The Strange, Sad Story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair

I mentioned her in my previous post, but I feel she needs her own posting.

I remember first hearing about the disappearance of Madalyn and her family (of the willing) a few years after the deed. When the subject came around, I felt she had been murdered, as she would not have just gone quiet. My friend disagreed, believing they were living elsewhere with lots of money, far from scrutiny.

Turned out that, while I was right, there were plans along my friend's line of reasoning, and it could easily have been the other way around.

Of course, what's interesting is not of the murder, but the way she lived. She was belligerant to the point that even her ideological allies were made uncomfortable, and seemed to do things to piss people off. Indeed, it seemed the only people who could put up with her were ex-cons; and Madalyn seemed to like hiring them because they were easy to abuse and cheap.

But you know the rule: You Get What You Pay For. One hire (David Waters, now dead from cancer) turned around and stole lots of stuff from them, and when O'Hair took her revenge in the form of a letter outing his criminal past, Walters took his -- by kidnapping, torturing, looting; then killing the O'Hairs.

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Now everyone -- Billy Murray included -- wants to believe that the murder was something beyond the pale of God's justice. Even the most fundamentalist of Christians, who would seem at home with God's justice, want to believe that God is a cream-puff at heart.

Here's a thought: What if God felt the time had come for his revenge and chose a criminal to carry out His plans? Consider what had happened: The thiefs stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the O'Hairs, then found the stuff missing, taken by theives who enjoyed the extreme luck of finding the stuff and having the key that worked in the lock. One of the primaries was killed after the O'Hairs, and the other suffered from an extremely painful form of cancer before finally dying in 2003. And the survivor comes from a fundamentalist (bible only) Christian Denomination. Nobody in O'Hair's organization mourned her death, but instead took over her company and continued in her stead, not even caring about her and her kids.

And finally: Mrs. O'Hair WAS prayed over when the body was found.

It's amazing that when some good is done God is readily invoked, but when something seemingly bad is done that appears Karmically called for God is suddenly absent. Why? If God can act through people for good, why not have Him act through people in a radical correction of Evil? Maybe IF I make it to Heaven (I'm not taking anything for Granted) I'll run into David Walters, who I'm sure will still be walking around in a daze wondering what the heck he was doing there after his life. Maybe he came to Christ during his time in the Federal Prison -- it happens quite frequently. Sitting in a cell gives one time to ponder over life and the higher things, especially a federal prison, safe from the Texan sense of joy over the suffering of criminals.

(And one last thing: Why the %&*^*&^% would Madalyn Murray O'Hair settle in Texas? Why not New York, or San Francisco? She definitely gathered enough money to afford the move.)