Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 15:53:38 -0400 United Press International, October 13, 1998 October 13, 1998, Tuesday, BC cycle -08:38 Eastern Time HEADLINE: Wyoming beating suspects in court DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo., Oct. 13 Charges against two men jailed in the attack on gay Wyoming student Matthew Shepard are expected to be upgraded to first-degree murder. Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney could be executed if convicted of the charge stemming from last week's kidnap and savage beating of Shepard, who died early Monday with family members at his side. Shepard's death came nearly six days after he was pistol-whipped, tortured and lashed to a wooden ranch fence just outside Laramie, Wyo., and left for dead. He was barely alive when two bicyclists found him 18 hours later. The attack has drawn worldwide attention, ranging from e-mail messages to Poudre Valley Hospital where he battled for his life to calls from gay rights advocates and President Clinton for tougher hate crimes laws. The hospital said its Website at times took 30,000 hits per hour from people seeking updates on Shepard's condition. Investigators believe Henderson and McKinney abducted Shepard from Laramie's Fireside lounge and pistol-whipped him because he was gay. Shepard's skull was so severely crushed that his brain stem was irreparably damaged. The suspects' girlfriends, Chastity Pasley and Kristin Price, have been charged as accessories. Price has told investigators and reporters that Shepard was targeted for robbery and assault because he was gay. --- Copyright 1998 by United Press International. All rights reserved. --- Copyright 1998 U.P.I. United Press International October 13, 1998, Tuesday, BC cycle -07:26 Eastern Time HEADLINE: Wyoming beating suspects in court DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo., Oct. 13 BODY: Charges against two men jailed in the attack on gay Wyoming student Matthew Shepard are expected to be upgraded (Tuesday) to first-degree murder. Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney could be executed if convicted of the charge stemming from last week's kidnap and savage beating of Shepard, who died early Monday. ------------------------ Copyright 1998 Associated Press AP Online October 13, 1998; Tuesday 05:41 Eastern Time HEADLINE: Gay Student Dies From Beating BYLINE: ROBERT W. BLACK AP-Gay-Attack ,0763 DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo. The beating death of a gay University of Wyoming student inspired condolences from across the country, as President Clinton and activists asked lawmakers to give homosexuals the protection of hate-crime laws. Matthew Shepard, 21, died at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital Monday after spending several days in a coma. His skull was so badly fractured by the beating that doctors said they could not even operate. Shepard was found last Wednesday in near-freezing temperatures, lashed to a split-rail post outside Laramie. ''All gay people and lesbians have felt alone and under siege at times,'' gay activist Michael Weinstein told about 1,000 people attending a candlelight vigil in West Hollywood, Calif. ''Thinking of him alone on that post ... it's just horrifying. He was so young. He had not yet had the chance to live.'' Police said charges against Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, 22, will be upgraded to first-degree murder, which carries a possible death sentence. Police said robbery was the main motive for the attack but that Shepard apparently was chosen in part because he was gay. Shepard had been beaten twice in recent months, attacks he attributed to his homosexuality. Students rallied Monday in downtown Denver to remember Shepard. In Laramie, some students wore yellow and green armbands to send a message of peace. Students attending a rally against a columnist who criticized gays in the University of Maryland campus newspaper observed 30 seconds of silence for Shepard. And in the Castro district of San Francisco, the giant rainbow flag that symbolizes the gay movement was lowered to half staff. ''Americans will once again search their hearts and do what they can to reduce their own fear and anxiety and anger at people who are different,'' Clinton said. ''And I hope that Congress will pass the hate-crime legislation.'' The Federal Hate Crimes Protection Act would make federal offenses of crimes based on sex, disability and sexual orientation. Current law covers crimes based on race, color, religion or national origin. Of the 41 states that have hate-crime laws, 21 states specifically cover offenses motivated by the victim's sexual orientation. Efforts to pass a hate-crime law in Wyoming have failed. Shepard died just as Gay Awareness Week was getting under way in Laramie. ''There's no way that can be overlooked,'' said Jim Osborn, who attended grade school with Shepard. ''If his death leads to passage of hate-crimes legislation in Wyoming, it will be a bittersweet footnote in our state's history.'' While friends and family planned memorial services, new details emerged Monday about a second alleged attack by the suspects on the night Shepard was lured from a campus hangout in Laramie, robbed and beaten. Two Hispanic teen-agers said Henderson and McKinney ambushed them early Wednesday, cutting the scalp of one before the other retaliated. Police Sgt. Jeff Bury confirmed that Henderson and McKinney were involved in an altercation with Emiliano Morales III, 19, and Jeremy Herrera, 18, both of Laramie. The teens said they were walking to a park just after midnight _ about an hour after investigators believe Shepard was assaulted _ when two men suddenly appeared. Both Morales and Herrera, who said they are not gay, did not hear any anti-Hispanic or anti-gay slurs, only cussing and what Herrera called ''talking smack.'' ''Jeremy yelled, 'He's got a gun,' and he hit me in the head,'' Morales said. ''Jeremy ran up and hit him with a stick and we took off.'' Police responded to the fracas. During a court hearing Friday, the judge read from investigative reports that said police found a bloody gun and one of Shepard's credit cards in McKinney's truck. McKinney was taken to a hospital for treatment. Soon after, Morales needed 21 staples to repair his scalp. During an interrogation early Wednesday, Herrera said, police had asked about someone named Shepard presumably based on the credit card but Herrera said he didn't know anything about the person. Later Wednesday, Shepard was found tethered to the post, and officers began investigating whether his injuries could have been inflicted with the same gun used in the attack on Morales. ------------- Copyright 1998 Agence France Presse Agence France Presse October 13, 1998 01:59 GMT HEADLINE: Death of Wyoming gay student sparks calls for tougher anti-hate crime DATELINE: (ADDS lawmaker quote) LARAMIE, Wyoming, Oct 12 (AFP) - The brutal beating death of an openly gay Wyoming student sparked national outrage Monday and prompted calls for tougher state and federal laws to deter hate crimes. University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, 21, died of massive head injuries early Monday in a Fort Collins, Colorado hospital four days after motorcyclists found him brutally beaten and tied to a fence outside Laramie. Prosecutors say they were considering first-degree murder charges against Russell Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, 22, who allegedly drove Shepard a mile outside town, and beat him around the head with a .375 magnum handgun. "In our shock and grief one thing must remain clear: hate and prejudice are not American values," President Bill Clinton said in Washington as he offered his condolences to Shepard's family. "There's something we can do about this. Congress needs to pass a tough hate crime legislation," he said before departing for New York. The proposed Hate Crime Prevention Act would amend federal laws to include crimes motivated by bias based on real or perceived sexual orientation, gender and disability. Current federal laws permit federal prosecution of hate crimes only if they are motivated by bias based on race, religion, national origin or color. "I call today in tribute to Matthew Shepard that this Congress pass immediately the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1998 -- if there's ever a time to acknowledge the fact that this nation must stand for something or fall for nothing," Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, said in Washington. "Matthew's story is a story that should ring loud and clear." Only 21 states and the District of Columbia include sexual orientation in their hate crime statutes. Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer, a Republican who is facing reelection next month, also condemned the brutal killing and said he was open to any kind of discussion about a 'hate-crimes bill' for the state. "If all we feel is outrage, we have not found a remedy. If we don't feel ashamed and we don't change, if we don't speak up for truth, we will not preserve the values that are important to Americans," he added. At the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins where Shepard died, director Rulon Stacey quoted the victim's parents as saying that their son "came into the world premature and he left the world prematurely." "They're most grateful for the time they had to spend with Matthew," he added. The killing shocked the University of Wyoming campus here, where the diminutive Shepard was a political science student. University President Philip Dubois ordered flags to be flown at half staff across the campus in memory of the victim. University students also held a "Remembering Matthew" ceremony while the university's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Association issued a statement reaffirming that "Hate is not a Wyoming value." Shepard was lured away from a bar near the Laramie university campus late Tuesday by two men apparently posing as homosexuals. Two motorcyclists found him up to 18 hours later, unconscious in near freezing temperatures, with burns on his body and cuts on his face and neck, lashed to a fence "like a scarecrow." Shepard suffered a massive blow to the right side of his head, which left him with a skull fracture, and also had 12 cuts on his head, face and neck, hospital officials said. -------------------- Copyright 1998 Guardian Newspapers Limited The Guardian (London) October 13, 1998 SECTION: The Guardian Home Page; Pg. 2 HEADLINE: Outrage as 'gay bashing' victim dies BYLINE: Michael Ellison in New York reports A STUDENT at the University of Wyoming who was bludgeoned and tied to a wooden fence in what police believe may have been a ferocious gay bashing died of his injuries yesterday, prompting calls across the United States for a review of the laws protecting homosexuals. Matthew Shepard, an openly gay 22-year-old student, was lured last Wednesday night from the bar at the Fireside Inn, in the cowboy college town of Laramie, by two men who are accused of attempted murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. He spent four days on a ventilator before dying of heart failure. His legacy is a heated debate about the failure of the law in 10 states - including Wyoming - to protect minorities. President Bill Clinton said he was horrified by the attack and called on Congress to pass a federal hate-crimes law to protect gays and bring them into line with the safeguards afforded to black people and women. "They laid him out there like a trophy, like an animal," said Walt Boulden, a friend who described Shepard as gay, though not an activist. "They were leaving us a message." Father Roger Schmidt, a local priest, said: "All over the nation people are asking, 'What sort of people live in Wyoming?' " Russell Henderson, aged 21, and Aaron McKinney, aged 22, are said to have met Shepard in the bar, convinced him they were gay, and driven him a mile east of Laramie. The town of 26,000 people likes to see itself as a liberal oasis in a conservative region, which nonetheless calls itself the Equality State. It is alleged that the two men - whose girlfriends have been named as accessories to the crime - spread-eagled Shepard on a wooden fence, stole his wallet, credit cards and shoes, tortured him and pistol-whipped his skull with a .357 Magnum. A passing cyclist at first mistook the victim for a scarecrow. A red rose marked the spot yesterday. Mr McKinney's father and girlfriend said the defendants had targeted Shepard because he flirted with them, which both enraged and embarrassed the pair. Kristen Price, aged 18, who is accused of giving her boyfriend a false alibi, said: "It wasn't meant to be a hate crime, they just wanted to rob him." Charges of first-degree murder were expected to be laid against the suspects. Mr McKinney's father said: "Had this been a heterosexual (victim) these two boys decided to take out and rob, this never would have made the national news. Now my son is guilty before he's even had a trial." A mood of grief mingled with self-examination spread far beyond Wyoming; a similar emotion followed the killing in Texas during the summer of James Byrd, a black man dragged to his death behind a car. The governor of Wyoming, Jim Geringer, a Republican who faces voters next month, said he was open to suggestions about how the state's laws might be strengthened. But he tempered his willingness to act by saying: "We shouldn't be running off like a lynch mob. That would be just as wrong as the crime that we deplore already. "We feel our laws are tough already. Change should be dealt with by individual states, not dictated from the centre. We don't look to Washington as a standard of morality." Wendy Murphy, a leading legal analyst, said: "If a special class of person is targeted because of their sexuality they should be able to know that the law will step in and give that extra level of protection. "The number of violent episodes against homosexuals would be reduced." But others claimed that hate-crime laws were unnecessary. Murder was murder, whatever the motive. At the weekend nearly 500 people, who might otherwise have attended the university's homecoming parade, marched through Laramie in support of Shepard. Hundreds more maintained a vigil outside Poudre Valley hospital, in the neighbouring state of Colorado, where he died. The hospital's website, which normally records about 700 hits a week, had more than 20,000 in two days. Rulon Stacey, the hospital's chief executive, said: "His mother said to me, 'Tell everyone who's listening to go home and give your kids a hug and don't let a day go by without telling them you love them.' " --------------------- Copyright 1998 Times Mirror Company Los Angeles Times October 13, 1998, Tuesday, Home Edition HEADLINE: COMMENTARY; COLUMN LEFT / ROBERT SCHEER; HATE RHETORIC OPENED DOOR FOR A MURDER; TO DEFINE GAY RIGHTS AS A HOMOSEXUAL POWER GRAB IS TO INVITE A DERANGED RESPONSE FROM MORE LOOSELY ORDERED MINDS. BYLINE: ROBERT SCHEER, Robert Scheer is a Times contributing editor For 18 hours, the battered body of Matthew Shepard hung helplessly, lashed to a fence in Laramie, Wyo. , his 105-pound, 5-foot-2 body so frail and lifeless that the bicyclist who discovered him mistook him for a scarecrow. For days, he hovered in a coma. Now the gifted language student, fluent in Arabic and German, who had returned to his native Wyoming to attend his father's alma mater, is dead, a victim of hate. An openly gay student at the University of Wyoming, he'd been drinking a beer at a local bar when two men pretending to be gay invited him outside. The police reported that Shepard was clubbed into a barely recognized form with the handle of a .357 Magnum they recovered in possession of the those charged with this heinous act. Another hate crime against a gay man. Searching the news