RedHanded - Episode 202 - The Haunting Murder of Matthew Shepard

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

Content Warning - this episode contains quotes pertaining to homophobic and discriminatory language which some listeners may find upsetting.Listener discretion is advised.On the 7th of October 1998, 21-year old Matthew Shepard was found tied to a prairie fence at the end of a remote dirt track in Laramie, Wyoming. The young gay man had been pistol-whipped in the head over 20 times, and his brain stem had been crushed. He died 6 days later in hospital. This case went on to become arguably the most infamous gay hate crime in modern history, and for many Matthew became a martyr. In this episode, the girls examine what happened that night, the defendants’ muddled legal decisions, and the latest "bombshell evidence"…See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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pertaining to homophobic and discriminatory language, which some listeners may find upsetting. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Guys, you all know, obviously, that we are in the month of June 2021. And June is, of course, Pride Month. We've talked about this on Under the Duvet and on some of our Patreon content all month. But we decided that we really wanted to do a case that felt like a real turning point, I guess, for the LGBTQ community, one that was a reward shed moment. And it was

just inescapable. I feel like this is that case, at least in the West. You know, and we did sort of to and fro on doing it because obviously Pride Month is the celebration. So it feels a little bit weird to be covering a horrible murder of a gay person. However, this is, it's totemic, I think, and has led to a lot of changes. So I think that's the reason we decided to do it. And also we're a true crime show. It's difficult for us to cover. And everyone was happy forever. Exactly. So this definitely doesn't start out with anybody being happy at all. Because at around 6pm on the 7th of October 1998, on a freezing, windy, remote prairie road in Laramie, Wyoming,

a cyclist spotted something strange. He thought it looked like a scarecrow tied to a wooden fence up ahead. It was almost Halloween. Maybe it was just some sort of freaky decoration. But why on earth would anyone be out there in the middle of nowhere, putting up plastic Halloween tat? And of course, just like it's never a mannequin, it's also apparently never a Halloween decoration.

Because as the man approached the fence, he realized that what he was looking at was actually the barely conscious, battered and bloodied body of a young man. The horrified cyclist gathered himself and headed to the nearest house to find a phone. And I had to remind myself that this is 1998. Mobile phones were not ubiquitous at this point. He had to cycle, like, two miles to the nearest house to be able to call an ambulance. That blows my mind.

Yeah, I think knocking on someone's door and asking to use their phone is something that like I have done, like and I've witnessed my parents do and definitely was much more normal. Now you just feel like absolutely fucking not. Oh my God, if somebody knocked at my door and was like, can I use your phone to call for help? I'm sorry, I would be so scared. I would close the door and I would run away. I don't think I would be brave enough to let them into the house. Just throw my mobile phone out the window at them. So yes, he heads to this house, he calls the ambulance. And like I said, he's way out on the back roads of Wyoming. So also him being able to call the ambulance and tell them exactly where he saw this body, that in and of itself. There's just so many things stacked against him at this point.

But he does it. And the police and the ambulance arrive. And the scene that greeted them was one straight out of a slasher movie. The man tied to the fence had been lashed to it with his arms tied so tightly behind him that the first officer there, Reggie Flutie, is it Flutie, do we think?

Flutie, yes. And it's a woman as well, which I was like, oh, I wasn't expecting that. I am a big fan of boys' names for girls. Oh, yeah. When I eventually adopt my Chinese meat dog, I'm going to get a girl dog and I'm going to call it Marvin. Love it. Love it.

Marvin, come here. Right, Reggie Flutie. Lady officer Reggie Flutie had to cut them off with a knife. The lashings knocked his arms, I would assume. The man had been beaten so badly, his face was absolutely covered in blood and dirt and swollen beyond recognition. Reggie Flutie would later say that the only part of the man's actual skin you could see were thanks to two trails of tears that had cut through the blood caked on his face.

But despite his brutal injuries, and the fact that he had been left exposed to the bitterly cold Wyoming weather, and the fact that it would later be discovered that the man had been out there for over 18 hours, unbelievably, he was still alive. Detective Rob Debris arrived just as the ambulance was leaving. He needed to find a way to identify the victim. After all, the man couldn't speak, he didn't have a wallet, and even his shoes were missing. So who was he?

But in a real stroke of luck, police found an ID card from the University of Wyoming on the floor in the bloody dirt. The young man was 21-year-old Matthew Wayne Shepard. At the hospital, it quickly became clear that although Matthew was still alive, things weren't looking good. He was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Matthew had been struck around 20 times with something hard. He had suffered four skull fractures and his brain stem had been crushed. According to Sheriff O'Malley, the other investigator on this case,

he'd only ever seen injuries that dramatic in high-speed traffic collisions before. At the time of the incident, Matthew's parents were living in Saudi Arabia, and so it took them about, like, over a day to be able to, like, get back to the US and to be by Matthew's bedside. And when they arrived at the hospital, his mum Judy said that she couldn't even tell if the man in the bed was her son. Matthew's face was so badly disfigured, he was covered in stitches and completely bandaged up, totally swollen.

