Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard died in Laramie, Wyoming in 2000, and after his death he became the symbol of the prejudice and anti-gay hatred in this country. Which is how I remembered his murder.
But Matt was more than an innocent gay college student and the author tells his story. There were a lot of drugs (especially methaphetamine) in Laramie…and in the west generally at that time. Stephen Jimenez carefully teases the threads of dozens of stories out of the social network of Matt's acquaintances and concludes that his death was more drug-related than an antigay killing, more of a robbery that went wrong, and that Matt was killed by a drug-fueled meth addict. So much of what the he uncovers was never brought out at the trials of Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. Not that were innocent but Russell's participation was passive; Aaron on the other hand was the perpetrator and executioner and deserved his punishment. Aaron led and Russell followed on the night Matt, but probably neither were homophobic.
It was a sad, intriguing, provocative story of small town America in the age of meth and how pernicious the drug is and was and it affects those who use. Matt and his killer(s) used drugs; there were trips to Denver in a limo owned by a slippery character named Doc O'Connor, trips with partying in the limo and gay bars Denver, other trips to Denver for purchasing drugs for sale in Laramie. Matt was involved in this and almost assuredly died because of it, not because he was gay.
The judge told the courtroom at the end of Russell's trial:
"Many people have called this a hate crime. Quite frankly, the Court does not find this matter to be so simplistic, for it is quite clear that a number of motives and emotions were involved here. The end result, whatever the motivation, was the brutal murder of a young man who was beaten to death with a three-pound revolver, perhaps in part because of his lifestyle, and perhaps because of a $20 [sic] robbery."
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