files for some insight into how this barbarism could occur, I came across a telling anecdote. Back in 1990, when President Bush invited dozens of people to the White House to witness his signing of the federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act, his guest list included a representative of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. A natural fit, since gays so often are the target of the very hate crimes that new law was intended to document. But the participation of a gay person in the ceremony incensed Richard Land, then-director of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, who condemned Bush in a letter stating, "Large numbers of Southern Baptists want to know why you are giving such official recognition to a homosexual-lesbian lifestyle they find abhorrent." Land was speaking for the largest Protestant denomination, and a spokesperson for his organization insisted that those hostile remarks were an expression of love, not hate. "Our position is that we hate the sin, but love the sinner," said Louis Moore, CLC assistant director. That was the same line taken by Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi when he recently compared homosexuals to kleptomaniacs. It's the position of Pat Robertson, who warned that earthquakes, terrorist bombs and a meteor might strike Orlando, Fla., as divine punishment for Disney World's willingness to allow "gay days" as it routinely permits days for many other groups. The religious right's claim that "it is the sin and not the sinner" they hold in contempt is an invidious distinction. Their rhetoric abrogates the fundamental right of individuals to make their own intensely personal moral choices. In Wyoming, the effort of gays to obtain the same legislative protection from hate crimes afforded in all but 10 states was beaten back earlier this year by the religious right using the most divisive rhetoric. Words have consequence. To define gay rights as a homosexual power grab is to invite a deranged response from the more loosely ordered minds in the crowd. If we deny the indivisible right of otherwise law-abiding and rational adults who happen to be gay to define and take responsibility for their own moral code, we deny their essential humanity. Young Shepard was just such a sentient being attempting to define his own relation to the natural order. Hours before he was beaten, he'd attended a meeting of a campus-based gay organization. It was clearly his view that being gay was a natural expression of self, consistent with his view of the dictates of his maker in whatever form. Others can disagree, but only in a theocracy do they have the right to elevate the notion of sin to a political slogan to be imposed on others. We are not a theocracy, and for good reason: Trafficking in the presumed judgments of the divine is a road map to the outer limits of civic intolerance. In the process, scripture--be it the Koran or the Old or New Testament--becomes a club for intimidation rather than a path to moral enlightenment. "The Bible calls divorce 'sin' far more often than it hits homosexual activity," writes University of Chicago religion professor Martin E. Marty. "Yet not a few evangelical ministers who are divorced and remarried blithely attack an activity seldom condemned in Scripture. Why?" The answer is that the scriptural prohibitions against divorce, or eating crustaceans or shaving one's beard, are not politically useful slogans for gaining recruits and donations. But thundering on about the sin of homosexuality is appealing to right-wing religious demagogues. As they say, it energizes their base. Tell that to the family of the promising young man now dead. ---------------- Copyright 1998 Times Mirror Company Los Angeles Times October 13, 1998, Tuesday, Home Edition SECTION: Part A; Page 1; National Desk LENGTH: 1131 words HEADLINE: WYOMING CAMPUS MOURNS SLAYING OF GAY STUDENT; CRIME: MATTHEW SHEPARD, 21, DIES THREE DAYS AFTER BRUTAL BEATING. TWO SUSPECTS TO FACE MURDER CHARGES. BYLINE: JULIE CART, TIMES STAFF WRITER DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo. Students at the University of Wyoming, already shocked by the savage beating of a gay student last week, returned to school on Monday to find flags on the leafy campus riding at half-staff. "I looked up, saw the flags and thought, 'Oh, my God, Matthew's dead,' " said Shannon Rexroat, a senior who edits the campus newspaper. "The entire campus is in shock and outraged. I teach an orientation class for freshmen. Most of them can't imagine anyone with enough hate in them to do this. Many of their parents sent them here because it is supposed to be so safe." The death of Matthew Shepard, a popular political science student, left emotions raw in this wind-swept prairie town. Shepard died early Monday at Poudre Valley Hospital, about 60 miles away in Fort Collins, Colo. The 21-year-old had been on life support since he arrived last Thursday with severe head trauma. Police say the openly gay man was beaten, lashed to a fence post and left to die by two Laramie men who later espoused anti-gay sentiments. Authorities said the main motive appeared to be robbery, but said Monday that the charges against the two would be upgraded to murder. Shepard's death brought immediate calls for legislative change both here and nationally. President Clinton called the beating an "evil act" and on Monday urged Congress to strengthen laws against hate crimes. That call echoed even more loudly in Wyoming, one of only eight states that does not have a hate crimes law. A bill that would have created extra penalties for criminals who target victims because of their race, religion or sexual orientation died in the state Senate in February. Many in Wyoming, which proudly calls itself the Equality State because it was the first state to allow women's suffrage, are now looking inward. State Rep. Mike Massie (D-Laramie), the co-sponsor of three unsuccessful "bias crime" bills, said he would try again. "I hope we recognize the reason for it and call it Matthew's Law--like Megan's Law in New Jersey--so we can have something positive come out of this tragic death. "The most important civil rights issue in the 90s is sexual orientation. Every city in the country has some homophobic feelings. We have the opportunity to turn this around and show the nation how to deal with this with forgiveness, love and tolerance," But Speaker of the House Bruce Hinchey (R-Casper) said legislation is not the answer. "The penalties for murder are death or life in prison without parole. What is the enhanced penalty if someone commits murder during a bias crime ? You can't sentence someone to death twice." On campus, yellow ribbons marked with green circles, signs of sympathy for Shepard, could be seen wrapped around ponytails and tied to backpacks. Many students and faculty were wearing "Straight but not Narrow" buttons. All over, impromptu discussions of attitudes about homosexuality were taking place. "Is there approval of homosexuality in Wyoming? Absolutely not. Is there social activism against it? No," said Susanna Godwin, director of the university's Ethics Center. "Laramie is a fairly comfortable place to live. So I thought." Shepard's death coincided with the first day of Gay Awareness Week on the 10,000-student campus. Steve Hassheider and Phil Underwood were working at the table sponsored by the campus' Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Assn. "We've been getting a lot of support around campus," said Hassheider, watching a parade of denim-clad students shuffle past his table in the Student Union. "Last year you could see people veering away from the table, afraid to even be seen near it." Hassheider was heartened by this reaction but said he and his friends know to be discreet about their sexuality in Laramie. Underwood, a social work student, worried that the show of support will turn out to be short-lived. "Our greatest concern is that the authorities in Wyoming are going to back off, saying it is was an isolated incident," he said. "No hate crime bill, no more awareness." Jeannie Crofts, a 20-year-old student who grew up in Wyoming said she had seen gay friends in high school beaten up but never imagined such anti-gay brutality was possible here. "I think about him out there, tied to a fence for 18 or 20 hours--what was going through his head? It's too terrible for me to even think someone would do that." Russell Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, 22, were charged with kidnapping, aggravated robbery. Adding first-degree murder charges could bring the death penalty. Two women described as the pair's girlfriends, Kristen Leann Price, 18, and Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, have been charged as accessories after the fact to first-degree murder. Shepard attended a meeting Tuesday night of the campus gay and lesbian group, which was planning Gay Awareness Week. At the meeting, the group's president told of an incident in which he was harassed near the campus' Fraternity Row and advised students to be careful. After the meeting Shepard asked a friend if she wanted to stop at the Fireside Bar, a popular lounge. The friend begged off, saying she had to study. At the bar, police said, Henderson and McKinney, both high school dropouts, told Shepard that they were gay in order to lure him outside. They left in McKinney's truck, beating Shepard as they drove. Once they reached the edge of town, police said, the men lashed Shepard to a wooden ranch fence and continued beating him, smashing his skull with a .357-magnum handgun. Shepard remained by the side of the road for 18 hours until mountain bikers noticed him. Police said the men stole Shepard's wallet and shoes. But McKinney's girlfriend told the Denver Post that McKinney said that Shepard had embarrassed him by making a pass at him in the bar. To get back at the student, McKinney and Henderson decided to take his money. Shepard's family, which had traveled from Saudi Arabia to be at his bedside, issued a statement urging parents to hug their children and enjoy every day with them. Shepard grew up in Casper and lived abroad until deciding to return to Wyoming and attend his father's alma mater. His father, an oil rig safety instructor, took a job in Saudi Arabia and Shepard finished high school at a boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland. Shepard, who spoke Arabic and German, wanted to pursue a foreign service career. For gay rights advocates, the slaying was another in a sad litany. In 1997, 2,445 cases of anti-gay violence and harassment were documented in 14 areas tracked by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. * Times researchers Tere Petersen in Denver and Lianne Hart in Houston contributed to this story. * PROTEST VIGIL: 400 attend candlelight vigil, march in West Hollywood. B1 GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (A2) IN MOURNING--Melissa Hulme ties a yellow ribbon around the arm of classmate Harmoni Hehnlin at the University of Wyoming in remembrance of gay student Matthew Shepard, who died after being beaten. A1 PHOTOGRAPHER: Associated Press ---------------- Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company The New York Times October 13, 1998, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 1; Editorial Desk LENGTH: 489 words HEADLINE: Murdered for Who He Was In the United States, for all its consecration of equal rights, the members of minority groups have often had to pay a terrible price just for being who they are. It is a history that African-Americans, Asians, Jews, Italians, Irish and others know too well, and its most compelling image, the symbol of a dangerous knot in the American spirit, has always been the black figure at the end of a lynch rope, hanging from a tree. But other groups have been the victims of that murderous impulse too, and homosexuals have always been among them. Gradually, crimes motivated by hate have come to be seen as a category of their own. Forty states have passed hate-crime laws, but 19 of those do not cover sexual orientation. Ten states have no laws at all. There is no adequate Federal standard of what constitutes a hate crime, and nothing could make plainer the need for one than the way young Matthew Shepard died in Wyoming yesterday. Slight, trusting and uncertain how well he would be accepted as an openly gay freshman at the University of Wyoming, Mr. Shepard returned from school in Europe to begin college in his home state this fall. His murder there is a gruesome reminder of how much hostility remains, three decades after the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Wyoming was the first state to grant women the right to vote, but Laramie, the home seat of the university, is a small town in a masculine culture. The campus has a gay, lesbian and transgender group where Matt Shepard found companionship, but the town is not big enough to have its own gay bar. Instead, more in keeping with a culture in which homosexuals are more and more integrated with everyone else, there was one bar in which gays and straights, cowboys and college kids, laborers and children of affluence all mixed. There, a week ago, by all reports, after attending a meeting of the campus gay group, Matt Shepard was befriended by two young men, one of whom he may have made a pass at earlier that evening, then driven away to a lonely spot, tied to a fence, bashed in the head with something heavy and left to chill in almost freezing weather for 18 hours until he was found. He died in a coma yesterday, in a state without a hate-crimes law. Its legislature had rejected the latest attempt to pass one in February. Matt Shepard spoke three languages or more. He seemed bright and open and full of promise. We will never know what he would have done in life. But in death, in a nation sickened by the gratuitous thuggery of his murder, he may do much to dispel the stubborn belief in some quarters that homosexuals are not discriminated against. They are. Hatred can kill. The men accused of killing Matthew Shepard will be tried for first-degree murder. But his death makes clear the need for hate-crime laws to protect those who survive and punish those who attack others, whether fatally or not, just because of who they are. -------------------------- --------------------------- Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company The New York Times October 13, 1998, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 1; National Desk HEADLINE: Gay Man Dies From Attack, Fanning Outrage and Debate BYLINE: By JAMES BROOKE DATELINE: FORT COLLINS, Colo., Oct. 12 Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was kidnapped, robbed and pistol-whipped, died here today, five days after he was rescued from a Wyoming ranch where he had been left tied to a fence for 18 hours in near-freezing temperatures. His death, announced at the Poudre Valley Hospital here, fanned the outrage that followed word of the attack, spawning vigils, producing calls for Federal hate-crimes legislation from President Clinton and fueling debates over such laws in a host of Western states, including Wyoming, that have resisted them. In places from Denver to the University of Maryland, people turned out to mourn the soft-spoken 21-year-old who became an overnight symbol of deadly violence against gay people after he was found dangling from the fence by a passerby. Russell A. Henderson, 21, and Aaron J. McKinney, 22, were charged with attempted murder and are expected to face first-degree murder charges that could bring the death penalty. Their girlfriends, Chasity V. Pasley, 20, and Kristen L. Price, 18, were charged as accessories. In Denver, mourners wrote messages on a graffiti wall as part of national Gay Awareness Week. In San Francisco, the giant rainbow flag that symbolizes the gay rights movement was lowered to half-staff in the