The Heartbreaking Murder of Matthew Shepard | Murdered at First Sight | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] Matt was our first baby. When he was young, he always cared about the other kids.
He was very empathetic. You could tell when somebody was down, he was always there to make them feel better.
Matt had this incredible smile that would just light up when you talk to him. And it was like his whole body was smiling at you.
DENNIS SHEPARD: We received a phone call from the hospital in Laramie saying there'd been an incident.
And Matt had severe head injuries and that his prognosis was not good. DAVE O'MALLEY: Everybody knew that a kid was found.
Everybody knew he's beaten. Everybody knew he's likely not going to live. JIM OSBORN: Matt's been gone now longer than he was alive.
He was 21 when he died. Matt had never met his attackers. They were total strangers to him.
JUDY SHEPARD: I'm never going to hear from Matt again. I'm never going to get those late night calls.
I'm never going to get a text message. Christmas is never the same. Nothing is ever the same.
The last time I spoke to Matt, he was having trouble with a phone bill. There was an argument.
And then, there was another call where he apologized for yelling at me and me yelling at him.
Not really clear. But the last thing that we said to each other was I love you. [MUSIC PLAYING]
DENNIS SHEPARD: Last thing I said to him was I love you, son. He said, Dad, I love you too.
And then, we said goodbye. JIM OSBORN: Matt was new to the university here in Laramie
and was just starting out as a student. He was studying political science and wanted to do something with his life that would
make a difference in the world. So in 1998, I was also a student at the time. And I became a member of a student organization
on campus, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Association, or LGBTA. I met Matt there when a mutual friend introduced us.
On October 6, 1998, the day was fairly warm that day. It was a nice, sunny day. We were discussing our plans for Gay Awareness Week.
So the room hasn't really changed much. And so we were all sitting around the tables here.
Matt would have been sitting at one of these seats. After the meeting, we went down to a local restaurant,
The Village Inn, to hang out, and discuss things, to laugh, to joke, and get something to eat,
and just have a good time, to have some social time with one another. After we left the Village Inn, Matt got a ride from a friend.
And I later learned that she took him and dropped him off at one of the bars downtown, The Fireside.
[HEART BEATING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Our combined communication center received a call at, somewhere around, 6 o'clock PM on October
the 7, 1998. It reported that a person was in need of serious medical attention, tied to a fence
East of Laramie. There was a young man riding his mountain bike in the area. And as he came down one of the hills, he crashed his bike.
And he started to get back up. And he looked. And he initially thought that there
was a scarecrow on a fence. It was getting close to Halloween time. It was October.
And then he realized that it was a person, and that they were breathing, and that they
were breathing very hard. The mountain biker eventually went over to and found the young man tied to the fence,
obviously, in dire medical state and in need of emergency services. He ran to a house in Sherman Hills
Estates, which is also East of Laramie, and had someone call 911. The Albany County Sheriff's Office deputy
responded and found, who they thought was, a young boy tied to a fence in severe need
of medical attention. The deputy indicated that breathing was extremely labored, that it was shallow.
They tried to cut the ropes. But the ropes were tied so tight around the young man's wrists
that couldn't get a knife in between the ropes and the wrists. The young man's face and head was absolutely covered
in blood, covered in blood, except for one spot where a tear had run down out of the eye.
And there was a clean streak from that tear. The first officer on the scene saw a University of Wyoming ID
card laying on the ground next to the young man tied to the fence. And it was in the name of Matthew Shepard.
[MUSIC PLAYING] JUDY SHEPARD: When Matt was a sophomore in high school, my husband took a job in Saudi Arabia.
Time zones for Matt were kind of a tricky mathematical thing. So whenever he would call, it would
be in the middle of the night. DENNIS SHEPARD: We received a phone call about 5 o'clock
in the morning, Saudi time, from the hospital in Laramie. JUDY SHEPARD: When the phone first rang,
I expected it to be Matt. When it wasn't, when I knew on the other end it wasn't Matt,
it was, oh, no. What has happened to Matt? DENNIS SHEPARD: There'd been an incident.
And Matt had severe head injuries and that his prognosis was not good. And we needed to make plans to come back to the States.