And Judy said the only way she knew it was him was because she could see his braces under his torn up lips. Of course, by this point, Matthew's story was front page news and not just in Laramie, Wyoming. What locals described as a locust of news trucks swarmed into the town as the case went international. Vigils and demonstrations erupted all over the country and people came out in their droves to mourn the pain of Matthew and the Shepherd family. As Matt lay in hospital fighting for his life, he became a symbol, a martyr, an embodiment of the fear felt by members of the LGBTQ community all over the world because Matthew was gay, openly so, and therefore the suspicion immediately was that he had been

attacked because of his sexuality. The pressure was on. This case needed to be solved and fast. And thankfully, another officer remembered something from an arrest the night before Matthew had been found. On the 6th of October, Laramie Police had arrested two local men who had been involved in a street fight. 21-year-old Russell Henderson and 21-year-old Aaron McKinney. The two had attacked a couple of teenagers, 19-year-old Emiliano Morales and 18-year-old Jeremy Herrera. The boys had been vandalizing cars when Henderson and McKinney had jumped them. McKinney hit Morales so hard that he needed 21 staples in his head. And you can see, if you just google Emiliano Morales you will find the picture of him and his head has been shaved and he's just got this like almost like a scythe

shaped cut in his head and it's just covered in staples and I was like fucking hell so yeah McKinney does this and the fight only ended when Herrera got the upper hand and hit McKinney back with a baseball bat. At this point, the police arrived and arrested Henderson and McKinney, though both were released soon after. When they were arrested though, the police searched McKinney's truck and in that truck they had found the following things. A.357 Magnum handgun. I don't know what that means, or I didn't know what that meant. So I googled it. And I loved that when I googled.357 Magnum handgun, you know when it's like pops up under Google and it'll be like things that people have searched. The first thing that popped up,

and I was sat around with my ExpressVPN set to America because I was watching American Netflix. And underneath popped up, will it kill a bear? I love that people are buying guns based on what it can kill. Like if it can kill a goldfish, fine. I feel like most guns can do that. A BB gun could probably kill a goldfish. You don't want to embarrass yourself by buying a gun and then trying to

shoot a bear and it not killing that bear and it only got better when I was like well I'm really curious now because I guess that does give you a good indication of the strength of this gun is that the right terminology I don't know like if it can kill a bear, it's a pretty fucking powerful gun. So I clicked on it. And I think it was on like Quora or some shit. But somebody had commented underneath being like, yes, it will kill a bear, but it's not a good idea. There was no further elaboration. and Google sun bear because sun bears are so like skinny and funnily shaped that they do genuinely look like men in bear costumes like when they stand up it's really funny but I'm sure they're terrifying and ferocious oh for sure I'm sure they are I think there was actually a whole thing about like how the Sasquatch was actually just like uh all like all those cryptids that people say that they've seen in the woods are like sun bears that have like lost their hair or something because they've got mange and they look fucking crazy yeah i mean that would be terrifying please go and google sun bears for the rest of the day stop

doing your work no one needs you to do your work especially not the economy i actually had like a really weird memory come back to me about mange i'll tell you about it on under the duvet it's very strange gross i know i didn't have it don't worry and no one i knew had it or anything but a weird memory came back to me this week about mange and i was like i don't think i've ever told hunter about that i'll tell you about it on under the duvet fantastic can't wait for your mange memoir can't wait it's gonna be a lot of fun so anyway basically this 357 magnum handgun what you need to know about it is that it's an absolutely fucking massive gun. Like, actually massive.

It's 15 inches long. That is huge. That's longer than a ruler. Yes, it is longer than a ruler. It's absolutely enormous. Longer than a 12-inch ruler, funny that. Yeah, exactly. Longer than a 30-centimetre ruler.

It's been a long fucking week, yeah. It has. It has. It has. So this particular giant gun that the police found in McKinney's truck wasn't just sat around being giant in the back of the truck. It was also covered in blood, which is incredibly suspicious, of course. So police also found in the truck a length of rope, a pair of smart dress shoes in some places they say only one of the shoes some places say a pair i don't know at least one shoe a coat and also a debit card the shoe slash shoes and coat didn't look like mckinney or Henderson's particular style, like their usual attire.

And the name on the card was also not theirs. It was, of course, Matthew Shepard. The next morning, the police went looking for Henderson and McKinney. They found Henderson in the trailer he shared with his girlfriend, whose name was Chastity Paisley. Chastity gave Henderson an alibi for the previous night. Later that same day, police tracked down McKinney. He was in the same hospital as Matthew,

dealing with the head injury he had sustained in that street fight. Both men were arrested, but they stayed tight-lipped, and it was only on the 9th of October, three whole days later, that McKinney decided to talk. He told investigators that on the night of the 6th of October, he and Henderson had headed to the rowdy local bar, the Fireside Inn. Apparently, they'd gone there wanting to sell a pistol that they had just got their hands on. Basically, these two were definitely running and dealing drugs, and one of their friends had actually

wanted to buy some meth off them and had given them that giant pistol that had been found in the truck as payment. But their pistol selling plans fell by the wayside when they got into the Fireside Inn and spotted Matthew. So Matthew was at the bar that night drinking alone. And this is like an important part of the story, definitely, I think. Matthew was a small guy. He was actually 5 foot two and 110 pounds

and I checked this in multiple places because some places say that he's the wrong height but this I'm 100% certain this is his correct height and weight. That is basically the same size as me. I actually think I might be a bit taller. I'm almost five foot three and possibly may weigh more than 110 pounds at this point but comparable comparable me and matthew i can confirm for all of you struggling to paint a picture sruti is extremely small yes so comparable size in fact and this just was so sad to read as a petite person this was sad to read matty was so small that when the police had initially found his body tied to the fence covered in blood they actually thought he was a child. That's how small he is just in case you don't know people like me and Matthew. Now as we said

