| Matthew Shepard |
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The prosecutor in the case charged that McKinney and Henderson pretended to be homosexuals in order to gain Matthew's trust to rob him. 1 During the trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price (the pair's then-girlfriends) testified under oath that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. McKinney and Henderson then went to the Fireside Lounge, a gay hangout, and selected Shepard as their target. After befriending him, they took him to a remote area of Laramie where they robbed him, beat him severely (media reports often contained the graphic account of the pistol whipping and his smashed skull) and tied him to a fence with his own shoe laces. Both girlfriends also testified that neither McKinney nor Henderson were on drugs at the time. 2 3 Several years after the guilty verdict, Price gave her third different account of the night (the first time she provided her boyfriend with an alibi until learning that Matthew had died and that she could be charged as an accessory to murder; the second time she said Matthew was selected because he was gay). She said the motive for the attack was solely related to drugs and money. She added, "I don't think it was a hate crime at all. I never did." 4 McKinney's and Henderson's first account was they were not guilty and had been with their girlfriends at the time of the crime. After the girlfriends retracted their alibis, they both attempted to use a Gay Panic Defense , testifying that they attacked Shepard because he made flirtatious advances towards them. Later, they gave a third different story in a 20/20 interview with Elizabeth Vargas and said that the murder was actually a result of heavy drug use, a robbery and a beating gone awry. The case is often considered a law 7 and Wyoming state law 8, crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation are not prosecutable as hate crimes. Shortly after the murder, President Bill Clinton tried to push legislation through Congress adding sexual orientation to the hate crimes law. The measure was defeated. In 1999, the Wyoming Legislature, amid widespread discussion of this crime, also attempted to pass legislation defining certain attacks motivated by victim identity as hate crimes, but the measure failed on a 30-30 tie in the Wyoming House of Representatives. 9 BACKGROUND Shepard, son of Dennis Shepard and Judy Peck Shepard, was born in Casper , Wyoming. He attended Crest Hill Elementary School , Dean Morgan Junior High , and the first two years of High School at Natrona County High School , and was a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church. Shepard spent his junior and senior years of high school at The American School In Switzerland , graduating in 1995 . Shepard later attended Catawba College and Casper College before moving to Denver . Shepard then became a first-year Political Science major at the University Of Wyoming in Laramie. His parents lived in Dhahran , Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where his father worked for the Aramco oil company. THE ATTACK Shortly after midnight on October 7 , 1998 , 21-year-old Shepard met McKinney and Henderson in a bar. According to McKinney, Shepard asked them for a ride home. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, severely beaten, tied to a fence and left to die. McKinney and Henderson also found out his address, intending to burgle his home. Shepard was discovered by a bicyclist 18 hours later, still alive but unconscious. Shepard suffered a at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins , Colorado . Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and s. After the attack, the prosecutor told reporters that Shepard's friends had been vocal about Shepard's sexuality: "They were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed." Matthew Shepard's blood was tested later for HIV . The result was positive although Shepard may have been unaware of his HIV status while alive. 10. THE TRIAL During court cases both of the defendants used varying stories to defend their actions. Most notably they attempted to use the " Gay Panic Defense ", arguing that they were driven to Temporary Insanity by Shepard's alleged sexual advances toward them. At another point they stated that they had only wanted to rob Shepard and never intended to kill him. Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5 , 1999 and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the Death Penalty ; he received two consecutive Life Sentence s without the possibility of Parole . The jury in McKinney's trial found him guilty of first-degree murder. As it began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney also receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. Shepard's parents stated, "We are giving him life in the memory of one who no longer lives." Local Roman Catholic clerics had garnered considerable publicity when they opposed the death penalty in the case. However, Shepard's father, Dennis Shepard -- who did not ask for the death penalty -- said in his statement to the court, "I am definitely not doing this because of the crass and unwarranted pressures put on by the religious community. If anything, that hardens my resolve to see you die, Mr. McKinney." Henderson and McKinney are currently incarcerated in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins, Wyoming . THE AFTERSHOCK As Shepard lay in Intensive Care , candle-lit vigils were held in support around the world. The public reaction and media attention focused on Shepard's sexuality. In doing so, they brought issues of Homophobia and Gay-bashing to the forefront of public debate. The 18:22."'' 111213 Page includes picture of proposed monument.14 As a counterprotest during Henderson's trial, Romaine Patterson, a friend of Shepard's, organized a group of individuals who assembled in a circle around the Phelps group wearing white robes and gigantic wings that literally blocked the protesters (who were confined to a small protest square by police) from the view of passers-by. While the organization had no name in the initial demonstration, it has since been ascribed various titles, including ' Angels Of Peace ' and 'Angel Action'. A similar angel tactic has been re-used a number of times at other protests by Phelps, but less effectively as the "Angels" are now required to stay in their own separate protest square. The Shepard case prompted President Bill Clinton to renew attempts to extend federal Hate Crime legislation to include Gay and Lesbian individuals, Women and people with Disabilities . These efforts were rejected by the majority in the House Of Representatives in 199915. In 2000, both houses of Congress passed such legislation, but it was stripped out in Conference Committee 16 Press release.. People in the entertainment industry expressed their own outrage and responded in various ways to the attack.
In November of 2004, the killers were interviewed on 20/20 on ABC News , explaining that the murder was not fueled by an anti-gay motivation but by a Methamphetamine -induced rage, a claim refuted by the case's original investigators. Both had mentioned this earlier to their lawyers after it had happened, but their attorneys at the time decided to go with the unsuccessful "gay-baiting" defense. ABC was criticized by gay rights advocates for the piece but the network stood by their story. The fence upon which Shepard was tied and left to die has been removed by the land owner. Matthew's parents Judy and Dennis are now active supporters of Gay Rights and tolerance educators. MEDIA COVERAGE CONTROVERSY Certain American interest groups protested the intensive media coverage received by the Shepard case in light of September 1999 murder of a 13 year old boy, Jesse Dirkhising . Dirkhising was tied to a mattress, sexually molested, then murdered by two homosexual men in Prairie Grove, Arkansas . At the time, there was a disparity in media coverage by, roughly, 18-1.18 As a reply to the controversy, E.R. Shipp from The Washington Post stated, in a column titled "Reporting Two Killings," that "Matthew Shepard’s death sparked public expressions of outrage that themselves became news...That Jesse Dirkhising’s death has not done so is hardly the fault of the Washington Post." Ultimately, the Dirkhising was connected with the Shepard case by individuals focused on claiming that media outlets were run with a liberal agenda, however, the Dirkshising case was not a hate crime. It was a crime committed by two sexual deviants regardless of the sexual orientation of the parties involved. SEE ALSO
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