JUDY SHEPARD: He was unsure how it had happened. He knew no details. I asked him if Matt had been severely injured,
if he was going to make it. And he said you just need to come home. DENNIS SHEPARD: We assumed, at that time,
there was some kind of a vehicle accident. We didn't know anything else. JUDY SHEPARD: We just wanted to be able to see him.
Our hope, of course, was that he was going to recover, fully. Then, it was like, can he just hold on until we get there?
Or are we going to find that he's already passed before we get there? All of those things went through your mind, all those things.
DENNIS SHEPARD: All we could do was just hope and pray that Matt was surviving and improving
and that when we got there he would be smiling, and laughing, and talking to us.
JUDY SHEPARD: In the phone call from the hospital in Laramie, Matt had been severely injured is what they told us.
The injuries were so severe that they were unable to treat him in Laramie, that they were going to transport him
to the hospital in Fort Collins. They did not specify his injuries because they didn't
know how they'd happened. Nobody knew. But they did tell us they were going to move him because they
couldn't treat the injuries. They couldn't tell us anything more. So we flew-- oh, was 33, 36 hour trip.
We knew nothing more than until we got to Fort Collins. When we got to Denver, we were escorted off the plane,
down the stairway. Not going through the airport because the press was waiting for us even though they had no idea what we look
like. So that they were there. DENNIS SHEPARD: Matt's story was all over the internet,
newspaper, radio, TV. And I said, why? It's a vehicle accident. And Judy's sister said, no, it was not a vehicle accident.
JUDY SHEPARD: The hospital staff escorted us through the staff door so we wouldn't be greeted--
we wouldn't have to worry about the press that was in the main lobby. And they took us up to Matt's room.
When we first walked in, it could have been any person. It was a young man, small, head completely swathed in bandages.
His fingers were already curled in a coma, stitches all over his face, tubes everywhere, around him.
I think he was unconscious, machines helping him breathe. We could see his-- the bandages were around his head.
We see his face, and the stitches, and the bruises, and the swelling, which had already subsided quite a bit
because he'd been there a while. But they told us he had never regained consciousness.
And after we spent some time with him in the room, just us, then they told us the extent of his injuries.
DENNIS SHEPARD: To see somebody who is so active, and so lively, and laying in a bed like that,
unresponsive, I can't tell you how heartbreaking and devastating it was and still is to this day.
DAVE O'MALLEY: There was no change in his condition. He remained unconscious. Oftentimes, when people are unconscious or in comas
and things, you can pinch. And you'll get a reaction to pain, even though a person
might be unconscious. And there was none of that. It was just strange that Matt could
hold on long enough for them to get back from Saudi Arabia and get there to see.
JUDY SHEPARD: When we got closer, there were markings on his face that you knew definitely were Matt's.
Little scars on his face from chickenpox, and he had a funny little thing under one of his ears.
I could see it definitely was Matt. He had suffered 18 blows to the head, four skull fractures.
One of the fractures had crushed his brain stem. So his chances for recovery were very slim.
And if he did recover, the chances he would be the Matt we knew were highly unlikely.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Matt was our first baby, born in December of '76. He was four weeks premature.
It was real hard. I was in labor 36 hours before they decided to do a c-section.
DENNIS SHEPARD: I was out of town driving up to North Dakota in a blizzard. And I happened to stop in the Northwest corner of Wyoming.
And I was having breakfast and received a call. Get your butt home. Your wife is in the hospital in labor.
So I pull up to leave. And wouldn't you know it, a car comes around the corner and hits me.
So I call the police. I said, I have to get to Casper. My wife's having a baby. Here comes a police car.
Here comes an ambulance because they thought my wife was with me and having a baby in the car.
But we got that straightened out. And I was here when Matt was born. And it was a thrill.
JUDY SHEPARD: When he was young, as a preschooler and elementary grade, always cared about the other kids,
worried about them if they felt bad, worried about them if they were being bullied, extraordinarily
kind and polite. DENNIS SHEPARD: He was always trying to make it better around the neighborhood,
in the school, wherever he was. Growing up, he was a handful. He liked to argue.
