FAMOUS ATHEIST BELIEVED DEAD

FAMOUS ATHEIST BELIEVED MURDERED

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May 20, 1999 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair disappeared in 1995, with her son Jon Murray and adopted daughter Robin Murray-O’Hair.

O’Hair, founder of the American Atheist organization, is best known for bringing the 1963 Supreme Court case that resulted in the banning of the recitation of prayer in public schools. O’Hair believed that "children should be told that education is to make them self-sufficient and not to depend on any God intervening in their life" (Review of the News, April 4, 1984, p. 24). She refused to allow her oldest son, William, to attend public schools where prayers were spoken. At age 33 William received Jesus Christ as His Savior, rejected atheism, and became a Southern Baptist evangelist. He founded a group called Citizens to Restore Voluntary School Prayer.

O’Hair made other attempts to remove God from American public life, but most were unsuccessful. In 1969, O’Hair filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against NASA after three astronauts broadcast a Christmas 1968 message to earth from 230,000 miles away as they orbited the moon in their Apollo 8 spacecraft. Their Christmas message consisted of the first ten verses of the Bible, and O’Hair sued on the basis that government funds were used inappropriately to promote religion. In 1982, O’Hair filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to stop the House of Representatives from maintaining a chaplain and opening its sessions in prayer. In 1985, O’Hair published "The X-Rated Bible: An Irreverent Study of Sex in the Scriptures." She claimed the Bible contained "filthy, degrading material put together by sick minds." In 1987, O’Hair filed an unsuccessful lawsuit in Texas seeking to eliminate references to God in oaths taken in courts. In 1988, Jon Murray stated that his mother had two goals before she died: remove "In God We Trust" from U.S. money and excise "Under God" from the pledge of allegiance.

O’Hair claimed that "Judeo-Christian thought is the most regressive thought process ever developed and has caused more misery than any idea in history" (Fundamentalist Journal, April 1987). Her favorite bumper sticker was "Save you? God can’t even cure acne." O’Hair taught her children that it is better to be a homosexual than to be a Christian.

The FBI is concluding an investigation into O’Hair’s disappearance, and in early May a federal grand jury in Austin, Texas, began hearing evidence in the case. In April, a team of 40 investigators conducted a three-day search of O’Hair’s ranch 100 miles west of San Antonio, Texas.

The evidence points to murder and robbery. (1) O’Hair and the others have not been heard from since 1995. (2) O’Hair’s life support diabetes medicine was left behind at the ranch. (3) They left behind $100,000 in gold coins that they had purchased from a rare coin dealer in San Antonio but never took possession of. (4) Her former office manager, David Waters, has pleaded guilty of stealing $54,000 from O’Hair’s American Atheist organization and is regarded as a suspect in her disappearance. He has a lengthy criminal record, including murder, battery, and forgery. Waters and Gary Karr (who spent time together in prison in the mid-1980s) were arrested in March on federal weapons and ammunition charges, and according to an April 5 Reuters report, their attorneys say they are regarded as suspects in the O’Hair case. The San Antonio Express News (Thurs., May 3 and May 6, 1999) reports that Karr, who is being held without bond, has admitted a role in the murder of O’Hair and the others and has implicated Waters in the crime. (5) Danny Fry, a man who is connected with Waters and Karr and O’Hair, was murdered about the time of O’Hair’s disappearance. His dismembered body (minus the head and hands) was discovered on October 2, 1995, but was not identified until this year. The Dallas Observer (April 1, 1999) notes that "a wealth of circumstantial evidence that put Waters, Fry, and the O’Hairs in San Antonio in September 1995--including telephone records and financial transactions." Family members say Waters induced Fry to come to Texas for a mysterious big money deal in mid-1995 (San Antonio Express News, April 1, 1999).