[1] He was divorced from his wife, Marcia Howe, who was also responsible for the founding of Carter House Natural Science Museum and with whom he had a daughter, Clea.
Mowder, 40, held a Bachelor of Science degree in anthropology and worked part-time as an associate in Orchard Supply Hardware's Garden Department, while also attending Chico State University.
[2] He frequently spoke at local high schools, serving as a source of knowledge and support for both gay and straight teens.
On the morning of July 1, Oscar Matson called his son, Gary, and heard a newly recorded outgoing answering machine message saying that they both were ill and were leaving to visit with a "specialist friend" of theirs in San Francisco for a week.
[8] Matthew and Tyler Williams were arrested after police found Matson's vehicle abandoned at the side of the road near Oroville, California.
Police were alerted by a phone call made two hours after Matson and Mowder were killed, to a company in Scottsdale, Arizona.
[3] Searches of the brothers' residences yielded literature from white supremacist organizations,[9] including the World Church of the Creator (now known as the Creativity Movement).
The Matson and Mowder murders took place just days before World Church of the Creator associate Benjamin Nathaniel Smith went on a shooting spree targeting racial and ethnic minorities in Illinois and Indiana.
[2] In a pre-sentencing interview with Shasta County deputy probation officer Gerald Salles, Tyler Williams recounted how he and his brother planned and carried out the murders.
[3] According to Tyler, the brothers drove out to Happy Valley late on the night of June 30 or early on July 1, in a Toyota Corolla registered to their father.
Williams said that he committed the murders because he believed their homosexuality violated God's laws, and he hoped his actions would incite more killings.
Admitting the possibility of his future execution, he said he hoped to become a "Christian martyr" whose death would inspire others to lash out against Jews, homosexuals, and other minorities.
[13] In interviews with media, two friends from Matthew Williams's past recounted incidents concerning questions about his sexual orientation.
[14] In August 1999 Dan Martin, Williams's best friend from his time in the Living Faith Fellowship, gave an interview to The Advocate, which described their relationship as a romantic friendship.
When he was told that Martin identified as openly gay and was coordinator of an HIV prevention group, Williams began to sob uncontrollably.
[15] During searches of the brothers' homes and storage utilities, authorities also found a "hit list" of prominent Jewish civic leaders in the Sacramento, California area.
The two-column-by-four-inch advertisement depicted a dove bearing an olive branch, and was labeled as having been placed by "the family and friends of Benjamin Matthew Williams.
The newspaper said that the advertising representative did not focus on Williams's name when the order was placed, and that the ad would not have been printed had the paper been aware of its content.
[22] On June 22, 2002, Matthew Williams and another inmate named Paul Smith attacked prison guard Timothy Renault with a homemade hatchet.
He bled to death from multiple self-inflicted slash wounds to his arms, legs, and neck from a disposable jail-issued razor he had modified to expose the blade,[23] attached to a handle fashioned from a ballpoint pen, and fastened to his wrist with dental floss.
Around his neck he wore an amulet fashioned from dental floss and aluminum foil, containing various items, including two Bible verses.
[25] Two days prior to committing suicide, Matthew Williams mailed a signed confession to his brother's attorney, taking full responsibility for the murders of Matson and Mowder.
Facing a life in prison, Tyler apologized to the families and friends of the gay couple he had murdered, stating in court that "I have repented to the Lamb of God for attempting to take His place of leadership in dealing with the world's evils and in not patiently waiting for His timing.