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Published Every Two Weeks On Recycled Paper • Volume 13, Number 12 • October 31, 1998 • FREE
Bashing death sparks outcry
by Dan Van Mourik
Q-Notes Staff
LARAMIE, WY—On the night of Octo
ber 6, Matthew Shepard, 21, a University of
Wyoming student, was savagely beaten, burned
and left to die tied to a wooden fence outside
Laramie, 30 miles northwest of Cheyenne.
Shepard, a political science major, was openly
gay.
Aaron Kreifels, 18, discovered Shepard’s
body about 18 hours after the attack. He said
he originally mistook Shepard for “a scarecrow
or a dummy set there for Halloween jokes.”
When he walked closer, Kreifels discovered the
unconscious student who had been left to die.
Kreifels, a high school track standout, then ran
about a half mile to the nearest house to call
for help. A member of the university’s cycling
club, Kreifels was mountain biking on a rug
ged path when a rock sent him to the ground
about 10 feet from where Shepard was tied up.
“I wouldn’t have noticed him had I not hit that
rock and wiped out,” Kreifels said.
Due to the severity of his injuries, Shepard
was taken to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort
Collins, CO where he remained in critical con
dition until his death shortly before 1:00am
Monday, October 12.
When he was found, Shepard was uncon
scious and his skull had been smashed with a
handgun. He also ap
peared to have suffered
'-burns, possibly from
cigarettes, on his body
and cuts on his head and
face. The temperature
had dropped into the
low 30s during the time
Shepard was left out
side.
The following medi
cal information was re
leased by Rulon Stacy of
Poudre Valley Hospital.
Matthew’s major inju
ries upon arrival con
sisted of hypothermia
and a fracture from be
hind his head to just in
front of the right ear.
This has caused bleed
ing in the brain, as well
as pressure on the brain.
There were also approxi
mately a dozen small
lacerations around his head, face and neck. Mat
thew has a massive brain stem injury. The brain
stem controls vital signs, such as heart beat,
body temperature and other involuntary func
tions. Hospital actions have included the sur
geon inserting an intraventricular drain into his
brain to relieve pressure by draining spinal
fluid.”
“He’s a small person with a big heart, mind
and soul that someone tried to beat out of him,”
said his uncle, R.W Eaton, following the at
tack. “Right now, he’s in God’s hands.”
Police began investigating whether the bru
tal beating was motivated by Shepard’s sexual
orientation. He had twice been beaten recently,
one incident leaving him with a broken jaw,
and attributed those attacks to his open homo
sexuality, friends said. Albany County Sheriff
Gary Puls initially characterized the attack as a
“hate crime,” but when asked later if it was an
anti-gay attack, said, “At the present time we
are not confirming that.” Police later identi
fied the major motive in this case as a robbery.
Police quickly arrested two men and two
women in connection with the attack. Police
Cmdr. Dave O’Malley reiterated that robbery
was the chief motive but added that the victim
was chosen in part because he is gay and that
Brian Ballard, 17, speaks out at a
candlelight vigil in Charlotte
the defendants made anti-gay remarks after leav
ing the crime scene.
The suspects
Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron
James McKinney, 22, were first charged with
attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping and
aggravated robbery. Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, a
student, and Kristen Leann Price, 18, were
charged as accessories. After Shepard’s death,
the charges against the two men were upgraded
to first-degree murder with the potential of the
death penalty.
Police accused the two men of luring the
victim from the Fireside bar, a campus hang
out, by telling him they were gay. O’Malley said
the three drove off in McKinney’s truck late
Tuesday or early Wednesday. He said the two
men beat Shepard in the truck, then beat him
some more after tying him to the fence. They
took his wallet and black patent leather shoes,
officials said.
Officials said Shepard was pistol-whipped
with a .357 Magnum which was later recov
ered in the bed of McKinney’s truck along with
a pair of shoes and one of Shepard’s credit cards
in the truck’s cab.
After the attack, the two young women
helped the men dump their bloody clothing,
O’Malley said. He said the two men made anti
gay remarks to the two
women, who told police
about the crime.
“During the incident,
the victim was begging
for his life,” said Albany
County Judge Robert A.
Castor, reading an arrest
affidavit.
The suspects targeted
Shepard because he
flirted with one of them
at a bar, said the father
and girlfriend of
McKinney. McKinney
c was embarrassed that
g Shepard made two passes
S at him in front of his
^ friends at the bar, said
1 Bill McKinney and
2 Krisren Price. To get
£ back at Shepard for the
apparent humiliation,
McKinney and
Henderson lured him
outside to rob him, they said. Bill McKinney
said there’s no excuse for what his son and his
friend are accused of doing, but there isn’t re
ally a good reason for the nationwide media
attention over the case, either, he claimed.