And he was good at it. He liked politics. After we moved to Saudi Arabia and he saw how other people
were being treated from other countries, he was really indignant. Because he'd always been raised--
we raised him that everybody is your equal. JUDY SHEPARD: My first thoughts of Matt being gay
were when he was quite young, still in grade school, elementary school. There was no particular reason why I thought that other
than he was just different. But the one thing, my friends tease me when I say this,
I don't think this was a trigger for me. But his favorite Halloween costume was Dolly Parton
for three years in a row. And he got quite good at it by the third year. His teachers loved it.
The other kids loved it. Matt had this incredible smile that would just light up when you talk to him.
And you just knew that he was listening and paying attention to what you had to say.
DAVE O'MALLEY: I recall a morning very well. I normally get into work around 7:00,
some time around that time. And this particular morning, I remember one of the midnight patrol sergeants bringing in a Smith
and Wesson 0.357 magnum. It was a big gun. It had an 8-inch barrel on it. And it was literally covered in blood.
And we had information that that gun had been used to strike a person in the head the night before.
BRYANNA FOX: On October 7, 1998 around 12:45 AM, the Laramie Police were notified of a disturbance
in a residential neighborhood. When they responded to this call, they saw there were two men standing near a truck.
And when they tried to approach them, the men ran in different directions. At that point, an officer was able to catch up
with one of the men. DAVE O'MALLEY: After he apprehended him, he identified the person that he chased and caught
as Russell Henderson. And he transported him to Ivanson Memorial Hospital because he had a cut on his lip, transferred
him there for treatment. He issued him a citation at that time for interference with the police officer
and left him at the hospital. Then, the obvious investigative procedure is to look at the truck.
They didn't go into the truck. They secured it. BRYANNA FOX: Russell Henderson mentioned
to police that the person he was with was his friend, Aaron McKinney, and that the truck
that they were using belonged to Aaron's father. DAVE O'MALLEY: And the rest of the officers
had then come into the scene and start looking through the windows of the pickup truck.
And there was a coat in the back of the truck. And they could see bloodstains and transfer.
And they could see a pair of really nice black shoes laying inside the truck. And looking through the windows, they
were able to see a card on the dashboard of the truck from Hilltop National Bank in Casper, Wyoming
in the name of Matthew Shepard. And at that point, we had no indication of who Matthew Shepard was.
We ended up searching the truck by use of a search warrant and eventually found the 0.357 magnum
in the bed of the pickup truck. The officers were finishing up their investigation,
as far as getting a report work and things like that completed. At that point in time, what our agency knew had occurred
was the fight and the assault. The officers were concentrating their efforts around evidence that
was associated with the truck, also trying to find the other subject that had run away from the truck.
But it was obvious, to me, that something had occurred beyond the fight. Because that information, again, was that someone had been
struck in the head one time. And it was obvious by looking at the condition of the firearm
and the blood that contained on it, there were hairs actually sticking out of the wooden butt of the gun.
That takes a lot of force. And the hairs could have been there from one blow to somebody.
But that amount of blood was not indicative of that at all. I mean, something else had happened.
What? At that point, we didn't know. It wasn't until later that night that I got a call at home.
And this was after they'd discovered someone tied to a fence barely alive on the East end of Laramie.
BRYANNA FOX: When police discovered Matthew Shepard, they knew that he was the victim of a serious crime.
They'd also come to find out that his credit card was in the truck that was being used by Aaron
McKinney and Russell Henderson. DAVE O'MALLEY: It was an immediate association between everybody.
That's when everything just started to flood together. All of the information started to make sense.
The gun, with the amount of blood that was on it, made sense. BRYANNA FOX: At this point, it became very clear
that Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney had some contact or may have been involved with what
happened to Matthew Shepard the day he was assaulted. DAVE O'MALLEY: It was important to gather as much information
as possible from anyone that was intimately involved in the assault on Matthew Shepard.
And the investigative team attempted to conduct an information-gathering interview
with Russell Henderson. And as I recall, Russell Henderson invoked his right to remain silent,
and refused to speak with our investigators, and requested that an attorney be appointed for him.
