Drawing upon 36 interviews with individuals who lost loved ones to homicide and 32 months of participant observation of victim-centered events, in the present study, I investigate the processes through which forgiveness occurs in cases of varying cultural proximity between forgiver and forgiven. Through inductive analyses utilizing a symbolic interactionist framework, I illuminate two pathways to forgiveness that existed despite factors making forgiveness unlikely. The first pathway depended upon the forgiver's ability to effectively assume the role of the offender based upon direct understanding of the social environment of the homicide. For those without such personal understanding, the second pathway involved a more abstract form of role-taking, which led to the generation of empathy through redefinition of the offender as a victim. Unforgiveness was maintained when particularistic role-taking did not result in redefinition and when participants were within close cultural proximity to offenders but judged their actions as not adhering to role expectations.