O'Hair, Madalyn Murray

Table Of Content

• What Is Alex Jones Doing in This Tiny Far West Texas Town?
• Madalyn Murray O’Hair
• Police officer hiring in U.S. increased in 2023 after years of decline, survey shows
• John Fetterman's White House Correspondents' Dinner Look Splits Opinion
• Beyoncé Gave $7 Million to St. John’s Downtown in Houston to Help Feed and House the Homeless

Travis says that in the last few weeks he was there, Madalyn’s feet had swelled up so painfully as a result of her diabetes that she couldn’t wear shoes, and she had to use a wheelchair or a walker to get around. INTO THIS HOUSE OF PAIN AND PARANOIA walked David Waters, who had served time in Illinois for murder, battery, and forgery. In the early nineties he saw a commercial on TV with the tag line “Texas. It’s Like a Whole Other Country.” He needed a change, so he ordered the brochure, liked what he saw of the Austin area, and moved there. The IRS sued Jon and Robin for $1.5 million in back taxes. Pleas for money weren’t going as well as they used to, and in 1993 the radio show was dropped; that was also the last year for AA’s annual convention.

What Is Alex Jones Doing in This Tiny Far West Texas Town?

San Antonio-set Madalyn Murray O'Hair movie humorous, horrifying - mySA

San Antonio-set Madalyn Murray O'Hair movie humorous, horrifying.

Posted: Tue, 21 Mar 2017 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Now in his 70s, Karr's resentencing in the O'Hair case was the result of an appeal, with an appeals court having ruled in his favor prior to Friday's resentencing hearing at a federal courthouse in Austin. The feud between American Atheists and Bill Murray continued. Johnson, the organization's president, denied that Bill Murray could possibly have any claim or interest in the remains of people he evidently despised, even if they were his kin, his own mother, half-brother and daughter. Murray countered that Johnson only wanted to use the remains as a relic for fund-raising purposes.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair

In 1980, son William Murray, who as a teen had sided with his mother during the battle to end school prayer in Baltimore, converted to Christianity. She told the national media that "One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times.… He is beyond human forgiveness," according to Dracos. "He has said over and over and over again that he wants nothing to do with them. Why is he doing it now? Publicity. He needs money for his organization," Tyson said of Murray. "He hated his mother with a passion." And the filing accomplished little, anyway.

Police officer hiring in U.S. increased in 2023 after years of decline, survey shows

Sparrow later said that the couple could have been Jon and Robin. Now, ten years after her mysterious disappearance in late August, 1995, which culminated in the discovery years later of her grisly murder by a former employee, the legacy of this controversial activist still influences atheists in America today. In 1993, O’Hair fired an office manager, David R. Waters, for stealing $54,000 from the organization.

And MacCormack wrote that the Sparrows had made the closest thing yet to an ID on the seller of the Mercedes. For two years they had perused photos and mug shots (including those of Waters and Fry) but had never found a match—until shown a new photo. The man was doing time for aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery and served more than twenty years of a thirty- to fifty-year sentence. After getting paroled on March 31, 1995, he lived in Florida for a short period and then came to South Texas that summer. If the mystery wasn’t confusing enough, now it had a third man.

The caller was close to Fry and knew that he had traveled from Florida to Texas in the summer of 1995 to stay with none other than David Waters, then had disappeared at the end of September -- the same time as the Murray-O'Hairs. Finally, there were whispers that perhaps the Christian and government persecutions that O'Hair had complained of for years had turned out to be more sinister than anyone imagined. "The Vatican or the CIA. Someone with enough clout to cover it up." To the evangelical movement, Bill Murray's conversion must have seemed -- literally -- heaven-sent. Many Christians and conservatives believe that the banning of school prayer marked the beginning of America's decline into immorality and crime and Murray, from his vantage point at the center of the drama, agreed with them. "In the three decades since this landmark case, the nation has lost its moral center," he wrote.

She elaborated on her philosophy on her cable television program and weekly radio show, which was heard on 150 stations. In the 1970s and early part of the 1980s O’Hair prospered, successfully soliciting donations from wealthy anti-religionists. She, her son Jon, and her granddaughter Robin took turns serving as the presidents of a family of atheist groups. They lived together in a spacious home and drove around Austin in luxury cars.

