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...