Matthew Shepard was only 22 years old when he was killed. Shepard died Oct. 12, 1998, after being brutally beaten and left tied to a fence five days earlier. (Photo via AP)
MORE INFO Editors’ note: This story is the first in a two-part series examining the impact of the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. Next week: The influence of Shepard’s murder on the debate over hate crime laws, and why other anti-gay killings since 1998 have not attracted the same level of attention as Shepard’s death.
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Oct 10, 2008  |  By: DYANA BAGBY  | COMMENTS |   |  

Matthew Shepard continues to have an intense presence in Laramie, Wyo., the small town where he was viciously murdered 10 years ago this week.

“This time of year, for the people that were close to it, always means something,” said Dave O’Malley, a member of the Laramie City Council who was the town’s police chief when Shepard was lured to a desolate field, beaten mercilessly by two assailants and then left to die.

“That’s a pretty good size group of us here that were involved in one way or another,” O’Malley said.

In recent days, Shepard’s presence has manifested in the dozens of television news crews and newspaper reporters from across the country that have descended on Laramie for the 10-year anniversary of Shepard’s death, and for a Sept. 27 ceremony at the University of Wyoming during which the school’s president dedicated a memorial bench to Shepard.

A metal plaque in the center of the bench reads: “Matthew Wayne Shepard, Dec. 1, 1976-Oct. 12, 1998. Beloved son, brother, and friend. He continues to make a difference. Peace be with him and all who sit here.”

The legacy of the small-framed, blond haired young gay man who everyone knew as Matt lives on throughout the year in Laramie, from the presence of gay-straight student alliances at high schools throughout the city, to the $25,000 raised during the seventh annual Wyoming AIDS Walk earlier this year.

“I think we’ve seen some changes over the last 10 years that have been really positive — they may not seem hugely dramatic to some people, but there have been changes,” O’Malley said, noting the growing influence of the University of Wyoming’s gay student group, Spectrum.

“Around the time that Matt was killed, you knew the group existed on campus, but you heard very little about them,” he said.

“Now, Spectrum is probably one of the most visible groups on campus; you can’t walk through a dormitory or through the union and not see a poster where Spectrum is sponsoring or co-sponsoring some kind of event on campus, and that’s huge to me.” One of the most powerful, yet lighthearted, reminders of how Matthew Shepard’s death affected Laramie takes place each April during the local AIDS Awareness week, when an amateur drag troupe known as The Stilettos hosts Bingo and a drag show at the Cowboy Saloon.

“The thought of, in 1998, having a drag show at the Cowboy Saloon, that people actually paid to come to,” O’Malley said with his voice trailing off before completing his thought.

“The number of straight allies attending these kinds of functions is increasing on a level that’s just huge,” he added. “It’s just grown so huge, I don’t know if there’s a venue big enough where we can do it.” O’Malley, who is heterosexual, recalled convincing a carpenter contractor who he described as “a very conservative Republican” to attend the Stilettos show a few years ago.

“He had more fun than I can imagine — his face hurt the next morning from laughing, and he won’t miss it again,” O’Malley said.

“And there’s he and I, and his wife and my wife, and five or six gay and lesbian people at every table. And he’s made good friends, and it’s something that would not have occurred had things not started to open up.”

‘HIS VOICE WAS SILENCED’

On the evening of Oct. 6, 1998, a group of gay students at the University of Wyoming met to plan for the upcoming Gay Awareness Week, a series of education and awareness seminars that coincided with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11.

“The general mood of the meeting was one of excitement,” recalled Jim Osborn, who was chair of the university’s gay student group at the time. “We were planning and really looking forward to what we would be doing the next week.”

The group had already decided that Lesléa Newman, author of the book “Heather Has Two Mommies,” was going to be the week’s keynote speaker. What none of them knew at the time was that Gay Awareness Week would also include countless memorial vigils for one of the students at the planning meeting, a freshman named Matthew Shepard.

“A week of celebration suddenly became very muted and somber in many ways,” Osborn said. “Matt wanted to be an activist, but his voice was silenced.”

In the hours after the planning meeting, Shepard, a Wyoming native, went to the Fireside Bar in Laramie where he met two men, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride home, but once they got on the road ...