Matthew was very open about his sexuality and how much of an issue this was for him in Laramie, Wyoming is something that I just can't speak with confidence about. Like, I've never been there. I don't know. I would just be assuming. But I am guessing that Wyoming in the 90s was probably not exactly the chillest of chill places if one was gay. Like, I think that's a fair assumption to probably make. But saying that, Laramie was a college town, and therefore, it does seem to have been a little bit more liberal than other cities and towns in the state of Wyoming. And Matthew, you know, like we said, it's not a hidden thing. He was very open about it, and he was very much a part of the gay scene in Laramie. In fact, that night when he met with Henderson and McKinney in that bar,

he had just come there from a meeting of the LGBTQ Student Committee to plan for Gay Awareness Week and the coming out day celebrations that were scheduled for the next week. McKinney told police that he and Henderson went over and joined Matthew. Apparently, and this is according to McKinney's own police confession, the two men put on effeminate voices and told Matthew that they were both gay too. The three men sat at the bar for a while drinking together. McKinney claimed that Matthew asked them for a lift home because he was too drunk to drive and that he and Henderson decided that they were going to rob Matthew.

He was well-dressed, so they figured that he'd have money. And so, at some point between 11pm and midnight, they all left and the three men got into the front of McKinney's pickup truck. McKinney told police that once they'd set off, Matt started to come on to him, putting his hand on his leg, to which he responded by telling Matt, guess what, we're not gay and we're going to jack you up. And then he started to hit him with the pistol. According to McKinney, in the truck he hit Matthew

five or six times. And while Henderson kept driving, they purposefully headed out to a remote spot to dump Matt. They eventually spotted a fence at the end of a dirt track in the middle of nowhere. So they got out and Henderson tied Matt up. The two men then took it in turns to beat Matt over and over again with the pistol. Matthew suffered more than 20 blows to the head and while most of his injuries were concentrated around his head and neck, he also had bruises to his groin. Once they were done, Henderson and McKinney took Matt's wallet and shoes and left him for dead. When they drove back to town, this was when they got into the fight with those teenagers.

After they were arrested and then released, McKinney went home covered in blood and told his girlfriend, Kirsten Price, about the attack on Matthew. He even gave Kristen Matthew's wallet to hide. And what's interesting is that during her initial interview, Kristen didn't reveal any of this to the police. In fact, after she was released, she called Chastity and Henderson to come and pick her up from the police station. And from there, all three of them went on a little road trip to Cheyenne, which is about 50 miles away from Laramie, to dump Henderson's bloody clothes.

So they're all in it together. Like, they're hiding stuff, they're dumping evidence, they're lying to the police, etc. Yeah, and the girlfriends are accomplices, really. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But despite their attempts at this kind of evidence disposal, they didn't do a great job. Because the police picked both girlfriends up again the next day,

and when they told the women this time that if they lied about what had happened, that they'd both be going to jail, and that they'd lose their children. Chastity and Kristen decided to talk. They now told the police that Henderson and McKinney had killed Matthew to, quote, teach him he couldn't come onto them. On Friday the 9th of October, McKinney, Henderson and Chastity were all arraigned in the Albany County courtroom. McKinney and Henderson were charged with three counts of kidnapping, aggravated robbery and attempted first-degree murder. The arrest sent yet more shockwaves through Laramie. Not only had it been a savage attack beyond comprehension, the perpetrators were not strangers.

They were two local guys, two people that everybody in that town knew, and also two people that were the same age as Matthew. And it's important to know that at the arraignment, the reason it is attempted first-degree murder is because Matthew is, although in a coma and on life support, he's still alive at this point. It shook everyone that the story of three young 21-year-olds had turned out like this. So who were these men? Let's kick off with Russell Henderson. His mother had him young. She was just a teenager and dealing with alcohol and substance abuse issues. Henderson's early life was tragically filled with abuse. His mother went through a string of abusive relationships as he was growing up and eventually Henderson was given to his grandparents to raise.

Here, Henderson's life stabilised. His grandparents were strict and super religious, but they loved him, and under their care, he became a scout and even excelled in school for a while. But Henderson ended up sucked into a life of drugs and petty criminality. Aaron McKinney's early childhood was also far from ideal. His dad was a trucker and his mum was a nurse, and the couple fought constantly. Eventually, McKinney's mum left his dad and remarried.

But when he was just 16, McKinney's mum died during an operation. As compensation, McKinney actually got a payout of $100,000, which in the 90s, fucking hell, that's a lot of money. Yeah, that's big money, big money. I mean, even now, Jesus Christ, $100,000, yes, please. I mean, don't hand a fucking 20-year-old $100,000. Fuck's sake.

Well, he was 16 when he got this payout. Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. And within a couple of years, so basically by the time he's 18, McKinney had basically spent all of this money. And he'd spent it on cars and also feeding his absolutely raging meth addiction. And this is the thing, is that Laramie was a big crystal meth town at the time and McKinney once all his money was gone became a dealer as well as a user. In the lead up to Matt's murder McKinney had apparently

been using on a daily basis and his friends claim that he had been awake for almost a week straight by the night that he killed Matthew. Jesus Christ. I can't even imagine. I was watching this YouTube, like, because I watch a lot of, like, I used to be in prison YouTube content. And one of them was this guy who'd actually never been in prison, but did have extreme meth addiction for years. And he doesn't look like a meth addict at all. He was, like, this huge guy.

