Matthew Shepard Biography

On October 7, 1998, a twenty-one-year-old University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard, went to the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming. There Shepard, who was gay, met Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, both in their early twenties, whom Shepard believed to be gay. Late that evening, Shepard left the Fireside Lounge with Henderson and McKinney in a pickup truck owned by McKinney.

Henderson and McKinney kidnapped Shepard, who weighed just one hundred and five pounds, and drove him to a remote area outside of Laramie, Wyoming. The two men severely beat Shepard with the butt of a gun, while shouting anti-gay epithets at him. They robbed Shepard of twenty dollars, tied him to a fence, and left him in the cold to die. Shepard was still alive but was unconscious when he was found. Without ever regaining consciousness, Shepard died five days later in a Fort Collins, Colorado hospital with his parents by his side.

The arrested Henderson pleaded guilty to the charges of kidnapping and murder. On April 5, 1999, a judge sentenced Henderson to two consecutive life terms of imprisonment for killing Shepard. The prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty for Henderson because he agreed to testify against McKinney at his trial. In addition, Henderson's live-in girlfriend, twenty-one-year-old Chasity Pasley, was convicted as an accessory after the fact because she aided Henderson in attempting to cover-up the crime and lied to police when she was questioned. The judge gave Palsey an eighteen-month term of imprisonment for her conviction.

McKinney, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and proceeded to trial. At the close of his trial, the jury found McKinney guilty of felony murder, kidnapping, and aggravated robbery. The prosecution was intent on seeking the death penalty for McKinney until Shepard's mother intervened on his behalf. In an extraordinary gesture of mercy, Judy Shepard and her family "chose not to feel the reciprocal emotion of hate" toward her son's murderers. Stating that "the healing must begin," the Shepard family approached the prosecution and inquired as to the possibility of a plea bargain that would avoid the death penalty for McKinney. Such a plea bargain was, in fact, reached. As part of the plea agreement, the prosecution agreed to drop the felony murder count and, in exchange, McKinney agreed to serve two terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole. McKinney also agreed to forfeit his right to any appeal of the sentence. The Shepard case prompted President Bill Clinton to ask Congress to expand the laws against hate crimes on the federal level. President Clinton urged Congress to act swiftly in creating new legislation applicable to hate crimes based on sexual orientation because, as he put it, the "nation cannot afford to wait."