In the NBC interview and in the book, Luttrell describes a discussion by the four SEALs and then a vote to let the herders go. That account, said Daniel Murphy, a former Suffolk County prosecutor and now a law clerk in State Supreme Court in Riverhead, is a far cry from what he said Marcus told the Murphy family not long after the death of their son.
"That directly contradicts what he told [Murphy's mother] Maureen, myself and Michael's brother John in my kitchen," said Murphy, who watched Luttrell on television but said he hasn't read the book. "He said that Michael was adamant that the civilians were going to be released, that he wasn't going to kill innocent people ... Michael wouldn't put that up for committee. People who knew Michael know that he was decisive and that he makes decisions."
Luttrell suggests that he sugar-coated the story later in a visit to Long Island, where he met Murphy's mother Maureen. She asked, he writes, "He didn't suffer, did he? Please tell me he didn't suffer."
Fwiw
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