Not In Our Town: The Legacy of Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder

Editor’s Note: Ten years ago, on July 1, 1999, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, a gay couple from Redding, California, were murdered by
white supremacists. Benjamin Matthew Williams and James Tyler Williams confessed to killing the couple because they were gay. The two brothers were also responsible for the 1999 Sacramento synagogue arson attacks. The Working Group documented the tragic loss and the remarkable response by the greater community to condemn hate violence and support the Matson and Mowder families. We asked Clea Matson, Gary’s daughter, to reflect on the couple’s legacy.

By Clea Matson for Not In Our Town:

It has been 10 years since my dad and his partner were murdered. It is so surreal to write those words, simply because I cannot believe that it has already been 10 years since my life changed so drastically, so suddenly, and in such an unexpected way. Even after such a significant amount of time, I still find myself, at times, feeling angry at the fact that my parents were robbed of such a large part of their lives, and that my family and I were robbed of them. But the person that I have become over the last 10 years has been so affected by this experience with loss, violence and hate, and there are things about the person that I’ve become – things that I have learned – that I am proud of.


Through my experience growing up in a place that I perceived to be not accepting of my family, and living through the events of the past 10 years, something that I have come to know is that an ability to feel empathy, or to pay enough attention to feel true empathy, is an essential ingredient to being truly tolerant (or “accepting,” as my mom would have said).

I have learned, and am learning, to be this observant. I realize now that people are hardly ever who they appear to be at first glance. I realize that there is so much behind the actions and statements of each and every person. At the time of my parents’ murders, I could not believe that anyone could see them only as symbols of something wrong with the world. To me, they were, and will always be, symbols of what can be right with the world. This is partly because of their determination to live their lives as they wanted and with whom they wanted, but mostly because of other things: because of how important their community was to them, and what great parents they were.

Soon after my parents’ death a friend gave me a small piece of paper with a famous quote by Martin Luther King, Jr., the one that ends with:

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”

Since then I have taken this on as a sort of motto to live by – a truth to make sure that I constantly remind myself of.

Clea Matson is pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Amsterdam

Watch video of Clea and her family featured in “Not In Our Town Northern California: When Hate Happens Here”: