New Developments In The Murray-O'Hair Case
By Conrad F. Goeringer
April 1999
April 1999
I spent much of the morning walking in the Park, and going to the Queene's chapell, where I staid and saw the masses, till a man came and bid me go out or kneel down; so I did go out...
—Diary of Samuel Pepys
First, the facts as we know them.
As you know from previous newsletters and other news sources, David Waters, arrested in Austin on 24 March 1999 on federal firearms charges, is the convicted murderer who had unwittingly been hired by American Atheists to work as the printing assistant back in the early nineties, and then stole over $54,000 plus a dozen bearer bonds, each worth $5,000. This occurred after he was temporarily placed in charge of the American Atheists GHQ in Texas, so that the Murray-O'Hairs could take part in a trial in San Diego, California. As of the press deadline for this newsletter, Waters has not been charged with any crime relating to the disappearance of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Jon Murray, or Robin Murray O'Hair. He continues to deny any connection with the disappearance.
Gary P. Karr, who served time in an Illinois prison with David Waters, was arrested in a Detroit suburb on 24 March 1999 - also on firearms charges. During that same week, according to the San Antonio Express-News reporter John MacCormack (1 April 1999), Karr was charged in Austin with a second federal crime - receiving stolen property in excess of five thousand dollars. "The complaint states that the crime occurred in October 1995 and involved interstate transport 'from Texas to Florida and elsewhere.' The affidavit explaining the stolen property charge is sealed, and federal officials have declined to comment on it."
Unlike Waters, however, Karr is reported to have admitted complicity (but not actual trigger-pulling) in four homicides in Texas, without naming any names. Among those four homicides is the case of a headless, handless corpse - likely the body of Danny Fry, a Florida ne'er-do-well whom MacCormack linked to the O'Hair case last year. Fry's nude body - sans head and hands - was found on 2 October 1995 (about three days after the last known cell-phone conversation with any of the Murray O'Hairs) on a riverbank in Dallas County. The body remained unidentified until early this year when, at the behest of MacCormack, DNA tests were done that proved the body was that of Danny Fry. According to MacCormack, Fry's daughter in Florida claims that Fry had gone to Austin, Texas, at the invitation of David Waters - who allegedly promised to make Fry rich in a project Waters was planning. Fry never made it back to Florida.
But according to his brother Bob (as reported by MacCormack, Express-News, 31 January, 1999), Fry sent him a letter saying he expected to be back in Florida by a certain date and that if he wasn't, "that meant something serious had happened. I should contact the authorities and bring in David Waters' name, that David Waters planned what he did."
"I called Waters and told him about the letter. I had already destroyed it, but I just told him I had an unopened letter... He said, 'Hold on to it. I'm sure he'll show up. I just talked to him the night before last from a bar in Dallas. He was drunk'."
According to MacCormack's report, by the next evening Waters and a second man were allegedly on Bob Fry's doorstep in Florida, demanding the letter. "They told me [Bob Fry] that they were involved in something really heavy in Texas, and the people who planned it wanted them to get the letter back. And if they didn't, the people would come and get it, and they wouldn't be as nice." The two men finally left after Fry's brother convinced them that the letter had already been destroyed.
According to the transcript of a 26 March 1999 federal court hearing in Detroit, FBI agent Thomas O'Leary reported that Gary Karr not only has admitted complicity in the disposal of what could have been the body of Danny Fry, he also is reported by O'Leary to have admitted flying with one of the other victims to New Jersey to facilitate the transfer of money from a bank there back to Texas. American Atheists President Ellen Johnson has shown that the wire transfer of money to Texas did not coincide with Jon Murray's trip to New Jersey, and despite the fact that the on-line version of the transcript mentions no specific dollar amount for the transfer and no target location in Texas, Mr. MacCormack has claimed (Express-News, 8 April 1999) that "O'Leary also testified that Karr admitted flying to New Jersey from Texas with one of the victims in September 1995 to expedite the transfer of $600,000 to San Antonio." He also has reported that travel records show that Jon Murray, accompanied by a man using the possibly fictitious name of "Conrad Johnson," flew to New Jersey at the time in question.
Even though there appear to be errors in some of the fine details, the odd concatenation of circumstances relating to the Karr case has led many people to conclude that Jon Murray may have been one of the "four homicides in Texas" in which Karr has reportedly admitted complicity.
On Easter weekend, at the very time American Atheists was enjoying its twenty-fifth national convention, FBI agents were carrying out elaborate search and excavation operations at a ranch west of San Antonio. There was considerable speculation in the press that they might have been searching for remains of the Murray-O'Hair family or other evidence in the case. Concerning the possible fate of the Murray O'Hairs, the San Antonio Express-News web site has reported that "Federal... agents think the three may have been killed in San Antonio and then transported 120 miles west to a hidden burial site on a 5,000 acre ranch near the tiny Real County town of Camp Wood."
What Might This Mean? All of these particulars have led to a considerable amount of speculation as to the fate of the Murray O'Hair family. Here at American Atheist Newsletter, there are several "camps" regarding the interpretation of this information. We'll give you the skinny, and let you draw your own conclusions.
Your editor, Mr. Frank Zindler, takes the position, "These particulars plus other information which appears to be coming from Karr put a new and very disturbing twist on the case of the missing Murray O'Hair family and make it seem very unlikely that they could still be alive." He adds that in light of these "accelerated" developments in the case, "the mystery may have been resolved by the time this issue of American Atheist Newsletter reaches its readers."
President Ellen Johnson disagrees, and sees problems with the Karr version of this story. "Some of the information in these accounts is simply wrong, and a lot of the reporting involves circumstantial evidence that isn't even sufficient to generate an indictment." Ms. Johnson is also skeptical in light of the history of case, and recalls earlier stories that claimed to "prove" that the O'Hairs had deliberately absconded with organization monies, and were living in New Zealand or elsewhere.
For the record, it should be noted that there have indeed been many twists in this admittedly bizarre story. Many were quick to draw conclusions based on the earliest news reports which suggested larcenous motives on the part of the Murray O'Hairs. Unfortunately, many Atheists uncritically accepted these accounts. Now the situation has taken another turn. Is there a proverbial light at the end of this tunnel?
The 25th National Convention of American Atheists occurred against the backdrop not just of the dedication of our new American Atheist Center, but also a torrent of news coverage involving the Murray-O'Hair case. There was a sense that events were, finally, accelerating. There was the usual amount of speculation, and we continue to field e-mail, telephone calls and correspondence from individuals claiming that they have heard that the case has been resolved, or that bodies have been located.
It is worth noting that on 25 April 1999, the Dallas Morning News ran a story by David McLemore ("Loose Ends Linger In O'Hair Case"). It noted: "In some stories, the facts fall like dominoes, inexorably into place, leading toward a satisfactory conclusion. The strange disappearance of atheist grand dame Madalyn Murray O'Hair is not one of those tales..." McLemore goes on to summarize the salient details of the case, including some nagging inconsistencies that may or may not affect the overall story. He adds, "All the inconsistencies add up to a lot of unfinished business - for investigators as well as for true believers..."
Whatever the final resolution - if there is one — we should remember that no one has, as of press time for this newsletter, been charged. As with any situation of this type, some find the broad outlines of information sufficiently compelling to reach an honest conclusion; others concentrate on the nagging details, those inconsistencies which many times are never successfully resolved in any case. Others, such as myself, remain "agnostics" of a sort, waiting for more pieces of this puzzle to fall into place. Be assured, though, the American Atheist Newsletter will continue to inform our readers of new developments in the case until this awful mystery is - hopefully - solved.
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