Even in Death, O'Hair Is in Middle of Battle as Atheists Seek Her Ashes

By MEGAN K. STACK

LA Times, March 28, 2001

HOUSTON--Even now, her body burned to ash and smothered with dirt in an unmarked grave, Madalyn Murray O'Hair remains the stuff of bilious battle.

Quietly, privately, O'Hair was laid into an anonymous cemetery vault in the Texas hills last week. Her estranged Baptist son buried his slain mother, daughter and brother--three generations of atheists tucked away side by side. When the vault was covered and the improbable prayers spoken, it looked like the end of a bitter and bloody saga. But it wasn't. The American Atheists, the group founded by O'Hair three decades back that succeeded in driving prayer from the public schools, says William J. Murray had no right to bury his mother. O'Hair left everything to the organization's New Jersey library, President Ellen Johnson says. Murray was disinherited, she says, and shouldn't have been able to claim his mother's bones.

"He had no right to those remains; he had no right to any of her things," Johnson said. "Hopefully, we'll still get those remains back." It's an unlikely battle for an anti-religious group, a struggle for her ashes that threatens to transform O'Hair into a sort of atheist saint.

"The atheists see those remains as a mechanism to reaffirm the community," said Gary Laderman, religion professor at Emory University and author of a book on American attitudes toward death.

"Even though they wouldn't agree with me, I think this kind of interest in the remains is clearly a religious activity." The veneration of human remains has long been entwined with religion. Some historians mark the moment when ancient man began to rub dead bodies with red ochre, curl them into the fetal position and bury them in the dirt as the evolutionary beginning of religious consciousness.

Europe is littered with yellowed bones and frayed cotton scraps reportedly left by Catholic saints. Tibetan monks sometimes meditate beside decomposing bodies.

O'Hair hated the idea of burial, says Ron Houdyshell, a lawyer for the American Atheists. It smacked of ritual and ceremony. She wanted to be cremated, her ashes scattered.

Houdyshell called the burial "very strange and very spiteful."

The American Atheists are bent on carrying out the wishes of their tough-talking founding mother. Determined to ferret out the unmarked burial site, the group may sue to have the remains handed over, Houdyshell said. In theory, Texas law entitles Murray to bury his mother, but the American Atheists believe O'Hair's will proves the organization has a right to her remains. "It speaks to an attempt to maintain a sense of collective identity," Laderman says. "If they can get control of her physical remains, they can shape how she will be remembered."

The last time anybody saw her alive, O'Hair was 76. She'd spent the early 1990s living in a squat, brick house in Austin, Texas, with son Jon Garth Murray and William Murray's daughter, Robin Murray O'Hair. It was a quiet, if somewhat litigious, existence: They cooked, gardened and waged a daily paper battle to bleach religion from American thought.

But in 1995, when Robin was 30 and Jon was 40, the family vanished, along with a bundle of gold coins. Tales of conspiracy flew: The three had escaped to New Zealand; they'd stolen from the atheists; they'd been killed. After six years of speculation, O'Hair's former office manager admitted kidnapping and killing the three in a plot to steal $600,000 worth of gold. In January, 53-year-old David Roland Waters led investigators to a shallow grave in the ranchland outside San Antonio. Waters is to be sentenced Friday on a federal conspiracy charge. An accomplice, Gary Paul Karr, is already serving a life term. By the time the bodies were hauled to the surface, there was nothing left but bones and hair. The family was identified by dental records. O'Hair's bones made their way through forensic laboratories, through the hands of federal agents and into the care of a funeral home in Austin. Just as the atheists' remains were being consumed by the fires of cremation, William Murray's plane nosed onto Texas soil. He was back to bury the nearest kin he had. Murray's relationship with his atheist family collapsed decades ago, when he found Jesus and renounced his upbringing. It was a young William Murray who prodded his mother to file the lawsuit that would prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to kick prayer and Bible study out of public schools. To American Atheists, his fall into organized religion was a kick in the face.

A self-described advocate for "family-friendly legislation," Murray now lives in Washington, D.C., and writes books, such as "Let Us Pray: A Plea for Prayer in Our Schools," "My Life Without God" and "The Church Is Not for Perfect People." "It is with great trepidation that I write at all about the burial," he said in a written statement to reporters this week confirming that he had secretly buried his mother. "[They] lived together in a godless state of atheism for decades." But when the time came, Murray saw his family buried. A Baptist pastor stood watch at the burial. Murray insists he didn't pray over his mother. Evangelical Baptists don't pray for the dead, he explained. "The deceased person is in glory with God, or in hell," he said. "Either way, prayer is fruitless." When the dirt was placed over the remains, the cluster of law enforcement officers invited to the burial stepped aside to pray for surviving family members and traumatized investigators, Murray said. Then it was over, and everybody went home.

