NARRATOR: Madalyn Murray
O'Hair was America's best
known atheist, principally
responsible for abolishing
prayer in public schools.
Madalyn, you either liked
her or you hated her.
NARRATOR: In 1995, Madalyn
Murray O'Hair mysteriously
disappeared from her Texas
home, along with her son Jon
Murray and granddaughter Robin.
Over $600,000 of their
organization's money
disappeared along with them.
What is it not to
love about the story?
It involves greed.
It involves gold.
It involves the most
hated woman in America.
This is a sexy story,
and we should tell it.
NARRATOR: It was
a local newspaper
reporter playing
forensic detective
who helped solve the case.
[theme music playing]
I don't remember his name.
NARRATOR: Madalyn Murray O'Hair
was often called "the most
hated woman in America."
INTERVIEWER: --telephone
records, evidence [inaudible].
Mr. Withers, is this
a form of harassment?
If it is, I will leave.
INTERVIEWER: No, ma'am.
I am creating the record.
No, you're not
creating the record.
You are wasting my time.
INTERVIEWER: These are resp--
When you're done
reading that, call me.
I'll be in the ladies room.
INTERVIEWER: Is it
your understanding
then that you have brought
no documents today?
Call me in the ladies
room when you're done.
NARRATOR: She was
an avowed atheist
who achieved fame
in 1963 by opposing
prayer in public schools.
She took her case all the way to
the United States Supreme Court
and won.
She founded the nonprofit
group The American Atheists
as well as a magazine preaching
the gospel of strict separation
of church and state.
She also wrote articles
for Larry Flynt's "Hustler"
magazine and was the subject of
a "Playboy" magazine interview.
Madalyn O'Hair was a
difficult woman to work with
and was notorious for
speaking her mind.
All right then.
Don't [bleep] with me.
VALERI WILLIAMS: I
have never encountered
a more bitter, more
distasteful person
than Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
Don't touch me.
She was extremely foul
mouthed, to the point
that even though we were doing
an interview about something
that she wanted us
to do a story on,
we had to stop the
interview in the middle
because she was cursing so much.
You have a limited
opportunity this morning
to ask me questions.
Why don't you get
to the questions?
NARRATOR: In August of
her 40-year-old son Jon, and
Robin left Austin, Texas
without saying a word to anyone.
The staff of the American
Atheists organization
found a note on
their office door
saying the O'Hairs had been
called away for an emergency
and didn't know when
they would return.
Jon's Mercedes-Benz and
Robin's Porsche were gone too.
But they left their
passports behind
as well as Madalyn's diabetes
medicine and her three dogs.
Madalyn may not have
cared very much for people,
but she sure loved those
dogs, we were told.
Couldn't get in touch with
them, and I got concerned.
So I started making
phone calls, and then
I called Jon's cell phone, and
that's when Madalyn answered.
But Madalyn wouldn't
tell the board member
Ellen Johnson where she was.
Johnson said the calls
were short and strained,
and she worried that
Madeline and her son
were under some sort of duress.
Now, I questioned him
about what was going on.
And, you know, he tried to
reassure me that everything
was OK, and I believed it.
NARRATOR: Just one month
later, Madalyn and Jon
stopped answering
their cell phone calls.
When Ellen Johnson took over
the American Atheists group
in Madalyn's absence,
she discovered
that since the O'Hairs
disappeared, more than $600,000
was missing from the
organization's bank account.
Suddenly you have three
people and a very large amount
of money all disappearing
at the same time,
and this makes it
far more interesting.
NARRATOR: John
MacCormack covered
the disappearance for
the "Express News"
in San Antonio, Texas.
Among the atheists, there
was a very peculiar silence,
but beneath it was this
very profound concern.
They were very concerned.
They didn't know what to do.
They hadn't really
attempted to get
any help from law enforcement.
NARRATOR: No one associated
with the American Atheists
reported the three missing, and
it wasn't until a year later
that Bill Murray,
Madalyn's estranged son,
filed a missing persons
report with Austin police.
Madalyn and Bill had
a rocky relationship.
