(RNS) — Theologians, preachers and best-selling authors have long tried to explain why bad things happen to good people. But there’s a second question that doesn’t get as much attention.
What happens when a good person does something that seems unforgivable? That’s the question Tom King’s family faced on an early morning last fall as King was dying in a hospital room in Akron, Ohio, after he was hit on his motorcycle by a pickup truck.
Would they respond in anger? Or with mercy?
A few hours earlier on Nov. 8, 2024, King, a 72-year-old Navy veteran and retiree, had driven off on his beloved motorcycle from a Salvation Army food pantry where he volunteered five days a week. Driving through downtown Akron, he was struck by a 2014 Ford F-150 pickup that ran a stop sign.
The truck driver was Brandon Wellert, a 25-year-old surveyor’s assistant and father of two, who was on his way home from a job site. Wellert was driving down an unfamiliar street when he missed a stop sign. By the time he saw King’s motorcycle, it was too late. His truck collided with King, who suffered a serious head injury and was taken to a nearby hospital.
Brandon Wellert with his children. (Photo courtesy Brandon Wellert)
Doctors told King’s family he would not recover. It was just a matter of time before his heart gave out. At that moment, the family’s thoughts turned to the young man who was to blame. They believe King — who had become a kind, soft-hearted man as he grew older — would want to make sure Wellert was OK.
So, the family, who are Christians, began to pray.
“Tom forgave that young man before he hit the curb,” Rich King, Tom’s younger brother, said.
In the following months, King’s family pressed law enforcement officials to show mercy to Wellert. They showed up in court to advocate on his behalf.
“My view was that this young man already had a life sentence because he’s got to process this for the rest of his life,” Rich King said.
On the night of the crash, Christy Boulton, Wellert’s mother, was praying as well. She got a call from her ex-husband letting her know about the accident. Boulton said she prayed for King’s recovery — part out of concern for him, part out of worry for her son.
“All that night we prayed he’d be OK,” said Boulton, who grew up Baptist and now identifies as a non-denominational Christian.
The next morning, they learned King had died. “Mom, I killed a guy,” Boulton recalled her son saying when he called with the news. “I’ll never forget that.”
A week after the crash, Wellert was charged with vehicular homicide and learned he could face six months in jail. Because he had been driving a company truck at the time, Wellert also lost his job.
Boulton feared King’s family would be angry with her son and want to see him punished severely for the accident. A friend of hers had lost a daughter in a car crash, and she recalled how angry she felt at the driver at fault.
“I wanted that guy to pay,” she said. “That’s just our nature.”
The two families were told by their lawyers and law enforcement officials to stay away from each other while the case made its way through the court. Still, at one hearing, some of King’s family spoke to Wellert’s lawyer. They wanted the lawyer to pass on that they were praying for him.
Boulton also began to follow King’s family on social media, hoping to get a sense of how they might respond. The more she learned about King, the worse she felt.
“I was grieving for him,” she said. “And I was scared for my son. It was a weird place.”
In the months following the crash, King’s family began processing their grief. Rich King spends most of his time these days at his late brother’s house, sorting things out.
“His old work tennis shoes are in the same spot he left them,” Rich King said. “He kicked them off when he walked in the back door. And I just kind of walk around them — that’s just me processing and dealing with things. I’ll get there one day.”
Rich King ended up being the primary contact with law enforcement after the accident and advocated against Wellert going to prison.
“I couldn’t do anything for Tom, he was already gone,” Rich King said. “I felt, why put that young man in jail? Most people in this world have run a stop sign.”
A Navy veteran who spent 40 years working for the Coca-Cola Company with a short stint running a restaurant in Florida, Tom King marched to the beat of his own drummer, said Tim King, his twin brother. He’d been hard-working and ornery as a younger man but mellowed in later life.
His family attributed the changes in Tom King to his newfound faith. About a decade ago, he began reading the Bible regularly and became part of a Salvation Army congregation after his first wife died of cancer. He had been taking care of her and looking for comfort and meaning. Tim King also suspected Tom wanted to leave a legacy of faith for his grandkids.
Tom King and his first wife had not always seen eye to eye about religion, Tim said, which made his turn to faith complicated.
“He used to have to hide his Bible,” Tim King said.
After retiring, Tom King had thrown himself into volunteering with the Salvation Army’s food pantry. Working there had brought him a new group of friends and gave purpose to his life.
“He drove the food truck, helped stock shelves, greeted and assisted clients, cleaned and anything and everything else that was needed,” said Bramwell Applin, area coordinator of the Salvation Army’s Summit County Area Services in Akron.
Tom King was also an enthusiastic bellringer during the Christmas season, raising funds by manning one of the Salvation Army’s famed red kettles. He was known for wishing everyone he met a blessed day — and meaning it.
“There was never a moment in my short time knowing Tom that I felt like a stranger to him, and I think that experience would ring true for everyone he met,” said Applin.
Tim King said Tom’s sense of compassion shaped how his family responded to the accident.
“Tom was just a victim of circumstance,” Tim King said. “There was no need to be vengeful.”
Tom King, right, his granddaughter, Carmen Tenney, who advocated for Brandon Wellert at his sentencing. (Photo courtesy Carmen Tenney)
Robert Enright, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies forgiveness, said it can take many shapes. Sometimes forgiveness can be immediate, and other times, it’s a long process. He said there is a difference between deciding to forgive someone and then walking what he called the path of forgiveness — where you wish the other person well and see the other person as having worth.
King’s death was an injustice, Enright said, and it deserved to have consequences. But there was still room for his family to show mercy.
“What they are trying to do is balance justice with mercy,” he said.
Forgiveness did not make the pain of grief go away, said Carmen Tenney, Tom King’s granddaughter. She had just seen him the day before the accident, when he visited for her birthday, bringing a card and praying with her.
“He was going to be the one who walked me down the aisle,” Tenney said. “He is not going to be there. I was angry.”
She said she believed King, whom she called “papa,” would want her to forgive Wellert, but it was not easy.
But as the day of Wellert’s sentencing approached, Tenney said her mind began to change.
“I know even in my anger that my papa forgave him,” she said. “He would have said, don’t let his life be ruined over an accident.”
On the day of the sentencing, she had a simple message for Wellert — that her grandfather had already forgiven him.
“I told Brandon that I hope that someday soon you could forgive yourself,” she said. “And that’s basically all I could get out without breaking down.”
Wellert pleaded guilty, and King’s relatives asked he be assigned to do community service for the Salvation Army as a way of carrying on King’s legacy. The judge gave Wellert 80 hours of service at the Salvation Army and suspended his license. He received no jail time.
“I saw God today,” Boulton later wrote on Facebook, recounting the story.
Though she never met him, she’s grateful for King’s legacy. “Tom King has blessed my life,” she said.
The night of the accident remains difficult for Wellert, who began seeing a counselor to help work through how to live with what happened.
“I’m hanging in there,” Wellert said. “It’s still tough to think about. No matter how many times you keep replaying it in your head, it’s never going to make sense.”
He said there was a sense of relief when he heard King’s family speak in the courtroom. He said he was moved by how much they cared for him.
“They said that when they got to the hospital after Mr. King had passed, they prayed for me,” he said. “They were worried about how I was doing.”
Family members say King’s legacy continues to inspire them. The last time she saw her papa, Tenney said that he told her about his work with the Salvation Army and how it was going and asked how she and the kids were doing. He played with the kids for a while, “just being goofy,” she said.
Then he gave her the same advice he always did— “You’ve got to just keep going.”
