She was even worse in person.
I actually met the woman. I was working security at an event where she was speaking, and spent some time chatting with her while she was waiting to go on. She just exuded an air of mean. Glared at everyone, snapped at anything.
My theory is that maybe it took someone like this to take the stand that she did, knowing that she was going to be castigated by large numbers of people (at best; killed at worst).
My bad about getting the network wrong. It wouldn’t surprise that some cops who were Christians didn’t want to look too hard. In particular, what if some Christian kook had been behind all this? In that scenario, if she was found dead, she’d have become an atheist martyr.
Maybe Brokaw should have said “Atheists have the dubious honor of having her as their most famous representative.” G
Good point. She had to know she’d be widely reviled. Most atheists would have just told their kid to ignore the school prayers, and keep their mouth shut.
In any case her death wound up apparently a money-driven crime.
People have been known to make principled, unpopular stands in the face of censure and castigation, without becoming vitriolic and alienating and gratuitiously combative. And part of the “embarassment” was that as time went on, she ever more often seemed to not just fight the entanglements of church and state, but to fight religion for its own sake, and to fight whatever brand of atheism did not satisfy her.
I would not go so far as to accuse authorities of “not looking for her too hard” because of being Believers and fearing her martyrdom, as much as that they considered her a “fringe kook” and, sorry to say, “fringe kooks” don’t get intense searches from The Man unless he’s looking to get them for something.
I would not, however, say MMOH:Atheists :: Phelps:Christians ; that’s a bit extreme. She’d be more like the MMOH:Atheists :: Jerry Falwell:Evangelicals, minus the political influence – someone with enough real impact and importance within the movement to be its “face”, but who at the same time is single-minded, intolerant, full of him/herself, prone to imposing his/her viewpoint on others, and often just asinine in speech and demeanor.
Jesus Christ and General Jackson! That thing is still going around? I remember seeing it in 1975 and having to shoot it down a couple of times in following years. It almost seems that some folks need to feel persecuted. If so, then Mrs. O’Hair was certainly, for them, a Godsend.
[don’t stand too close to me - that last paragraph should produce several bolts of lightning with my name on 'em]
I don’t think it’s even that. O’Hair was known to keep a stash of money in a foeign country, for when she decided to flee the country. Then she disappeared, without any leads or evidence. The cops didn’t have much of a chance.
The person who put it all together was a reporter in San Antonio, who connected a missing person from Florida (Danny Fry) with a headless, handless corpse found near here (Dallas) a year or two earlier. Danny Fry turned out to be one of O’Hair’s kidnappers. I read a long story on it, back before her body was discovered, and it was quite an interesting investigation.
Point taken! I retract my earlier comment about Christians and Fred Phelps in favor of this one.
Sorry I’ve been delayed in getting back here. My life gets in the way of my fun, sometimes. 
Anyway, I’ve read the responses so far, but don’t have time to respond in kind right now, since I’m about to run off to another class. I’ll put some thoughts down in post form later tonight. Thanks, everyone. lots to think about here.
I don’t mean to bump this thread, although it’s only 10 days old or so, but do you have a link to the story? I’ve only heard the barest outlines.
It’s covered in the Wikipedia article, linked in post #3.
Here’s a decent write-up: http://crimemagazine.com/ohair.htm