“The news has already taken this up and
blew it totally out of proportion, because it in
volved a homosexual,” the elder 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 law
Efforts to pass hate-crime legislation in
Wyoming have failed repeatedly because crit
ics have said it would give homosexuals special
rights. In the past three years, Wyoming law
makers also have unsuccessfully tried to pass
legislation banning same-sex marriages.
Denise de Percin, a former Wyoming resi
dent, said it’s hard to keep track of hate crimes
in Wyoming. “Wyoming has not been enthu
siastic about complying with the federal Hate
Crimes Statistics Act. In fact, they’ve been reti
cent,” she said.
The attack on Shepard could be the first
See OUTCRY on page 14
:
'/ •
Approximately 400 turned out in Charlotte to honor slaying victim
Hundreds gather to remember
Matthew Shepard’s life, death
by Wanda Pico
Special to Q-Notes
CHARLOTTE—^As dusk fell on October
18 and the day’s heat withdrew into a crisp au-
rumn evening, nearly 400 people gathered in
uptown Charlotte’s Marshall Park to honor
Matthew Shepard, a young gay man they never
knew, and to send a message that the time of
meeting anti-GLBT violence with silence was
over.
The candlelight vigil, one of scores held in
the days following Shepard’s gay-bashing death
in Wyoming, was organized in three days by
Noel Green, David Lari and David Stout and
featured support from a number of commu
nity organizations.
One unexpected accomplice was the city’s
Parks Department who waived all fees for the
use of Marshall Parloand expedited the appli
cation. One city employee reportedly said,
“God will get me if I do anything to stop this.”
As attendees streamed into the park for the
service, they were given candles and programs
and directed to sit on the terraced hill facing
the fountain.
Rev. Debbie Warren, executive director of
the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN),
opened the program. She lit a single candle
positioned by the speaker’s podium and offered
an opening prayer. She called on a higher power
to turn hate into love, intolerance into accep
tance and violence into peace. She then recog
nized the organizers of the vigil and introduced
the next speaker, attorney Connie Vetter.
Vetter maintains the Southern Center for
Law and Justice which specializes in civil and
individual rights cases. She provided sobering
statistics on gay-biased hate crimes and ex
plained thestatus of laws targeting such attacks.
She stated that neither the federal nor the NC
government identifies sexual orientation as a
protected class under their hate crimes mea
sures.
Her remarks set the stage for the next speaker
to deliver a chilling message on his first-hand
experience with anti-gay hate.
Brian Ballard, a 17-year-old Time Out Youth
board member and participant, recalled when
he was threatened with death after arriving at
his high school one morning. “As I was getting
out of my car, three men told me to leave and
never come back again or they would kill me. I
got into my car and drove home and cried.”
Although Ballard subsequently returned to
school — with the support of his mother, guid
ance counselor and principal — without inci
dent, his encounter highlighted the potential
for violence that shadows gays and lesbians.
Next, as the opening strains of Gloria
Estefan’s hit “Coming Out of the Dark” ech
oed through the park. Green, Lari and Stout lit
See REMEMBER on page 5
Supreme Court lets Issue 3 stand
by Peg Byron
Special to Q-Notes
WASHINGTON, DC—Lambda Legal
Defense and Education Fund, the nation’s larg
est and oldest legal organization serving gays
and people with AIDS, said October 13 that
the US Supreme Court’s refusal to review
Cincinnati’s Issue 3, enacted in 1993 to deny
“protected status” to lesbians and gay men,
leaves Cincinnatians to battle further over the
reach of the controversial measure, but has no
implications beyond that case.
Lambda stressed that the High Court did
not change its landmark Romer v. Evans ruling
which affirmed the Constitution’s guarantee of
equal protection for lesbians and gay men and
rejected a Colorado measure that would have
blocked anti-gay discrimination protections.
“If the Court wanted to change Romer, it
would have taken the case,” said managing at
torney Patricia M. Logue of Lambda’s Midwest
Regional Office in Chicago. “The justices do
not usually second-guess federal appeals courts
when they construe local laws. But we’re still
disappointed that the High Court did not de
part from this normal practice and put Issue 3
to rest once and for all.”
Kerry Lobel, executive director of the Na
tional Gay and Lesbian Task Force, expressed a
stronger feeling. “It is unconscionable that the
court would allow this ruling to stand and refuse
to act on behalf of all Americans.”
In denying Lambda’s petition to review
Equality Foundation V. City of Cincinnati, & 1997
appeals court decision upholding Issue 3, three
justices also took the unusual step of issuing an
opinion explaining the action.
Justice John J. Stevens, joined by Justices
David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote
in an opinion respecting the denial of Lambda’s
petition, “The Court’s action today should not
be interpreted...as an expression of its views
about the underlying issues that the parties have
debated at length.”
Staff attorney Suzanne B. Goldberg, who
also worked on Lambda’s case, said, “The trag
edy in Wyoming warns us that there can be a
See COURT on page 5