And he was like, huge guy and he was like when you're up for that long you have to keep going because you know the second you stop you're going to be asleep for two weeks and you've got to go to work you've got to continue to function so you don't look like I mean obviously I'm sure you don't look great I can't remember his name if I can find it I'll put it in the notes he tells a story of like he's driving and he has to get home and he's like sitting in this like petrol station and he's like I have to go to the bathroom and take some more meth or I'm gonna crash he was convinced there was someone in the bathroom who was like there to get him so he just had to sit there and like decide what he was gonna do and he was there for hours and he was like the people in the petrol station must have been like

what the fuck is that guy doing just sitting in his car? It just sounds like the most intense nightmare. And I know that this is not funny, but I did go out with my friend this week just for dinner and drink. And did a load of meth. And did a load of meth. No. She's single as well. And she's, you know, on the dating game. And we were just swapping hinge stories, swapping empty handed stories. I told her about

my last two unsuccessful dates and she was like, Saru, do you really think you've got it that bad? Do you want to hear about what happened to me? And I was like, yes, please tell me immediately. She said, I've been dating this guy for a few months. It was going really well. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. And he's a chef. She loves food. I was like, I personally would be hesitant of a chef because I feel like all they do is work. But, you know, a perfect match for you. And then he texted her this weekend and just said, I'm really sorry. I can't do this.

One message. Next message. I'm addicted to crystal meth. No. Yes. I was like, oh, God. Oh, my God. I know. Okay. Yeah. You can shut your mouth. So yeah, that happened. But anyway, yes, there was a lot of drug taking going on amongst Henderson and McKinney and not a lot of sleep going on. Important to point out.

So what about Matthew? Despite being the same age and from the same town as Henderson and McKinney, he'd had a very different life. He was born in Casper, Wyoming on the 1st of December 1976 to parents Judy and Dennis Shepard. He was the eldest of two boys and in 1994 Matthew's family relocated to Saudi Arabia of all places for his dad's job. During this time, Matthew was sent to the American school in Switzerland, a boarding school paid for by his dad's company. There are a lot of fucking third culture kids in Switzerland. Geneva is full of them.

Oh, absolutely. And I put in there that it was paid for by his dad's company because there is a lot of, like, in some parts, like paid for by his dad's company because there is a lot of like, in some parts, like absolutely justified outrage at the media because there was a lot of like very classist language being used at the time that Matthew Shepard was murdered. So there was a lot of references towards Henderson and McKinney as being like rednecks and trailer trash and white trash and this kind of thing. And actually, McKinney came from quite a comfortable background. Like, when his mum remarried, she married somebody quite, like, well off

and they moved to, like, the nicer part of town. He got 100,000 payout. Like, they weren't struggling. And although Henderson and McKinney were involved in, like, shady stuff like the drug trade, both of them had jobs. They were, like, roofers. They had jobs. They weren roofers they had jobs they weren't just like fucking you know homeless crack addicts that were running around killing people

like they were a part of that society and there is a lot of talk of kind of matthew being like this sort of elite switzerland boarding school young boy who came back and got murdered but like matthew's family were also quite modest in terms of their income they just happened to get a job in saudi arabia and then the company paid for all of the kids to go to this boarding school so they're not like super wealthy or anything in order to relocate your entire family to fucking saudi there has got to be some extreme perks of doing that exactly exactly but i think it's just worth mentioning because a lot of people make it seem like Matthew was this very elitist, wealthy young man. And I'm like, he's not. He's just like from another normal family. He definitely had a more stable upbringing than Henderson and McKinney, but like they weren't super wealthy or anything. So in Switzerland,

Matthew seemed to have blossomed. He was surrounded by kids from all over the world, and he was finally free to be who he wanted, to figure out what he wanted out of life. And he finally found himself in a place of opportunity and open-mindedness. And we'd recommend watching the documentary. It's called Matthew Shepard is a Friend of Mine, and it's made by one of his friends from the boarding school, and it gives you a glimpse into who Matthew really was through interviews with his family, friends,

and heartbreakingly adorable home video footage. So as much as Matthew loved his new school in Switzerland, it was also during this time here that he endured an absolutely nightmarish turning point in his life. And remember, at this point, Matthew is late teens. He's like 18, 17, 18. When Matthew was in his final year of boarding school, he had gone on a trip, a school trip, to Morocco.

One night on this trip, Matthew had gone for a walk alone when he was attacked and gang-raped by a group of local men. I mean, I, like, just can't even imagine, as a 17-year-old, going to a foreign country and then being gang-raped on a school trip. It just is, like, beyond unbelievable. So after this, Matthew's mum, Judy, said, of course, her son slipped into a major depression and that he really struggled for a few years to get through it. But eventually, Matthew decided that it was time to go home to Wyoming. And at the age of 21, so, you know, quite late to be a freshman, he decided to apply for university and try and move forward with his life.

