Victimless crime

At the center of the case is a half million dollars' worth of gold coins. And among the more intriguing questions of the whole convoluted tale was, Whatever happened to the loot? During trial, several witnesses testified about how on September 29, 1995, an unwashed, unkempt Jon Murray had picked up the shipment of Krugerrands, Maple Leafs, and American Eagles at a conference room at the Frost Bank in San Antonio. "He was a little ripe," recalled jeweler Cory Ticknor, who sold the coins. But Murray didn't keep the gold for long. Other witnesses testified that a day or so later, Waters put the coins, contained in a large black suitcase, in a storage locker on Burnet Road in Austin and returned on October 3, 1995, to find the locker open and empty. Did Waters hide it? Did the bad guys spend it? Did the O'Hairs take it overseas? None of the above.

Last summer, the FBI held a news conference in San Antonio describing how three San Antonio youths had found the pot at the end of the rainbow at a storage locker in Austin. According to the feds, the three had randomly broken into the locker Waters had rented by using a skeleton key and made off with the 100 pounds of gold. At Karr's trial, the cheerfully unrepentant coin thieves, who were given immunity in exchange for their testimony, told the world about their great adventure and good times compliments of those bad, bad guys from Peoria and the atheists.

The boys said that when they figured out what they had, they just did what came naturally, blowing the money on strippers, guns, hot cars, stereo equipment, townhouses, fancy furniture, jewelry, and a junket to Vegas. "Mostly we went to strip clubs. I spent $1,000 to $1,500 a day. I went every day," said Jaime Valdes, properly attired in a white shirt and tie. "I'd buy drinks for everybody, pay for table dances for people, buy drinks for all the waitresses. You could go ask them; they still remember," he said, prompting laughter from jurors and spectators.

Valdes said he rented two homes at the same time, one for himself and one for his girlfriend, who worked as a stripper at a club in San Antonio. Sometimes, he would pay her $500 to stay home from work and spend the day with him.

Joey Cardenas, now trying to get his private investigator's license, recalled how he and his two lucky buddies had divvied the coins up in Valdes' home, much as kids would a mound of Halloween candy. "The pile was in the middle of the floor. We were all around it and we would just grab a handful. Sometimes you did one handful. Sometimes you did two. It didn't matter," said Cardenas. Valdes and Cardenas estimated they got between $120,000 and $140,000 each.

The third thief, Joe Cortez Jr., who had the master key, said he never even knew how much he spent and had nothing left from their spending binge. Cardenas likewise had nothing. Only Valdes had something to show for his mad bullion binge. "Only a 3-year-old daughter," he said.

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Karr went to trial, risking a life sentence, having spurned repeated government offers of leniency in exchange for his testifying against Waters and showing them where the O'Hairs' bodies are buried. But all the government offers had come with a caveat: It was good only if Karr had not killed anyone. Late in the trial, it was apparent why Karr may not have been able to make a deal. After Fry vanished, David Waters had reappeared with deep fingerprint bruises on his arms. Was it from jumping and then holding a struggling Danny Fry while his buddy delivered the coup de grace? Convict testimony suggested just such a scene.

"Karr said he shot Danny Fry," said Cross, Karr's prison buddy in Michigan. He said Karr told him he used his .22-caliber pistol on Fry because it made less of a mess than a bigger gun. "He said the bullet doesn't exit the body. It just kind of bounces around inside," Cross recalled. While sharing contraband cigarettes in prison, Karr, the seasoned convict, had cautioned Cross about talking to other inmates about sensitive matters.

"He said other inmates would try to get a downward departure or go home early" by ratting on their buddies to authorities, Cross said.

"And Mr. Karr apparently did not follow his own advice," said Carruth.

"No, he did not," replied Cross.

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After days of nagging and sparring with the government's army of witnesses, Karr's lawyers took two hours to present four of their own. The best was an entirely serious Southern Baptist minister who said he believed he saw O'Hair in a resort town in Romania in 1997 and had reported this to Austin police.

"She looked overweight, sickly, and in her mid-70s, and with whitish, grayish hair. She was fully engaged in eating," recalled William Gordon Jr. of Georgia. "I can simply say the woman looked like Madalyn Murray O'Hair. I can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt it was her," he said.

A lawyer watching the trial from the gallery reacted with shock when the defense rested its case so quickly. "Knock me over with a feather. They're pretty much left with claiming the government didn't prove it," he said outside the courtroom. "I would have put that old boy [Karr] on the stand; maybe he's got some personality to convince the jury. They've pretty much made Waters into Lucifer. Maybe he could have testified that everything he did was because he was afraid of Waters," the lawyer said. "I told that to Carruth, and he said, 'We'd eat him up.' And I said, 'He's already been eaten up.'"