RICHMOND, VA (WWBT)- If someone violently beat and murdered your mother, could you honestly find it in your heart to truly forgive the killer?

That's exactly what happened to a VCU professor. He lost his mother and eventually his brother to a brutal crime. He had to learn to live the message he preaches every day.

For years, Everett Worthington lectured and even wrote book after book about letting go of grudges and bitterness.

"There's great power in forgiveness," said Worthington.

His theory was put the ultimate personal test New Year's Day, 1996.

"There was blood all over the walls. There was blood on the floor." 

His 76-year-old mother, Frances Worthington, was sexually violated and murdered in Knoxville, Tennessee.

"It was a pretty horrific scene. A very gruesome and upsetting sight. One that I just will never forget."

Police believe this started as burglary, but quickly turned barbaric.

These days practically everyone has a cell phone, and it goes everywhere you do.

But that also means it's picking up every germ you encounter, too.

"I carry my cell phone around," said dermatologist Dr. Laci Theunissen. "It's in my purse, my children are playing with it. I bring it to the bathroom sometimes, multi-tasking."

And that means some nasty little organisms may be hitchhiking from an unsanitary surface to your face.

"A lot of people don't think about it," Theunissen said.

To find out just what is lurking on that surface, cell phones were taken to a lab.

The phones were swabbed and the swabs were incubated for three days at 37 degrees Celsius - roughly body temperature - to see what would grow.

Streptococcus, as in strep throat, and staphylococcus, as in staph infection, along with a few other types of bacteria were found on all the phones we tested.

But there is good news.

MECHANICSVILLE, VA (WWBT)- Dana Slayton has two loves in life- one is the German language, and the other is her guitar.

The 8th grader at Chickahominy Middle School has been playing and writing songs since she was in fourth grade.

"I either hear a melody in my head, or I hear one or two lines of the lyrics, or I hear a title. It'll just come to me," said Slayton.

A big idea came to the straight "A" student after she was recently accepted into the People to People Student Ambassador Summer Program. She wants to participate in the program's European Heritage Tour.

"They're going to at least three German-speaking countries, and I'm very excited about that because I love speaking German," said Slayton.

So, she is using her other love- the guitar- to get into the program.