Stephen Murphy (civil servant)
Stephen "Steve" Murphy is an American retired federal agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who, along with Javier Peña, was one of the lead investigators in the manhunt of Colombian drug lord and leader of the Medellín Cartel, Pablo Escobar.Biography
Murphy grew up in Princeton, West Virginia where he graduated from Princeton High School in 1974 and attended West Virginia University for a year. He transferred to Bluefield State College, from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice in 1981. He joined the DEA in the mid-1980s and started working in Miami, where he stayed for four years, before being transferred to Bogotá, Colombia. He played an important role in the killing of Escobar, and was first on the scene with a working camera when Pablo Escobar was shot dead on a Medellín roof. A photograph of Murphy holding the body of Escobar is widely known, with Murphy claiming he was "caught up in the moment". After Escobar's death, in December 1993, he returned to the United States, where he continued to work with the DEA until his retirement in 2013. Today he heads a law-enforcement private consulting firm and travels around the world giving speeches and telling the true story of Pablo Escobar alongside his lifelong partner Javier Peña.His character was played by actor Boyd Holbrook in the famous Netflix TV series Narcos. Murphy himself and Peña worked as consultants on the show. and made a cameo appearance in the last episode of Season 2, "Al Fin Cayó!".Books
Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar co-written with Javier F. Peña, St. Martin's Press, ISBN.
