Unexpected twists in a notorious murder case

This photo of Matthew Shepard was published worldwide after his murder in October 1998.
This photo of Matthew Shepard was published worldwide after his murder in October 1998. (ABC News)
Posted: March 12, 2014

Perhaps Stephen Jimenez never saw the 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. He may be unfamiliar with the film's moral: "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Back in 2000, when Jimenez first went to Laramie, Wyo., it was to research a made-for-TV screenplay based on the notorious murder of Matthew Shepard.

Shepard, a gay 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming, was tied to a fence and viciously pistol-whipped in 1998. He died several days later. Two local men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were sentenced to two consecutive life terms without possibility of parole for the crime. McKinney claimed that he was set off by "gay panic," i.e., that Shepard had made unwelcome sexual advances shortly after the three men had left a bar together.

After eight months of poring over recently unsealed court documents, Jimenez found himself in a quandary: The actors weren't following the established script.

"I found a letter at the courthouse saying that Aaron McKinney's gay panic defense was false, an alibi, and that he was very familiar with gays and the gay bar scene," says Jimenez, who is gay. "That triggered me to begin digging, looking at the case through a journalist's lens."

So began a 13-year investigative crusade that resulted in The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, published in September by Steerforth Press. Jimenez will be reading from the book and answering audience questions Tuesday night at 7:30 at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

What he discovered during his sometimes dangerous, always disquieting research is that the situation leading up to Shepard's death was decidedly sordid. According to Jimenez's findings, Shepard was a methamphetamine addict and dealer, as was McKinney, whose intent was to rob Shepard of his stash.

Those facts stood in antagonistic opposition to the legend of Matthew Shepard, who within days of his death had been enshrined as a gay martyr.

That the murder still ranks as America's most famous antigay hate crime is, Jimenez believes, due to a combination of circumstance and distortion.

"Two friends of Matthew Shepard's, Walt Boulden and Alex Trout, went to the hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., where he had been taken," says Jimenez, 60. "For reasons that remain unknown, they came to the conclusion that this was motivated by antigay hate and began calling gay organizations in Colorado and Wyoming. It quickly got picked up by the Casper Star-Tribune and AP."

The story gained remarkable traction with the national media, both print and electronic. In part it was because Matthew's ethereal good looks made a heart-tugging image and in part because it was widely (and falsely) reported that he had been hung, crucifixion-style, on the fence, ostensibly as a redneck warning to other gays.

"Matthew was frail, very boyish, fair-haired and handsome," Jimenez says. "There was something about his vulnerability combined with the setting of the crime - the rugged Wyoming prairie. And then the inaccuracies. Saying he was crucified to the fence. You're now evoking Christ. The iconography is chilling."

Even as the case spiraled off in unsavory directions, Jimenez's training would not let him stop digging.

Born in Brooklyn (and, by way of full disclosure, a high school classmate of this reporter's), Jimenez dropped out of Columbia University's film program to work with Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple ( Harlan County, USA).

After stints with National Geographic's Explorer and PBS' s Nova, Jimenez moved to Philadelphia in 1995, where he directed and produced the acclaimed documentary Yearbook: The Class of '65 for Fox29.

The film looked at the graduates of Thomas Edison High School in North Philadelphia, who suffered a devastating number of fatalities in the Vietnam War.

"That was a career turning point for me," says Jimenez, who now splits his time between Brooklyn and Santa Fe, N.M. "It was an opportunity to tell a powerful story with very little editorial interference and to learn firsthand about the Vietnam War from the families in Philadelphia who lost sons in the war."

When Jimenez first disclosed some of the details he had learned about the true nature of Shepard and McKinney's relationship on a segment he coproduced for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 in 2004, he found himself in an untenable position for a gay man: being attacked by GLAAD and other LGBT advocacy groups.

They did not want to see one of the most powerful symbols of sexual intolerance torn down. (Shepard remains such a singularly suasive figure that the federal hate-crime bill that President Obama signed into law in 2009 is commonly referred to as the Matthew Shepard Act.)

Jimenez admits the criticism had him "constantly questioning" the wisdom of his investigation. But in the end, he came to feel that the scourge of methamphetamine posed a significantly greater threat to the homosexual population than antigay hate crimes did.

"When I saw what Aaron and Matt had gotten swept up in," he says, "I felt this really needed to be talked about. Young people in particular are using this drug, then getting addicted and in seeking to feed the habit, getting deeper into the business aspect - dealing or trading sex for drugs.

"Once I started to look into the drug underpinnings of the murder and understand what the drug methamphetamine is about," he continues, "I felt impelled to follow the truth wherever it led."

The truth took Jimenez 13 years. He probably could have wrapped up the "Legend of Matt Shepard" in a month.


AUTHOR APPEARANCE

Stephen Jimenez:

"The Book of Matt"

7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St.

Admission: Free.

Information: 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org/

authorevents.


dhiltbrand@phillynews.com

215-854-4552 @daveondemand_tv

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