Over a year after her disappearance, a missing person report has been filed on well-known atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair. The investigation by Texas police was precipitated by her son, William Murray. In August 1995, O’Hair left her American Atheists Inc. headquarters in Austin saying she was going to New York to picket Pope John Paul II during his visit to America.
Also disappearing with the famed atheist was her younger son, Jon Murray, and granddaughter, Robin Murray O’Hair. According to a Religious News Service report, William Murray has said that police told him “that they had located his daughter Robin’s 1985 Porsche in a long term parking lot at the Austin, Texas, airport.” Austin police spokesman Mike Burgess said “the car has been processed and there is nothing suspicious.” The automobile had been at the airport for several months.
The RNS article also indicated that on the day of her disappearance, O’Hair left a note on the door of atheist group’s headquarters telling the staff that they had been laid off. Another report said that the memorandum stated that O’Hair and her family had been called out of town on an emergency.
Several rumors, including one that O’Hair is gravely ill or dead, have surfaced since her disappearance. Other theories are that O’Hair is living off secretly channeled funds from her organization or that she and her son and granddaughter were the victims of foul play.
O’Hair is best known for her 1963 landmark U.S. Supreme
Court decision that outlawed organized prayer in American public
schools. She has also received notoriety from a hard quash rumor
that she is soliciting the Federal Communications Commission to
have religious programming barred from the public airwaves. Since
the rumor first circulated more than two decades ago, the FCC has
been inundated with petitions opposing the reported request.
—MKG
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