University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was beaten to death in October 1998 by two men who targeted him because he was gay. A decade later, his murder spurred federal legislation against hate crimes.
Gina van Hoof/Matthew Shepard FoundationMatthew Shepard was just 21 years old when he was viciously beaten and left to die alone.
On a crisp October evening in 1998, a young man was riding his bike along the rural roads outside of Laramie, Wyoming, when he noticed something unusual on a fence. At first, he thought it was an abandoned scarecrow — but then he realized it was a person. Matthew Shepard was bloody and beaten, but he was still breathing.
Nearly 18 hours earlier, Shepard had been attacked by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, two local roofers. When 21-year-old Shepard died from his injuries several days later, the two men were arrested for his murder.
As McKinney and Henderson were interrogated by the police, a disturbing story unfolded. They claimed that they’d only intended to rob Shepard, targeting him because he was gay and they saw him as an easy victim. The men reportedly pretended to be gay themselves to lure Shepard into their vehicle, but when he made a sexual pass at McKinney as they drove, McKinney began to beat him in a blind rage.
A decade after the senseless murder, President Barack Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law, marking a key milestone for gay rights in America. But in the years since, some people have questioned whether Shepard’s murder was a hate crime after all.
Who Was Matthew Shepard?
Born on Dec. 1, 1976, Matthew Wayne Shepard grew up in Casper, Wyoming. When he was in high school, his family moved to Saudi Arabia after his father was hired by an oil company there. Shepard finished his schooling at the American School in Switzerland, where he was a beloved student whose friends selected him to act as a peer counselor.
But during a class trip to Morocco in 1995, Shepard was raped. “He was never the same after Morocco,” his mother, Judy, told Vanity Fair in 1999, “and neither were we. We were always worried about his physical safety and his mental state — that he would despair and hurt himself. It seemed to him it was taking forever to feel safe.”
National Museum of American HistoryFrom a young age, Matthew Shepard stood out for his kindness toward his classmates.
After graduation, Shepard returned to the United States for a fresh start, eventually enrolling at the University of Wyoming. But his trauma followed him. He struggled with depression and was hospitalized on multiple occasions for suicidal ideations. He also began using recreational drugs.
Still, Shepard did his best to get involved on his new campus. On Oct. 6, 1998, he attended a planning meeting for the school’s upcoming Gay Awareness Week. He invited some friends to go out drinking with him afterward, but he ended up at Laramie’s Fireside Bar & Lounge alone that evening.
There, he met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson — two men in their early 20s who would soon be known as his killers.
The Tragic Death Of Matthew Shepard
According to Kristen Price, McKinney’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, McKinney and Henderson started plotting against Matthew Shepard as soon as they saw him at Fireside. As she told Vanity Fair, the men told each other, “‘Let’s pretend like we’re gay and… we’ll rob him and take his money.’”
They approached Shepard and offered him a ride, but instead of taking him home, they drove to a remote area outside of town. When he was questioned by officers at the Laramie Police Department three days later, McKinney admitted that he’d given Shepard a ride, but he insisted that he’d intended to take him home — until Shepard made a pass at him.
“He said he… lived on Palomino Street,” McKinney stated. “We got over there and he starts grabbing my leg and grabbing my genitals and was, I don’t know what the hell he was trying to do but I beat him up pretty bad.”
Associated Press/YouTubeAaron McKinney, one of Matthew Shepard’s killers, later stated that he had “hatred for homosexuals.”
In reality, McKinney and Henderson did far worse than simply beat Shepard up. They pistol whipped him nearly two dozen times, crushing his brain stem and fracturing his skull in four separate places. Then, they tied him to a fence in freezing temperatures, stealing his wallet and even his shoes so he wouldn’t be able to walk back into town if he managed to free himself.
“They just wanted to beat him up bad enough to teach him a lesson,” Kristen Price later told Vanity Fair, “not to come on to straight people and don’t be aggressive about it anymore.”
But McKinney and Henderson didn’t stop there. They planned to burglarize Shepard’s house, but when they returned to Laramie, they got into a fight with two teenagers, Jeremy Herrera and Emiliano Morales. The police were called to the scene, and though McKinney and Henderson fled, officers searched the vehicle they’d left behind and discovered Shepard’s credit card and a bloody gun.
However, Matthew Shepard himself wouldn’t be found for another 18 hours.
The Trial Of Aaron McKinney And Russell Henderson
When Aaron Kreifels stumbled upon Shepard the evening after the attack, he was barely clinging to life. His face was completely covered in blood except for the paths where his tears had trickled down. He was rushed to a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, where his parents even had trouble identifying him due to the extent of his injuries.
Matthew Shepard died on Oct. 12, 1998, without ever regaining consciousness.
Matthew Shepard FoundationMatthew Shepard’s friends dressed up as angels at his funeral to block protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church.
McKinney and Henderson were swiftly charged with first-degree murder. Henderson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison, but McKinney decided to go to trial.
In a jailhouse letter addressed to Henderson and later printed in the Coloradoan, McKinney tried to set up a “gay panic” defense. “At no time did we know he was gay until he tried to get on me,” McKinney wrote. “And I didn’t kidnap him or attempt to rob him.”
Likewise, McKinney’s defense team claimed at trial that McKinney had beaten Shepard in a “five-minute emotional rage” when Shepard’s advances triggered memories of homosexual abuse McKinney had undergone in his youth, as reported by The New York Times in 1999.
The jury ultimately found McKinney guilty of murder, but not premeditated murder. Like Henderson, he was sentenced to life in prison.
In the years since his murder, Matthew Shepard has become a tragic figure of the gay rights movement. But not everyone agrees that his death was a hate crime.
How The Death Of Matthew Shepard Spurred Hate Crime Legislation
In 2013, journalist Stephen Jimenez published The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard. In the book, Jimenez claimed that Shepard and McKinney had previously had sexual encounters, and the murder stemmed not from discrimination but from a drug dispute gone wrong. Henderson himself confirmed this in 2018.
However, according to a 2009 article in the Denver Post, McKinney said in an interview with New York’s Tectonic Theatre Project — which produced a play about Shepard’s murder called The Laramie Project — “The night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals.”
“[Shepard] was obviously gay,” McKinney continued, speaking about why he and Henderson decided to target him. “That played a part. His weakness. His frailty.”
“Matt Shepard needed killing,” said McKinney. “I don’t have any remorse.”
Matthew Shepard FoundationJason Marsden, the executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, wrote on the 21st anniversary of Shepard’s death: “Never in my life have I seen a person — who has been gone almost as long as he was alive — change the course of a movement and a country.”
Despite this enduring debate, Matthew Shepard’s death played a major role in the passing of the Hate Crime Prevention Act in 2009. The new federal criminal law expanded the government’s ability to prosecute violent crimes committed based on traits like race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender.
In 2018, Matthew Shepard’s ashes were interred at Washington National Cathedral.
As reported by NPR at the time, the cathedral said in a statement, “While Matthew died too young, his death nonetheless gave life to a new generation of activists and allies who are committed to proclaiming God’s love for all of God’s children — no exceptions or exclusions.”
After reading about the death of Matthew Shepard, discover how the Stonewall Riots launched a nationwide movement. Then, learn about the tragic death of Brandon Teena and the true story behind Boys Don’t Cry.