BRYANNA FOX: In the early hours of the morning on October 8, police were able to establish that the black shoes
found in the truck actually belonged to Matthew Shepard. And this is incredibly damning evidence
because Matthew Shepard was found without shoes on that night when police discovered him.
So there's a great reason to believe that, now, there's evidence linking McKinney and Henderson,
through that forensic evidence, to the assault of Matthew Shepard. [MUSIC PLAYING]
JIM OSBORN: Matt was happy here in Laramie. He had a group of friends he was connecting to,
both in and outside of our social group, and the student organization. I think classes were going well.
He liked his instructors. And they liked him. As far as I know, he was very happy here.
There wasn't really a reason for Matt or anybody else to not feel safe, specifically.
But we always knew that there was a possibility for violence at that time. It was always something that we lived with
and we knew had to be careful. [MUSIC PLAYING] On Thursday, October 8, 1998, I got an email
when I was at work telling me that Matt had been hurt, that he'd been attacked, and was in the hospital.
I learned in that email that his injuries were pretty severe. I then called the friend who sent me the email.
And her husband told me that they weren't supposed to discuss the case. But I knew where Matt had been and that I needed
to speak with law enforcement so that they had that information too. BRYANNA FOX: As police are trying to unravel what occurred
to Matthew, they start investigating his whereabouts the night before he was found on October 6.
They learned that he was initially at a LGBTQ meeting on campus at the University of Wyoming.
Afterwards, he hoped that he would get his friends to come with him out to a bar.
They had to go home. But he went by himself. And the barman states that Matthew Shepard
ended up not being alone. And there are two men that actually fits the profiles of McKinney and Henderson
that were there with him. JIM OSBORN: When I was able to call Dave O'Malley and talk to him on the phone, I asked how Matt was.
He let me know that Matt's injuries were very severe and that he was not likely to wake up.
DAVE O'MALLEY: We had arrested and incarcerated Russell Henderson. Aaron McKinney had not been arrested at that point.
KERRY DAYNES: The police weren't able to speak to McKinney immediately because, actually, he was in hospital.
And that's because, of course, he'd been out fighting that night. And he'd received injuries himself.
And he was being treated for them. [MUSIC PLAYING] DAVE O'MALLEY: It was sometime during the morning of October
the 8, 1998. Police department investigators interviewed the girlfriends of Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney.
Kristen was Aaron McKinney's girlfriend. And one of the investigators was interviewing her
in an interview room. And he had come out and said that she was standing by an alibi.
BRYANNA FOX: The girlfriends of Henderson and McKinney provide, what seems like, a shaky alibi that their boyfriends were
with them that night and that they never left. While police receive this alibi, they don't buy it.
They think that these girlfriends may lie on their behalf to make sure that they're not arrested
for these very serious crimes. DAVE O'MALLEY: The two girlfriends were arrested the same day.
I remember going in and talking to Kristen and just basically let her know that she was an accessory
after the fact of aggravated assault, and attempted murder, and, potentially, murder if Matthew Shepard died.
KERRY DAYNES: After a while and more concerted questioning, she begins to crack.
And she decides to tell the truth. And the truth is that McKinney had come home that evening.
And he was covered in blood. And he actually said to her, I think I've killed somebody.
DAVE O'MALLEY: Kristen had told the investigator during the interview that Russell Henderson's tennis
shoes had been hidden in a storage unit next to a trailer in a local mobile home park.
And the shoes were in the storage unit just exactly like she had indicated. They did contain blood, very apparent blood stains on them.
And those blood stains, again, were tied back to Matthew Shepard. KERRY DAYNES: Bearing in mind that Kristen had obviously
lied to the police, at some point, the police have got to prove that this is actually reliable evidence.
And she provides them with a key fact. And that key fact is that if they look in her home,
they will find Matt's wallet. And it's hidden in a used diaper in a Walmart bag.
DAVE O'MALLEY: It was amazing when we did the search warrant on McKinney's apartment.
There were two or three Walmart bags with garbage in them on the floor in the kitchen.
And the one in front is the one where the diaper was that the wallet was in. And the wallet was in there.