In 1980, on Mother's
Day, Bill told Madalyn
that he had embraced
Christianity
and was no longer an atheist.
He then went public,
writing a book
and making a film attacking
his mother's beliefs.
My mother loved
confrontations, and she
never hesitated to use me as
an accomplice in her schemes.
She wanted to push the school
prayer issue as far as she
could, so she instructed me
to keep a record of prayer
and Bible reading at school.
It was here in my
home my mother made me
a spy for the cause of atheism.
NARRATOR: Madalyn
immediately disowned him,
and Bill never again spoke
with his mother, his brother
Jon, or his daughter Robin.
Bill didn't know if his family's
disappearance was foul play
or if they had stolen the
atheist's money and fled.
A year after Madalyn
Murray O'Hair disappeared
with their son Jon Murray
and granddaughter Robin,
journalist John MacCormack
learned what the American
Atheists group already knew,
that Jon Murray had withdrawn
over $600,000 from the
atheists' bank account
just weeks after the
three disappeared.
MacCormack also examined
Jon's cell phone records,
which indicated he had been
living in San Antonio, Texas
after his disappearance.
Many of the 200 calls
were suspicious.
They'd been calling
financial institutions.
They'd been calling airlines.
They'd been calling drugstores
to get Madalyn's prescriptions.
There were more than 150 calls.
They called jewelry stores.
NARRATOR: One of
those jewelry stores
was on Fredrickson
Road in San Antonio.
The owner said that Jon
Murray purchased $600,000
worth of gold coins using cash.
Even after Madalyn's
son Bill Murray
reported the three
missing, the Austin police
showed little interest.
There was no investigation by
the Austin Police Department,
it was a total joke.
NARRATOR: The
police reaction may
have been based on their belief
that Madalyn and her family
absconded with the
Atheists' money
and that it was an
internal matter.
How can somebody
that's that famous
turn up missing with all
that money and still no one
wants to look for her?
So I decided I'd be part of
the team that went looking.
NARRATOR: Television news
reporter Valeri Williams
discovered the Jon Murray sold
his Mercedes-Benz for $15,000,
well below the car's value,
to this man, Mark Sparrow.
I'm Jon Murray.
NARRATOR: The seller identified
himself as Jon Murray,
Low miles.
Yeah, it's 20,000.
Is that about right?
NARRATOR: But when shown
a picture of Jon Murray,
Sparrow said it wasn't the
man who sold him the car.
He said his name
was Jon Murray,
and that's not the guy
who sold me the car.
Would you mind taking a look
at these mug sh*ts for me?
NARRATOR: After reviewing
mug shot pictures,
Mr. Sparrow identified
the impersonator
as another missing person, an
ex-convict named Danny Fry.
This was an interesting
coincidence.
Danny Fry's family told police
that Danny had been working
with another ex-convict,
David Waters,
who had once worked for Madalyn
O'Hair and had a falling out.
In 1993, Madalyn hired David
Waters as her office manager.
Within a few months,
she fired him,
maintaining he had stolen
$50,000 from the Atheists'
organization.
Waters was charged with theft.
He accepted a plea agreement
and paid the money back.
And in so doing,
avoided jail time.
But Madalyn was furious
that authorities
allowed Waters to go free.
Using the power of the pen,
Madalyn wrote an article
in her magazine exposing
Waters as a thief
and implied Waters had
h*m* relationships
while serving an
earlier prison sentence
for as*ault. When
Waters saw the article,
friends say he vowed revenge.
Journalist John
MacCormack called Waters
and asked him if he
had anything to do
with Madalyn's disappearance.
JOHN MACCORMACK [ON PHONE]:
Did you have anything
at all to do with this?
DAVID WATERS [ON PHONE]: I
had nothing to do with this.
I didn't believe
a word he said,
but he spoke as though
it was the truth.
NARRATOR: MacCormack discovered
that David Waters, Danny Fry,
and another ex-convict Gary
Karr were all working together
in Austin, Texas around
the time the O'Hairs
disappeared in August of 1995.
And not long
afterwards, a headless,
pantless male torso was
discovered in a Dallas river.