Castro district. "There is incredible symbolism about being tied to a fence," said Rebecca Isaacs, political director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington. "People have likened it to a scarecrow. But it sounded more like a crucifixion." The Laramie police have said they believe robbery was the primary motive for the attack, which occurred outside a bar. But investigators also said Mr. Shepard's sexual orientation was a factor. They said the suspects lured Mr. Shepard from the bar by saying they, too, were gay, and one of the women said Mr. Shepard had embarrassed one of the men by making a pass at him, the investigators said. Today, the Laramie police said that after leaving Mr. Shepard tied to the fence, the men returned to Laramie and picked a fight on a street corner with two Hispanic men, Emiliano Morales 3d, 19, and Jeremy Herrera, 18. Mr. McKinney and Mr. Morales suffered head injuries. Gay leaders hope that Mr. Shepard's death will galvanize Congress and state legislatures to pass hate-crime legislation or broaden existing laws. Conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, generally oppose such laws, saying they extend to minorities "special rights." In the last two decades, 21 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that increase penalties for crimes that are committed because of race, religion, color, national origin and sexual orientation. Another 19 states, including Colorado, do not include sexual orientation in their hate-crime laws. Ten states, including Wyoming, have no hate-crime laws, or none based on specific categories. In Washington, Mr. Clinton responded to news of Mr. Shepard's death by urging Congress to pass the Federal Hate Crimes Protection Act, which would make Federal offenses of crimes based on sex, disability and sexual orientation. "Congress needs to pass our tough hate-crimes legislation," Mr. Clinton said. Current law covers only crimes based on race, color, religion or national origin. Wyoming has been a holdout, rejecting three hate-crimes bills since 1994, most recently in February. But today, after the death of Mr. Shepard, who was a University of Wyoming freshman, Jim Geringer, the state's popular Governor, opened the door to legislation at a news conference. "I ask for a collective suggestion for anti-bias, anti-hate legislation that can be presented to the Wyoming Legislature for their consideration in January," he said. The Governor met this morning with Dennis Shepard, Matthew's father, and said the father did not want the death to become "a media circus" and that "we should not use Matt to further an agenda." Mr. Geringer said that Dennis Shepard also said: "Don't rush into just passing all kinds of new hate-crimes laws. Be very careful of any changes and be sure you're not taking away rights of others in the process to race to this." Leaders of gay rights groups interviewed today said they would respect the family's privacy by not attending the burial in Casper, Wyo., on Saturday. But they added they hoped the death would have an impact. "Matthew's death, I hope, will bring about a better and deeper understanding of hate-crime laws," said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a lesbian and gay rights group that has 250,000 members. In 1996, 21 men and women were killed in the United States because of their sexual orientation, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama group that tracks violence against minorities. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sexual orientation was a factor in 11.6 percent of the 8,759 hate crimes recorded in 1996. But Christian conservatives warn that gay leaders want to use today's death to expand hate-crime laws and curtail freedom of speech. "Hate-crimes laws have nothing to do with perpetrators of violent crime and everything to do with silencing political opposition," said Steven A. Schwalm, an analyst with the Family Research Council, a Washington group dedicated to defending "faith, family and freedom." "It would criminalize pro-family beliefs," Mr. Schwalm said. "This basically sends a message that you can't disagree with the political message of homosexual activists." Agreement came from John Paulk, who was featured this summer in advertisements about how he and his wife, Anne, "overcame" homosexuality through religion. "We have every right to speak out against an agenda that is contrary to Biblical norms," said Mr. Paulk, who describes himself as a homosexuality specialist for Focus on the Family, a Christian group in Colorado Springs. "Because we are standing up and opposing the homosexual agenda, we are being looked upon as advocating violence against homosexuals, when we categorically reject violence against homosexuals." Last Thursday, the Family Research Council unveiled a series of television advertisements that preach the "healing" of homosexuality through religious conversion. Gay leaders charge that these advertisements help create a hostile climate for homosexuals, a climate that can lead to violence. Hate-crime laws on the books in 40 states have not impinged on freedom of speech, said Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor who directs the Center on Hate and Extremism at Stockton College, in Pomona, N.J. "We want to deter the broken windows and simple assaults before they escalate," he said. Mr. Levin said that his research indicated that homosexuals suffered higher rates of violent crime than the population at large. He said that roughly half of the people who attack homosexuals are male, age 22 or under. "With other crimes, violence is a means to an end; with hate crimes, the violence becomes an unstoppable goal," Mr. Levin said. Mr. Shepard suffered a dozen cuts to his head, face and neck, as well as a massive, and ultimately fatal, blow to the back of his skull. While some gay leaders saw crucifiction imagery in Mr. Shepard's death, others saw a different symbolism: the Old West practice of nailing a dead coyote to a ranch fence as a warning to future intruders. "This University of Wyoming student was beaten and left to die, tied to a fence like an animal because he was honest and open about being gay," Beatrice Dohrn, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said today. "Matthew Shepard's horrible suffering and death cannot be dismissed simply as the fault of deranged, isolated individuals," Ms. Dohrn said. "His attackers are among millions of Americans who constantly hear the message that gay people are not worthy of the most basic equal treatment." GRAPHIC: Photo: Scott Collins, lower left, a friend of the gay student who died yesterday after an attack last week, was comforted at a speak-out for National Coming Out Day at the University of Colorado at Denver. (Kevin Moloney for The New York Times)(pg. A17) Map/Chart: "INDICATORS: Hate Crime Legislation in the U.S." Although 40 states have some sort of hate crime legislation, only 21 include crime based on sexual orientation. Ten states, including Wyoming, either have no hate crime provisions or do not identify hate crimes by specific category. Map of the U.S. indentifies states in which laws include crime based on sexual orientation, states in which laws do not include crime based on sexual orientation and states that have no hate crime laws or none based on specific categories. (Source: National Gay and Lesbain Task Force)(pg. A17) ---------------- Copyright 1998 Gannett Company, Inc. USA TODAY October 13, 1998, Tuesday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A HEADLINE: Activists seek stronger laws against hate crimes BYLINE: Charisse Jones Just a few months after a brutal killing in Jasper, Texas, spurred the nation to examine issues of tolerance and bigotry, the murder of a young gay man in Wyoming has pulled together politicians and activists in a movement to ban hate crimes nationwide. As mourners lit candles and donned arm bands in remembrance of Matthew Shepard, who died Monday from injuries he suffered in a brutal attack last week, gay rights activists pledged to use his death as a catalyst to resurrect hate crime legislation in Wyoming and around the country. There also were calls to usher through pending legislation that would give federal officials more power to intervene when a person is attacked because of sexual orientation as well as religion and race. "Now is the time to capitalize on a lot of the energy and awareness in the community," says Cathy Renna, director of community relations for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). "This was not just a robbery. This was not just a murder. It was a horrific torture and murder that happened because Matthew was gay. And I don't think Americans can tolerate that." Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming, lay in a coma for five days. His skull was so badly smashed that doctors could not operate. His alleged assailants, Russell Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, 22, had been charged with attempted murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. But with Shepard's death, those charges were upgraded to murder, and the two are expected to be arraigned in court today, local officials said. Two women, Henderson's girlfriend, Chastity Pasley, 20, and Kristen Price, 18, have been charged with accessory after the fact; police say they helped the men hide their involvement in Shepard's death. The attack happened last Wednesday, and it brought back memories of the brutal murder in June of James Byrd Jr., a black man, in Texas. He was chained to the back of a pickup and dragged to his death. Three white men have been charged. Authorities say Shepard was at a local tavern when he met McKinney and Henderson. The two men convinced Shepard that they were gay and got him to tell them about his sexuality, police say. The two then lured Shepard outside and into a pickup. They pistol-whipped Shepard as they drove to an isolated area just east of town, officials say. When they stopped, they tied Shepard spread-eagle to a wooden ranch fence and stole his wallet, credit cards and shoes. As they tortured him, bashing his skull with the butt of a .357 Magnum, Shepard begged for his life. They left him tied to the fence. Eighteen hours later, a bicyclist almost pedaled past Shepherd, thinking the battered man was a scarecrow. The motive Officials have said the crime was motivated in part by robbery and in part because Shepard was gay. But activists throughout the nation are viewing the attack as a hate crime and a tragic example of why Wyoming must pass a hate crime bill that legislators have rejected three times. "We've been trying to get this through since 1990," says Chessie Lee, director of the Church Coalition of Wyoming. "I think this horrible murder will illustrate to people how much we need this." Gov. Jim Geringer, at a news conference Monday, condemned Shepard's murder but backed away from an earlier statement that Wyoming needed hate crime legislation. Clamoring for such a law, he said, "reflects a rush to judgment in itself. . . . the fact is Wyoming laws are already quite strict. But we can and should provide for more options for local law enforcement and our judiciary so that we can deal with future situations. If hate is involved as a motive, it can make the penalty more severe." President Clinton called on Congress to decry such violence by passing the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1998. The bill would broaden the definition of a hate crime victim to include those who are targeted because of sexual orientation, gender or disability. "Congress needs to pass our tough hate crimes legislation," Clinton said to reporters Monday before boarding a helicopter for a fund-raising trip. "It can do so even before it adjourns, and it should do so. . . . In our shock and grief, one thing must remain clear: Hate and prejudice are not American values." The bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., would give federal prosecutors greater power to intervene in local cases involving hate crimes. "I am hopeful that after the tragedy in Wyoming which has shocked the nation that Congress will pass the hate crimes act before it adjourns for the year," Kennedy said Monday. But it is unlikely Congress will pass the bill before adjourning at the end of the week. The legislation has languished for months in Congress, primarily because conservative lawmakers opposed the provision regarding sexual orientation. And bills in many states have met a similar fate, hate crime experts say. Though 41 states have hate crime legislation for attacks motivated by racial, ethnic and religious bias, only 21 states and the District of Columbia have statutes that protect victims who are attacked because of their sexual orientation. "Homosexuals are condemned from the pulpit, in the classroom, at the dinner table, in the halls of Congress, and in that atmosphere it's not surprising that a certain percentage of people emerge feeling like it's all right to physically attack gays and lesbians," says Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes. "I think mainstream leaders, religious and political, have to bear some responsibility for these types of crimes." But conservative groups such as the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council have condemned Shepard's murder and challenged allegations that their beliefs create the atmosphere for such bigotry. "The law should deal with facts and acts and not attitudes," says Steven Schwalm, senior analyst with the Family Research Council, which opposes hate crime legislation. "We have great sorrow and regret that the incident occurred. But to try and blame pro-family or religious Americans because they oppose homosexual activity is Orwellian." The number of hate crimes reported by local law enforcement officials increased by roughly 8%, to 8,759 incidents, from 1995 and 1996, according to FBI statistics. That figure may have increased because more local agencies reported in 1996, officials said. About 12% of those incidents were motivated by bias against a person's sexual orientation, while 62% were attributed to racial bias. This latest crime also has increased the debate about whether hate crime laws are truly effective. Often hate crime legislation will increase the penalty for a crime that was committed because of bias. Yet critics ask whether "you put a 17-year-old kid in jail who wouldn't have gone to jail, are you rehabilitating him or making him a worst racist?" Potok says. But he and other activists agree that hate crime legislation is a valuable tool, if for no other reason than it lets a would-be offender know that he or she will not get away with such behavior. "I think they are very strong community statements that a community does not condone hate violence," says Rebecca Isaacs, political director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Crime profile Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate & Extremism at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, N.J., says those who commit hate crimes tend to be men under the age of 22, who are more likely to commit multiple hate crimes that become more violent. For those reasons, along with the act of discrimination, "we must punish these crimes more severely. . . . I think for the most hard-core hatemonger, hate crime laws will not be a tremendous deterrent. But for the vast majority of offenders who are seeking peer approval or excitement, it's definitely a deterrent." Levin says that after a civil rights law barring hate crimes was passed in Massachusetts in 1979, incidents dropped by two-thirds in Boston. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that homosexuals were six times more likely to be violently attacked as Hispanics or Jews. Gays were twice as likely as African Americans to be attacked because of who they are. The study also said crimes against gays tend to be particularly vicious, and the victims' faces in some cases are beaten beyond recognition. Gay rights activists say the number of reported hate crimes has increased because gays are less afraid of societal repercussions and thus more willing to go to the police. But "with visibility will come backlash," Renna says. "So it's certainly a double-edged sword. But the choice is clear for our community that we need to be visible. We need to come out and we need to educate people." On Monday in Laramie, students at the University of Wyoming gathered in the center of the campus and sang We Shall Overcome by candlelight. "The savagery of this crime makes Matt's life memorable," says Walt Boulden, a friend of Shepard's. "But his own being will be remembered by those who loved him." Contributing: Maureen Harrington in Laramie; Gary Fields in Washington, D.C.; and The Associated Press -------------------------- Copyright 1998 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune October 13, 1998 Tuesday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 3; ZONE: N HEADLINE: GAY STUDENT'S DEATH FOMENTS FEAR ON CAMPUS; PRESIDENT CLINTON ASKS CONGRESS TO EXPAND FEDERAL LAW TO PUNISH HATE CRIMES BASED ON DISABILITY OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION BYLINE: By Judith Graham, Tribune Staff Writer. Tribune news services contributed to this report. DATELINE: DENVER Shock and sadness spread across the nation's college campuses after Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, died Monday of injuries received in a brutal beating last week. Gay and lesbian associations at colleges fielded phone calls throughout the day from students who learned from friends, e-mail or the Internet of Shepard's death. In communities across the country, including Chicago, university groups planned vigils or other actions to commemorate Shepard. The 21-year-old political science major died at Poudre Valley Hospital in Ft. Collins, Colo. He had been in a coma since being attacked Wednesday, strung up on a fence and left to die in near-freezing temperatures. In the days since the beating, Shepard had become a symbol of the threat of violence that hangs over the gay community and the undercurrent of fear that many of its members live with day to day. The attack also has spurred calls for legislation to protect gay victims of hate crimes. On Monday, President Clinton pressed Congress to expand the federal hate-crimes law to cover offenses based on disability or sexual orientation. "Americans will once again search their hearts and do what they can to reduce their own fear and anxiety and anger at people who are different," Clinton said. "And I hope that Congress will pass the hate-crime legislation." Russell Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, 22, were originally charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Police said that with Shepard's death, the charges against the men will include first-degree murder, which carries possible death sentences. Their girlfriends, Chasity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leann Price, 18, were charged with being accessories after the fact. Police said the women helped dump bloody clothing and initially lied about their whereabouts. Police said that robbery was the main motive but that Shepard apparently was chosen in part because he was gay. McKinney's girlfriend, Price, and his father, Bill McKinney, told The Denver Post the men didn't set out to kill Shepard but wanted to get back at him for making passes at McKinney in front of his friends. The 5-foot 2-inch, 105-pound Shepard had been beaten twice in recent months, attacks he attributed to his homosexuality. Directors of gay and lesbian centers on college campuses said Shepard's death provoked intense feelings of vulnerability mixed with anger on the part of many gay students. "One of my work-study students came in today and said: 'I'm afraid. I thought I was safe on campus, but maybe I'm not,' " said Susan Rankin, director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Equity center at Penn State University. At the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where Shepard was a student, young people flocked all day to a table in the student center stocked with information about gay and lesbian issues. Coincidentally, Monday was the start of the Wyoming campus' Gay Awareness Week. Jim Osborn, a 23-year-old undergraduate and chairman of the University of Wyoming's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Association, said he had received messages from "all over the nation, all over the globe" expressing outrage, indignation and support. "I'm feeling an incredible sadness," Osborn said. "I never saw him without a smile. He was one of the kindest, most caring people I ever met. He had incredible energy and compassion." Osborn's group distributed yellow-and-green armbands Monday, as the president of the University of Wyoming ordered flags to be flown at half-staff through Friday, when Shepard's funeral will take place in Casper, Wyo. --------------------------- Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1998 "We are heartsick," said University President Philip Dubois. Wyoming is one of eight states in the nation without a hate-crimes law. Another three states have laws that are ambiguous with regard to sexually motivated acts, while 18 states have laws that exclude crimes inspired by sexual orientation. Officials at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Northwestern, Loyola, DePaul and Roosevelt Universities; and Columbia College began planning a joint response to Shepard's death that could include a community vigil, a donation drive for Horizons Community Service Anti-Violence Project, or a letter-writing campaign to state and federal lawmakers. One gay UIC student who talked Monday to David Barnett, director of the campus' Office of Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Resources, described her reaction to Shepard's death as frightened and confused. "She found herself crying on the bus and wanting to strike out and be violent herself. . . . She had never felt those feelings before," he said. At the University of Colorado in Boulder, Bev Tuel, director of the gay and lesbian resource center, said she had been "swamped with calls" all day. "In some ways, this is a wakeup call," Tuel continued. "A lot of students here think things are pretty good for gays. They don't realize what's really going on." GRAPHIC: PHOTOS 2PHOTO: Matthew Shepard.; PHOTO: A floral memorial marks the fence near Laramie, Wyo., where Matthew Shepard, 21, was tied, pistol-whipped, robbed of his shoes and wallet, and left for dead last week. He died Monday at a hospital in Ft. Collins, Colo. AP photos. -------------------------------- Copyright 1998 Associated Press AP Online October 12, 1998; Monday 06:51 Eastern Time HEADLINE: Gay Student Dies From Beating BYLINE: E.N. SMITH DATELINE: FORT COLLINS, Colo. A gay University of Wyoming student who was pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence post in an attack denounced nationwide as a hate crime died early today from his injuries. Matthew Shepard, 21, died while on life support, Poudre Valley Hospital spokesman Gary Kimsey said. Shepard had been in a coma since bicyclists found him tethered to the post in near-freezing temperatures outside Laramie, Wyo. , on Wednesday. Police have said robbery was the primary motive for the attack. But gay rights groups and others assailed the beating and called on Wyoming legislators to adopt laws to deter crimes against homosexuals. Before Shepard's death, Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, 22, had been charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Their girlfriends Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leann Price, 18 were charged with being accessories after the fact. McKinney's girlfriend, Ms. Price, and his father, Bill McKinney, told The Denver Post that the two men never set out to kill the 5-foot-2, 105-pound Shepard. Instead, they said the two wanted to get back at Shepard for making passes at McKinney in front of his friends Tuesday night in a campus bar. ''I guess they (the people in the bar) knew that Matt Shepard was gay and maybe it got around that Aaron was gay or something,'' Ms. Price said in a story published Sunday. ''Later on, Aaron did say he told him he was gay just to rob him, because he wanted to take his money for embarrassing him.'' The elder McKinney said there was no excuse for the crime but the story had been blown out of proportion. ''Had this been a heterosexual these two boys decided to take out and rob, this never would have made the national news,'' he told the Post. ''Now my son is guilty before he's even had a trial.'' Friends of Henderson and McKinney said they were surprised by the allegations. ''They were quiet,'' said Heather Dunmire, 20, of nearby Rock River. ''I wouldn't have expected them to do that. I never would expect another human to do that.'' Stephanie Lake, 20, was a student at Laramie High School with Henderson, McKinney and Ms. Pasley. She attended a biology class with Henderson. ''Russ was a really, really quiet guy who really kept to himself a lot,'' she said. Henderson and Ms. Pasley live in a rural, windswept trailer park amid weeds, engine parts, fishing tackle, and barking dogs. A neighbor, John Gillham, 21, said the couple generally kept to themselves. About a thousand people attended a candlelight vigil Sunday night near the University of Wyoming campus to show their support for Shepard. ''We are saddened, heartsick,'' said the university's president, Philip Dubois. ''All of us I would imagine are haunted by the thought of a terribly battered young man with his future erased. ''It is almost as sad to see individuals and groups around this country react to this event by stereotyping an entire community, if not an entire state.'' Shepard's parents said in a statement released before his death that he would ''emphasize he does not want the horrible actions of a few very disturbed individuals to mar the fine reputations of Laramie or the university.'' Shepard left Wyoming as a teen to finish high school in Switzerland. A friend said he had to overcome concerns about how his sexual orientation would be accepted before he returned to Wyoming which is nicknamed the Equality State for college. ''He had a lot of the same fears other people have coming into a small community,'' said Walt Boulden, a graduate student. ''When he left Wyoming he had just started dealing with being gay. So he was very concerned about the attitudes when he first came back. ''But he really felt at home and comfortable here. He felt this was the place to be right now.'' ---------------------------------- Copyright 1998 Associated Press AP Online October 12, 1998; Monday 17:13 Eastern Time HEADLINE: Wyoming Has No Hate-Crime Law BYLINE: ROBIN McDOWELL BODY: Twenty-one states have hate-crime laws that cover offenses based on sexual orientation, but not Wyoming, where a 21-year-old gay student was beaten to death. Efforts to pass a hate-crime law in Wyoming have failed repeatedly because critics have said it would give homosexuals and others special rights. But the beating of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who died early Monday, has galvanized many in Wyoming and elsewhere about the need for such legislation. ''I'm in favor of anything that can improve our local law enforcement efforts,'' Gov. Jim Geringer said Monday. ''If our system is inadequate, let's talk about it ...(but) let's make sure there is an equality of justice.'' The current federal hate-crimes law only protects people from crimes motivated by race, color, religion or national origin, not sexual orientation. Marv Johnson of the American Civil Liberties Union in Wyoming said past hate-crime bills regarding attacks on homosexuals were defeated because of language about sexual orientation. ''We have legislators in the past who have essentially equated gays with bulls that don't mate and therefore are useless and should be sent to the packing plant,'' he said. ''That is the kind of attitude that you see in Wyoming which leads to this behavior. People don't understand that gays are as human as anybody else.'' Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Ala., which tracks violence against blacks, gays and others, said attacks against gays tend be more severe than offenses against other groups. According to his group's records, 21 men and women were slain in the United States in 1996 because of their sexual orientation. Brian Levin, director of Stockton State College's Center on Hate and Extremism in Pomona, N.J., said that like those charged in the attack on Shepard, most of the offenders are 22 or younger, and most are male. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin have hate-crime laws covering offenses based on sexual orientation, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. ---------------------------------------- The Associated Press The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. October 12, 1998, Monday, AM cycle HEADLINE: Los Angeles homosexuals blame anti-gay rhetoric for slaying BYLINE: By ANTHONY BREZNICAN, Associated Press Writer DATELINE: LOS ANGELES BODY: Standing before a poster-sized photograph of Matthew Shepard, local homosexual leaders on Monday declared the student beaten to death in Wyoming a martyr to anti- gay hatred. "This is a wake-up call," said Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Shepard, a 21-year-old openly gay University of Wyoming student, died Monday at a Colorado hospital, five days after he was found pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence post in near-freezing weather. Two men who were charged with attempted murder in the attack are expected to face first-degree murder charges that would make them eligible for the death penalty. At a Hollywood news conference, Ms. Jean said Shepard was "beaten because he was gay and had the courage to be honest about it." She and others laid partial blame for the killing on anti-gay rhetoric. "These things happen because too many politicians and religious leaders are fostering a climate of hate, a climate of bigotry," Ms. Jean said. "These leaders pretend to be shocked and dismayed by this violence, but there is as much blood on their hands as there is on monsters who beat him to death." Rev. Nancy Wilson of the Metropolitan Community Church, a primarily gay and lesbian congregation, asked religious leaders to support anti-hate crime legislation in their towns. "It's hard to get up and say I am a Christian on days like this," she said in a trembling voice. "God-loving people don't bash people's skulls in or teach young people to hate." Jeff Horton, a gay member of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, said violence starts with name-calling. "We can't regard this as a controversial issue," he said, urging teachers to discuss tolerance in the classroom. "It can't be controversial to say, 'Don't call people names, don't hit them, don't hurt them."' ---------------------------- Copyright 1998 Associated Press AP Online October 12, 1998; Monday 17:13 Eastern Time HEADLINE: Wyoming Has No Hate-Crime Law BYLINE: ROBIN McDOWELL Twenty-one states have hate-crime laws that cover offenses based on sexual orientation, but not Wyoming, where a 21-year-old gay student was beaten to death. Efforts to pass a hate-crime law in Wyoming have failed repeatedly because critics have said it would give homosexuals and others special rights. But the beating of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who died early Monday, has galvanized many in Wyoming and elsewhere about the need for such legislation. ''I'm in favor of anything that can improve our local law enforcement efforts,'' Gov. Jim Geringer said Monday. ''If our system is inadequate, let's talk about it ...