Matthew enrolled at the University of Wyoming, where he was studying political science. He dreamed of one day working as a diplomat for the State Department. But according to his friends, in the weeks leading up to Matt's death, he had been depressed again. One of Matt's friends even said that he had recently discovered that he had HIV and that he was planning to kill himself. Matty was HIV positive at the time that he died, and it was something that his parents only discovered when they told doctors that they wanted to honor their son's wishes to be an organ donor but as for whether Matt was suicidal we can't be sure we just have a few of his friends stating that but although we don't know what Matthew's mental state exactly was and whether he was suicidal. Everyone, including his mum, has said

that it had been a really, really difficult few years for Matthew, but they thought he was coping. As he lay in hospital, the vigils grew and soon Matthew Shepard became a symbol, one that captured the real and intense fear felt by many gay people everywhere, all over the world. And when, on Monday the 13th of October, Matthew died, he became a martyr. Although Henderson and McKinney had both initially claimed that they were just going after Matthew because they saw him as an easy target to rob, McKinney's constant homophobic slurs during all of his police interviews, as well as the ruse that he himself admitted to of having pretended to be gay to lure Matthew out of the bar,

definitely didn't do much to dampen people's rage. Matthew's supporters were certain that he had been targeted because he was gay. And to them, this was a hate crime. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious

program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Start your free trial today. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down.

Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.

From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. So let's get back into this horrible, horrible, horrible story. And it gets much more horrible, I'm afraid, because we're about to say hello to some people who we haven't spoken about for some long time. Well done, Hannah. I think, honestly, these people that we're about to talk about are in need of an entire bonus Patreon

episode for themselves, I think. There's enough content. Oh, yeah. Because I kind of want to do a little focus a little bit more on some ideological. We've got Satanism coming up for my friends. I have now got three copies of the Satanic Bible that is getting delivered to the office. And everyone just walks past and they're like, what is going on in there? Don't ask. So let's talk about another way in which the murder of Matthew Shepard fundamentally changed the narrative of gay rights, in the US at least. Because for as much support as there was for Matthew from students and his peers, there was also a backlash. Unbelievably, when Matthew's father spoke at a press conference in the days after

his son's death, police advised him to wear a bulletproof vest. Jesus, doesn't that just make you so sad? Not that all of it isn't sad, but the idea that a man who was brutally murdered, his dad has to wear a bulletproof vest when he came out to talk about him. He was crying and he's wearing a bulletproof vest and I was like, fuck everyone. Fuck the world. What the fuck? And this crazy reached its peak at Matthew's funeral when a little known preacher by the name of Fred Phelps turned up with his following, the Westboro Baptist Church, to picket Matthew's funeral. Yes, that's right. In 1998, no one really knew what the Westboro Baptist Church was. And so you can imagine the likes of Phelps turning up with his placards that read things like Matthew Shepard is burning in hell, complete with a photograph of Matthew with a pink triangle on his forehead.

And if you don't know what it is, that's a sign that was used by the Nazis in concentration camps. I mean, there's more. Let me get through all of it, and then we can just fucking kill ourselves. I don't know. They also had their favorite fucking sign, thank God for AIDS. You know, can't leave the house without one of those. And they also, of course, had their God hates fags sign

and no special law for fags. I just, I just don't know what to say. I will re-watch all of the Louis Theroux documentaries on the Westboro Baptist Church until I die. I think it's some of his best work. And what breaks my heart is the children. There's this little one called Noah, who's like little and blonde and he's only five.

And he just like is doing this like call of... God hates fags. Yeah, right. And he's like, oh, well, all of the fags and the dykes. And like he just like he's doing it to get approval from his like auntie. And she's like feeding him this. And he's a kid. He's a baby.

He's talking about it like he's talking about who Spider-Man fought in the latest cartoon. And you're just like, this is some fucking sick shit. shit so yeah when we say nobody really knew about greg phelps and the west for baptist church like people who were a part of the lgbtq community probably did because he was picketing other funerals of like gay people who had died and things like this people who had died from aids stuff like that so they would have been aware but the general public didn't know who these people were. And it was absolutely Matthew Shepard's funeral that got these people the notoriety that they now enjoy. And in a beautiful scene, the local LGBTQ student group that Matthew had belonged to drove Fred and his crazy congregation out of Laramie. They turned up to the picket line wearing outfits made of white sheets.

They were dressed as guardian angels. They encircled Phelps and the others waving their hateful signs and held up their wings, successfully blocking the Westboro Baptist Church placards completely from view. This went on to be known as the angel action and it would go on to be used by counter-protesters at many of the Westboro Baptist Church's pickets. It also became the climactic scene in the film The Laramie Project, inspired by Matthew's murder. So when the angels stole all of the attention from Phelps, he packed up and left. But like we said, this absolutely catapulted the Westboro Baptist Church into infamy. And even Judy Shepard, Sir Matt's mum, recently said about Phelps following his death in 2014. And this is a quote, oh, we love Freddie. If it wasn't for him, there would be no

Matthew Shepard. I think this is because Phelps absolutely did, through just like pouring all his vitriol out, make Matthew a national symbol of the fight against hate. And I think that's why Judy is obviously saying this. And I think it's very funny. And I was also listening to the You're Wrong About podcast that we talked about. We'll link the particular episode we're talking about in the episode description below. And on that episode, they have a lawyer who is a gay man, and he's from Wyoming, and he joins them on this show. And this lawyer was saying that Fred Phelps, through that kind of sheer disgustingness that he embodies and just that vitriol that he pours out, actually put people off being bigoted. Because it was almost like it was too much for people. Like, you can imagine people being like, oh, I don't really like gay people.

