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America's Most Hated Woman: The Life and Gruesome Death of Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Why did Life Magazine dub her "the most hated woman in America"?
Did she unravel the moral fiber of America or defend the Constitution?
They found her heaped in a shallow grave, sawed up, and burned. Thus ended Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the articulate "atheist bitch" whose 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case ended school prayer. Her Christian-baiting lawsuits spanned three more decades; she was on TV all over the country, foul-mouthed, witty, and passionate, launching today's culture wars over same-sex marriage and faith-based initiatives.
She was a man-hater who loved sex, a bully whose heart broke for the downtrodden. She was accused of schizophrenia, alcoholism, and embezzlement, but never cowardice or sloth. She was an ideologue who spewed toxic rage even at the followers who made her a millionaire. She was a doting mother who accosted people to ask them to be sexual partners for her lonely children, and whose cannibalistic love led her children to their grave. She thrived on her fame, but just as the curtain of obscurity began to lower, the family vanished in one of the strangest of America's true crimes.
This is the real story of "the most hated woman in America," by the only author to interview the killer and those close to him and to witness the family's secret burial in Austin, Texas.
From the First Chapter
The sky was gray and drizzling, but it had stopped at the funeral home by quarter to nine. Billy Murray hadn't spoken to his three family members for more than twenty years, but he wanted to give them a decent burial.
Bill was an ordained minister, but he didn't pray over the charred, sawed-up remains. "Baptists don't pray for the dead," he said. "They either accept Christ before they died or they didn't."
He had his mother cremated in accordance with her oft-expressed wish. Her urn sat at the head of the burial vault, as was appropriate, for she had ruled the other two with an iron hand. She was Madalyn Murray O'Hair, 76, founder of American Atheists, and the Most Hated Woman in America-a sobriquet she relished.
The other two were his half-brother, Jon Garth Murray, 40, and his daughter, Robin Murray-O'Hair, 30. It had taken five years to find them and bring them to the cemetery for the service, which was kept secret from the public.
It was their second burial. Jerry Carruth, the prosecutor who had searched for the family for nearly four years, had watched them being excavated from their shallow mass grave on a South Texas ranch some months before. He was watching the shoveling, looking for the hip replacement joint Madalyn had gotten in 1988. When they found that, he'd know he'd found Madalyn.
"There it was," he said, "shining in the sun like a trailer hitch."
Did she unravel the moral fiber of America or defend the Constitution?
They found her heaped in a shallow grave, sawed up, and burned. Thus ended Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the articulate "atheist bitch" whose 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case ended school prayer. Her Christian-baiting lawsuits spanned three more decades; she was on TV all over the country, foul-mouthed, witty, and passionate, launching today's culture wars over same-sex marriage and faith-based initiatives.
She was a man-hater who loved sex, a bully whose heart broke for the downtrodden. She was accused of schizophrenia, alcoholism, and embezzlement, but never cowardice or sloth. She was an ideologue who spewed toxic rage even at the followers who made her a millionaire. She was a doting mother who accosted people to ask them to be sexual partners for her lonely children, and whose cannibalistic love led her children to their grave. She thrived on her fame, but just as the curtain of obscurity began to lower, the family vanished in one of the strangest of America's true crimes.
This is the real story of "the most hated woman in America," by the only author to interview the killer and those close to him and to witness the family's secret burial in Austin, Texas.
From the First Chapter
The sky was gray and drizzling, but it had stopped at the funeral home by quarter to nine. Billy Murray hadn't spoken to his three family members for more than twenty years, but he wanted to give them a decent burial.
Bill was an ordained minister, but he didn't pray over the charred, sawed-up remains. "Baptists don't pray for the dead," he said. "They either accept Christ before they died or they didn't."
He had his mother cremated in accordance with her oft-expressed wish. Her urn sat at the head of the burial vault, as was appropriate, for she had ruled the other two with an iron hand. She was Madalyn Murray O'Hair, 76, founder of American Atheists, and the Most Hated Woman in America-a sobriquet she relished.
The other two were his half-brother, Jon Garth Murray, 40, and his daughter, Robin Murray-O'Hair, 30. It had taken five years to find them and bring them to the cemetery for the service, which was kept secret from the public.
