Laramie braces for trial in gay student's slaying

03/22/99

By Paul Pringle / The Dallas Morning News

LARAMIE, Wyo. - A hangman's noose dangles over the beer taps at the Fireside Lounge, a rowdy but chummy bar where Matthew Shepard felt safe and where his friends last saw him alive.

The gallows rope is an innocent decoration. It pokes fun at this town's Old West baptism in frontier justice. But the martyrdom of Mr. Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was lashed to a buck fence and pistol-whipped to death in October, has erased much of the innocence and fun from Laramie.

On Wednesday, jury selection begins for the first of two local men accused in the slaying of 21-year-old Mr. Shepard. They are charged with a savage crime whose homophobic overtones sent waves of revulsion around the world. News organizations from as far away as Germany and Saudi Arabia have lined up to cover Russell Henderson's trial. The spotlight will direct new attention on Laramie's lingering agonies of shame and loss.

Already, just the mention of Mr. Shepard's name reduces some Fireside patrons to tears.

"Matt was a really good friend of mine," said Jessica Mercer, 22, who stood outside the bar in the bone-bending wind that rakes Laramie year-round. She was crying. "He was one of the greatest people. I really miss him."

Ms. Mercer was hugged by Maurice Hill, 34, a Fireside regular. "Something like this never happened here before," Mr. Hill said, his voice equal parts remorse and anger. "But maybe the trial will be a good thing. Maybe it's going to open up people's eyes."

Mr. Henderson and Aaron McKinney, both 21, face murder, kidnapping and robbery charges. A judge granted them separate trials, and Mr. McKinney's is set for August. If convicted, they could get the death penalty.

The defendants' girlfriends were charged with being accessories after the fact. Kristen LeAnn Price, Mr. McKinney's girlfriend, and Chastity Vera Pasley, Mr. Henderson's girlfriend, are accused of helping the men conceal bloody clothes and other evidence.

Mr. Shepard, uniformly remembered as a gentle and trusting young man, was the son of a well-to-do Wyoming couple. His father is an oil executive whose work took the family to the Middle East. Mr. Shepard attended high school in Switzerland and spoke three languages. He moved to Laramie last year to study political science at the University of Wyoming, his parents' alma mater. The campus, a sprawl of limestone buildings set amid Christmas pines, represents Laramie's No. 1 industry. Ranching is a distant second.

Mr. Henderson and Mr. McKinney are high school dropouts from broken homes. Their mothers are dead. Mr. Henderson's mother died in January after staggering drunk from a bar and freezing on a snow-dusted country lane, not unlike the one where Mr. Shepard had been left to die three months earlier.

Confession

The Laramie police say Mr. McKinney confessed to them. He reportedly admitted that he and Mr. Henderson lured Mr. Shepard from the Fireside shortly before midnight on Oct. 6, drove him to a dirt road a mile outside of town and tied him to the crude fence constructed of lodgepoles. They then stole his wallet and shoes and repeatedly clubbed him with a .357 Magnum pistol, according to the police.

A bicyclist, Aaron Kreifels, discovered Mr. Shepard the next day. Mr. Kreifels would recall that he first thought the crumpled form had been a scarecrow. Mr. Shepard, whose skull was bashed in, died five days later at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital.

Police officers say Mr. McKinney told Mr. Shepard on the drive to the murder scene that he would be beaten because "it's Gay Awareness Week."

Mr. Shepard was easy prey. He stood 5-foot-2 and weighed 105 pounds.

Lawyers for Mr. McKinney and Mr. Henderson could not be reached for comment. In an interview with the Denver Post, Mr. McKinney's father sought a measure of understanding for his son. Bill McKinney said that the defendant had been enraged when Mr. Shepard flirted with him. The father's remarks were widely ridiculed.

It is hard to imagine, as Mr. Hill suggests, that Laramie's eyes could be opened any wider by Mr. Henderson's trial. In the days after the slaying, the city's 27,000 residents watched in horror as their college-and-cowboy hamlet became an international dateline for hate - a new Selma, Ala.

Laramie's location didn't help matters. The one-time railroad outpost, on a 1 1/2-mile-high plain of the Rocky Mountains, is in a region of the country notorious for its cells of hate groups. In some media portrayals, Laramie found itself dealt a swift verdict of guilt by geographical association.

City's response

The judgments have since softened. Recent news accounts have focused on Laramie's sorrow and introspection. Others have noted its acceptance of Mr. Shepard, whose company seems to have been cherished by all who knew him.

"Matt was a very caring person the kind of guy who brightened your day," said Jim Osborn, the former chair of the University of Wyoming's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Association. The group has only 50 members, but Mr. Osborn estimated that perhaps 10 percent of the university's 9,000 students are gay or lesbian.

He said he has been heartened by Laramie's response to Mr. Shepard's death but is anxious about what the trials may bring. "It will be very painful," Mr. Osborn said. "People are trying to heal."

All of the press seats in the Albany County Courthouse have been reserved, and there is a long waiting list. Mr. Henderson's trial is expected to last at least until the end of April. It will not be televised.

"The case itself has gone very smoothly," said Dean Jessup, the court's administrative attorney. "What has created problems is the media interest and its interruptions."

Outside influences

Another potential problem may arrive from Topeka, Kan., in the person of the Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor of the rabidly anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church. Mr. Phelps, 69, and about a dozen followers picketed Mr. Shepard's funeral in Casper. They taunted the mourners with signs that screamed "God Hates Fags" and "No Tears for Queers."

The demonstration was roundly denounced, but Mr. Phelps said he will stage a similar one in Laramie during the trial. "Matthew Shepard has been in hell now for six months," he said in a telephone interview. He added that he is "supremely indifferent" to the hurt his actions may cause Mr. Shepard's family and the town.

Laramie's residents, gay and straight, seethe with contempt when the topic turns to Mr. Phelps and his camp.

"He's going to make things worse," said Deana Ray Wood, 45, a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist.

Ms. Wood was celebrating St. Patrick's Day at the Buckhorn Bar in downtown, a historic district of restored Victorians and brightly colored brick-fronts, monuments to the days when Calamity Jane walked Laramie's streets. The crowd in the bar reflected the city's demographics 90 percent white, but a mix of students and ranch workers, the affluent and the low paid.

Mickey Patterson was among many at the Buckhorn who knew both Mr. Shepard and the defendants.

"Henderson is a loser," said Ms. Patterson, 41, a lesbian who is a graduate student at the university. "I knew him from the bar scene. One reason he's a loser is that he hung around with Aaron McKinney. I'm normally against the death penalty, but I hope they both fry."

Outside of the Fireside, 22-year-old Chad Hamby agreed with Ms. Patterson's assessment of the defendants' character, but he called for some mercy.

"I've known Aaron McKinney all my life," said Mr. Hamby, who works for an America Online contractor. "Aaron was a really good guy. I'd like to say he's innocent, but I know him too well. I just hope he doesn't get death."

Mr. Hamby paused for a moment as the cold wind howled off the plains. "This is something that Laramie didn't need," he said. "It'll probably be 10 years before it's not on people's minds. Maybe longer."