Word: jons
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...America's most famous atheist take the money and run?" asked one newspaper. "Is Madalyn Murray O'Hair...now enjoying a South Pacific exile?" Former colleagues confirmed that the O'Hairs had long considered New Zealand a safe haven in case America got too inhospitable. In fact, Jon visited in 1994 to inquire about the family's moving. However, his host and ideological comrade, John S. Jones, claims that Jon never applied for residency, and representatives of New Zealand's major areligious organizations all deny an O'Hair presence. Moreover, says American Atheists' Johnson, "I have their passports right here...
Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service was seeking $1.5 million in back taxes and penalties from Jon and Robin. (The amount would eventually drop to $36,787, atheist lawyers have said.) And there was the payback for Madalyn's tendency to litigate. In September 1987, she sued for control of a California atheist organization called Truth Seeker. (The bid failed.) Truth Seeker's furious owner countersued American Atheists under a federal racketeering law. The dispute eventually ate up more than $500,000 in legal fees; at one point Madalyn was so sure of losing that she told an employee...
...team at its center, however, was growing tighter than ever. Despite Madalyn's retirement, she came in to work seven days a week. Jon was very much a presence, "this screaming madman running around the office, shouting obscenities about everyone and everything," recalls former employee Travis. Robin, who had run the magazine and maintained a valuable library of atheist books, was much quieter and reputedly much brighter, but capable of answering back in kind. During working hours, says American Atheists officer and longtime Murray-O'Hair friend Arnold Via, "they didn't bother one another unless they wanted...
...current American Atheists president Ellen Johnson (Tyson refuses to talk about the disappearance because of pending litigation), Tyson discovered that the family "had left in the middle of preparing breakfast, very suddenly." Soon, however, they were heard from: in calls with Johnson, Tyson and other American Atheists officers on Jon Murray's cell phone, the family, which had been expected to leave soon to picket the Pope in New York City, claimed to be on "business" in San Antonio, Texas. There followed an exchange of some half a dozen phone calls that can only be called surreal. "We were doing...
...tune had changed: 1995 tax forms for the United Secularists of America, one of American Atheists' affiliated groups, stated, "The $612,000 shown as a decease [sic] in net assets...represents the value of the United Secularists of America's assets believed to be in the possession of Jon Murray, former Secretary. The whereabouts of Jon Murray and these assets have not been known since September 1995 and is not known to the organization at this time." Losses totaling $17,500 by two other O'Hair organizations were described the same way. Tyson and Johnson indicate that the missing funds...