Demetrius Guyton with Boyd and Lucinda

Demetrius Guyton tells his story about forgiving his mother for trying to kill him at a young age. At age 25, he was seeing her for the first time — the mother who apparently tried to kill him in a Jasper hospital, when he was less than 3 months old. Police charged her with giving the infant a bottle that contained a mixture of castor oil and hydrochloric acid. According to testimony during the trial in Walker County Circuit Court, she had applied for a $25,000 life insurance policy on her son four days before the July 16, 1984, incident. Authorities said he vomited the acid, burning the skin on his face, chest and neck, leaving patches of scars. On May 2, 1985, the jury found her guilty of first-degree assault. She served 14 years at Tutwiler Prison for Women. Reunion The scars remain, but Guyton said he began shedding the animosity when he gave his life to Christ during his own prison term. The meeting with his mother came April 30, 2009, two days after his 25th birthday. His cousin, whom he had not seen in 20 years, invited him and his older brother to her college graduation and a family reunion. “I didn’t know Mother was going to be there,” Guyton said. “I dropped my bags, and we embraced. I had to be an instrument that God could use to kill the hate.” Reaching that point wasn’t easy. He had surgeries in Jasper, spent a year at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham and lived in a foster home. His father’s mother got custody when he was 4. He moved to Boligee with his grandmother when he was 13. Four years later, he returned to Jasper, where he began running the streets, living a gang life and selling drugs.