In the end, the second grave wasn't much different from the one chosen by the killers: Both were shared; the location of each was a tightly guarded secret. And neither one, atheists say, was what O'Hair would have wanted. But as for Murray, he's holding out hope. Maybe, he wrote, before it was too late, his mother had an epiphany. "That last day they were bound and gagged with duct tape, unable to speak, able only to think," he said. "In those hours or even days before, did they have a change of heart and turn to Jesus?

"Only when we reach glory will we know."

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 28, 2001

Answers

A ghostly wraithe flits fretfully o'er the O'Hair grave; moaning and keening permeate the unholy place.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 28, 2001.

Did you hear the one about the old lady, her son and granddaughter who were kidnapped, tortured, killed, and buried in secret? Oh yeah, that's really funny. You're a sick fuck, Lars.

-- (dudesy@37.com), March 28, 2001.

Dudesy--

Do you think fucking is sick?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 28, 2001.

No, I think finding humor in people being kidnapped, tortured, and murdered is sick. I think the people who find humor in that are fucks. You're a sick fuck, Lars.

-- (dudesy@37.com), March 28, 2001.

One might say that they reaped what they sowed.

-- (as ye re@p. so shall ye sow), March 28, 2001.

correction on the handle.

-- (as ye sow so sh@ll. ye reap), March 28, 2001.

So you're saying that they deserved to be kidnapped, tortured, and murdered? Why because you disagreed with her? You're an even sicker fuck than Lars.

-- (dudesy@37.com), March 28, 2001.

Wipe off yer spittle dudesy, that wasn't my post. Please get some counseling for your hang-up on fucking.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 28, 2001.

I think you should look deep inside that shriveled empty shell you call your soul and try to find some shread of human empathy. I hope to hell you never lose a member of your family this way.

-- (dudesy@37.com), March 28, 2001.

dudesy, lil pal. I simply published an article from LA Times that I found of ironic interest because of the argument over the remains of the outspoken Ms O'Hair. I find nothing humorous in murder. I see no reference to torture.

If you have had a murder in your family, please accept my condolences.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 28, 2001.

Well, these people sound like *devout* athiests. They were probably indoctrinated into athiesm early in life, and now find themselves stuck with it. I expect if they win back those ashes, they'll use them as the centerpiece in a shrine to athiesm, for which Madalyn will become the patron saint.

Unlike most corpses, Madalyn hasn't returned to fill us in on the joys of the afterlife out of sheer vested interest. This is qualitatively different from Mother Theresa, who is probably just too busy.

p.s. This is intended as humor.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 28, 2001.

Without agreeing with dudesy, I must say that you can't give the thread a title like "Dem atheist bones are gonna rise again," and then be mystified that someone thinks you find murder humorous. Going by this thread, it seems you think there's something humorous about these particular murders at least, or maybe just the desicated bones of these people. While I don't beleive you're a "sick fuck", I can see where someone might get that impression.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), March 28, 2001.

Now I am really confused. I thought Tarzan was dudesy.

-- I still think he is (this@place.isWierd), March 28, 2001.

My guess is that Tarzan has many different handles.

-- Who knows, maybe I'm Tarzan (or@maybe.not), March 28, 2001.

I thought Tarzan was Dennis Olsen

-- Am I wrong (or@amI.right?), March 28, 2001.

Ashes to ashes----dust to dust. then the acounts and balances[books] are weighed. in your short life--you chose not to beleive-now you reap & receive. why was the lie so-easy to buy. your claim to fame-that no GOD exists. but theres alway,s the hope,that at the last moment you=PRAYED!!

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), March 29, 2001.

Well Flint, this is the 2nd time you had me rofl...and only the 2nd!!

I dont believe Lars meant any ill will at all.

He posted an article. Now if someone perhaps you Lars could enlighten me as to what you said below the article, well.....uh, never mind.

Hey what do you want for no college?

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), March 29, 2001.

Thank you sumer. The first answer was just a bump to "Recent answers". It was written in pseudo poetic language just for fun.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.

I thought so Lars. I enjoy your posts and your answers, BTW.

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), March 29, 2001.

I thought everyone knew I was al-d.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), March 29, 2001.