Transforming Family Tragedies Puts Biehls, Turvilles in Spotlight

They too had lost a beloved child to unspeakable violence. And stunned their family and friends by forgiving the killer and reaching out to his family.

Steve and Mary Turville of Orange joined Newport Beach activist Linda Biehl--whose daughter Amy’s death in South Africa turned her and her husband into crusaders for the strife-torn nation--as recipients of the first “Scars into Stars” awards.

Crystal Cathedral founder Rev. Robert H. Schuller handed out the awards Sunday to those who transformed personal tragedies into positive victories.

The Turvilles went through the greatest test of their faith two years ago when their 20-year-old son Joshua was murdered in Colorado by a young man he befriended though his church work.

“A year after his death, I called the mother of the boy who killed our son,” said Steve Turville. “I quickly realized that she was a parent who had lost a child too, but that it was even worse for her because her son was the bad boy while ours was the good boy.”

“We don’t want to give the idea that we don’t have pain and tears, because we do. But God has shown us there is a way to experience peace through losses,” said Mary Turville.

The couple now use their experience to counsel other parents of murdered children.

The awards were part of a special service that ended with the first tree-lighting ceremony at the church. It was an evening that brought together some of the “true stars” who suffered through some of life’s greatest pain, said Schuller.

In introducing Biehl, Schuller explained that he first heard of her tragedy through the media: “I’d read the newspaper stories to my wife and we’d cry.”

Biehl’s 26-year-old daughter Amy, a volunteer in South African squatter camps, was stabbed and beaten to death by an angry mob of young men in 1993. Instead of seeking revenge, Peter and Linda Biehl forgave their daughter’s killers and supported the amnesty the four men were granted earlier this summer, giving them their freedom.

They have made a life of improving the South African township where their daughter had worked, moving there and setting up a foundation that pours money into assistance programs for the area.

Linda Biehl tried to explain their unusual attitude of forgiveness this way: “We all have the capacity to make the words ‘Peace on earth, good will toward men,’ a reality, not an abstraction,” she said in accepting the award.

The remaining three award recipients were entrepreneur Wally Amos, who made his name and fortune with ‘Famous Amos’ cookies, lost them both when his business turned sour, and rebounded with a new company; June Scobee Rodgers, whose astronaut husband died in the Challenger space shuttle explosion, but went on to found 31 centers throughout the country that teach kids about science and space travel; and Max Cleland, a Vietnam War veteran and triple amputee who overcame his disabilities to become a U.S. Senator from Georgia.