Masonic Lodge leader remembers Robert Wise; says Wise would've forgiven murderer
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Funeral services are set for Tuesday for a Valley dad killed last week outside the Masonic Lodge in McAllen.
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KRGV
Funeral services are set for Tuesday for a Valley dad killed last week outside the Masonic Lodge in McAllen.

Robert Wise was a member of the Freemasons, and police say a stranger shot and killed him.

Wise was described as someone who led his life with love. The worshipful master or leader of the McAllen Masonic Lodge believes Wise would have forgiven his killer and would want those who knew him to do the same.

"If I could sum up Robert Wise with one word, we could sum it up with the word love," worshipful master Marco Antonio Lopez said.

On July 10, 55-year-old Robert Wise was shot and killed. He had just left the Masonic Temple in McAllen for the annual officer installation ceremony.

This year, Wise was appointed as the lodge's junior deacon. That ceremony was his last moments with family.

Lopez says those moments are how he wants people to remember wise.

"What he did to gain his status as a junior deacon is he definitely proved that he was a true mason, and he proved that he was going to be an example for other masons. We knew that he was going to take his leadership position, and that he was going to do good work," Lopez said.

He says Wise was someone everyone in the lodge looked up to, including himself.

"I became one of his teachers," Lopez said. "I thought I was going to be teaching him, he ended up teaching me."

Wise wasn't just a teacher at his lodge. He had more than 23 years of experience as a commercial trucker.

Wise used that knowledge to teach others and even opened his own commercial driver license school where his students were his passion.

Lopez believes false ideas and conspiracy theories surrounding Masonry may have led to Wise's death.

"There's definitely a stigma about Masonry," Lopez said. "Masonry is about taking good men, and making them better."

He knows Wise would want compassion for the man accused in his murder.

"Robert wise would say 'I forgive you' and he would want all of us to forgive him. Because that's who Robert Wise was," Lopez said.

The man arrested for Wise's murder, Julio Diaz, is still in the Hidalgo County Jail. According to an arrest report, Diaz recorded and uploaded a video of the shooting onto social media.