AUSTIN, Texas — An ex-convict was acquitted Friday of conspiring to kidnap atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her family but found guilty of extorting money from them.
O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray and granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair disappeared in 1995 along with $500,000 in gold coins. Authorities believe they were killed and dismembered, though their bodies were never found.
Gary Paul Karr, 52, convicted on four counts involving extortion but acquitted on a fifth, conspiracy to kidnap, faces life in prison under the so-called federal three strikes law because of his prior convictions. Sentencing was set for Aug. 4.
"There were a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle . . . bodies for one, a smoking gun," juror Jeff Sloan said after the verdicts were read.
During the two-week trial, prison inmates testified that Karr told them he was involved in the slayings, and federal agents presented hundreds of telephone calls, car rentals, airplane trips and other financial transactions they said implicated Karr and showed he extorted money from the family.
However, two defense witnesses testified that they saw O'Hair alive during the time prosecutors say she was kidnapped or killed — during the summer or fall of 1995 in a San Antonio bar and in a restaurant in Romania in 1997.
Karr's attorney, Tom Mills, questioned the consistency of the verdict. He hinted Karr would appeal.
O'Hair, an outspoken atheist, reveled in calling herself the most hated woman in America and was involved in successful court battles in the 1960s to remove prayer and Bible-reading from the nation's public schools. Suffering from diabetes and heart disease, she was America's most prominent unbeliever — a combative foe of all organized religion — when she vanished at age 77.
O'Hair wasn't reported missing for a year, not until her estranged son, William Murray, called Austin police.
Authorities questioned whether all three were victims of foul play or merely ran off with the money from their atheist organization, United Secularists of America.
Some suggested that O'Hair, who was ailing, had gone off to die quietly so Christians wouldn't pray over her. Prosecutors ridiculed the suggestion that an ailing, elderly woman would flee to eastern Europe, and they said the witnesses who testified to seeing O'Hair were mistaken.
Prosecutors argued that O'Hair and her family were held against their will and forced to transfer $600,000 from a bank account to a San Antonio coin dealer.
Karr, who didn't testify, gave authorities a statement in which he acknowledged acting as an errand boy and bodyguard for the family during the last few weeks they were known to be alive.
Prosecutors presented evidence showing Karr traveled under an assumed name to New Jersey with O'Hair's son to transfer $600,000 from a bank account to a San Antonio coin dealer. While all the cash was converted to gold coins, only $500,000 worth was picked up. The family disappeared soon afterward.
Prosecutors showed Karr was also with the O'Hairs in San Antonio shortly before their disappearance when the family was making cash withdrawals on credit cards and that he was sending large checks to his own family and friends in Florida.
Investigators suggested the mastermind behind the disappearance was David Waters, the O'Hairs' former office manager and a former cellmate of Karr. A convicted murderer, Waters pleaded guilty to stealing $54,000 from O'Hair's organizations and is now serving 60 years in prison on weapons charges.
Waters' attorney has denied that Waters was involved in the disappearances, and he has not been charged. Danny Fry, the other alleged co-conspirator, was found dead in Texas in 1995 with his head and hands cut off.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerald Carruth said an investigation was continuing into Karr's alleged accomplices.
During the trial, Karr's ex-wife and his former boss both said he told them he was going from Florida to Texas to play in a high-stakes poker game in 1995. He allegedly returned with $15,000 worth of fine clothing and three Rolex watches he tried to give to ex-wife, Charlene Karr.
Charlene Karr testified that she refused to take the watches and that Karr told her "they were won in a card game and came off the bodies of the O'Hairs."
"He told me David had killed them. He told me it was Madalyn O'Hair, that she had taken the prayer out of schools and David Waters hated her," Charlene Karr said.
Karr also told his ex-wife he drove Waters to a rural area so Waters could examine where the bodies were buried. He told her in a taped telephone call from jail, however, that he didn't see any bodies.
When confronted in March 1999, Karr drew authorities a map to a ranch near San Antonio where about 100 officers conducted a 72-hour search without finding any bodies. Authorities think the bodies may have been washed away in floods or even eaten by wild hogs and coyotes.
O'Hair's estranged son, William Murray, said he felt vindicated by the verdict.
"We dogged this thing for years while authorities were laughing at us telling us there was no case," he said. "I understand there was a lack of physical evidence. That's a direct result of the police not doing anything."
Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists Inc., founded by O'Hair, said the verdict would help bring closure, adding, "There was no doubt in our mind the man was guilty."