Small town mourns for missionary after slaying in Russia

Jace Radke

Monday, Oct. 19, 1998 | 11:23 a.m.

In the town of Hiko on Sunday, the 279 members of the town's Mormon church were asked by their bishop to pray for the family of Jose Manuel Macintosh after the 20-year-old missionary was stabbed to death Saturday in Ufa, Russia.

"We're a little agricultural town, so this has been quite a shock," said Bishop Douglas Miller, the head of Mackintosh's ward in Hiko. "We had a special sacrament meeting today and asked that the members support the Mackintosh family."

Hiko, a town of about 1,000 people, is about 100 miles north of Las Vegas on U.S. 93 near Ash Springs.

Mackintosh and his companion, Bradley Borden of Mesa, Ariz., were attacked by a group of men after leaving the home of a Mormon family in Ufa, about 750 miles southeast of Moscow. Borden was in stable condition in an Ufa hospital, according to a church news release.

Witnesses said they believed the attackers were drunk.

Mackintosh was the youngest of four children. His two brothers and his sister were all married and away from home, Miller said.

"It's doubly hard because he was one of those kids that was one in a million," Miller said. "He was always positive, upbeat and smiling, and never got into trouble a day in his life that I knew of. He always worked hard, whether it was baling hay with his father or playing sports in high school."

Mackintosh had been on his mission in Russia for a year and a day. Before leaving he had attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and was a 4.0 student who hoped to become a doctor, said Robert Matthews, stake president of the wards in Lincoln County, including Hiko.

"He was never down, and he had a personality all his own," said Matthews. "He would come to all his interviews and the school dances in a bow tie because he liked to establish his own identity. He had friends all over Lincoln County."

There are about 250 missionaries from around the world serving in Clark County, and there are hundreds of Nevadan missionaries serving abroad, church spokesman Mike Ballard said.

Young Mormon men and women can serve two-year missions for their church. The missionaries are sent out across the country and the world to preach the Mormon religion.

Paul Miller, a missionary from Louisiana serving in Las Vegas, said that most missionaries he has talked to are not too concerned with the possibility of danger while preaching their gospel.

"Some guys who are in neighborhoods that aren't too good sometimes say that they are a little worried from time to time, but for the most part missionaries are treated pretty well wherever they go," Miller said. "I can't really say what the missionaries in foreign countries are going through, though."

About 60,000 Mormons are serving in missions worldwide, and they are statistically safer on their missions then when they are home, Matthews said.

"I don't really worry about them when they are out there," Matthews said. "I have a son on a mission in Boston now, and another of my sons went on a mission to Uganda. They are out there and they do get in dangerous situations for brief periods of time, but this was a totally random and unusual event."

About 500 missionaries are currently serving in Russia, despite this incident and another last March when two missionaries were held hostage for four days in Southern Russia.

Next door to the Mackintosh home in Hiko lives Shauncy Maloy, a 19-year-old who has been called to serve a mission in Southern Russia near where his friend Jose was killed.

Shauncy's father, Ed Maloy, said that he has no worries about letting his son serve in Russia.

"He knows that was where he was called to serve, and he's excited to go there and complete his work," Ed Maloy said.

Shauncy Maloy, who was on the high school wrestling team with Mackintosh, is working in St. George, Utah, before starting his mission latter this year.

"I'm not worried at all because I know that that is where I'm supposed to go," he said.