On this day, Sept. 29, in 1995, atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair was murdered in Texas during a botched extortion scheme.
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O’Hair, 76, played an important role in a 1960s United States Supreme Court decision banning mandatory prayer in public schools. Life declared her “the most hated woman in America.”
On Aug. 27, 1995, kidnapers snatched O’Hair and her son Jon Garth Murray, and her granddaughter, Robin Murray O’Hair.
Five years later, David Roland Waters, a former employee of O’Hair, led police to the bodies at a remote ranch west of San Antonio. The three had been killed and dismembered in an Austin storage shed. Another body, belonging to a Waters accomplice, was found nearby.
Waters died in federal prison in 2003.
– Scott McCabe
