Neighbors say woman ill, reclusive during past year

Saturday, June 28, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Thursday she ended her life in a Michigan hotel, her father saying there are worse things than death.

Neighbors in the well-manicured neighborhood on the southeast side of the Las Vegas Valley said they seldom saw Mrs. Murphy and her husband, Richard, but few knew of her medical problems.

"She was always smiling, she was always asking how everyone was doing," neighbor Lorena McDonald said.

"They were a very, very nice couple. She had been very sick for more than a year. We didn't see her very much during that time. It was a hard time for them," Mrs. McDonald said.

Mrs. Murphy's body was found late Thursday in a Southfield, Mich., hotel room. Also in the room was a note to call Dr. Jack Kevorkian's attorney.

The attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, said Mrs. Murphy suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and from fibromyalgia, or muscle pain, diseases that are not considered terminal. The attorney stopped short of saying Kevorkian had helped her die.

Murphy's father, James Linda, said in a statement read by Fieger that his daughter had "intractable and unrelenting pain." He said he hated losing his only child but "there are things in this world worse than death."

In 1994 the couple moved from Massachusetts to the house near Legacy golf course in a neighborhood of desert-landscaped homes that typically sell for up to $250,000. They appeared to be retired, neighbors said.

When a reporter knocked on the family's front door Friday a dog barked from inside, but no one answered. A call to the home also was not answered.

At the house next door, a person who asked not to be identified said Murphy walked a dog daily, but Mrs. Murphy was rarely seen outside.

"I never saw her in the front yard or anything. It was always very quiet over there," the neighbor said.

Before her illness, Mrs. Murphy was known for friendliness. But Richard Murphy was the better known of the two, mostly because of a longstanding dispute with players at two baseball diamonds in a park adjacent to their property.

He complained that nearly 250 balls had been hit into his yard, several hitting Mrs. Murphy and others breaking windows and roof tiles. Finally, he stole the bases from both diamonds, an act for which he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor larceny, according to news accounts.

But the couple became reclusive after Mrs. Murphy grew ill.

"We didn't know what the illness was. It was something that was very trying for them. She was quite sick so she couldn't go out all the time," Mrs. McDonald said.

Sheryl Brewer, leader of the fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue support group in Las Vegas, said she couldn't recall Mrs. Murphy being a member. Mrs. Murphy also wasn't on the mailing list sent out to 450 people who have the disease.

"We're really crushed by this," she said, speaking for members of the group. "Most of us don't see that (suicide) as the way out," said Mrs. Brewer, who also suffers from the disease. She described the illness as similar to having the flu all the time.