I don't really like, you know, I don't think it's right. But then to see somebody going to stand in front of a grieving family with a sign that says your son is in hell, it was too much for most people. And it actually like was making being bigoted more of an unpleasant thing for these people to be able to stomach, which I thought was quite interesting. In fact, there have been rumors around Fred Phelps swirling basically right from the minute he got this kind of notoriety. I note that these rumors came from the right wing. That Phelps was actually a left winger who was out there doing all these things to tarnish the right wing by putting on an act of being such a horrendous human being.

I've heard this theory. They also said this about Trump. A lot of people said this about Trump as well. So Fred Phelps is a lawyer, as are most of his daughters. And he did a lot of work for the civil rights movement and sort of fought for black people's rights specifically. And so there is the theory that he created the Westboro Baptist Church so everyone would have one focal point of hate and stop hating each other is the idea. How much stock in that? I don't know. But yeah, there are people who think that it is so outrageous that he couldn't possibly have

believed it himself. And he just sacrificed his entire family to stop world hatred. I don't know. Yeah, I've heard this before as well. And again, once you've listened to as many episodes of Red Handed as you guys listening probably have, you know that there is nothing that is that outrageous beyond the possibilities of human behavior. So, like, I'm not bought by the idea that his beliefs were so outrageous that they couldn't possibly have been true. Like, I don't buy that. As to whether he was a performative left-wing kamikaze diver or whatever. I don't know. I can't speak to that. Probably not, I'm going to say.

But it is interesting that the right were like, he's so fucking disgusting, he can't possibly be to do with us. It's not us. It's you guys still. Image was a big thing around this case. And once the news broke, headlines all around the world read, crucifixion in cowboy country after all wyoming is a rural conservative heartland and shepherd's murder absolutely poured fuel on the fire of the perception that those kind of states in general were a dangerous

place for gay people to be unsurprisingly therefore a lot of people wanted the murder of matthew shepherd not to be called a hate crime laramigos which is what the residents of laramie call themselves didn't want to be known as the town where Laramie goes, which is what the residents of Laramie call themselves, didn't want to be known as the town where a young gay man was lynched. Given the media circus surrounding the case and the potential of a death sentence hanging in the air if it went to trial and if he were convicted, Russell Henderson pled guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Matthew Shepard.

He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms, so that means he will die in prison. There is no meaningful release. It is apparently pleaded. I'm not misspelling, but I think it's fine to say out of the book just so. I have not spelt it wrong. Apparently, it's pleaded, like hanged. I don't know why. It sounds very strange, I know. So, McKinney, however, wasn't ready to go down without a fight. And so his trial lawyer, Dion Custis, led with the argument that Matthew Shepard's murder was a result of a robbery gone wrong and not a hate crime perpetrated because the victim was gay. According to Custis, McKinney and Henderson were just, quote, two lost kids. They're 21 years old, and that drugs was the real issue.

He made the point that both McKinney and Henderson had been using meth daily for a long time, and that this had damaged their abilities to rationalize. And we've also come across on this show many times before the phenomenon of drug-induced psychosis. Meth in particular is absolutely linked with increased rage and violence. It was literally made by the Nazis to keep soldiers fighting on the front lines. But while all this may be the case, McKinney's constant homophobic slurs during police interviews and also a letter

he wrote himself from jail to another prisoner's wife which in itself was like okay telling her quote being a very homophobic spelt with a k i flipped out and began to pistol whip the fag with my gun ready at hand this kind of thing makes it very hard to ignore and sweep away that it may have been more than just money motivating him in this attack. And these police confessions in themselves are worth discussing because McKinney's story changes quite a few times. At first he says he began to attack Matthew because he had put his hand on his leg in the truck but later he said in another statement to police that he had attacked Matthew simply because he looked like he was about to touch him.

Also, at one point, McKinney says that Matthew came onto him immediately after getting into the truck, which considering McKinney himself said that he had spent all evening drinking with Matthew pretending to be gay and then used the same ruse to get him into the truck, why would that be an excuse to beat him to death? And then in yet another statement, McKinney said that Matthew actually went to touch him after they had hit him a few times already. And I'm struggling to imagine a world in which someone decides to willingly get hot and heavy with someone who's just pistol whipped them in a truck. He can't keep his story straight. He cannot keep his story straight. But despite the inconsistency and the defense's own argument that this had been a robbery gone wrong at trial mckinney's lawyers decided to go with the gay panic defense so like this is the

thing they're saying it was a robbery but then the defense team themselves bring into the picture matthew sexuality by saying that it was the now they're going to use the gay panic defense. So that's important to remember. A lot of people like to say, oh, you know, his friends sort of made it be a gay issue and all of this. But the defense attorney, the defense's argument was that this was a gay panic defense and that's what they were going for. And the gay panic defense is a narrative where criminal defendants in cases of violent assault argue that they were provoked by the victim because of an unwanted same-sex sexual advance. So basically, it's kind of like a sexual self-defense argument against the gays, saying, you know, you can't blame me for murdering this person. He was trying to come on to me. And he's gay, and I'm not.

Unbelievably, I discovered during the research for this episode that this isn't some crazy, archaic, and now, like, defunct law that just happened, you know, bloody decades ago or something. The gay panic defense is still admissible as of 2020, and that's just because that was the article I found, I'm sure it's not changed wildly in a year, according to The Economist, in 39 of the 50 US states. I'm not surprised. Not surprised at all. The Equal Opportunities Law has never been passed in all 50 states. Like, you know, I just am not surprised at all. It doesn't shock me.

