Rex Hintze. I will never forget that name.
I was an impressionable 14-year-old when he beat the girl to death in the desert west of Tooele. He was just 17 and the girl was 18 and they had driven to Wendover and he got drunk and then got angry when his car got stuck in the mud and he took it out on her with a hammer.
The resultant trial was front page news.
Not that there weren't plenty of murder trials in the news in 1963.
What made the name, and the murder, stick with me is because of what happened when the trial opened.
In full view of the judge, the lawyers, the public spectators, the media, everyone, the murdered girl's father, a man named J. Maurice Clayton, walked over and warmly shook Rex Hintze's hand.
"I told the boy I wanted him to go into this thing knowing that Carol's mother and father bear him no ill will or malice," Clayton said to reporters covering the trial that day. "There are judgments that belong in the courts of man and others that belong in the courts of God."
I was stunned. I couldn't conceive of such a thing. I had never before witnessed someone turning the other cheek quite like that. I wondered then, and have wondered numerous times since, if I could be capable of such compassion and forgiveness under similar circumstances.
I bring it up again 44 years later because in this winter of our discontent, with tragedies stacked up like wrecks on a race track, I have witnessed more Mr. Claytons.
I stand in awe of Gary Ceran. His wife, Cheryl, and two of his children, Julianna and Ian, were killed this past Christmas Eve when their car was plowed into by an alleged drunken driver who police say ran a red light. "My heart totally goes out to him," Ceran said of Carlos Prieto, the 24-year-old man booked into jail on three counts of vehicular homicide. "(I have) not one iota of anger. ... he has to deal with the same grief and loss as I do, as well as deal with the guilt and remorse of being the cause of it."
(That sentiment is remarkably similar, by the way, to what J. Maurice Clayton said in 1963 of Rex Hintze: "We feel that our tragedy is not over, but that much of it is past," said Mr. Clayton. "The boy's tragedy and his family's tragedy is just beginning.")
I stand in awe of Chris Williams. His pregnant wife, Michelle, and two of his children, Ben and Anna, were killed in February when their car was plowed into by a 17-year-old high school student who police say was intoxicated. No sooner had the nightmare unfolded in front of Williams' eyes than he said he made up his mind to "unconditionally forgive" the driver of the other car. He said he knew it was also what Michelle would have wanted and that only through forgiveness could the healing process begin.
I stand in awe of Nathan Ellis, the husband of Teresa Ellis, one of five people gunned down at Trolley Square on Feb. 12 by 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic. At Teresa's funeral, Nathan said he was following Teresa's example and what he was sure would be her wish when he said, "I forgive the guy who shot and killed those people. We don't know what he was thinking. ... but we can all forgive, just as she would have forgiven."
And I stand in most recent awe of Anna Kei'aho, the mother of Lopeti Robert Kei'aho, who stood up in court last week and forgave Sione Maafu Kauvaka, the man who had just been convicted of the first-degree murder of her son. As her daughter translated her mother's Tongan to English, those present heard Mrs. Kei'aho extend love and forgiveness to Kauvaka and his family.
Deseret News reporter Linda Thomson, an eyewitness to the dramatic courtroom scene, said it was "the most astonishing display of what I assume was true Christianity I have ever seen. Quite frankly I was stunned. I'll never forget it."
Just as I will never forget Rex Hintze.
And I can't help but wonder. Are there 14-year-olds out there right now who are getting the same kind of impact from Gary Ceran, from Chris Williams, from Nathan Ellis, from Anna Kei'aho, that I got a long time ago from J. Maurice Clayton, a man who has no idea the impact his example had on me?
I'd like to think so.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.