It was their second burial. Jerry Carruth, the prosecutor who had searched for the family for nearly four years, had watched them being excavated from their shallow mass grave on a South Texas ranch some months before. He was watching the shoveling, looking for the hip replacement joint Madalyn had gotten in 1988. When they found that, he'd know he'd found Madalyn.
"There it was," he said, "shining in the sun like a trailer hitch."
397 pages, Hardcover
First published February 28, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 10, 2024
Growing up Catholic in the 1970s I knew the name Madalyn Murry O'Hair - she was basically the devil incarnate. The queen atheist and founder of American Atheists, she publicly ripped religion and filed church and state lawsuits left and right. But as a kid I wondered why an "evil" person would be a guest on Phil Donahue, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and a number of other TV shows.
America's Most Hated Woman: The Life and Gruesome Death of Madalyn Murray O'Hair is an excellent biography of Madalyn, and even goes as far as providing biographical information of the three men involved in the kidnapping and brutal murder of her, her son Jon Garth Murray, and her granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair. I thought the final chapters which covered the three's mysterious disappearance, the reveal of the details of their captivity and deaths, and ensuing trial of the ring leader of this episode were really well written. It read like a riveting crime and courtroom drama. The result was an incredibly sad ending to the book.
I was surprised to see the low Goodreads rating for this book. I thought it was really well written and incredibly well researched. The notes and bibliography are extensive. A massive amount of work went in to this, and it's a chunky book. The one negative for me would be that there were maybe too many details or trivial facts included. The author, Ann Rowe Seaman, had previously won an award for her biography of the despicable Jimmy Swaggart so this was not her first rodeo.
I applaud Madalyn's work in atheism, she was true to the cause and always at the forefront of the fight against religious intrusion in state matters. She was bright, charismatic, and bombastic, and was a force with a microphone in her hand. She filed numerous lawsuits regarding the violation of church and state - won some and lost some. She had the right idea in taking on religious nationalism and didn't lose debates against believers. She described herself as a "militant feminist" and was just as outspoken about women's equality as her atheism.
But she had a dark side as well and had many enemies. She made anti-Semitic comments, bullied employees and acquaintances, and mismanaged funds and spent money lavishly. A number of atheists who couldn't get a long with her branched off with their own organizations, one of the most well know and effective of these is the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Becoming acquainted with unsavory characters with criminal pasts ended up being her undoing at the end.
Her legacy lives on with the American Atheists and there are a plethora of videos of Marilyn speaking out in the interwebs. She would have a field day if she saw what was going on today in the USA regarding the intrusion of religion in to government.
America's Most Hated Woman: The Life and Gruesome Death of Madalyn Murray O'Hair is an excellent biography of Madalyn, and even goes as far as providing biographical information of the three men involved in the kidnapping and brutal murder of her, her son Jon Garth Murray, and her granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair. I thought the final chapters which covered the three's mysterious disappearance, the reveal of the details of their captivity and deaths, and ensuing trial of the ring leader of this episode were really well written. It read like a riveting crime and courtroom drama. The result was an incredibly sad ending to the book.
I was surprised to see the low Goodreads rating for this book. I thought it was really well written and incredibly well researched. The notes and bibliography are extensive. A massive amount of work went in to this, and it's a chunky book. The one negative for me would be that there were maybe too many details or trivial facts included. The author, Ann Rowe Seaman, had previously won an award for her biography of the despicable Jimmy Swaggart so this was not her first rodeo.
I applaud Madalyn's work in atheism, she was true to the cause and always at the forefront of the fight against religious intrusion in state matters. She was bright, charismatic, and bombastic, and was a force with a microphone in her hand. She filed numerous lawsuits regarding the violation of church and state - won some and lost some. She had the right idea in taking on religious nationalism and didn't lose debates against believers. She described herself as a "militant feminist" and was just as outspoken about women's equality as her atheism.
But she had a dark side as well and had many enemies. She made anti-Semitic comments, bullied employees and acquaintances, and mismanaged funds and spent money lavishly. A number of atheists who couldn't get a long with her branched off with their own organizations, one of the most well know and effective of these is the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Becoming acquainted with unsavory characters with criminal pasts ended up being her undoing at the end.
Her legacy lives on with the American Atheists and there are a plethora of videos of Marilyn speaking out in the interwebs. She would have a field day if she saw what was going on today in the USA regarding the intrusion of religion in to government.
