explanation for the note. It is possible that that note was more like an affirmation, just like the seed of his prosperity gospel, maybe Mike planted those $2 bills and that note in the hopes that one day, the universal really would deliver enough money to fill the safe. Maybe he was just wishing for a fortune just like Trey.
SMITH: I'm actually happy that all of it happened exactly the way that it did. Had that safe been full of millions of dollars and I had gone and done any one of the 9 jillion dumb things that I wanted to go do, I most certainly would've been in prison. Look at all of the times that I've been arrogant, all the times that I have done 9 jillion things - stealing, lying - you name it. If I can't forgive him, then what chance would I have? And I expect full and well to see Mike Murdock in heaven, knowing full and well both of us will be in a place that none of us deserve to be.
WASHINGTON: Thank you so very much, Trey Smith. We reached out to Mike Murdock at the Wisdom Center, but he declined comment on the story. Now, Trey Smith, he lived in the land of Mexico before finally returning to the states when the statute of limitations on his wrongdoings had expired. That story was produced by Julia DeWitt. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
