I think your retrospective on the tragic murder of Matthew Shepard's murder is heart rending, but journalistically incomplete. It fails to acknowledge, or even mention as supported assertions, the roles of crystal meth and the prior relationships with his killers as significant factors in Matthew Shepard's murder as extensively researched and reported by gay journalist Stephen Jimenez in his book "The Book of Matt." For starters, here is a 2013 NPR interview of Jimenez by Rachel Martin. https://www.npr.org/2013/10/06/226438148/book-of-matt-the-real-motive-behind-an-infamous-murder
Hi Reed, thank you for reaching out. I think you're reaching out in good faith and so I want to respond in kind. Frankly, I don't trust Jimenez. His account is at odds with nearly every other source, which is usually a good indicator that something's off. There's also more information that neither Jimenez nor Rachel Martin had at the time of the interview above. Obviously in a cosmic sense, we can never definitively know what was going through someone's mind as they committed a crime ... but we have a VERY good idea of what happened in Laramie in 1998.
There are facts that are unaccounted for by the "drug deal gone wrong" hypothesis, but that make perfect sense under the "hate crime" hypothesis. To list some, the sheriff found no drugs at Matt's apartment. That's really, really odd. Most people, especially young college students, would have *some* drugs. The killers kept referring to Matt in their interrogations as the f-slur and later used the gay panic defense, specifically that they weren't looking to kill him but then freaked out when he put his hand on one of the killer's thighs. They backed away from that legal strategy but did not recant that justification for their actions. One of the killers has since called for Wyoming to pass a non-discrimination ordinance. But beyond all of this, and the thing I find most compelling is, as Bob Beck said to me during my interview with him, "the brutality of the attack." A drug deal gone wrong can definitely end in murder, but it usually ends with someone getting shot, not tortured. You torture someone like that because you hate them.
I think your retrospective on the tragic murder of Matthew Shepard's murder is heart rending, but journalistically incomplete. It fails to acknowledge, or even mention as supported assertions, the roles of crystal meth and the prior relationships with his killers as significant factors in Matthew Shepard's murder as extensively researched and reported by gay journalist Stephen Jimenez in his book "The Book of Matt." For starters, here is a 2013 NPR interview of Jimenez by Rachel Martin. https://www.npr.org/2013/10/06/226438148/book-of-matt-the-real-motive-behind-an-infamous-murder
Hi Reed, thank you for reaching out. I think you're reaching out in good faith and so I want to respond in kind. Frankly, I don't trust Jimenez. His account is at odds with nearly every other source, which is usually a good indicator that something's off. There's also more information that neither Jimenez nor Rachel Martin had at the time of the interview above. Obviously in a cosmic sense, we can never definitively know what was going through someone's mind as they committed a crime ... but we have a VERY good idea of what happened in Laramie in 1998.
There are facts that are unaccounted for by the "drug deal gone wrong" hypothesis, but that make perfect sense under the "hate crime" hypothesis. To list some, the sheriff found no drugs at Matt's apartment. That's really, really odd. Most people, especially young college students, would have *some* drugs. The killers kept referring to Matt in their interrogations as the f-slur and later used the gay panic defense, specifically that they weren't looking to kill him but then freaked out when he put his hand on one of the killer's thighs. They backed away from that legal strategy but did not recant that justification for their actions. One of the killers has since called for Wyoming to pass a non-discrimination ordinance. But beyond all of this, and the thing I find most compelling is, as Bob Beck said to me during my interview with him, "the brutality of the attack." A drug deal gone wrong can definitely end in murder, but it usually ends with someone getting shot, not tortured. You torture someone like that because you hate them.
Add to this Melodie Edwards' interview with the coroner in 2018 (in which the coroner speaks for the first time about the murder) and the details of the abuse and torture Matt received ... it's pretty hard to argue it was anything other than a hate crime. You can listen to that interview here, and I'd highly recommend it (with a strong content warning): https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2023-10-06/the-coroners-story-autopsy-reveals-details-about-matthew-shepards-hate-crime
I'd also recommend Bob Beck's 20th anniversary reporting in which his sources, people very close to the case and in a position to know, unanimously agree it was a hate crime and that any other explanation falls short: https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2018-10-05/three-people-look-back-at-the-shepard-case