They'd spent three years
trying to figure out who it was,
but they had no
fingerprints, no dental,
and they had no missing
persons records that
matched this disappearance.
So they were totally stumped.
NARRATOR: MacCormack had
a hunch that this body
was somehow connected to
the O'Hairs' disappearance.
Not long after the
O'Hairs disappeared,
a male torso was found
in a Dallas river.
Without a head or hands,
fingerprints and dental records
couldn't be used
for identification.
Forensic anthropologists
estimated the man to be
between the ages of 35 and 45.
He had a stocky build
and a lot of chest hair.
The description didn't
fit Madalyn's son Jon.
But journalist John
MacCormack had a hunch.
He told police that
it might be Danny
Fry, the man who
had impersonated Jon
Murray when selling his car.
Scientists took DNA
from Danny Fry's brother
and compared it to the
blood DNA of the torso.
It was a match.
Just as MacCormack suspected,
the dead man in the river
was Danny Fry.
The blockbuster was when we
could write a story that said
that the headless corpse
in Dallas was Danny Fry,
and, by the way,
he was last seen
with David Waters in Austin.
And by the way, he spent his
last month in San Antonio
at the same time
the O'Hairs did.
So that really
kicked in the door.
NARRATOR: Suddenly local,
state, and federal law
enforcement
officials took notice
and joined the investigation.
When David Waters' ex-girlfriend
Patti Steffens read
about Danny Fry's
m*rder in the newspaper,
she immediately called the FBI.
At first she wanted to tell
us small bits and pieces.
You have to understand this
was a woman who was terrified.
NARRATOR: She gave
investigators an important lead.
Three years earlier she said
that David Waters had rented
a storage unit around the
time the O'Hairs disappeared
and that Waters had once gone
there with this spray canister.
Laboratory tests on
the canister revealed
it had once contained
bleach, which is sometimes
used to remove blood evidence.
Armed with a search
warrant, police
found a tiny red stain
beneath a piece of aluminum
under the wall.
It was so small, it
was almost invisible.
With blood from Madalyn's
Bill for comparison,
a mitochondrial
DNA test revealed
the stain was a mixture of two
people-- Madalyn Murray O'Hair
and her son Jon Murray.
Next the FBI searched
Waters' apartment.
We found documents that
belonged to the O'Hairs that
were dated after
David Waters had been
fired from their organization.
Mr. Waters, himself a prior
convicted felon, who was not
allowed to have
g*ns or amm*nit*on,
was found to be in
illegal possession
of about 118 rounds
of handgun amm*nit*on
of three different calibers.
NARRATOR: They even found
books from the O'Hair library
and a bow saw.
The FBI confronted David
Waters with the forensic and
physical evidence against him.
It took quite a while, but
eventually, 5 and 1/2 years
after the O'Hairs
disappeared, Waters
led investigators to
a remote burial site
at Camp Wood, Texas.
Forensic anthropologist Dr.
David Glassman was there.
When we hit the first
bone, it was kind of
interesting in this case
because the bone was very large,
and it was the upper leg bone.
The upper leg bone is the
largest bone in our skeleton.
But this one was
particularly large.
NARRATOR: After 21
hours of excavation,
three adult bodies
were uncovered.
In each case, the legs had been
cut off, possibly to make it
easier to transport the bodies.
On one of the bodies,
the hair was very well
intact, a female
skull, and the hair
was braided down the back of
the neck of the individual.
There were some
remnants of clothes
that were found but no
clothes that were intact.
There had been some effort
to burn the remains, not
to the point of
cremation, but in order
to destroy maybe the
clothing or any other DNA
evidence that might be there.
NARRATOR: As the
remains were unearthed,
shining in the afternoon
sun was the metal
plate of an artificial hip.
Medical records revealed that
Madalyn O'Hair had undergone
hip replacement surgery several
years before her disappearance.
The serial number of the hip
in Madalyn's medical file
matched the number on
the hip in the grave.
Forensic odontologists compared
the O'Hairs' dental records
to the skulls in the grave
and confirmed that these
were the remains
of Madalyn, her son
Jon, and granddaughter Robin.
For Jon Murray, when he was
in the grave and uncovered,
he did have a plastic
bag over his skull.
