WATCH (above): A Tsawwassen father offers forgiveness to his son’s killer. Elaine Yong reports.
It’s been an emotional roller coaster and a day-to-day struggle for the family of 21-year-old Taylor Johnson, who was murdered in February 2013.
Late last week the accused, 23-year-old Jesse Hill from Surrey, was sentenced to nine years in jail and this afternoon Taylor’s father Paul talked to Global News about the heartbreak and how their family is moving forward.
Taylor, described as a “good kid who gave everyone the benefit of the doubt”, was found shot and killed in the home of a marijuana grow-op in Langley in 2013. It turned out the young man was an innocent victim who was just a caretaker for the property.
At the time of Hill’s arrest, Sgt. Jennifer Pound of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said the shooting was random and it “was a senseless act that tragically took the life of Taylor.”
Last week while sitting in the courtroom awaiting Hill’s sentence, Paul said his thoughts at the time were of his son.
“I thought about him in the courtroom, I thought about him sitting there and what he might say,” Paul said.
“Sometimes when you feel like you’re trying to extend grace and forgiveness, that you’re dishonouring the person that’s been killed. But I didn’t feel like that with Taylor because I felt he would have been with us doing the same thing. And he would have been giving me the elbow saying, ‘Come on Dad.’ ‘ You should do this Dad.’ ‘You can do this Dad.'”
The Johnsons addressed the killer during sentencing but it wasn’t the first time they had spoken to Hill face-to-face. On the night of his arrest, Hill asked if he could speak to Taylor’s parents so he could apologize.
“I told him something along the lines that it took a lot of guts to say that to me and we’re going to work on forgiving you. Then I told him that he can still turn his life around and God can redeem him, and would you like me to come and tell you more about that later? And he said he would. Then he walked across the room and kind of surprised me and gave me a hug.”
It has been a struggle especially for Taylor’s younger brothers and sister but they have found strength through their faith at the community at South Delta Baptist Church and their memories of a kind and gentle young man who was loved by all and always saw the good.
“And he was always good about saying ‘Hey Dad I love you’ and the last text I got from him was that — ‘I love you’. I still haven’t erased that text stream from my phone because that’s a good memory.
~ with files from Elaine Yong and Amy Judd
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