Last Updated 7:14 AM ET October 12, 1998

Wyoming Student Who Was Savagely Beaten Dies

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (Reuters) - A University of Wyoming student savagely beaten in what police said may have been a hate crime died overnight, a hospital spokesman said Monday.

Matthew Shepard, 21, had been breathing with the aid of a ventilator after he was beaten and left tied to a wooden fence just outside Laramie, Wyoming.

Rulon Stacey, the chief executive officer of the Poudre Valley Health System, told reporters Shepard died at 12:53 a.m. MDT (2:53 a.m. EDT) Monday and that his family was at his bedside.

The parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, had flown from Saudi Arabia where the father works in the oil industry, to be with their son.

Shepard had been in critical condition and on life support since he arrived at the hospital Wednesday night. Police have said gay bashing and robbery were motives in the beating. Shepard led an openly gay life at the university.

Two men are in custody for the attack and their girlfriends, who allegedly have provided them alibis and helped hide bloody clothes, have been charged as accessories after the fact.