Remains of Missing Atheist ID'd

March 15, 2001 -- The six-year mystery over the disappearance of the nation's most famous atheist and her two of her relatives is over.

FBI investigators today confirmed that the charred remains they found on a remote southwest Texas ranch in January are those of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray and her granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair. They disappeared from San Antonio in1995 along with $500,000 in gold coins.

Government investigators said today the remains showed that they were dismembered before they were buried. Although one investigator said he could not tell what specifically caused the victims' deaths, he said he was confident that Jon Murray had been tortured.

"The skeletal remains of Madalyn Murray O'Hair showed no sign or defect of a cause of death that could be determined," said anthropologist David Glassman, who helped identify the remains. "His [Jon's] head had been covered in a plastic bag when it was found. His arms had been bound with a plastic ligature. And there was some trauma in the form of defect fractures that were found to the side of his head in the back."

In addition to three skulls, investigators in January uncovered burned fabric and a metal artificial hip in a shallow grave on the Texas ranch. Years before her disappearance, O'Hair had had hip replacement surgery.

Deal Leads to Breakthrough

Investigators found the bodies days after prosecutors reached a deal with David Roland Waters, who was facing kidnapping and extortion charges in the case. Waters, 53, who worked for O'Hair in her Austin office, is serving a 60-year prison term for stealing $54,000 from her and violating his probation.

As part of his deal, Waters reportedly agreed to confess to his role in the crime and reveal all he knew in the case, including the location of the bodies. Police say he led investigators to the burial site within the 5,000-acre ranch, located about 100 miles from San Antonio. Police had combed the ranch four previous times but came up with nothing..

Two other men, Gary Paul Karr and Danny Fry, had been accused in their disappearance but no one has been charged in their deaths. Fry was found dead in 1995; last year, Karr was convicted of extortion, but acquitted of kidnapping in the case. He is serving a life sentence under Texas' three-strikes law.

O'Hair made legal history in 1959 when she and her eldest son sued the Baltimore Public Schools in protest against mandatory school prayers and Bible reading in the classroom. The issue, O'Hair has said, was not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. The Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1962, declaring forced prayers in public schools to be unconstitutional.

ABCNEWS' Jim Forsythe in San Antonio contributed to this report.