And it opens up dramatically almost. It kind of took our breath away. And then, when the wallet unfolds and there's
two IDs for Matthew Shepard facing up just looking at you, and you're going-- it gives me goose bumps today.
And it did back then. We searched the trailer that Russell Henderson and his girlfriend lived in.
McKinney's truck was searched. The vehicle itself was a crime scene. There was blood spatter on the interior of the vehicle.
There was blood spatter on the exterior of the vehicle. There was blood transference on the silver coat
in the back of the truck. The Smith and Wesson 0.357 magnum was preserved as evidence.
And subsequently, the Federal Bureau of Investigations crime laboratory did an analysis of it.
They determined that there was DNA contained on that gun that was identified as that of Matthew Shepard
and of Russell Henderson. And there was a patent fingerprint and blood on the gun that was identified as Aaron McKinney's.
The hair that was sticking out of the butt of the gun was consistent with the hairs of Matthew Shepard.
Russell Henderson was charged with attempted first degree murder. And the girlfriends were charged with being
accessories after the fact. JIM OSBORN: There was a tsunami of news reporters that appeared in town.
We had camera trucks parked on peoples' lawns. You couldn't walk across campus without somebody with a camera,
shoving their camera or microphone in your face, and asking how you were feeling.
One of the things that I struggled with was making sure that I talked about Matt in the first person
and in the present tense. Because in my brain, he was gone already to me. Because I knew that he wasn't expected to wake up.
BRYANNA FOX: On October 8, McKinney was arrested by police. And later on the 9th, he initially
began his confession for his involvement in the assault of Matthew Shepard. DAVE O'MALLEY: I can tell you that the investigators
were excited to speak with Aaron McKinney. That was one of the missing links or keys at that point.
Everybody else had been talked to except for Aaron. BRYANNA FOX: McKinney finally confesses
to his involvement in the assault of Matthew Shepard. However, all the details that he gives
are clearly distorted or untrue. [MUSIC PLAYING] DAVE O'MALLEY: He had indicated that they
had gone into the bathroom. They had hatched a plan in order to act as if they were gay to get Matthew
isolated so they could rob him. DENNIS SHEPARD: Matt was sitting there having a drink when two young men came up, pretended to be
gay, befriended him. Said we're going to a party. Would you like to go along? He said sure.
BRYANNA FOX: And then Matthew Shepard had made a move on them indicating that he
some romantic interest in them. And therefore, they decided to assault him, almost
in the self-defense capacity. Of course, none of this was true. DAVE O'MALLEY: It was an excuse, almost
to the point of trying to justify, in his mind, why he did what he did. I also truly believe that he was setting up
what's known as a gay panic defense early on and victim-blame somebody else for what happened.
DENNIS SHEPARD: He got into their pickup truck. They took off. And as they were driving out of town, one of the young men
said we're not going to a party. You're jacked. Give us all your money. And he hit him.
And at that time, Matt gave him his wallet, which had $20 in it. KERRY DAYNES: They drove Matt to a remote location,
very, very rural. And they stopped in front of a book fence. Matt was taken out of the truck.
And he was beaten over and over again. He continued to be pistol whipped. DENNIS SHEPARD: They hit him some more.
They tied his hands behind him, tied him to the fence. And then proceeded to use the butt
end of a 0.357 Smith and Wesson revolver, and they beat him. DAVE O'MALLEY: You see the overkill.
It was focused on his face and his head. That's a blatant attack on the soul of that kid.
Aaron McKinney interview indicated that he was responsible one for beating Matthew Shepard,
that Henderson had helped tie him up to the fence. JIM OSBORN: To think about what Matt must have been thinking,
what must have been going through his mind, it's hard not to fixate on that and to dwell on that, when you
hear about that kind of violence and about someone begging to just to live. [MUSIC PLAYING]
DENNIS SHEPARD: It's the most brutal thing I have ever heard of for no reason. Absolutely no reason, he gave them his money.
BRYANNA FOX: He was so trusting and genuine while he was in that bar. They, on the other hand, had every intention to attack him
and, seemingly, to kill him. He'd done nothing wrong to them at all. And they acted out against him in such
a brutal and horrific way. JUDY SHEPARD: Matt's condition got steadily worse. And on October 12, his fever became very
unsteady and blood pressure. And we knew the end was approaching. And we wanted to make it easier for him.
