Gay’s Slaying Spawns Morality Play

Matthew Shepard was a frequent patron at the Fireside Bar and Lounge. Lots of folks here were. The college freshman was remembered as being a good listener and a good tipper. But for all the times he went to the beery hangout, he never noticed two other men his age, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. The roof repairmen were remembered, too, for coming in after work with grimy hands and paying for their beer with small change.

Until the crisp fall night when the three met at the Fireside, they had been living separate but parallel lives at opposite sides of this tidy college town.

In the six months since Shepard’s gruesome death, the protagonists have become dehumanized Everymen--transmuted by the American compulsion for fashioning moral lessons out of tragedy. This morality play staged in a Western prairie town has demanded simplistic roles: Shepard, the earnest college student who was targeted because he was gay and gave his life to advance a social cause. Henderson and McKinney, the high school dropouts accused of beating Shepard to death, have been cast as remorseless killers spawned from small-town poverty.

Town Prepares for Trial

The truth, if it can be found here, is probably more ambiguous. A fuller story of how these three lives became fatally enmeshed is expected to soon unfold, following the start today of jury selection in the trial of Henderson.

Laramie is preparing as if for a siege. The stately stone courthouse has been belted by barricades. District Judge Jeffery Donnell has banned cameras from the courtroom; jury selection is expected to take as long as two weeks.

This is the first capital case to come before a Wyoming court in 20 years. Since 1967, only six people have been sentenced to death here and only one executed, by lethal injection. Jurors in the trial, expected to run at least five weeks, will be sequestered.

Henderson and McKinney, both 21, are charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. The men’s girlfriends are charged with being accessories after the fact. Chasity Pasley, 20, has pleaded guilty to the charge and awaits sentencing. Kristen Price has pleaded not guilty. McKinney’s trial is scheduled for Aug. 9.

Few people here are unaware of the case in which police allege that in the early hours of Oct. 7, 1998, Henderson and McKinney lured Shepard from the bar, savagely beat him, lashed him to a fence outside of town and left him for dead. They allegedly took Shepard’s credit card, $20 and his size 7 patent leather shoes.

Police allege that Henderson and McKinney targeted Shepard, who was 5-2 and 105 pounds, because he was gay. They admitted to police that they pretended to be gay so that Shepard would leave with them. Their intent, police say, was to rob him and burglarize his apartment. They took his shoes so that he would not easily walk back into town.

Their hands and clothes covered in Shepard’s blood, Henderson and McKinney drove into Laramie to break into Shepard’s apartment, police charge. While there, they got into a fight with two young men, one of whom hit McKinney over the head with a baseball bat. Henderson and McKinney fled on foot as police arrived, and the authorities discovered in McKinney’s truck Shepard’s personal effects and a .357 magnum with blood on its handle. Shepard himself would not be discovered until 18 hours later.

In the strange physics that brought people here together, Shepard arrived at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital after McKinney, who had been admitted for the head injury he sustained in the street fight. McKinney was soon released; Shepard died five days later.

The 21-year-old quickly became a national symbol of a hate crime victim. He was a bright, outgoing man who aspired to join the foreign service and work for human rights. But he was also troubled, according to friends. Shepard was hospitalized for depression last year and took anti-anxiety medication, she said. He eventually settled here, determined to attend his parent’s alma mater and to flourish in the cocoon of a small town.

Even with his mood swings, Shepard’s most distinguishing trait appeared to be his likability. “He was always happy, a really happy person,” said Robert Foley, a student at Colorado State University.

“He was just a kid who liked everything,” his mother, Judy Shepard, told the Advocate magazine, explaining why his death struck a chord with people. “He wasn’t different from anybody.”

A History of Violence

Not much is known of the men prosecutors call “two young toughs” except for details of their unfortunate lives that have seeped into public view. McKinney and Henderson were each taught the lessons of violence at a young age.

At 14, McKinney was placed in a youth center for stealing a cash register. He was 16 when his mother died. He was living on his own by 17.

Henderson started life as a quiet, studious child. He was raised by his religious grandmother and flourished, becoming an honor student. But Henderson was a follower, and began to fill out his modest criminal record, including charges of drunk driving and fighting.

His mother died Jan. 3., several months after his arrest. Cindy Dixon, 40, stumbled out of a Laramie bar and her frozen body was discovered the next day miles away along a country road.

According to court records, the two young men earned about $1,000 a month at Laramie Valley Roofing.

Acquaintances described them as unexceptional, fun-loving guys. McKinney, Henderson, Price and Pasley were a devoted unit, often using the same local limousine service as Shepard, asking the driver to cruise town while they drank and watched TV.

The relationship between McKinney and Price became more serious after Price became pregnant. She bore their young son while McKinney was in jail awaiting sentencing on a burglary charge. Pasley, who lived with Henderson, appeared to be the most ambitious of the four and was in her first year as an art student at the University of Wyoming. She held a campus job that sometimes called for her to do clerical work for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Student Assn., of which Shepard was a member.