Tennessee Pastor Forgives and Befriends the Man Who Murdered His Father When He Was a Boy

Phillip Robinson, left, and the man who killed his father, Ron Hammer, chat in the foyer of Hammer’s church in Virginia between services over Memorial Day weekend.
(Photo: Submitted)

Phillip Robinson kept working at his father’s grocery store, even after he heard someone had been shot in the parking lot.

It was around 5:15 p.m. on a Friday, a really busy time for any grocery store, including Frank’s IGA in Murfreesboro. Besides, Robinson and his wife were expecting company at the house that night, and he really wanted to get out of there.

“So I kept on working,” Robinson said. “This has nothing to do with me.”

When he was told the man who was shot was his dad, Robinson ran out of the store, looked at the body and noticed his dad didn’t have his eyeglasses on. They’d come off his face when he fell.

Robinson, then 30, jumped in his car to get his mother at their house a few blocks away.

Wayne Robinson was pronounced dead at the hospital, and his son had his first thought about the shooter: “I wanted him dead.”

Some 29 years later, Phillip Robinson is friends with the man who murdered his father. Robinson even testified last year to help the gunman, Ron Hammer, win his release from prison.

And murderer and murder victim’s son will stand together to tell their story of how and why that happened Sunday at New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, where Robinson is now a pastor. Those services also will stream live at http://www.newvisionlife.com/watchlive/.

“This is a story about life and living it fully,” Robinson said. “I do that by forgiving. Ron benefits, but I benefit too.”

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SOURCE: USA Today
Brad Schmitt, The (Nashville) Tennessean