October 20, 2013
While most reviews of this book have largely panned it for a variety of bad reasons, I can report that this book is a very well-written journalistic piece. It is thorough, perhaps more than necessary. However, if you don't want to learn about the subject of a biography, then don't read biographies. Also, if the subject of the biography is going to irritate your delicate religious sensibilities, then don't buy said biography. Instead, buy a Joel Osteen book and stare at the cover photo of his giant white teeth.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair inspires mixed feelings. She was certainly heroic, even if her motives may not have been, for challenging the theocratic fascists throughout the nation, wherever Mr. Jefferson's wall of separation was under siege. She fought every battle into which she could interject herself, trampling the ambitions of the Christian right, who then as now, wish to insert their superstition into every corner of society, constitution be damned.
On the other hand, she was a money grubber, soliciting donations for her various secular organizations and spending lavishly. Her inability to form lasting personal and professional relationships was a result of her tantrum-prone temper, a ticking bomb with a fuse of indeterminate length. She founded the American Atheists organization and thoroughly mismanaged it before her untimely death. She behaved exactly like the opprobrious televangelists she despised.
The verdict that must be reached is a decidedly as two-faced as the subject of the book. A woman with a good cause and an intelligent mind, but also an unquenchable thirst for attention, money, and power. She lost sight of the cause, though the cause was just.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair inspires mixed feelings. She was certainly heroic, even if her motives may not have been, for challenging the theocratic fascists throughout the nation, wherever Mr. Jefferson's wall of separation was under siege. She fought every battle into which she could interject herself, trampling the ambitions of the Christian right, who then as now, wish to insert their superstition into every corner of society, constitution be damned.
On the other hand, she was a money grubber, soliciting donations for her various secular organizations and spending lavishly. Her inability to form lasting personal and professional relationships was a result of her tantrum-prone temper, a ticking bomb with a fuse of indeterminate length. She founded the American Atheists organization and thoroughly mismanaged it before her untimely death. She behaved exactly like the opprobrious televangelists she despised.
The verdict that must be reached is a decidedly as two-faced as the subject of the book. A woman with a good cause and an intelligent mind, but also an unquenchable thirst for attention, money, and power. She lost sight of the cause, though the cause was just.
March 31, 2013
This biography takes an approach to the subject different from Bryan F. Le Beau's The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair, less scholarly but more complete. Seaman offers more insight into O'Hair's personal life but it's still difficult to get a strong sense of her personality.
August 28, 2018
It's rare for me to criticize a biography for being too detailed, but this one is. The facts are interesting, mostly, but too many of them are repeated too many times and in painfully tedious and convoluted fashion. I grabbed the book on impulse from a library shelf; I wouldn't recommend it to anyone actually interested in the subject. In hindsight, I suspect I'd have found all the information I wanted--likely presented in a more intelligible, coherent manner--in an hour of internet research.
December 21, 2010
I recall being warned about this woman’s dreaded campaigns in Sunday School—and you probably were, too. It seems that O’Hair’s influence even reached beyond the grave: to this day, email forwards still speak of her as if she is still living and stepping on religious folks’ toes.
O’Hair’s personality was outsized; I just wish the author would have written with a little more flair.
O’Hair’s personality was outsized; I just wish the author would have written with a little more flair.
January 15, 2024
Madalyn Murray O'Hair has such an interesting story, although this book does not do her justice. It is not a terrible book by any means, but it is quite boring in many parts. If you are REALLY interested in O'Hair and American Atheists then maybe you'd like this book, but otherwise, I would avoid it.
September 4, 2017
Completely riveting but deeply tragic. I had heard of Madalyn Murray O'Hair but knew very little before reading this book.
September 22, 2019
Interesting.
January 29, 2021
Amazing I loved this book, extremely grasps the life of Madalyn. 10/10
October 26, 2022
Dull and dry
December 9, 2008
I didn't get very far in this book. It was poorly written, all over the place.
February 4, 2009
Interresting book but a dry read. It took a long time to finish.
August 9, 2011
while the subject matter is historically interesting, the 'true crime' writing style makes this book seem sensationalistic and exploitive.
November 2, 2012
"All Colleen could remember was eating spaghetti, and then sitting on the bedroom floor, hearing a dripping sound on the carpet."
July 9, 2016
Fascinating story, mediocre writing.
August 18, 2016
Book gives an in depth view into the death of one America's most hated persons.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews