June 2, 2000 AANEWS Flash

The Murray O’Hair Family

A SPECIAL REPORT -- THE VERDICT IN THE MURRAY-O'HAIR TRIAL KARR CONVICTED IN PLOT TO EXTORT MURRAY O'HAIR FAMILY

June 2, 2000

A jury in Austin, Texas today convicted Gary Paul Karr, a 52-year-old ex-con on four of five counts of involvement with others to extort money from Madalyn O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray and daughter Robin Murray O'Hair. The decision caps a two-week long trial which included testimony from 68 witnesses, four of whom appeared for the defense. Karr did not take the stand. While he was found innocent of of involvement in the actual kidnapping, he was convicted of conspiracy in the robbery and extortion of the family for money. He could face life in prison. Sources at the trial have told AANEWS that Karr is scheduled to be sentenced on August 4.

The eight-man, four-woman jury had begun deliberations on Tuesday after closing arguments. Jurors had to grapple with a small mountain of evidence, as they mulled five separate charges lodged against Karr in connection with the abduction and robbery of the O'Hairs. Charges included conspiracy to kidnap the O'Hairs; conspiracy to commit robbery and extortion of the family's property; traveling interstate to commit violent acts resulting in the death of a person; conspiracy to profit financially from criminal acts; and transportation of stolen property across state lines.

The Murray O'Hairs are presumed dead, although their bodies have not been located, and no one has been charged with their murder.

Earlier this afternoon, jurors informed Judge Sam Sparks that they were unable to reach unanimous agreement on all of the indictment counts. The judge ordered them to return to their deliberations, and the final decision came minutes later.

Madalyn O'Hair and her family disappeared from San Antonio in 1995 along with $500,000 in gold coins. Some at the time advanced theories that she may have suffered from a terminal illness, or that the family had deliberately absconded with money from an atheist group. Federal investigators, though, pieced together a tapestry of evidence indicating that the O'Hairs were kidnapped, robbed and then killed. Their bodies are believed to have been dismembered and put into 55-gallon drums and then buried, according to those close to the case.

Referring to Karr, federal prosecutor Gerald Carruth told jurors during final arguments, "He did it for money. He did it because he was greedy."

Carruth and his legal team say that David R. Waters, a former office manager for American Atheists, recruited Karr and Florida associate Danny Fry in 1995 as part of a plan to hold the Murray O'Hairs hostage and steal gold coins and other assets. Evidence indicated that in the weeks after the O'Hairs disappeared, the three alleged kidnappers were suddenly wealthy. During this same period, though, O'Hair family members were frantically trying to raise money, withdrawing funds from personal banks accounts and taking cash advances on credit cards totalling nearly $90,000.

Fry's decapitated body was discovered on a riverbank near Dallas, Texas days after the O'Hairs had been kidnapped.

While the bodies of the O'Hairs have not been found, prosecutors connected Karr and others in the case to the family through an extensive paper trail such as telephone bills, rental and sales receipts and other records. Karr's attorney, Tom Mills, attacked the prosecution's case and suggested that the O'Hairs were still alive and living off stolen funds overseas. He argued that Waters had been hired by the family in order to assist them in fleeing the country.

The prosecution countered, though, with testimony and a statement in which Karr earlier told investigators that Waters had killed the O'Hairs and disposed of their bodies.

On the stand, a parade of witnesses undermined many of the earlier claims that had appeared in some news media, or been made by previous associates of the O'Hairs.

• A legal and tax consultant for the family provided prosecutors with a stack of documents, including correspondence with the Internal Revenue Service showing that at the time of the disappearance a favorable settlement had been reached between the agency and the Murray O'Hairs.

Tax attorney Craig Etter told jurors that the O'Hair case "was at the point where there would not be a reason for them to leave the country, or run away from the IRS. Further, that would be completely out of character. They did not run from their adversaries..." (San Antonio Express-News, 5/17/00)

• Ellen Johnson, the new President of American Atheists, testified that something was "terribly wrong" during her final telephone contacts with the O'Hairs.

Describing a conversation with Robin Murray O'Hair, Johnson said: "I don't know what she (Robin) was thinking. She was totally distraught. She wasn't responding. I was so upset, something was terribly wrong." Johnson added that on one occasion when she called Jon Murray's cellular phone, a man answered whose voice she did not recognize.

Investigators say that at that point the O'Hairs were being held hostage in a San Antonio motel room. Later, Jon Murray traveled to New Jersey with a man identified as Karr to transfer money from a New Zealand trust account to a jewelry store owner in San Antonio. From there, Murray converted most of the money into gold coins which investigators showed ended up in the hands of Karr and his associates, and were then stolen by juveniles who broke into a storage locker.

O'Hair Family Home

Newsletter Articles

July 1995

July 1996

October 1996

December 1996

February 1997

March 1997

April 1997

November 1997

July 1998

August 1998

September 1998

February 1999

April 1999

August 1999

June 2, 2000

The Murray O'Hair Tragedy

September 19, 2000

January 24, 2001

January 28, 2001

January 29, 2001

March 15, 2001

April 24, 2002

February 2003

Application for Search Warrant, March 23, 1999

• In the weeks and months following the disappearance, there was no immediate clear evidence of foul play. During phone conversations, Jon Murray had assured Johnson and others that "everything's all right," and that the family was involved in some kind of critical business. "We'll tell you all about it when we get back..." Murray even instructed an employee at the American Atheists national office to enter the building and "start things up" in anticipation of their return. After the O'Hairs failed to show up for the October, 1995 demonstration during Pope John Paul II's visit to the United State, officials with the organization began to worry, but had little evidence to suggest what might have happened.

Adding to the puzzle was the fact that there was no evidence of a struggle or foul play at either the O'Hairs home or in their offices. Prior to disappearing to San Antonio, the family had just returned from a vacation in the eastern United States where they had met with members of the organization and visited museums, civil war battle sites, and book stores. An issue of the American Atheist Magazine had been partially printed, and the O'Hairs were waiting to take delivery on a special typesetting system for publishing books.

• Much of the testimony focused on David Waters, the former office manager for the O'Hairs who had pleaded guilty to stealing $54,400 from American Atheists in order to avoid prison times. The Waters affair had been discussed in an issue of O'Hair's newsletter, which explored the theft of library computer equipment, financial instruments, cash and other resources from the organization. Also mentioned were the numerous complaints made to authorities in Austin by the O'Hairs concerning the thefts, and the police department's apparent disinterest in those events.

The newsletter explored Waters' background in detail, including his indictment for murder in 1965. "According to that murder charge," noted the newsletter, "Mr. Waters and several friends had 'struck and beat a young man (sixteen years old) with their fists and with a hedge post ... about the head' and then 'left the decedent in the ditch beside the road.

"Waters pled guilty and was sentenced, as an adult, for thirty to sixty years in the Illinois State Penitentiary..." He served 11 years. In 1978, he was convicted of battery after beating his mother, and in 1985 received another conviction for forgery. While in prison, he met Gary Karr who was serving time for aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery.

• Investigators patched together a detailed time line of events which meticulously traced the movement of Karr, Waters and other principals in the Murray O'Hair disappearance. Authorities amassed over a dozen file cartons of paper documents -- everything from rental receipts to sworn statements -- and constructed a 23-foot long display which presented visually the events in the case, including the flow of money and other property from the O'Hairs to Karr and his associates.

Physical evidence gathered by investigators included stolen gold coins linked to Murray, handcuffs, "2 small black boxes contained wires believed to (be) a transmitter and receiver)," tape, receipts for rental of warehouse storage units, and bow saws.

• Perhaps the most compelling evidence in the trial came from two women, Charlene Karr -- ex-wife of Gary Karr, the man charged in the disappearance, and Patti Jo Steffens, former girlfriend of David Waters.

"He wanted to kill me because of what I knew," Charlene Karr testified on Wednesday, May 17. Investigators presented a tape of a telephone conversation, where Gary Karr informed his ex-wife, "I highly believe ... (Waters) did it. I didn't see him do it. I don't know if he did it." (Dallas Morning News, 5/18/00).

Charlene Karr also told jurors that during the time Gary Karr was in Texas, he wired her about $4,000 with instructions to send the money to his two daughters in California.

"He later returned from Texas with very expensive clothes and tried to give her three Rolex watches," noted the paper, "which she refused to take, she said.

'Later on, he ... (said the watches) were won in a card game and came off the bodies of the O'Hairs,' she said."

During her appearance on the stand, Patti Jo Stiffens stated that she had been asked to rent a storage unit to hold the $500,000 in gold coins. She also testified to knowledge of bearer bonds stolen from the American Atheists offices, and Waters' role in the theft of $54,000 from the organization.

According to the May 17, 2000 Austin American-Statesman:

"When O'Hair blasted him (Waters) in her newsletter, Waters promised revenge, Steffens said.

'He talked about how he would like to hurt her,' she said. 'He wanted to take some pliers and pull her toes off...' "

Steffens spent nearly six hours on the stand, providing a wealth of information related to the sequence of events.

