Introduction

This book is about a murder that changed forever how we think about violence and human rights today. The ugliness and obscenity of this senseless act stood in stark contrast to the backdrop of the beautiful Wyoming landscape where it occurred. Matthew Shepard was attacked on October 6, 1998, soon after he left a bar in Laramie, Wyoming, with Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. The three men got into McKinney’s truck and drove to a remote area east of Laramie. The beating started in the truck after McKinney apparently said, “We’re not gay, and you just got jacked” (Loffreda 2000, 9). Shepard was pistol-whipped, tortured, robbed, and left tied to a fence. He was found 18 hours later the next morning by a cyclist, and transported to a trauma center in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he died five days later.