Florida Keys man arrested on rape charge said he is the victim’s ‘messiah,’ cops say
A man arrested on a rape warrant late last week in the Florida Keys said he loved the victim and thought he was her “true messiah,” according to a probable cause report.
Michael Murack, 56, is in Monroe County jail on a bond of $100,000. Deputies say he sexually assaulted the woman at her Key Largo home on April 13 using his fingers while she was passed out by her pool after drinking alcohol and taking her prescribed anti-anxiety medication.
The victim told police she knew the assailant because she had hired him in the past to do yard work at her house. She said Murack sometimes refers to himself as “God” and “Jesus Christ.”
He came to the house that night around 7 p.m. when the victim and her roommate were outside cleaning up after having some drinks, according to the report. She said he exposed himself to her several times, and she told him she was not interested in him.
She told deputies she did not remember anything after that.
The next morning, her roommate told her Murack sexually assaulted her the night before when she was lying on the ground unconscious.
Deputies met the woman at Mariners Hospital, where medical staff conducted a sexual assault examination, according to Detective Cody Kerns’ report.
The victim’s roommate, who the Miami Herald is not naming so as not to potentially identify the victim, told detectives the victim’s boyfriend eventually kicked Murack off the property that night and went to bed. The roommate went inside to lie down on the couch, but went back outside to check on the victim because she became concerned that she had not come inside yet.
That’s when she saw Murack sexually assaulting the victim, she told detectives, according to the report.
She said she ran back inside to get her phone so she could film the assault as evidence. However, when she got back outside, Murack was pulling up the woman’s bathing suit bottoms, which she recorded and showed detectives.
On April 15, Murack left several voicemails on the victim’s phone saying that he wants to marry her, according to Kerns’ report.
After hearing the messages, detectives asked the woman to make a recorded phone call to Murack and discuss the incident. In that call, the victim asked Murack why he assaulted her while she was unconscious, and he replied that she was awake when it happened and that he would not have done it without her consent, according to Kerns’ report.
However, detectives saw the roommate’s phone footage showing Murack putting the bathing suit back on the unconscious victim, according to the report.
Murack said he stopped because the roommate came outside, and he didn’t want her to feel jealous, the report states.
The woman replied that she did not believe him, and brought up that he has referred to himself several times before as God.
“Mike responded by stating he is [the victim’s] messiah and that it is up to her to believe him or not,” Kerns wrote.