So they took out the ventilator. And we were around his bed, friends and family.
And he just passed. We all had something to say to him before. And then, it was just over.
JIM OSBORN: I remember getting the phone call the morning of October 12 when Matt passed away.
My phone rang at 5 o'clock in the morning. The tears started streaming down my face just like they are now.
And I remember thinking, how am I going to call everybody and tell them this? JUDY SHEPARD: You don't want your children to suffer at all.
But our hopes, at the same time, were dashed that we wouldn't have him anymore. So this is very mixed emotions.
But now, he was at peace. DENNIS SHEPARD: We had Matt cremated. And Matt, our son, is in this little box.
That's our son. For 21 years, he's laughing, and smiling, and doing things, eating with us, and hugging us, telling us he loves u-- now,
he's in a box. That's it. [MUSIC PLAYING] JIM OSBORN: The University allows people to dedicate
benches on campus to those who have been students or employees here, as well as those who have passed away.
So this bench was dedicated in Matt's honor. I walk by the bench often on campus on my way
to and from meetings. It makes me think of Matt's smile and helps me remember him.
[MUSIC PLAYING] DAVE O'MALLEY: When Henderson and McKinney were incarcerated at the Albany County Detention Center,
the deputies that work in detention intercepted a letter that Aaron McKinney had written to Russell Henderson.
What it does is it provides Aaron McKinney's own words in writing that he was the person
responsible for the beating that was given to Matthew Shepard. Russ, Hey, homeboy.
What's popping over there? When we go to court, if they try us together or separate,
I want you to blame everything on me. You did what I said because you were scared.
I made you, at gunpoint, drive me to the fence. Then, I tied him up. After that, he mouthed off.
So I hit him a few more times. And this fag ass died. BRYANNA FOX: It's very common for one
to be the instigator, the ringleader, and another one to be the one that goes along with it, perhaps
out of peer pressure or because they just don't want to say, no. And in this case, it seems that that was exactly what happened.
DAVE O'MALLEY: Russ, I don't think you could begin to understand how sorry I am.
You are the best friend I've ever had and the only one who never turned on me or ratted me out.
That means a lot to me. If you hate me for this, I understand. But if there's anything I can say or do, let me know.
I'll do anything for you, bro. Later, homie. Aaron [MUSIC PLAYING] We were getting ready to start trial on Henderson when
the prosecutor's office and attorneys that represented Russell Henderson came to an agreement
to forego the trial. And he'd change his plea to guilty as charged. So on Henderson's side, the death penalty portion
was vacated. And he pled guilty to the charges as filed with an agreement to a life sentence
with no possibility of parole. DENNIS SHEPARD: I was always worried that the two killers might go free on a technicality.
But when Henderson pled guilty, I knew that there was little chance that they would go free because Henderson was the stooge.
McKinney was one who used the gun and beat Matt. So if Henderson got two consecutive without parole,
there's guaranteed that McKinney would get that or worse. JUDY SHEPARD: We both read victim
impact statements at the trial. DENNIS SHEPARD: When I gave my statement, I looked at the judge and the jury the whole time.
I never looked at McKinney. I didn't care to look at McKinney. I still don't care to look at McKinney.
JUDY SHEPARD: He looked evil. I don't know how else to say it. I actually came pretty close to him in person.
And his eyes were just empty. But he was, definitely, a far worse, scarier character than Mr. Henderson.
DAVE O'MALLEY: Aaron McKinney went to trial. Aaron McKinney was convicted. Would spend a year preparing to go to war in a death penalty
case, presenting the evidence, getting the evidence together. And so we were ready to start the next morning.
And Dennis and Judy had information that they'd spoken with McKinney's attorneys.
And the next morning, I remember, specifically, standing in the hallway and Judy making the statement
that the hate stops here. Let's move on. And what ended up occurring was Aaron McKinney took exactly the same agreement
that Russell Henderson did. DENNIS SHEPARD: We decided to accept the prison terms
for McKinney instead of the death penalty because my wife is a lot smarter than her husband.