• Aside from the major themes of the case, testimony and physical evidence undermined numerous other claims which had appeared in published reports, as well as accusations made by former associates of the O'Hairs. The O'Hairs, for instance, did not have a wire fence erected around their Austin, Texas offices in order to "keep Waters out" of the facility, but rather installed the fencing as a general security precaution due to neighborhood vandalism. Another item of misinformation: the money transferred by Jon Murray from New Zealand which was then converted into gold coins did not come from a "secret" bank account. It was from a trust operated by United Secularists of America (USA) which had been built up over several years in part through public fund raising letters and other activities conducted by the O'Hairs. The account was discussed in meetings of the organization's Board of Directors, and even during the annual national convention members' business meetings.

• Associates and others linked to Karr provided corroborative testimony for the prosecution concerning the abduction of the O'Hairs. Inmate Jason Cross, for instance, said that Karr admitted his involvement in the O'Hair abduction, and even the dismemberment and disposal of body parts. "Karr also claimed he killed Danny Fry with a .22 caliber pistol..." according to the Express News.

"Cross said that after being approached by federal agents in June 1999, he had kept written notes of his prison conversations with Karr about the O'Hair case."

Cross also discussed statements he attributed to Karr which mentioned the use of two bow saws used to dismember bodies.

• The verdict may begin putting to rest some of the more outlandish -- and unfair -- claims surrounding the disappearance. An article in one popular magazine, for instance, was redolent with uncomplimentary remarks and observations about Madalyn O'Hair, and concluded with a dubious "Elvis sighting" style report that "O'Hair was spotted at a restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand, close to a bank where a receptionist also identified her."

Another colorful, if dubious restaurant sighting was presented during the Karr trial, when the defense called to the stand a preacher who works for the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. William Gordon. He declared that he spotted Mrs. O'Hair chowing down in a restaurant in Romania.

"I believe the person I saw was Madalyn Murray O'Hair," declared Gordon. "She looked overweight, sickly and in her 70s." The object of the minister's attention was seated one table away and was "fully engaged in eating," according to the San Antonio Express News of May 24. Gordon said that he made the sighting in late November, 1997.

"The preacher said he returned the next night with his camera to document his find, but the woman was not at the restaurant," reported the Express-News. The minister informed jurors, though, "I can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt it was her (O'Hair)."

U.S. Attorney Gerald Carruth, though, attacked those sorts of claims.

"Does it make sense that a 76-year-old woman, sickly and weak, is going to take refuge in Romania?" he asked during the prosecution's closing statements. "We presented evidence that shows Mr. Karr winds up with three Rolex watches that belonged to the O'Hairs. Don't they tell time in Romania?"

"The defense can't have it both ways," Carruth told jurors. "They want to say the O'Hairs fled the country, but if they didn't, that Mr. Karr had nothing to do with their demise ... If you folks follow the money, you can figure out what happened, and the O'Hairs didn't get any money to flee the country."

• The Karr verdict may be "the beginning of the end" in resolving the five-year-old mystery of the Murray O'Hair's fate, and possibly identifying those who were ultimately responsible. Federal authorities have suggested that they intend to pursue prosecution of others linked to the case, even if the bodies of the O'Hairs are not recovered. At a minimum, however, the record of testimony and physical evidence should put to rest at least some of the earlier stories concerning the disappearance. Authorities uncovered strong indications of a purposeful abduction, not an attempt by the O'Hairs to flee from the IRS or other legal entanglements. Investigators found no evidence to substantiate claims that the O'Hairs had amassed millions of dollars which they had sequestered in hidden bank accounts, or that the family was seriously making preparation to abscond with money and move to New Zealand or some other foreign country. Indeed, while Jon Murray and, on occasion, Madalyn O'Hair had talked about the possibility of leaving Austin, Texas, testimony confirmed that at the time leading up to the disappearance the family had close associates looking for suitable property on the east coast of the United States.

Evidence showed that on the day they disappeared, events happened quickly and with a brutal, frightening rapidity. It was later revealed that the O'Hair's personal effects, even their beloved dogs, were left behind. Their private belongings -- everything from clothes to personal papers -- were confiscated, and to the consternation of investigators who began their inquiry months later, auctioned off. At the O'Hair's offices unfinished projects, manuscripts and printing jobs remained. Federal prosecutors succeeded in demonstrating a time line of brutal activity, involving persons motivated in part by greed and revenge.

What remains of this case involves perhaps the discovery of bodies, as well as the final disposition of those believed to be linked to the disappearance. At that point, perhaps sufficient time will have passed where media, friends and even critics of the Murray O'Hairs can begin to look soberly -- and hopefully a bit dispassionately -- at the strengths and flaws of three people who dedicated so much of their lives to atheism and the constitutional separation of church and state.

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