Fucking hell. So most of the states in america you can say that you killed somebody because of the gay panic defense because they came on to you and you weren't of the same sexual orientation and that's why you killed them it's really hard not to draw a parallel just as a woman to the idea of like can you imagine hannah if we as women because obviously in most these cases it's men who are beating to death other men because they're saying that i was you know this gay guy was coming on to me can you imagine as women if we beat to death every man who ever came on to us and we weren't interested right yeah like and that's the the whole like you know when the statistic came out it's like 97% of women in the UK have been sexually harassed

and then men would be like yeah but more men are murdered I'm like yeah buy men can you just imagine if women ran around murdering men who came onto them at the rate that the fact that majority of people can, majority of states will allow a man to say his masculinity was questioned because a gay man came onto him and that's why he beat him to death. The human race would go extinct. Fuck me. I just, I need to sit down.

Stools for Cerrutis. Still hasn't happened. I'm still standing. Keeps me alert. If you're thinking that maybe it's just a little quirky law that wouldn't work in the courtroom, we're about to set you straight. No pun intended. Excellent. They go right. Actually, I did write that and didn't even realise that the pun's so well done. But yeah, right, actually, I did write that and didn't even realise that, oh, the pun, so well done. But yeah, I really wanted to make the point that although 39 of 50 states will allow this as a defence, maybe people might think, oh, well, you know, it's just like a defence that hasn't been shot down and maybe there's a bit of precedent for it and that's why it's allowed

and it's just kind of admissible but it wouldn't really work. Oh, no. Oh, no. It works. And that's the horrifying thing. Poor a himple. In 2015, Daniel Spencer, a 32-year-old film editor, had just moved to Austin, Texas from Los Angeles,

and his neighbour, James Miller, stabbed him to death. And at trial, James Miller went with the gay panic defence, saying that on the night of the murder, Daniel had tried to kiss him. Daniel was gay, and Miller argued that the victim's gayness had made him so scared that this diminishes responsibility. And so, despite the fact that Miller defended himself by stabbing Daniel twice in the back, Miller was sentenced to just six months in jail with 10 years on probation. That's absolutely outrageous. And it was in 2015. It was in 2015. Can we just fucking leave? Can we just leave, Hannah? I don't want to stay here anymore. I hate it. I've had enough. I hate it here. He stabbed him in the back.

He stabbed him in the back and said it was self-defense because of the gay panic. Oh, and like, oh my God, I just can't cope. Basically, the way that the gay panic defense works is kind of like, it's kind of like akin to the insanity defense. Like you temporarily became insane because someone of the same sex tried to touch you. That's what they're saying. Fuck off. This gay-slash-trans panic legal defence legitimises and excuses violent and lethal behaviour against members of the LGBTQ plus community. And it is legally sanctioned discrimination against one's sexual orientation and gender identity.

It's a tactic used to strengthen the defence by playing on prejudice. But thankfully, in this case, the case of Matthew Shepard, the judge dismissed the gay panic defence, and McKinney was convicted of first-degree felony murder, second-degree murder, kidnapping, and aggravated robbery. And the prosecution wanted the death penalty. But during the sentencing phase a plea deal was struck because I think that they knew he's going to get the death penalty. I just think there was no way he wouldn't have and so McKinney agreed to a plea

deal and basically the deal was that in exchange for dropping the felony murder charge and therefore the death penalty, McKinney would agree that he would never, ever appeal his life sentences. He would never have an appeal and that he would never speak about the crime publicly. McKinney and Matthew's family agreed to this. I think that for them, it's a good solution, I think, because now he doesn't get to become some sort of martyr for anti-gay people. And also, if he can never have an appeal appeal they don't have to get dragged to court

every like 10 years to have to sit and listen to all of that shit and he can't ever like you know technically he wasn't ever allowed to go on the news or give interviews or something to journalists so like it's just a way to shut him up and it makes him suffer for the rest of his life and so yes McKinney was convicted and he was sentenced to spend his entire life behind bars with no possibility of parole. And you'll notice that neither McKinney nor Henderson was convicted of a hate crime. They were convicted of murder, robbery and kidnapping. And this is because such legislation just didn't exist at the time. Matthew's murder absolutely reignited the drive to pass such laws though,

and five days after he died, a couple of senators urged the House to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. But, in a move that will surprise absolutely no one, Republicans swiftly put a stop to any hopes of that happening. And despite the huge amounts of attention Matthew's murder generated for the cause, it would be more than a decade before any legislation was brought in to include sexual orientation or gender identity slash expression as protected categories. Today, most states and territories have some form of hate crime legislation. Guess which three don't? Arkansas, South Carolina, and Wyoming. But what difference does it really make? Well, it depends on what you're concerned with.

But if you can prove that something was a hate crime, this would allow prosecutors the ability to secure federal funds and go after longer sentences. I imagine it's like adding aggravated to assault. Like it's more time. It's much more time. And it's basically, it completely recalibrates the severity of the crime in the court's eyes. So it would take it from maybe being a five-year sentence to maybe being a 25-year sentence

if it can be proven that it was a hate crime. So I think we do have to explore all of the nuances when it comes to hate crime legislation. Particularly, a key question that sits at the heart of that is, do hate crime laws actually impact levels of bigotry within a society? Does having hate crime legislation actually bring down the levels of bigotry? And when you look at questions like this, it's very complicated. The answer is kind of no with regards to that, but let's explore it a bit deeper. Basically, proving a hate crime is incredibly, incredibly difficult.