(but) let's make sure there is an equality of justice.'' The current federal hate-crimes law only protects people from crimes motivated by race, color, religion or national origin, not sexual orientation. Marv Johnson of the American Civil Liberties Union in Wyoming said past hate-crime bills regarding attacks on homosexuals were defeated because of language about sexual orientation. ''We have legislators in the past who have essentially equated gays with bulls that don't mate and therefore are useless and should be sent to the packing plant,'' he said. ''That is the kind of attitude that you see in Wyoming which leads to this behavior. People don't understand that gays are as human as anybody else.'' Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Ala., which tracks violence against blacks, gays and others, said attacks against gays tend be more severe than offenses against other groups. According to his group's records, 21 men and women were slain in the United States in 1996 because of their sexual orientation. Brian Levin, director of Stockton State College's Center on Hate and Extremism in Pomona, N.J., said that like those charged in the attack on Shepard, most of the offenders are 22 or younger, and most are male. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin have hate-crime laws covering offenses based on sexual orientation, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. ------------------------------------------ October 12, 1998, Monday, AM cycle HEADLINE: Los Angeles homosexuals blame anti-gay rhetoric for slaying BYLINE: By ANTHONY BREZNICAN, Associated Press Writer DATELINE: LOS ANGELES Standing before a poster-sized photograph of Matthew Shepard, local homosexual leaders on Monday declared the student beaten to death in Wyoming a martyr to anti- gay hatred. "This is a wake-up call," said Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Shepard, a 21-year-old openly gay University of Wyoming student, died Monday at a Colorado hospital, five days after he was found pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence post in near-freezing weather. Two men who were charged with attempted murder in the attack are expected to face first-degree murder charges that would make them eligible for the death penalty. At a Hollywood news conference, Ms. Jean said Shepard was "beaten because he was gay and had the courage to be honest about it." She and others laid partial blame for the killing on anti-gay rhetoric. "These things happen because too many politicians and religious leaders are fostering a climate of hate, a climate of bigotry," Ms. Jean said. "These leaders pretend to be shocked and dismayed by this violence, but there is as much blood on their hands as there is on monsters who beat him to death." Rev. Nancy Wilson of the Metropolitan Community Church, a primarily gay and lesbian congregation, asked religious leaders to support anti-hate crime legislation in their towns. "It's hard to get up and say I am a Christian on days like this," she said in a trembling voice. "God-loving people don't bash people's skulls in or teach young people to hate." Jeff Horton, a gay member of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, said violence starts with name-calling. "We can't regard this as a controversial issue," he said, urging teachers to discuss tolerance in the classroom. "It can't be controversial to say, 'Don't call people names, don't hit them, don't hurt them."' ----------------------------------- October 12, 1998, Monday, AM cycle HEADLINE: Sexual orientation a trigger for hate-crime laws, but not in Wyoming BYLINE: By ROBIN McDOWELL, Associated Press Writer Eighteen states have hate-crime laws that cover offenses based on sexual orientation, but not Wyoming, where a 21-year-old gay student was beaten to death. Efforts to pass a hate-crime law in Wyoming have failed repeatedly because critics have said it would give homosexuals and others special rights. But the beating of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who died early Monday, has galvanized many in Wyoming and elsewhere about the need for such legislation. "I'm in favor of anything that can improve our local law enforcement efforts," Gov. Jim Geringer said Monday. "If our system is inadequate, let's talk about it ...(but) let's make sure there is an equality of justice." Marv Johnson of the American Civil Liberties Union in Wyoming said past hate-crime bills regarding attacks on homosexuals were defeated because of language about sexual orientation. "We have legislators in the past who have essentially equated gays with bulls that don't mate and therefore are useless and should be sent to the packing plant," he said. "That is the kind of attitude that you see in Wyoming which leads to this behavior. People don't understand that gays are as human as anybody else." Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Ala., which tracks violence against blacks, gays and others, said attacks against gays tend be more severe than offenses against other groups. According to his group's records, 21 men and women were slain in the United States in 1996 because of their sexual orientation. Brian Levin, director of Stockton State College's Center on Hate and Extremism in Pomona, N.J., said that like those charged in the attack on Shepard, most of the offenders are 22 or younger, and most are male. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin have anti-hate laws based on sexual orientation, according to the Anti-Defamation League. -------------------------------- Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company The New York Times October 12, 1998, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 12; Column 1; National Desk HEADLINE: After Beating of Gay Man, Town Looks at Its Attitudes BYLINE: By JAMES BROOKE DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo., Oct. 11 As a gay college student lay hospitalized in critical condition after a severe beating here, this small city, which bills itself as " Wyoming's hometown," wrestled with its attitudes toward gay men. On Saturday, at the University of Wyoming's annual homecoming parade, "Pistol Pete" and his uniformed brass band were overshadowed by the largest group of marchers: 450 people, many wearing yellow armbands and carrying signs in support of the student, Matthew Shepard, 21, who suffered severe head injuries in the attack last week. "Hate Is Not a Small Town Value -- No to Violence and Evil," read one sign, as watchers applauded. With passers-by spontaneously joining the protest group, two women held another sign that read, "No Hate Crimes in Wyoming." Two candlelight vigils were held tonight at churches near the campus. At the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., where Mr. Shepard's health continued to deteriorate, the hospital has received so many flowers that nurses have started to distribute bouquets to other patients. A vigil at the hospital on Saturday evening drew about 500 people. "We live in the Equality State," Shannon Rexroat wrote on Friday in a special edition of The Branding Iron, the campus newspaper. Referring to Wyoming's pioneer heritage as the first state to grant women the right to vote, Ms. Rexroat, the newspaper's editor added: "That means nothing to me anymore. We live in a state where a young man was brutally beaten because he is gay." But others recalled today another side of "Wyoming's hometown," which has a population of 27,000. On Friday, Jamie Lewis, another editor, was handing out copies of the special edition, when, "One guy just put his hands up in the air and said to me, 'faggot-lover.' " Last week's assault bubbled out of a climate of hostility toward gay men and lesbians, leaders of the local Unitarian church said in a letter published today in the city's newspaper, The Laramie Daily Boomerang. "This incident was atypical in its brutality, but not in its underlying motive," wrote Jeffrey A. Lockwood and Stephen M. Johnson. Gay people in Laramie, they wrote, "are frequently assaulted with derision, intolerance, insult and hostility -- if not guns and ropes." Ric Turley, who dropped out of college here after one year in the 1970's, recalled driving here to see his family for Christmas in 1993 and seeing a vandalized billboard on the main highway running north out of Colorado. Under a brace of pistols, an advertising appeal for a state history museum had been changed he said, from "Shoot a Day or Two," to "Shoot a Gay or Two." Mr. Turley, who is gay, said he had complained to the museum. But returning a month later, he found the message had not been erased. After complaining to the museum again, he said he took a can of black spray paint and blotted out the word "gay." "It was this kind of complacency and apathy that allowed this to happen," he said of the beating in which two local men, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, have been charged. Two women, Kristen L. Price and Chastity V. Pasley, have been charged as accessories after the fact to attempted first-degree murder. According to the local police and prosecutors, the two men lured Mr. Shepard out of a bar by saying they were gay. Then, the Laramie police say, the pair kidnapped Mr. Shepard, pistol-whipped him with a .357 Magnum, and left him tied to a ranch fence for 18 hours until a passing bicyclist spotted Mr. Shepard, who was unconscious. Today, the Laramie police said that Mr. McKinney was arrested on Thursday at the same hospital in Fort Collins where Mr. Shepard was being treated. Mr. McKinney was being treated for a "minor" skull fracture, unrelated to the fracas with Mr. Shepard, said Ben Fritzen, a Laramie Police detective. President Clinton has condemned the attack, saying on Saturday, "I was deeply grieved by the act of violence perpetrated against Matthew Shepard." Mr. Clinton urged Congress to pass the Federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act, saying, "There is nothing more important to the future of this country than our standing together against intolerance, prejudice and violent bigotry." Wyoming is 1 of 10 states that does not have a hate crime law. The latest attempt died in the Legislature in Cheyenne in February. On Saturday, Gov. Jim Geringer said he was "outraged and sickened" by the attack. In Laramie, Mr. McKinney's father, Bill, also condemned the attack. But he complained about the attention by the national media. The national press "blew it totally out of proportion because it involved a homosexual," Mr. McKinney was quoted as saying in an article on Sunday in The Denver Post. "Had this been a heterosexual these two boys decided to take out and rob, this never would have made the national news." Ms. Price, the girlfriend of Aaron McKinney and the mother of their 4-month-old son, Cameron, also was quoted in the article. Ms. Price told The Post that her boyfriend had said that on Tuesday night Mr. Shepard made passes at him at a local bar, the Fireside. "He embarassed him and Russ in front of all their friends and everybody at the Fireside," said Ms. Price, who was not at her apartment here today. "Later on, Aaron did say he told him he was gay just to rob him, because he wanted to take his money for embarrassing him." Ms. Price said that after the three men got in the pickup and drove for a mile, "Aaron told him: 'Guess what? I'm not gay -- and you just got jacked.' " Mr. Shepard grew up in Casper until his sophomore year in high school, when his father, an oil rig safety engineer, was transferred to Saudi Arabia. The young man completed high school at a boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland. On Saturday, his parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, released a statement thanking "the American public for their kind thoughts." "He is a trusting person," the Shepards wrote. "He has always strongly felt that all people are the same, regardless of their sexual preference, race or religion." GRAPHIC: Photos: On Saturday, a candlelight vigil for Matthew Shepard was held at the hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., and marchers in a University of Wyoming parade in Laramie protested the beating. (Photographs by Associated Press) ------------------------------------------- Copyright 1998 Newsday, Inc. Newsday (New York, NY) October 12, 1998, Monday, NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION HEADLINE: ATTACK ON GAY MAN STIRS RESIDENTS BYLINE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DATELINE: Laramie, Wyo. Laramie, Wyo. - A gay college student was clinging to life yesterday as residents condemned his brutal beating but defended Wyoming as a safe, fair-minded place to live. Matthew Shepard was found savagely pistol-whipped and tied to a fence outside town last week. Police have said robbery was the main motive, but the two men accused in the bludgeoning also targeted Shepard because he flirted with one of them at a bar, The Denver Post reported yesterday. Shepard, 21, was unconscious yesterday at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital in critical condition with severe head injuries. Hospital officials said his condition had deteriorated since the midweek beating. Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, 22, were charged with attempted murder, kidnaping and aggravated robbery because Shepard's wallet and patent leather shoes were missing. Police said they lured Shepard from a University of Wyoming hangout by telling him they were gay. Two women who allegedly helped the two men dump their bloody clothing reported them to police, reportedly saying the men made anti-gay remarks. Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leann Price, 18, were charged with being accessories after the fact. The two men never set out to nearly kill Shepard, but McKinney was embarrassed that Shepard flirted with him in front of his friends, Price and McKinney's father told the Denver newspaper. Price admitted she and Pasley initially lied to police about the whereabouts of their boyfriends Tuesday night, but said none of the four hate gays. "It wasn't meant to be a hate crime," she said. "They just wanted to rob him." The elder McKinney said there's no excuse for the crime, but that the media had blown the story out of proportion. "Had this been a heterosexual these two boys decided to take out and rob, this never would have made the national news," he told the Post. "Now my son is guilty before he's even had a trial." A close friend of Shepard's, Alex Trout, was surprised Shepard was targeted for attack because of his sexual preference, as police believe. Trout said his own homosexuality has never caused a problem in his four years in Laramie, a Western-tinged college town with a population of 27,000. "In a sense Wyoming is 'red neck, but it's not so bad that gays can't live here," Trout said. "Most of Wyoming has an attitude of live and let live," said Joe Corrigan, cofounder of United Gays and Lesbians of Wyoming. Residents of what is nicknamed the Equality State agreed. Heather Dunmire, a 20-year-old student who knew the two accused men, said the state doesn't deal with homosexuality as much as other areas, "but I don't think we're completely in the back woods." "Wyoming should not be judged on these four jerks that did this," add Dunmire, who grew up in Rock River, 35 miles northwest of Laramie. "I think it was a handful of individuals that can be found anywhere that did this," said Jeff Scott, 38, a 21-year Laramie resident. "It doesn't have to do anything with the state or a city or anything else." The beating of the 5-foot-2, 105-pound Shepard came just before National Coming Out Day, which was yesterday, and on the heels of an advertising campaign by so-called family values groups urging gays to renounce homosexuality. GRAPHIC: AP Photo- Loui Temeer, left, comforts Gina St. Brigid during a candlelight vigil for Matthew Shepard, who remains in critical condition. Copyright 1998 U.P.I. October 12, 1998, Monday, BC cycle ----------------------------------- HEADLINE: Battered gay man dies DATELINE: FORT COLLINS, Colo., Oct. 12 Matthew Shepard has died, six days after the openly gay University of Wyoming student was savagely beaten and left for dead. Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., issued a statement saying the 21-year-old political science major died at 12:53 a.m. MDT while on full life-support measures. Doctors at the hospital said Shepard died as a result of the severe head injuries he received during the attack. The most serious wound, a blow behind his right ear, left a 2-inch depression in his skull. Early this morning hospital spokesman Rulon Stacey gave a statement for Shepard's family saying, ''He came into the world premature, and he left the world premature.'' He added, '' Matthew's mother said to me, please tell everybody who's listening to go home and give your kids a hug, and don't let a day go by without telling them that you love them.'' The two suspects in the beating allegedly targeted Shepard because he flirted with them at a bar. The father and girlfriend of suspect Aaron McKinney told the Denver Post that McKinney, 22, and Russell Henderson, 21, never set out to kill Shepard. Bill McKinney and 18-year-old Kristin Price say McKinney and Henderson wanted to get back at Shepard for embarrassing McKinney by flirting with him at the Fireside bar Tuesday night. They say the two men just planned to rob Shepard. Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer told NBC's ''Today'' show that he expects the two to be charged with first-degree murder. Price and 20-year-old Chastity Pasley, Henderson's girlfriend, are charged as accessories after the fact. Prosecutors allege the women supplied false alibis for their boyfriends after the two men were arrested. Investigators believe Henderson and McKinney lured Shepard into McKinney's truck Tuesday night, beating him as they drove about a mile from town. Shepard, lashed to a wooden fence and stripped of his shoes, allegedly begged for his life as he was beaten with the butt of a .357 Magnum until his assailants believed he was dead. Shepard was found Wednesday by two passing mountain bikers who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. --- --------------------------------- Copyright 1998 U.P.I. October 12, 1998, Monday, BC cycle HEADLINE: Battered gay man dies DATELINE: FORT COLLINS, Colo., Oct. 12 Matthew Shepard has died, six days after the openly gay University of Wyoming student was savagely beaten and left for dead. Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., issued a statement saying the 21-year-old political science major died at 12:53 a.m. MDT while on full life-support measures. Doctors at the hospital said Shepard died as a result of the severe head injuries he received during the attack. The most serious wound, a blow behind his right ear, left a 2-inch depression in his skull. Early this morning hospital spokesman Rulon Stacey gave a statement for Shepard's family saying, ''He came into the world premature, and he left the world premature.'' He added, '' Matthew's mother said to me, please tell everybody who's listening to go home and give your kids a hug, and don't let a day go by without telling them that you love them.'' The two suspects in the beating allegedly targeted Shepard because he flirted with them at a bar. The father and girlfriend of suspect Aaron McKinney told the Denver Post that McKinney, 22, and Russell Henderson, 21, never set out to kill Shepard. Bill McKinney and 18-year-old Kristin Price say McKinney and Henderson wanted to get back at Shepard for embarrassing McKinney by flirting with him at the Fireside bar Tuesday night. They say the two men just planned to rob Shepard. Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer told NBC's ''Today'' show that he expects the two to be charged with first-degree murder. Price and 20-year-old Chastity Pasley, Henderson's girlfriend, are charged as accessories after the fact. Prosecutors allege the women supplied false alibis for their boyfriends after the two men were arrested. Investigators believe Henderson and McKinney lured Shepard into McKinney's truck Tuesday night, beating him as they drove about a mile from town. Shepard, lashed to a wooden fence and stripped of his shoes, allegedly begged for his life as he was beaten with the butt of a .357 Magnum until his assailants believed he was dead. Shepard was found Wednesday by two passing mountain bikers who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. --- ----------------------- Copyright 1998 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune October 12, 1998 Monday, EVENING UPDATE EDITION SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1; ZONE: C HEADLINE: GAY VICTIM OF BEATING IS DEAD; WYOMING COLLEGE STUDENT NEVER CAME OUT OF COMA BYLINE: Associated Press. DATELINE: FORT COLLINS, Colo. A gay University of Wyoming student died Monday, five days after he was found pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence post in an attack denounced nationwide as a hate crime. Matthew Shepard, 21, died while on life support, said the head of Poudre Valley Hospital, Rulon Stacey. Shepard had been in a coma since bicyclists found him tethered to the post in near-freezing temperatures outside Laramie, Wyo. , on Wednesday. "The family was grateful they did not have to make a decision regarding whether or not to continue life support for their son," Stacey said. "He came into the world premature and left the world premature and they are most grateful for the time they had to spend with Matthew." Police have said robbery was the primary motive for the attack. But gay rights groups and others assailed the beating and called on Wyoming legislators to adopt laws to deter crimes against homosexuals. "We are calling on all the people to have a renewed discussion to find out what we might do to strengthen our laws," Gov. Jim Geringer said Monday. The first-term Republican, up for re-election next month, hasn't pushed hate crime legislation in the past, but he said Monday, "I'm open to any suggestion that we might bring to our Legislature." In Washington, White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said Monday that President Clinton was horrified by the attack and spoke with Shepard's family Saturday. He renewed the president's call for "some kind of a national standard, law, on hate crimes." Before Shepard's death, Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, 22, had been charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Their girlfriends -- Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leann Price, 18 -- were charged with being accessories after the fact. Sgt. Rob DeBree of the Albany County sheriff's office, a lead investigator in the case, confirmed Monday the charges would be upgraded to first-degree murder. He gave no details. McKinney's girlfriend, Price, and his father, Bill McKinney, told The Denver Post that the two men never set out to kill the 5-foot-2, 105-pound Shepard. Instead, they said the two wanted to get back at Shepard for making passes at McKinney in front of his friends Tuesday night in a campus bar. About a thousand people attended a candlelight vigil Sunday night near the University of Wyoming campus to show their support for Shepard. ----------------------------------- Copyright 1998 Agence France Presse Agence France Presse October 11, 1998 23:18 GMT HEADLINE: President Clinton "deeply grieved" by gay hate crime DATELINE: WASHINGTON Oct 10 BODY: President Bill Clinton said Saturday that he was "deeply grieved" by an attack on Matthew Shepard, a gay student in Wyoming who was attacked, tied to a fence and left to die. "I was deeply grieved by the act of violence perpetrated against Matthew Shepard," the president said in a statement. Clinton called for "thoughts and prayers" to be with Shepard, his family and the people of Laramie, Wyoming. "In the fact of this terrible act of violence, they are joining together to demonstrate that an act of evil like this is not what our country is all about," said Clinton. Shepard, who is now hospitalized at the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, was in critical condition in intensive care as of 4:00 p.m. (2200 GMT) Saturday, according to a taped message which said his condition "has worsened slightly" in the past 24 hours. The message said he had suffered a massive blow to the right side of his head, and that his temperature was fluctuating because of exposure. The president said that the Justice Department had assured him that local law enforcement officials were working to bring Shepard's attackers to justice. Four people have been arrested in the case. They have been identified as Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, whose age is not known. They were charged with kidnapping, aggravated robbery and attempted murder. Two women, Chastity Vera Pasley and Kristin Leann Price, were charged as accessories, the group said. Laramie, Wyoming police declined to confirm that arrests had taken place. Shepard was attacked on Tuesday or Wednesday, and tied scarecrow-style to a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming. Two motorcyclists found him, unconscious, 18 hours later, the group said. He had burns on his body and cuts on his head and face, his family told the Human Rights Campaign. ---------------------------------- Copyright 1998 The Denver Post Corporation The Denver Post October 11, 1998 Sunday 1ST EDITION HEADLINE: Clinton speaks against hate Cites Wyo. attack, backs federal act BYLINE: By Coleman Cornelius, Denver Post Staff Writer FORT COLLINS - Reacting to the attack on gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, President Clinton urged Congress on Saturday to pass the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act. "There is nothing more important to the future of this country than our standing together against intolerance, prejudice and violent bigotry," Clinton said. As hundreds of people gathered Saturday night for a candlelight vigil outside Poudre Valley Hospital for the victim of what is being called a hate crime, Shepard's parents issued their first public comments. " Matthew is a very special person, and everyone can learn important lessons from his life," Judy and Dennis Shepard said in a statement issued through the hospital, where their 21-year-old son's condition was worsening. "All of us who know Matthew see him as he is, a very kind and gentle soul. ... His one intolerance is when people don't accept others as they are. He has always strongly felt that all people are the same - regardless of their sexual preference, race or religion." Clinton lauded the people of Laramie, where Shepard is a freshman political science major. "In the face of this terrible act of violence, they are joining together to demonstrate that an act of evil like this is not what our country is all about." At the candlelight vigil, people sat in quiet circles, hugged and wept. They spoke in hushed tones about the battered young man in a nearby hospital room. Hospital officials said so many flowers have been delivered for Shepard that they are being distributed to other patients. Authorities say Shepard was attacked late Tuesday or early Wednesday by Aaron James McKinney, 22, and Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, of Laramie after meeting them at the Fireside bar. McKinney and Henderson allegedly tied Shepard to a wooden fence and pistol-whipped him with a .357-caliber Magnum handgun, crushing his skull. With overnight temperatures dropping into the 30s, Shepard was found about 18 hours later by two passing mountain bikers. At first, they thought he was a scarecrow. He is in critical condition and gradually worsening, said Rulon Stacey, Poudre Valley Hospital president. Stacey said it is too soon to tell whether Shepard will survive. Shepard's skull was so badly crushed that his brain stem was seriously damaged, Stacey said. The brain stem controls the body's vital functions, including heartbeat, breathing and temperature control. Shepard cannot breathe without the help of a ventilator, and his body temperature has taken dramatic swings. In cases of traumatic brain injury, it's important to receive medical care within one hour to improve chances of survival, Stacey said. Shepard also has welts on his back and an arm, bruises on his knees, and deep cuts on his head and face; Shepard was hypothermic when he arrived at the hospital, Stacey said. "We are working very intently on Matthew, giving him every possible remedy," Stacey said. "We continue to work and do everything we can for him." Stacey seemed on the verge of tears when asked about the condition of Shepard's family. "It's an understandably very hard time for them. I think they're doing remarkably well," he said. Parents' statement A statement was issued Saturday by Judy and Dennis Shepard, parents of Matthew Shepard. The Shepards arrived at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins on Friday night and have remained at their son's bedside. First of all, we want to thank the American public for their kind thoughts about Matthew and their fond wishes for his speedy recovery. We appreciate your prayers and good will, and we know they are something Matthew would appreciate, too. Matthew is a very special person, and everyone can learn important lessons from his life. All of us who know Matthew see him as he is, a very kind and gentle soul. He is a strong believer in humanity and human rights. He is a trusting person who takes everybody at face value and he does not see the bad side of anyone. His one intolerance is when people don't accept others as they are. He has always strongly felt that all people are the same - regardless of their sexual preference, race or religion. We know he believes that all of us are part of the same family called Humanity, and each and every one of us should treat all people with respect and dignity, and that each of us has the right to live a full and rewarding life. That is one lesson which we are very certain he would share with you if he could. Matthew also feels strongly about family. He is a loving son, brother and grandson who has made our own lives much richer and fuller than what we would have experienced without him. Matthew's life has often been a struggle in one way or another. He was born prematurely, and he struggled to survive as an infant. He is physically short in stature but we believe he is a giant when it comes to respecting the worth of others. We know that he thinks if he can make one person's life better in this world, then he has succeeded. That is a measure of success which Matthew has always pursued. Matthew very much enjoys the outdoors and camping, and he has always loved acting in the theatre - he started acting in community theatre at the age of 5. Acting and the theatre arts are skills at which Matthew excels. He knows he's not the best athlete in the world but he has a very competitive spirit. One time he participated in the Wyoming State Games. He had a respectable finish in the running competition and then he decided to compete in a swimming event. He did this even though he knew he would likely finish last. Which he did. Afterwards, he acknowledged to us that he knew his chances of winning were far from good but he wasn't going to let that stop him from trying. That's Matthew's lesson for all of us - it's lesson that we hope everyone takes to heart. Matthew has traveled all over the world. He speaks three languages: English, German and Italian. He loves Europe, but he also loves Laramie and the University of Wyoming. We feel that, if he was giving this statement himself, he would emphasize he does not want the horrible actions of a few very disturbed individuals to mar the fine reputations