Daddy didn't come home. And the bullets that tore the life from his body also tore the life from his family.

"We had an ideal family and were living the American Dream," remembers Adolph Coors IV. "We had the home in the mountains, wealth, social success and parents who loved us and took time to let us know their love. My life was almost everything a boy could want. Then on February 9, 1960, our world was ripped apart."

that morning Adolph Herman Joseph Coors III left his mountain ranch at the usual 7:30 AM. It was only 12 miles from the ranch to the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado, a short pleasant drive on a crisp winter morning. He would be early for work - as usual.

But Adolph Coors III, president of the brewery his grandfather had begun in an abandoned tannery, never arrived at the office.

The Coors Brewing Company is a tribute to American individualism, a confirmation that anyone can make it big in America. Great Grandpa Coors, a draft dodger unwilling to fight in another of the King of Prussia's wars, immigrated to America in 1868. He took a variety of laborer jobs and finally worked in a Chicago brewery till the lure of the West became irresistible. From Chicago he followed the railroad west to Denver where he quickly fell in love with the springs, trees and mountains of the community of Golden.

By 1873, Adolph Coors and his friend James Stodderman had begun a small brewery in an abandoned tannery building on the outskirts of Golden. Seven years later he bought out his partner and poured his full workaholic nature into making himself, and his business, a success.

"Everyone in town knew my father," says Adolph Coors IV. "He was just like Grandpa and Great Grandpa, a complete workaholic, a financial success, active in the town and respected by everyone."

That made Adolph Coors III a perfect target. There was a yellow 1958 Mercury parked beside a bridge on the road from the ranch to the brewery  that February morning. Adolph Coors III was an inquisitive man who liked to help people, so he stopped on the bridge and walked to the car to see if he could help.

"What dad didn't know was that Joseph Corbett, an escaped convict from California, had been planning this moment for two years."

Joseph Corbett had decided to kidnap Adolph Coors III for ransom. He knew the brewery president would stop. He knew that Coors would ask if he could help, and knew that a large ransom would likely come form the Coors Brewing Company.

But Corbett didn't plan on Coors' response. Adolph Coors III overpowered his attacker and ran back toward the safety of his car.

Yet he could not run faster than Corbett's angry bullets. That morning Adolph Coors III was shot to death as he ran across the bridge. Corbett stuffed his body in the trunk of the Mercury and sped away, leaving a crushed and broken family.

"Seven months later my dad's remains were found in a garbage dump near Denver," recalls Adolph Coors IV. "In the meantime my family had fallen into a deep hole of hate. Mother, especially, allowed hatred for Joseph Corbett to consume her life. In that hatred she turned to the only crutch she knew, alcohol."

For the next 17 years it was as if every member of the family had been kidnapped, shot, mangled and trashed just as their father. There seemed to be no way out.

"Grief builds walls between people," says Adolph Coors IV. "We just do not know what to say to people who are hurting and their grief keeps them from letting us know as well. So we all sat around allowing an incredible emptiness to grow inside us."

Adolph Coors IV went to college for one year, where he "majored in fraternity and sorority." Then he played macho bodybuilder during 6 years in the Marines. Then, in 1967, he returned to Denver and married BJ, his high school sweetheart and began a family. None of that helped the emptiness.

"We spent money we didn't have to buy things we didn't need to impress people we couldn't stand," he says. "And I was still a tragically insecure person screaming for someone to please notice me, please accept me."

"When our life had become a total shambles," remember Adolph and BJ, "Lowell Sun, a vice president of the brewery, and his wife Vera, came to our lakeside home and told us about the claims of Jesus Christ. The told us about the God-shaped vacuum all of have in our lives and showed us how to allow a relationship with Christ to fill that vacuum."

BJ listened. Adolph moved into a lonely room in the Denver Athletic Club. Once again, "Daddy didn't come home."

There is a catch in his voice as Coors remembers those days. "It took me six weeks of painful loneliness before I finally gave in. I called BJ and asked her if I could come home. I decided to do myself a favor and love my wife."

In the Spring of 1975, Coors attended a Christian evangelistic sermon in a Denver theatre. "I finally gave in one night. I finally allowed myself to hear the knock of Jesus and by an act of my will allowed Him to come into my life. Instantly he filled my void with a love that no person or possession had been able to fill. For the first time in my life I had purpose and a destiny."

Daddy Coors came home that day, but he was still nursing a deep hatred for his father's killer, Joseph Corbett.

"From long exposure I had learned that hatred hurts the hater even more than the one being hated."

So, in 1977, Adolph Coors IV went to the Colorado State penitentiary where Joseph Corbett was serving the life sentence for killing Adolph Coors III.

"He wouldn't see me," says Coors, "so I sent him a letter asking for him to forgive me for the hatred I had been cherishing for 17 years. I also told him that I had forgiven him. As I walked from the prison I felt the fullness of God's love and forgiveness! That day I became a free man!"

What has happened to Adolph Coors? The story has just begun! BJ, Adolph Coors IV, Adolph Coors V ("Shane") and Chip now lead an international Christian ministry that is dedicated to helping individuals and families develop personal relationships with Jesus Christ.

"We could not be happier," says Adolph Coors.

Note from the editor: Concerning this article about Adolph Coors IV.

The writer failed to point out the fact that Adolph Coors IV doesn’t profit from the brewery or the fortune it produced. He did love his father very much and the story was to show the circumstances from which he came to faith. One of the main purposes of the magazine is to reach the lost. We are of the first to realize the ills of alcohol and apologize if we gave the impression we indorse the production of beer.