The 21-year-old political science major at Laramie University stood only 5ft 2in, and his blond hair, braces and slight frame gave him an air of vulnerability and innocence. Matthew was born into an affluent family and had attended state school in Casper, Wyoming. Neither was the rumour that the killers knew that he had access to a shipment of crystal meth with a street value of $10,000 which they wanted to steal. Matthew’s drug abuse, and the fact that he knew one of his killers prior to the attack, was never explored in court. “Which is a big part of the reason my book has been so trashed.”
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“This does not make the perfect poster boy for the gay-rights movement,” says Jimenez. He was HIV positive at the time of his death. He also took significant sexual risks and was being pimped alongside Aaron McKinney, one of his killers, with whom he’d had occasional sexual encounters. Jimenez found that Matthew was addicted to and dealing crystal meth and had dabbled in heroin. When he started he was convinced that Matthew died at the hands of homophobes, but he soon discovered that Matthew’s tragedy began long before the night he was killed.
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He’s an award-winning writer and TV producer, and visited Laramie shortly after the murder to gather material for a screenplay about the case.
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Jimenez had no intention of causing such controversy. Grade-A student: Matthew Shepard was just 5ft 2in and his slight frame gave him an air of vulnerability. “The anger directed at me has been pretty extreme.” “People object to the idea of the book, rather than what is in the book,” says Jimenez. Jimenez has been accused of being a revisionist, a criticism usually reserved for extreme rightwing ideologues that deny the Holocaust, and labelled a homophobe. The Advocate, America’s leading LGBT magazine, published a piece last year entitled: “Why I’m Not Reading the ‘Trutherism’ About Matt Shepard”. Jimenez claims, however, that many of his critics have not actually read it. Jimenez has faced a barrage of criticism since the publication of his book and has had readings to promote the book boycotted. This new theory has, understandably, caused a lot of anger. His conclusion, outlined in The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard, is that the grotesque murder was not a hate crime, but could instead be blamed on crystal meth, a drug that was flooding Denver and the surrounding area at the time of Matthew’s death. A new twist came last year with the publication of another book, this one by investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez, who has spent 13 years interviewing more than 100 people with a connection to the case. But after lengthy wrangling in congress, President Obama finally signed the Matthew Shepard Act in 2009, a law which defined certain attacks motivated by victim identity as hate crimes.īut the Matthew Shepard story is not yet finished. They were not charged with a hate crime, as that wasn’t possible under Wyoming’s criminal law. The men responsible for his death were convicted of first-degree murder and given two life sentences. There have been numerous documentaries, dramas, books and events based on the story. Judy and Dennis Shepard run the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which funds educational programmes and an online community for teens to discuss sexual orientation and gender issues. The Shepard family have become campaigners for gay rights. Politicians and celebrities pledged support and funding to combat anti-gay hate crime. The play The Laramie Project has toured the US and many other countries, telling Matthew’s story and encouraging campaigns against bigotry. As a result of Matthew’s death, many good things have happened for the gay community.
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The attack became a cause célèbre: it precipitated a national backlash against hyper-macho culture and tacit tolerance of homophobia. They pistol whipped him with a gun then tied him to a fence in freezing conditions and set fire to him before leaving him to die.
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Matthew was beaten by two assailants, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. T he horrific killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998 is widely seen as one of the worst anti-gay hate crimes in American history.