The woman charged in the 2019 fatal stabbing of a Schuylkill County jeweler is starring in a new Netflix series focused on women in jail.
Megan Hall, charged with second-degree murder in the death of Patrick Murphy, is featured in the streaming service’s new season of “Jailbirds: New Orleans,” a reality show. A synopsis of the show described the series as, “Feuds, flirtations and toilet talk go down among the incarcerated women at the Orleans Justice Center in New Orleans on this gritty reality series.”
“I came with two of my friends — girls from Memphis — and we were just down there for Mardi Gras,” Hall said on the show to explain why she was held in the facility. “You know, we were out drinking, just having fun and supposed to be partying and then just one thing led to another and a situation occurred.”
Murphy, 62, owner of the Murphy Jewelers chain with stores in Pottsville, Hamburg and the Lehigh Valley Mall, was found dead in a New Orleans hotel room after other guests heard a struggle and shouting in the early morning hours Feb. 28, 2019. He was stabbed twice in the abdomen and once in the neck, court records say.
Hall, 28, of Tennessee, was arrested three days later and charged in Murphy’s death. Her trial was slated to begin Monday, but was delayed due to the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, according to court records.
The Morning Call reached out to defense attorney John Fuller and the Orleans district attorney’s office for comment. A request for comment from Murphy’s family through a call to the store in Pottsville was not returned.
Murphy’s longtime friend, Robert Carl, president and CEO of the Schuylkill County Chamber of Commerce, said he finds it “somewhere between disturbing and upsetting” for Hall to appear on a reality series before she goes to trial during a phone interview Monday.
He described it as “irreverent at best,” adding he’s extremely annoyed and possibly even angered by it.
“I don’t find anything here humorous or even entertaining in value,” Carl said. “A man is dead. A woman’s in jail. And the man that’s dead was my very good friend. And I just don’t understand the world we live in why you would give any notoriety to somebody that has a charge of murder, and I’m just totally baffled by it and pretty upset by it.”
Murphy’s widow, son, daughter and other family members “are already going through hell,” he said.
“I don’t even think as a friend, I can watch it,” Carl said. “But just the emotion that this conjures up on top of waiting all this time for this trial, because of logical delays, obviously, COVID obviously, Ida, but you’re sitting on pins and needles for all this time, waiting for this trial waiting for justice to be served, and now you get this? I’m sorry — I don’t think that’s OK.”
Carl said he wants Murphy to be remembered as great businessman who contributed to his community.
“There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since this tragedy happened that I don’t reflect on my good friend Patrick J. Murphy,” Carl said. “And how much feeling and sympathy and empathy I have for his wife, his daughter and his son. And I know how I feel on the outside, so I can only imagine how they feel on the inside.”
Hall — who goes by “Magen” in the facility — is one of 81 women and 908 men for a total of just under 1,000 inmates in the facility, a jail official explains in the first episode.
Hall is confined to her cell during the first episode, explaining to cameras that she’s on lockdown “because I wanted to like, fight and all this other stuff.” She said “it sucks” because she can’t get commissary, a program available in most jails and prisons that allows inmates to buy food and other items.
“I’ve been trying to, like, mind my business and stay in my lane,” Hall said. “Me being from Memphis, like, they know that I’m not from here, so I’m really not going to have people that come behind me, like they do. They see you’re not going to stand your ground, they’re going to feel like they can do whatever to you.”
Hall, who has a record of prostitution arrests in New Orleans, Nashville and Houston, has been held under $750,000 bail since her arrest. An indictment in June 2019 also charged Hall with robbery and obstruction of justice.
If convicted, she faces a mandatory life prison sentence for the murder charge and up to 99 years on the other counts. A status conference in Hall’s case is scheduled Oct. 6, according to court records.
Morning Call reporter Molly Bilinski can be reached at mbilinski@mcall.com.
