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LINK Life Sentence Reduced for Man Who Helped Murder Atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

In 1995, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the founder of American Atheists and still one of the best known atheists in the country, was kidnapped (along with her son and granddaughter) by a man who worked for the organization. All three atheists were later killed.

It’s a horrific story that had everything to do with money and nothing to do with atheism.

David Roland Waters and Gary Karr were two of the men involved in the scheme. Waters was given a 20-year prison sentence but died in 2003. Karr was handed two life sentences, having been found guilty on charges that included extortion and money laundering. (He was not charged with kidnapping because the victims’ bodies had not been found at the time.) Karr remains in prison to this day. He’s the only culprit still alive.

But the Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that the sorts of crimes Karr was found guilty of were not eligible for life sentences.

With that in mind, yesterday, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel re-sentenced Karr to a grand total of about 50 years in prison. The 21 years he’s already served will count toward that sentence.

snytiger6 9 Mar 13
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2 comments

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2

Kind of hard to get upset about this. Fifty years might as well be a life sentence. He hasn't even served half of that yet, and he's in his seventies. Sounds like a lot of time and money wasted for the exact same result. He will die in prison.

dkp93 Level 8 Mar 13, 2021

Nothing wrong with that.

1

Murdered her for money. Killed the whole family for what would be a few million in gold coins. Savage animal. For what reason would they reduce the sentence. I'm sure this judge is a religious wingnut. Texas Republican. Sonofabitch.

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