Atheist O’Hair Believed Dead
by Katie Fairbank, Associated Press
Philadelphia Daily News, 9-29-95

Followers are mum over disappearance.


Dallas – America’s most prominent atheist, Madalyn Murray O ‘ Hair, hasn’t been seen in public for weeks, giving rise to the rumors that she died ad that her followers are keeping it quiet so Christians don’t pray over her.


A note was left at her Austin headquarters, American Atheist Inc., telling employees the offices would be shut down until further notice. The building is up for sale, and the normally assessable O’Hair hasn’t returned telephone calls.

Board member, Arnold Via, said O’Hare, 76, visited him in Virginia on August 11 and was in poor health because of diabetes. That was the last time he saw her.

“It’s been worrying me. I sent her a manuscript about picketing the pope in October at the United Nations in New York, and I haven’t heard from her,” Via said.

O’Hair filed a lawsuit in 1962 that led to the Supreme Court ban on school sponsored prayer. Since then, she has been active in the fight to enforce the constitutionally required separation of church and state.

O’Hair, her son, Jon, and her daughter, Robin, lived together in Austin and worked for American Atheists. They left their home and closed the office several weeks ago.

O’Hair is estranged from another son, William J. Murray, a Christian evangelist, who has a group called Citizens to Restore Voluntary School Prayer, in Fairfax, Va.

According to Via, the family decided several years ago that when O’Hair dies, the children will take the money from her estate and the organization, and go to New Zealand to make sure their brother doesn’t make any claims against it.

“The membership is not to know until everything is over with her. Her last request was that she would be taken to Houston and cremated” Via said.

William J. Murray said that he hasn’t spoken to his mother in 20 years. “The family I came from is the mother of dysfunctional families,” he said.

In Houston, no permit for cremation has been filed at the Harris County, medical examiners office, and the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics has not received any notification of her death.

Associates said the family had always wanted to keep O’Hair’s death quiet because they feared the Christians would claim that she had renounced her atheist beliefs on her deathbed.

Some Christians have claimed over the years that they have been present at the death beds of atheists and have witnessed them screaming when they felt the fires of hell, said Gipson Arnold, the head of the Atheist Network.

“I would suspect that when she dies, they’re going to take some sort of precautions to keep someone from praying over her,” Arnold said.

However, some associates don’t believe O’Hair is missing, and Austin police have received no reports involving the family.

“I just talked with Madalyn herself moments ago,” Spike Tyson, the media coordinator for American Atheists, said yesterday. He said she would not be immediately available for questioning.

“I can tell you categorically that Madalyn is alive,” said long time American Atheists member, Frank, Zindler of Columbus, Ohio. “I can’t tell you exactly what is happening. She’s safe and that’s all I can tell you.”