of Laramie or the university. Finally, we would like to thank the sheriff's department of Albany County, Wyoming and the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins for their very professional efforts on Matthew's behalf. We also have a special request for the members of the media. Matthew is very much in need of his family at this time, and we ask that you respect our privacy as well as Matthew's so we can concentrate all of our efforts, thoughts and love on our son. Thank you very much. --------------------------- Copyright 1998 The Denver Post Corporation The Denver Post October 11, 1998 Sunday 1ST EDITION HEADLINE: Beating wasn't a hate crime, suspect's family says BYLINE: By Jim Hughes and David Olinger, Denver Post Staff Writers LARAMIE - The two men accused of bludgeoning a gay college student targeted him because he flirted with one of them at a bar, the father and girlfriend of a suspect said Saturday. Aaron James McKinney and Russell Arthur Henderson never set out to nearly kill University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, McKinney's father and girlfriend said. But McKinney, 22, was embarrassed that Shepard made two passes at him in front of his friends Tuesday night at the Fireside bar, said Bill McKinney and Kristen Price. To get back at Shepard for the apparent humiliation, McKinney and Henderson, 21, lured the political science major outside to rob him, they said. Sitting inside Price's small apartment in a dilapidated wooden house in northern Laramie, the elder McKinney's eyes brimmed. He said there's no excuse for what his son and his friend are accused of doing to the 21-year-old Shepard. But there isn't really a good reason for the nationwide media attention over the case, either, he said. "The news has already taken this up and blew it totally out of proportion, because it involved a homosexual," McKinney said. "Had this been a heterosexual these two boys decided to take out and rob, this never would have made the national news. Now my son is guilty before he's even had a trial." The national discussion of the attack has centered on two things: that Shepard, 21, is gay and that he reportedly told this to his suspected attackers before they lured him out of the downtown Laramie bar. The girlfriends of McKinney and Henderson - 18-year-old Price and Chastity Pasley, 20 - face charges of being accessories after the fact. Price and McKinney have a 4-month-old son, Cameron. Price admitted she and Pasley, who attends the University of Wyoming with Shepard, initially lied to police about the whereabouts of their boyfriends Tuesday night. But she said neither she nor the other three suspects hate gays. "It wasn't meant to be a hate crime," she said. "They just wanted to rob him." The four suspects are best friends who spend time together almost every day, Price said. She said she was released on a $ 30,000 bond before the first court hearing Friday partly because she was the first to tell investigators the truth of what she knew about that night and partly because she had Cameron to take care of. Pasley is still in custody; her bail is set at $ 30,000 cash. Henderson and McKinney are also still in jail; bail for each is set at $ 100,000 cash. McKinney was the last of the four suspects taken into custody. Authorities arrested him Thursday at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, where he was being treated for a head injury. McKinney apparently sustained his injury in a separate altercation in Laramie, authorities said. Details were unknown. Bill McKinney and Price said their understanding of what happened Tuesday night and early Wednesday is based on conversations Price had with the younger McKinney when he came home disoriented and covered in blood about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. Some of the blood was his own, she said. "He walked in and said he thought he had killed someone and that he had gotten beat up," she said. She said that after she had cleaned him up, given him a glass of water and laid him down, Aaron McKinney told her his version of the story that would soon change their lives. "He said he met a guy at a bar," she said. "The guy had told him that he was gay, and they decided to take him out and rob him. That was their only intention. He said (Shepard) pushed himself onto him and that he embarrassed him and Russ in front of all their friends and everybody at the Fireside." Price and Bill McKinney both said Aaron McKinney doesn't like to be embarrassed in front of other people. Neither McKinney nor Henderson is much bigger than the 5-foot-2, 105-pound Shepard. But McKinney's temper can be fierce when provoked, and he sometimes does stupid things to impress a crowd, his girlfriend and father said. When he noticed that other people in the bar were snickering, Matt Shepard probably changed in his eyes from somebody not all that important to him to somebody with whom he had to get even, Price said. "I guess they (the people in the bar) knew that Matt Shepard was gay and maybe it got around that Aaron was gay or something," she said. "Later on, Aaron did say he told him he was gay just to rob him, because he wanted to take his money for embarrassing him," she said. McKinney's story, as remembered by Price, echoed the version prosecutors have presented in court documents. "He told me that they took him out past Wal-Mart" near the eastern edge of town where Shepard was found the next evening, she said. "Matt asked, 'When are we going to get to where you live?' and Aaron told him, 'Guess what, I'm not gay, and you just got jacked.' He asked him to give him his wallet, and the guy gave him his wallet." McKinney and Henderson then continued in Bill McKinney's pickup truck to a spot where they planned to tie Shepard up, return to Laramie and burglarize his house, she said. Henderson tied him up and McKinney took the student's shoes, she said, because he thought Shepard would be able to free himself from the fence and walk back to town. She said they wanted enough time to burglarize his house before Shepard could report his kidnapping and attack to police. But for some reason, they kept beating him, she said. Bill McKinney said that's what he doesn't understand, quickly adding that the whole series of events is inexcusable. He said it hurts him to know his son has the potential for such apparent viciousness. "None of that ever should have happened," he said. "They should never have decided to rob him or beat him up or any of it." Price agreed. "It just got out of hand, I guess, and they realized he was unconscious and that's when they decided to leave." Russell Henderson and Chastity Pasley lived at the cheap end of Laramie, near the railroad tracks to the Mountain Cement Co., in a neighborhood where rusting cars and junk piles are stored in yards for future use. They paid $ 340 a month for an aging mobile home with a quilt hanging in its front door window. People who know Henderson in Laramie find it hard to believe he could do something so cruel. He drank, they say, and he had flashes of temper, but mostly he was the mild-mannered, polite young man who answered "yes sir" to all the judge's questions after kidnapping, robbery and attempted-murder charges against him were read in court. Carson and Sherry Aanenson, the couple who rented a mobile home to Henderson for three years, called him a follower, not a leader. They found it hard to imagine him initiating the savage beating described in court Friday. Sherry Aanenson remembered Henderson at last year's Christmas party at the Chuck Wagon restaurant in Laramie, shyly asking her, "When you get a chance, can I have a dance?" But now she wonders about something else she noticed, something hollow in his eyes. "I felt just like my experience with Russell was - he kinda had that little blank-look stare about him," she said. GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Associated Press Loui Temeer, left, comforts Gina St. Brigid Saturday night during a vigil for Matthew Shepard at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. --------------- Copyright 1998 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune October 11, 1998 Sunday, CHICAGOLAND FINAL EDITION HEADLINE: CONDITION OF BEATING VICTIM DROPS BYLINE: From Tribune News Services. DATELINE: FT. COLLINS, Colo. A University of Wyoming student savagely beaten in what authorities say may have been an anti- gay hate crime was in critical and deteriorating condition Saturday, officials said. " Matthew Shepard remains in critical condition, but in the past 24 hours, his condition has worsened slightly," said Poudre Valley Hospital spokesman Armi Hall. Two men have been charged with attempted murder and other crimes in connection with the attack on Shepard, 21, who was found beaten and tied to a fence Wednesday night outside Laramie, Wyo. Two women have been charged with being accessories after the fact. Rulon Stacey, the chief executive officer of the Poudre Valley Health System, said Shepard had suffered severe head injuries, including damage to his brain stem. "He remains on ventilator-assisted breathing," Stacey said. Police said there were indications the attack was a robbery and a hate crime, and the investigation was continuing. President Clinton and other politicians condemned the beating Saturday. In a statement, Clinton said he was "deeply grieved by the act of violence," adding that "Hillary and I ask that your thoughts and your prayers be with Mr. Shepard and his family and with the people of Laramie." House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) said, "This heinous crime deserves the condemnation of all Americans." The alleged assailants, Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, 22, were charged Friday with attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, was charged with being an accessory to the crime. Kristen Leann Price, 18, was arrested for investigation of being an accessory but has not been charged. Shepard's parents were at his bedside Saturday after flying in from Saudi Arabia where his father works in the oil industry. -------------------------- Copyright 1998 The Denver Post Corporation The Denver Post October 10, 1998 Saturday 2D EDITION HEADLINE: Activists express outrage Intolerance breeds violence, they say BYLINE: By Coleman Cornelius, Denver Post Staff Writer FORT COLLINS - Gay -rights advocates around the nation issued a collective distress call Friday after the savage beating of a homosexual University of Wyoming student who was left to die on a wooden ranch fence. Poised to celebrate National Coming Out Day on Sunday, activists condemned the attack on 21-year-old Matthew Shepard of Laramie and charged that a political climate of intolerance breeds such violence toward gays and lesbians. Authorities confirmed Friday that Shepard's sexual orientation was part of the motive for his brutal beating. Shepard remained unconscious, with severe head injuries, at a Fort Collins hospital. Just hours after the news broke, advocates from coast to coast rallied in their call for gay-rights ordinances, hate-crime legislation and other government policies that specifically protect homosexuals. And they warned that the religious right fosters discrimination with its negative messages and misinformation about homosexuals and the laws that protect them. "The rhetoric used to say that lesbian and gay people are just looking for 'special rights' fosters homophobia and a climate that makes it permissible to perform the violent and hateful acts we saw with Matthew," said Cathy Renna of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in Washington, D.C. But the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group in Washington, also responded to Shepard's attack by denouncing violence toward gays. "We absolutely condemn in the strongest terms that kind of behavior," said Chad Nykamp, a council spokesman. Nykamp said there is no connection between attacks on homosexuals and the council's recent advertisements featuring so-called ex-gays, meaning gays who have opted for heterosexual lifestyles. Television ads unveiled Thursday join a nationwide newspaper advertising campaign in which ex-gays warn against the spiritual impediments, drug addiction and other health consequences they say they suffered while living as homosexuals. Those featured in the ads urge other gays to join them in converting. "It's not an anti-gay message, it's a pro-life message," Nykamp said. "I have a hard time equating how that could lead to, 'Hey, let's go beat up a homosexual."' The Family Research Council suggested that gay-rights advocates are embracing Shepard's case to further their political agenda of special rights. Kim Mills of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign called that accusation "distressing" and said it is important to discuss the context in which Shepard's attack occurred. "Gay people, because of a culture that fosters intolerance, are at risk for these kinds of terrible crimes," Mills said. She likened the Laramie assault to a recent attack on a black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup in Texas. Mills, who will visit Fort Collins today to further discuss the issues, said gay-rights activists quickly rallied behind Shepard's case because "it's so shocking." "We like to think we, as a country, have moved beyond this. But we have a long way to go," she said. In Fort Collins, where Shepard is hospitalized, the case has likewise disturbed gay-rights advocates. City voters will decide next month whether to adopt two ordinances that would protect gays from discrimination in housing, employment and public services. "A climate where people are putting out information devaluing other people makes this kind of crime more likely," said Bob Lenk of Fort Collins Citizens for Human Rights, a group that supports the local ordinances. "The rhetoric we've been hearing is very divisive. It's aimed at getting people to see gays not as humans but as a threat," Lenk said. "The idea that some people's rights are to be debated and questioned creates an atmosphere for something like this to happen." Gay-rights advocates said Shepard's beating could have a chilling effect on Sunday's National Coming Out Day, an annual event encouraging gays to embrace their homosexuality. But when such a crime gains national attention, it also motivates gays to fight for their rights, activists said. Either way, they said, gays often personalize a highly publicized and cruel attack. Phil LaBrie, one of Shepard's best friends in Laramie, said Shepard defined himself as gay and openly discussed his sexual orientation. LaBrie, who visited the unresponsive Shepard at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins on Friday, said his friend is a diminutive man who was majoring in political science at the University of Wyoming because he wanted to fight for civil and human rights. Shepard, described as animated and loving, would appreciate the advocates who have united behind him and have used his case to illustrate the need for protective laws, LaBrie said. "Matt is pro-human," said LaBrie, recalling discussions among their circle of friends about politics and human rights. "Matt would want something to happen so people would not be attacked like this." -------------------------- Copyright 1998 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. The New York Post October 10, 1998, Saturday HEADLINE: THUGS BEAT GAY STUDENT ; AT WYOMING U. BYLINE: RITA DELFINER A gay college student was fighting for his life last night after being beaten senseless by two merciless attackers who left him tied to a fence in Wyoming like a scarecrow, police said. Two men charged in the horrific onslaught targeted Matthew Shepard because he was gay, cops said. Shepard, 21, was in critical condition on a respirator at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo. His parents were en route from their home in Saudi Arabia, where his father works in the oil industry. The University of Wyoming student was found slumped unconscious on a wooden ranch fence outside Laramie Wednesday night, about 12 hours after the ferocious assault. His skull had been smashed with a handgun and the slightly built Shepard was left without shoes in temperatures that dipped into the low 30s. "He's a small person with a big heart, mind and soul that someone tried to beat out of him," R.W. Eaton of Denver said of his nephew. "Right now, he's in God's hands," he said. Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, were charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and robbery and ordered held on $100,000 cash bond. Police said the pair, bent on robbery, lured Shepard out of the Fireside bar, a campus hangout, by telling him they were gay. The three drove off in McKinney's truck late Tuesday or early Wednesday, said Police Commander Dave O'Malley. The pair began pummeling Shepard in the truck and then parked about a mile outside Laramie, he said. They tied their victim to the crude fence and beat him again - then left after taking his wallet and shoes, O'Malley said. A bicyclist who rode by hours later and spotted the tattered figure dangling from the fence at first mistook him for a scarecrow. Later, Henderson and McKinney made anti-gay remarks to Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leanne Price, 18, who helped them dump their bloody clothing, O'Malley said. Pasley, a University of Wyoming freshman, yesterday was ordered held on $30,000 cash bond on accessory charges. Price was to be charged as an accessory after the fact next week. Shepard, a political-science major who hoped to become a human-rights advocate, told friends he recently suffered two other beatings and attributed them to the fact he was openly homosexual. Some students at the university in Laramie, a rural town about 50 miles west of Cheyenne, believed hate played a big part in the attack. "That has to do with the fact this is a cowboy place," said sophomore Alicia Alexander. "People aren't exposed to it. They're too closed-minded." Shepard, who was born in Casper, Wyo., wanted to attend the University of Wyoming because it was his father's alma mater. Christine Quinn, executive director of New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, compared the Wyoming attack to a recent series of gay-bashing attacks here. "Not to be overly dramatic, the incidents this young man endured before this last one are very similar to the things we're seeing on these streets in different boroughs," she said. She said she hopes the latest "truly nauseating attack" in Wyoming convinces New York state lawmakers and Congress to pass pending hate-crime bills. --------------------------- Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company The New York Times October 10, 1998, Saturday, Late Edition - Final HEADLINE: Gay Man Beaten and Left for Dead; 2 Are Charged BYLINE: By JAMES BROOKE DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo., Oct. 9 BODY: At first, the passing bicyclist thought the crumpled form lashed to a ranch fence was a scarecrow. But when he stopped, he found the burned, battered and nearly lifeless body of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay college student who had been tied to the fence 18 hours earlier. Today, Mr. Shepard, a 22-year-old University of Wyoming student, was in a coma in critical condition. At the Albany County courthouse here, Russell A. Henderson, 21, and Aaron J. McKinney, 22, were arraigned on charges of kidnapping, aggravated robbery and attempted first-degree murder. Two women described as friends of the men, Kristen Leann Price, 18, and Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, have been charged as accessories after the fact to attempted first-degree murder. Mr. Shepard's friends said he did not know his alleged tormentors. The Laramie police say the primary motive was robbery, although court papers filed today indicate that Mr. Shepard's homosexuality may have been a factor. Mr. Shepard's friends call the attack a hate crime. "He was very open about his sexuality," Tina LaBrie, an anthropology student here, said of her friend. "I admired him for that because it is very courageous to be yourself even when others disagree." A few hours before he was beaten, Mr. Shepard, who is 5 feet 2 inches tall, had attended a meeting of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Association, said Walter T. Boulden, a friend of Mr. Shepard. "He was sitting at the bar, having a beer, when two men came up and talked to him," Mr. Boulden, a 46-year-old university lecturer of social work here, said today between tears. "He indicated he was gay, and they said they were gay, too." "Now, he is in a coma," continued Mr. Boulden, who visited his friend at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., on Thursday. "I don't think anybody expects him to pull through." Mr. Shepard, who speaks Arabic and German, studied at a boarding school in Switzerland before returning to the United States to attend the University of Wyoming, the alma mater of his father, an oil rig safety inspector in Saudi Arabia. He was born in Casper, the capital of Wyoming's oil belt, and spent much of his youth there. Six weeks after returning to Wyoming and enrolling as a freshman here, Mr. Shepard became depressed, said Ms. LaBrie and her husband, Phillip. Accustomed to life in Europe and Denver, Mr. Shepard, a foreign language student who wanted to become a diplomat, found himself living in this isolated city of 27,000 people. Set in a treeless landscape defined by barbed-wire fences, grazing cattle and a busy freight railroad line, Laramie is a town where pickup trucks outnumber sport utility vehicles, where fall entertainment revolves around this Saturday's homecoming football game and the start of the hunting season in the nearby mountains. Although Wyoming often bills itself as the "equality state," the state Legislature has repeatedly voted down hate crime legislation on the ground that it would give homosexuals special rights. "Wyoming is not really gay friendly," Marv Johnson, executive director of the Wyoming chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said from Cheyenne. "The best way to characterize that is by a comment a legislator made a few years back, when he likened homosexuals to gay bulls as worthless and should be sent to the packing plant." Mr. Shepard joined the campus gay association at the university within days. One of his favorite haunts was the Fireside Bar, which drew a mixed crowd of college students and rodeo cowboys, gay and straight. "He definitely wasn't drunk when he came in," recalled the bartender, Matt Galloway. "He wasn't drunk when he went out." Calvin Rerucha, the County Attorney, charged in court documents today that Mr. McKinney and Mr. Henderson posed as homosexuals and lured Mr. Shepard out to Mr. McKinney's pickup truck just after midnight early Wednesday. Beating him inside the truck, the pair drove him one mile southeast to an isolated part of a new rural subdivision, the County Attorney's report said. There, it said, the men tied their captive to a fence and pistol-whipped him with a .357 magnum handgun "while he begged for his life." Relatives said that Mr. Shepard also suffered burns on his body. After nearly beating the young man to death, said the Laramie Police Commander, David O'Malley, the assailants stole his wallet and shoes and left him tied to the fence. Commander O'Malley said that when his officers arrested the two men on Thursday, they found in Mr. McKinney's pickup truck a .357 magnum pistol covered with blood and Mr. Shepard's shoes and credit card. He said they found Mr. Shepard's wallet at Mr. McKinney's home. The police commander said that the two women helped the two men dump their bloody clothing, and that they reported hearing the men make anti-gay remarks. Ms. Pasley, a freshman art student at the university, lived with Mr. Henderson. Ms. Price lived with Mr. McKinney. The police did not say what the other three did for a living. Today, friends and Laramie residents struggled to understand the incident. Mr. Shepard, some said, may have felt a false sense of confidence because the local Gay Association completed plans on Tuesday night for Gay Awareness Week 1998. The weeklong series of events starts here Sunday with a local observance of National Coming Out Day and a lecture on Monday by Leslea Newman, the author of "Heather Has Two Mommies," a book about lesbian families. "If I were a homosexual in Laramie, I would hang low, very low," said Carla Brown, manager of the Fireside. "Openly gay behavior is not only discouraged, it's dangerous." GRAPHIC: Photos: Kevin Lundahl, left, a Laramie, Wyo., police investigator, and Lieut. Bob Volin of the Sheriff's Department searched the crime site on Thursday; Matthew Shepard, 22, left, was in a coma yesterday after being beaten. Russell A. Henderson, 21, center, and Aaron J. McKinney, 22, were charged with kidnapping, aggravated robbery and attempted murder. (Photographs by Associated Press) --------------------------- Copyright 1998 Denver Publishing Company The Rocky Mountain News(Denver, Co.) October 10, 1998, Saturday, HEADLINE: ATTACK ON STUDENT SHOCKS LARAMIE; 'IF IT CAN HAPPEN HERE, IT CAN HAPPEN ANYWHERE,' CITY COUNCILMAN SAYS BYLINE: Kevin McCullen; Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer DATELINE: LARAMIE BODY: Cowboy country is in shock. This college town of 27,000 has rarely seen violent crime of the magnitude suffered by Matthew Shepard. ''This is a town where you could leave your doors unlocked,'' said Garland Woods, a 12-year Laramie resident who works at the county courthouse. ''I'm like the rest of the residents that I've been talking to - I am shocked.'' Word of Shepard's night of torture flashed through the University of Wyoming campus Wednesday, the community and then the country. ''What is happening to our small towns?'' asked Terry Summers, a former Wyoming student who now runs a gay and lesbian resource center in Fort Collins. ''I thought it was a safe community - now I'm scared like hell for our community.'' The crime cast a pall over the college's homecoming plans, made national news and sparked calls for legislation to protect gays like Shepard and others. Gov. Jim Geringer was ''outraged and sickened'' by the assault and said he would consider signing a hate-crime bill with clear provisions. Shepard's beating frightened students on a campus. ''I never thought something like this could happen here,'' said Stephanie Olson, vice president of the student government. ''If it's true that this was a hate-crime it's even more frightening. ''I wish we could put off homecoming for a weekend.'' Today's homecoming parade will include a tribute to Shepard, and a moment of silence is planned before kickoff of the Wyoming Cowboys' football game. Ironically, the university's gay student association planned next week to celebrate gay awareness week. ''I don't feel safe walking around town,'' said Ronnie Gustafson, a friend of Shepard's who lives in Laramie. ''I look over my shoulder.'' At an afternoon press conference on the steps of the Albany County Courthouse, a cadre of reporters and photographers was joined by several residents. A few carried hand-drawn placards with messages like, ''Stop the Hate.'' ''I hope and I pray this was an isolated event,'' said University of Wyoming President Philip Dubois. He has received messages from around the country, all with the same theme - ''one of horror.'' City Councilman Jim Rose said the savagery of the crime shocked his neighbors. Rose, an architectural engineering professor at Wyoming, said he and others have felt insulated from the violence of crime in America's urban area. ''What makes this sobering is that it does not recognize geographic boundaries,'' he said. ''If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.'' Wyoming state senator Jayne Mockler, D-Cheyenne, introduced legislation last year that would have lengthened prison terms for criminals whose deeds were motivated by bias based on gender, race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation. The bill never got a hearing in a committee. Alex Trout, a friend of Shepard's, said the attack illustrates the need for a hate-crime law in Wyoming. ''What's it take - somebody to be killed before it's passed?'' he said. Mockler said the attack on Shepherd only serves to make the point that such a law is needed. At a press conference Friday in Laramie, resident Cynthia Chavez Kelly wipes away tears. Kelly is a friend of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was severely beaten and left for dead. By Ahmad Terry / Rocky Mountain News. ------------------ Copyright 1998 The Washington Post The Washington Post October 10, 1998, Saturday, Final Edition SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A01 LENGTH: 1148 words HEADLINE: Gay Man Near Death After Beating, Burning; Three Held in Wyoming Attack Near Campus; Hate Crime Suspected BYLINE: Tom Kenworthy, Washington Post Staff Writer DATELINE: LARAMIE, Wyo. Oct. 9 BODY: Matthew Shepard, slight of stature, gentle of demeanor and passionate about human rights and foreign relations, lived a relatively open gay life in this university community that is something of an island of liberal thought in a conservative, traditional-values state. This week, he paid a terrible price. Lured from a tavern popular with University of Wyoming students, Shepard, 21, was driven a mile outside of town, bludgeoned with a blunt instrument and tied to a fence like a dead coyote. Close to death, with his head badly battered and burn marks on his body, he was discovered Wednesday evening by two passing cyclists and eventually transported to a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital where he remains in critical condition with severe head injuries and is breathing by means of a ventilator. This afternoon, two days before the opening of Gay Awareness Week at the university, three of four suspects were arraigned in Albany County Court and charged with crimes related to the beating. Two men, Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney, whose age was not immediately released, were charged with kidnapping, aggravated robbery and attempted first-degree murder and held on $ 100,000 bond. Chastity Vera Pasley, 20 -- the only one of the four enrolled at the university -- was arraigned today on a charge of being accessory to attempted first-degree murder and held in lieu of $ 30,000 bond. Kristen Leann Price, 18, was released on $ 30,000 bond. Albany County Sheriff Gary Puls, who suggested to the Laramie Daily Boomerang that the beating was being investigated as a hate crime, said today that the investigation in concert with the Laramie Police Department is "aggressively continuing." Laramie Police Commander Dave O'Malley told the Associated Press that while robbery was the main motive, Shepard was targeted because he was gay and that the two male suspects made anti-gay remarks after the beating to the two women. According to the Daily Boomerang, McKinney pleaded no contest Sept. 21 to a felony burglary charge and is awaiting sentencing. Henderson has a number of driving offenses on his record, including two drunken driving convictions. Pasley, a graduate of Laramie High School, has one traffic offense on her record, driving without a valid license. And Price has no local criminal record. As the investigation proceeded and Shepard's parents Dennis and Judy Shepard arrived tonight from Saudi Arabia, where Dennis Shepard works in the oil business, university officials and members of Laramie's gay community struggled to come to grips with a horrifying attack on someone described by his friends as gentle and trusting. Jim Kearns, director of the University