“The Most Hated Woman in America”

This was what David Travis, the disgruntled former employee, believed. He knew about the New Zealand money and suspected there might be other offshore accounts. He and another employee had seen letters and notes from Jon, going back several years, in which Jon wrote about emigrating to New Zealand. The main reason the Murray-O'Hairs wanted to get away is because of a lawsuit that had gone sour and eaten up a lot of money and what remained of their reputations, as well. Madalyn had attempted a strong-arm takeover of another atheist organization called The Truthseekers.

The Murder of Madalyn Murray O'Hair: America's Most Hated Woman

Over the years she created a string of atheist organizations, including American Atheists, the Society of Separationists, and a variety of smaller groups. She also formed a radio broadcasting network called the American Atheists Radio Series, and she published numerous books spelling out her philosophies about atheism. Deliberations on the Murray case began on February 26, 1963. However, the court did not issue its ruling until June 17, 1963.

The auctioneer’s tones sobered abruptly when he introduced an illustrated Bible signed by a group of twelve-year-old Baptist girls from Oklahoma. The bidding stalled a couple of times before taking off, with two men going head to head, quickly past $1,000 and then $1,500. When the air finally cleared, Jimmy Nassour had paid $2,000.

O'Hair seemed to recognize that she would never fit in and developed a harsh attitude toward anyone who challenged her. She returned to school in 1948 attending Ashland College in Ohio. When her family moved to Texas to get construction work for her father, she attended South Texas College of Law. Although she finished her law degree, she was unable to pass the bar exam required to become a lawyer.

Jon loaded the 100 pounds of gold into his car and said he would return for the balance. That afternoon he would make his last call to American Atheists. It was also revealed that Jon had flown to New Jersey eight days earlier, apparently to clear up a complication in the wire transfer. He had gone with another man, whose name, “Conrad Johnson,” was a wedding of the names of longtime AA members Conrad Goeringer and Ellen Johnson. In 1963, the court voted 8 to 1 to ban mandated prayers in public schools. O’Hair proclaimed at the case that Americans had “an unalienable right to freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion.” She then appeared on the first episode of Phil Donahue’s talk show to publically discuss her views.

There are a lot of "people who hate her and who think she's done more harm than good for the cause of atheism," said Marcus Dunavan, President of Seattle Atheists, an atheist social and activism group. "They see her as the atheist equivalent of a Christian fundamentalist." "As I was, a lot of people were attracted to Madalyn's staunch stances--the goodness of her Jeffersonian ideals when it came to religion and governance," Dracos continued.

Taunting her with the fact that her own secrecy about her financial affairs, her own imperious conduct, meant that no one would question her disappearance. "I know you'll do the right thing," Robin cryptically told the American Atheists board members before she disappeared. But to the American Atheists, doing the right thing had always meant doing as Madalyn told them to do. Ellen Johnson and the remaining American Atheists picked up the pieces of the organization. They started to fill the backlogged book orders, revive the members' newsletter, expand the cable-access television show, plan for a national convention, and continued to deny that anything was wrong. Johnson, who had assumed the president's position at AA, told reporters that no organization funds were missing.

"And I cannot tell you all the reasons why. We just -- we just don't." In an atheist universe, there are no gods to roll around on the floor of Olympus or Valhalla, laughing at irony. Madalyn Murray O'Hair carried on without her son Bill and relied on her younger son Jon Garth Murray and her granddaughter Robin to carry the atheist torch. Unfortunately, Jon Garth Murray was not well liked by the American Atheist headquarters staff or others he came into contact with. Some diplomatically recalled that he lacked social skills. The undiplomatic said he was a neurotic, immature, mama's boy with a penchant for screaming abuse at people, and that he was generally despised.

In this context, Murray represents something of an anomaly, a mis-fit in the wider history of American atheism. If her constant legal wrangling and penchant for public controversy did little for the public image of organized atheism, it at least raised public consciousness of anti-religious thought, perhaps laying the foundations to the growth of atheism today. Although she lost her initial battle in the Maryland courts, she won the right to take her appeal to the Supreme Court. There had been previous court hearings concerning religious practices in schools but, thanks to Murray, none had commanded the same level of public interest and press coverage. Vilified, she relished the role of provocateur as the public voice of atheism.