And when the plastic
bag was removed,
there were small fractures that
occurred to the skull itself,
indicating some blunt
trauma had been done to him
during the time of his death.
NARRATOR: The cause of
death for Madalyn and Robin
couldn't be determined
by looking at the bones.
But since their heads
were covered in plastic,
it was assumed they
were asphyxiated.
But investigators found
something else-- an extra head
and two extra hands.
The head showed a single g*nsh*t
wound at the base of the skull.
Forensic scientists used
a photo superimposition
technique for identification.
They suspected
the skull was that
of Danny Fry, the
man whose torso
was found in the Dallas river.
Scientists took a
photograph of Danny Fry
then photographed the skull
at the same angle and size.
The two photographs
were superimposed
to see if the facial
features matched the skull.
For example, the distance
between the eyes and the shape
of the nose and the distance
between the nose to the teeth
and the distance
across the cheeks,
in every area that I examined
in the video superimposition
matched up.
NARRATOR: The motive
for the O'Hairs' m*rder
had been revenge.
But why had Danny
Fry been m*rder*d?
The forensic
evidence found years
after the O'Hairs'
disappearance tied David Waters
and his two associates,
Danny Fry and Gary Karr,
to their murders.
David Waters' girlfriend
Patti Steffen told police
that Waters
kidnapped the O'Hairs
because of the unflattering
and inflammatory article
Madalyn had written about him.
His girlfriend said he
fantasized about torturing her,
cutting off her toes.
And so basically I think
this whole thing came down
to not just money, but really
ugly personal chemistry
between two dysfunctional
personalities.
For David Waters,
it was about revenge.
He wanted the ultimate
revenge on Madalyn O'Hair,
and the money was
just a byproduct.
NARRATOR: After
kidnapping the O'Hairs,
Waters forced Jon Murray
to withdraw $600,000
from the Atheists' bank
account and then took
him to the jewelry
store to exchange
the $600,000 for gold coins.
The O'Hairs were most
likely dead by the time
Danny Fry impersonated Jon
Murray to sell his car.
Thanks for letting me see it.
NARRATOR: But why was
Danny Fry k*lled too?
The answer was his drinking.
We knew that Danny Fry drank,
and loose lips sink ships.
And by what David had told
Bob Fry about his brother,
and that was your
brother has a big mouth,
could be the thing
that caused his death.
NARRATOR: But David Waters
made several crucial mistakes.
Although Waters cleaned the
room with water and bleach,
scientists still
found a tiny speck
of blood three years later,
identified by mitochondrial DNA
as that of Jon Murray
and Madalyn O'Hair.
But removing Danny Fry's
head and hands still
didn't prevent identification.
DNA and skull photo
superimposition
were all scientists needed.
Ironically, after stealing
the $600,000 from the O'Hairs,
Waters never got the
opportunity to enjoy the money.
It was stolen from him.
Well, his first mistake was
putting his money in a storage
locker up in Austin and having
three bozos from San Antonio,
who were looking for
used TVs, open up
the locker with a master
key and find a suitcase
with a half million in gold.
NARRATOR: For his
role in this case,
David Waters was sentenced
to 80 years in prison.
His accomplice Gary Karr was
sentenced to life in prison.
Mr. Karr fully admitted
his role and involvement
with David Waters in
the abduction, robbery,
and m*rder of the O'Hairs.
And he indicated that he
had assisted in dismembering
the bodies and
putting the body parts
in 55 gallon drums in a
storage unit here in Austin.
It was a nice neat ending.
They found the bodies.
The bad guy goes to prison.
And you know the heroes
ride off into the sunset.
NARRATOR: For his persistence,
John MacCormack is
one of the heroes of this case.
And forensic science played
an important role too.
Well, I mean, this
is definitely one
that, if it wasn't
for DNA, we'd probably
still be scratching our heads
as to who this person was.
A lot of times I kind
of forget about the case
when the next case comes in.
And so I really don't have
one that always jumps to mind.
But I'll remember this
one for a long time.
[theme music]
07x10 - Without a Prayer
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Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.
Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.