My desire then and my desire now is to fry him. I wanted it to be over. I didn't want to ever see him in court
again or, on some outside chance, some technicality, we'd have to do another trial.
Or he would even get off. I just wanted the whole thing to be over. I wanted him gone.
I didn't want our younger son to ever have to think about seeing him in court again or going
through this nightmare ever again. I just wanted it done. [MUSIC PLAYING] Matt's goal was to change the world, have an impact.
I'm sure he didn't think he was going to do it by his death. When Matt was murdered in '98, there
were existing federal hate crime laws and some in states. Not all the state laws covered the gay community.
And none of the federal laws covered the gay community. So the next logical step was to include it in new federal hate
crime legislation. When President Obama was elected, we knew that this was a man who understood
everything about social justice and injustice. So we felt we had a chance. And indeed, we did.
In 2009, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act.
JIM OSBORN: One of the things that we all understood, all too clearly, was that if this could happen here
in our community and to someone like Matt, this could happen anywhere and could happen to anyone.
I think that that's one of the reasons that Matt's story resonated with so many people.
Because people looked at Matt's picture and heard about Matt's story. And they pictured their own son or nephew
and thought what if that happened to the kid that I know and love? BRYANNA FOX: This is the watershed in the United States
where we realize that there is no acceptable reason for violence or hatred against anybody.
For me being a young person in the United States and hearing about this case, it was the first time I realized
how horrible people could be. And I had no idea the level that people could be awful.
And that changed everything for me. We started receiving money, cards and letters with money in it, from people all over the world.
And we thought that money should be used for something that benefits everybody. So we talked about it and decided
to start the Matthew Shepard Foundation on December 1, which was Matt's birthday.
JUDY SHEPARD: The idea was raising awareness, to encourage people to embrace diversity,
to understand the issues facing the gay community. Compassion, understanding, and acceptance, those
were our watchwords. Understanding, compassion, and acceptance. When we started the foundation, we thought maybe two or three
years, people would move on to the next horrible thing that happened. But they didn't.
Matt's story still resonates among even the younger generation that wasn't even born when Matt was killed.
So Matt's story will be around. And people will learn from it. They will continue to learn from it.
[MUSIC PLAYING] DENNIS SHEPARD: I'll never be at ease with what happened to Matt because it shouldn't
have happened to start with. It's just a waste of somebody who has such potential to help
make the world a better place. And I will always regret that I wasn't here and had the chance of possibly stopping that from happening.
What I hope people remember most is that Matt was a person. He wasn't just an event or some piece of history.
He was a living, breathing individual, someone with brothers, someone with parents,
with friends, with classmates, people who knew and cared about him. That's what I hope people remember,
is the person not the story. [MUSIC PLAYING]

EPISODE 8 – MATTHEW SHEPARD

Matthew Shepard accepts a ride home from two strangers he's been chatting with in a bar in Laramie, Wyoming. When he's found the next day, Matthew is covered in blood and soon after, national outrage is sparked. Nearly 25 years later, the tragic killing of Matthew Shepard still resonates. Were you familiar with Matthew Shepard or The Laramie Project before this episode? Share your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to like and subscribe for more episodes. Murdered At First Sight is a true crime documentary series that tells the first-hand stories of the most complex and hard-to-solve homicide cases: murders committed by strangers.

Brief Summary

Matthew Shepard's tragic story highlights empathy, brutality, and the fight for LGBTQ rights after his murder in 1998.

Key points

Matt's Empathy Shines Through. Matt was known for his incredible empathy and kindness towards others.
Matt's Last Words. Dennis and Judy Shepard share their final conversations with Matt.
The Discovery. A mountain biker discovers Matt tied to a fence in dire condition.
The Tragic Call. Dennis and Judy Shepard receive a devastating call about Matt's injuries.
The Investigation Begins. Police start piecing together the events leading to Matt's assault.
The Search Warrant. The search of McKinney's apartment reveals shocking evidence, including a wallet with IDs.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Last thing I said to him was I love you, son.

Dennis Shepard shares his final words with Matt.

2:01WatchNov 17, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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