Murphy grabbed a camera, ran outside and flagged down a police vehicle that was taking Col. Martinez to the killing scene.
They arrived as the colonel's men were setting up barricades. Crowds had begun to form as word spread that Escobar had been killed.
Murphy climbed to the second floor and was directed to look out the window to the rooftop. There he saw Escobar's barefoot body stretched on the orange roof tiles. Men from the raiding party stood around the bloodied corpse, sharing swigs from a bottle of Black Label Scotch.
Murphy shouted and the men posed for his camera, raising their rifles triumphantly. He climbed out to the roof and took more pictures, with more of the men posing around the slain fugitive.
Then Murphy gave the camera to an officer and posed next to Escobar's corpse himself. One of the men took a small knife and carefully scraped off the corner of Escobar's bloodstained mustache for a souvenir. Another man scraped off the other corner, leaving Escobar with a bizarre Hitler-style mustache that would be featured in news reports, a final indignity inflicted upon the fugitive drug boss by his pursuers.
There was a commotion on the street as Escobar's mother and sister arrived. The mother, Hermilda, was a short, slightly stooped woman in her 60s, with gray hair and spectacles. She pushed her way up to a corpse on the grass and saw that it was Limon.
'You fools!' she shouted. 'This is not my son! This is not Pablo Escobar! You have killed the wrong man!'
But then the soldiers directed the two women to stand to one side, and from the roof they lowered a stretcher bearing the corpse of her son.
As she left the place, she pulled her mouth tight and betrayed no emotion, and paused only to tell a reporter with a microphone: 'At least now he is at rest.'
Shortly after Escobar was shot dead, Colombian Police Gen. Octavio Vargas telephoned his good friend Toft, the DEA country chief in Colombia.
'Jo-ay!' Vargas shouted happily into the phone. 'We just got him!'
That was just seconds before the call from Murphy. Toft stepped out into the hallway and shouted: 'Escobar is dead!'
Then he ran upstairs to tell Ambassador Morris Busby, the man who had directed the American effort in this 15-month manhunt.
Busby was ecstatic. He grabbed a phone and called Washington. He asked to speak with Richard Canas, the National Security Council's drug enforcement chief at the Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House.
Canas took the call and heard Busby say: 'We got Escobar.'
'Are you sure?' Canas asked.
'Ninety-nine percent,' Busby said.
'Not good enough. Have one of our people seen it?'
'Give me a few minutes,' Busby said.
It did not take long for Busby to get absolute confirmation: Steve Murphy had turned over Escobar's body and had looked into the lifeless face of the man who had been the most powerful criminal in the world.
Busby called Canas back.
'Got him,' he said. 'Dead. Got him. Gone forever.'
At the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, a party erupted. Champagne bottles popped. Banners were draped that read 'P.E.G. DEAD.' Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was finally gone.
Ambassador Busby felt a deep sense of satisfaction. After nearly 20 years of counterterrorism work, he felt this was the most impressive feat he had ever been involved with. They had stuck with the chase for 15 hard, frustrating, bloody months. The effort had involved U.S. military, diplomatic and law enforcement agencies spanning two administrations and two continents.
It had been ugly. Since Escobar's escape from prison in July 1992, 209 people associated with Escobar or the Medellin cartel had been killed. Fifty-two of Escobar's associates had been captured, and another 29 had turned themselves in under a generous government surrender offer.
Busby visited the Presidential Palace that afternoon to personally congratulate President Cesar Gaviria. Extra editions of the Bogota newspapers were already on the street. El Espectador ran an enormous page one headline that read 'FINALEMENTE SI CAHO' (FINALLY, HE'S DOWN). Gaviria signed a copy for the ambassador.
The death of Pablo Escobar may have been cause for celebration in official circles in Washington and Bogota, but for many Colombians, especially in Medellin, it was an occasion for grief. Thousands attended Escobar's funeral, following his casket through the streets. They swarmed to get closer, and some mourners opened the casket lid to stroke the dead man's face.
There were chants of 'We love you, Pablo!' and 'Long Live Pablo Escobar!' There were shouts of anger toward the government, and threats of revenge.
Escobar was their martyr, slain by a government they believed had persecuted him. Even today, it is not unusual to find Escobar's framed photograph in Colombian homes.
Escobar's grave is still carefully tended. It is framed by flowering bushes, and ornate iron bars support three flowering pots. On the simple gravestone there is a photograph of a mustachioed Pablo in a business suit.
On the day Escobar was killed, Col. Hugo Martinez ran into the hideout and found the drug boss' portable phone. That was his trophy. He used it to phone his superior, Maj. Luis Estupinan, to congratulate him on the kill.
That evening, the men of the Search Bloc in Medellin partied late. Col. Martinez and his son Hugo did not join them. Such overt displays were not the colonel's style. When the men began firing their weapons into the air, the colonel put an end to the party.
The next morning, the colonel, Hugo and some of the other top men in the Search Bloc were honored in Bogota. That evening, back at their home, the colonel's youngest son, Gustavo, age 10, was looking through a sack of Escobar's personal items that the colonel had collected. In the bag was a small loaded handgun. As Gustavo examined it, the gun went off.
