Pastor befriends the man who murdered his father

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 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, June 14, at New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, where Robinson is now a pastor.

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

Wayne Robinson was coming back from the bank with about $10,000 in cash for the store for the weekend. That's when Hammer and an accomplice attacked.

Hammer was the gunman, but adamantly denied that for years.

Phillip Robinson felt in those troubled days in 1986 that the only way he might have peace again was for both criminals to get the death penalty.

"I wanted them to pay the full price for their crime. A great deal of my life was hanging on their conviction. It felt that way," he said. "I figured they would do it again."

Instead, his father's killers got a life sentence for murder and 35 additional years for armed robbery.

"That took away the vengeance part. That placates that emotion to some degree. But certainly not closure. My dad's dead and they're alive. And their family has contact with them."

About eight years later, Robinson got to a place in his heart where he could forgive. But he couldn't write to the killers to let them know that.

"I couldn't communicate with Ron Hammer until he communicated with us."

That letter wouldn't come for another 13 years.

In it, Hammer admitted he pulled the trigger. And he asked the Robinsons for forgiveness.

That's when Robinson, who had become a pastor at New Vision Baptist Church, and Hammer started writing back and forth. Robinson and his mom eventually testified for Hammer at a parole hearing last year. Hammer walked out of prison in March.

Two months later, Robinson traveled to Hammer's house in Virginia to meet his father's murderer, a man who had become a friend.

They embraced and later prayed together.

"I reached out two hands," Robinson said. "And it was powerful to think last time he had physical contact with my family, it was death. And now it was life. It was pretty overwhelming."

Murderer and victim's family to appear together

UPDATE: Ron Hammer can't make the trip to Nashville, so he will appear online via Skype.

Pastor Phillip Robinson and the man who murdered his father, Ron Hammer, will appear together Sunday at New Vision Baptist Church, 1750 N. Thompson Lane in Murfreesboro.

They will be part of each service, at 8:20 a.m., 9:40 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Those services also will stream live at http://www.newvisionlife.com/watchlive/.