You need evidence of a crime being committed and also evidence that the crime was actually motivated by hate. So there's a Vox article that I'll leave linked below that explains this really, really well. And basically, they were saying if a man went into a gay bar and was yelling anti-gay slurs, homophobic slurs, that's not a hate crime. He, as horrendous as what he's doing is, he is within his rights. He has the freedom of speech to be able to do that. He's not free from the consequences of that, but the state won't necessarily intervene and he wouldn't be convicted of a hate crime because going into a bar and shouting isn't a crime. If he went into a gay bar and he stabbed a man without yelling any sort of homophobic slurs or anything, that would be very difficult to prove that that was a hate crime because he's just killed somebody and you would have to prove that

he specifically went after that target because he was gay. If he went into a gay bar yelling homophobic slurs and stabbed somebody, that is your best chance of getting that person convicted of a hate crime. Because you've got to be able to show that a crime was committed and also that the hate towards that person because of their background, sexual orientation, color of their skin, etc. was the reason that that person was targeted. And that is incredibly difficult to do. Because you need a smoking gun, you need to show evidence of bias, and you need to prove discriminatory intent. I.e. the prosecution in the case of Matthew Shepard, had hate crime legislation existed at the time he was killed, would have had to show that a crime was committed. And obviously this wouldn't have been difficult because murder is, of course, a crime.

And then, though, they would have had to have shown that Matthew had been targeted by Henderson and McKinney because he was gay and a way to do this as I described with the sort of gay club murder would be that they would have to show that the killer had used discriminatory language and slurs during the attack and also you could look at whether that person the perpetrator had history or proclivity towards discrimination. So you could look at their social media or something. But obviously at the time of Matthew Shepard's, that wouldn't have been an option. And all of this evidence would be brought together in the courtroom

to see if it met the standard needed to be deemed a hate crime. There is no guarantee and the standard which needs to be met varies massively from state to state, and also from courtroom to courtroom. So it's just never going to be a surefire thing, and it is incredibly difficult to prove. There is a big debate around hate crimes themselves, though, because a lot of people are asking, why is it needed? Research doesn't seem to show that these hate crime laws work as a deterrent, but I think it comes down to what you're trying to change.

Maybe hate crime legislation doesn't deter people from hate crime attacks, but does it make more marginalized community feel protected? And if that's the case, surely that's worth it. One argument people use is that hate crime legislation punishes thought crimes. So someone might not like people of a certain background or colour or sexual orientation, and they have every right to do so in our society if they want to be bigoted. But you have to prove that the motivation behind the crime itself was this hate. But proving what's in someone's head isn't easy. So of course, while Matthew Shepard's murder was never tried as a hate crime,

it has arguably become the most famous anti-gay murder in modern history. But some people are still today very keen to remove the hate crime or anti-gay element from this case. For example, in 2013, a gay journalist named Stephen Jimenez actually wrote a book, The Book of Matt, in which he is kind of debunking the murder of Matthew Shepard. Stephen Jimenez in this book claims that the killing was actually about drugs and not about anti-gay hate. The book has been accused of trying to de-gay the Matthew Shepard murder, which for many people was a watershed crime that shone a real light on the plight of the LGBTQ community. According to Jimenez, the murder of Matthew Shepard wasn't motivated by his sexuality at all, but rather it was a drug-fuelled rage after an unfruitful mugging. He points to the fact that the men attacked non-gay teenagers right after they left

Matthew, arguing that it was just a wild night of indiscriminate murder and assault. Jimenez also suggests that Matthew himself was in the drugs world as some sort of big-time user and dealer, and says that maybe it was a drug deal gone wrong. The book also claims that Henderson, McKinney and Matthew all knew each other before the night of the murder, and in fact that McKinney and Matthew had actually been intimate in the past. This theory for which there is absolutely no evidence is a strange one to say the least. He basically suggests that McKinney was bisexual and therefore couldn't possibly have killed Matthew out of gay hate because nobody internalizes homophobia ever. The fuck? It was such a weird argument. It's such a strange thing to say like i mean okay

before anybody's like you know you've kind of painted laramie to be this smallish town where everybody knows each other and that is true like most people in that town did know henderson and mckinney but they didn't know shepherd that well and there's no evidence that just because they were from the same town that matthew knew henderson and m McKinney because remember he had like grown up not there for a lot of his childhood and he had come back to go to university and when he had come back he would have been part of that university bubble he wasn't like living in town you know hanging out with the locals so there's no evidence that McKinney Henderson and Matthew knew each other before and his mum and his parents and his friends have said he didn't know them.

And this whole, like, them having been intimate thing, like, what does that fucking prove? If anything, that makes it even more likely that he did it because of Matthew's sexuality. Because I don't think that McKinney was too open to the idea of being bisexual. Because he constantly fucking denies it. Yeah, and, like, in what universe does having sex with someone mean that they couldn't possibly murder you? It's like my dad, who is, bless him, like incredibly naive when it comes to some true crime cases, particularly domestic cases. And we'll like watch something and he'll be like, why did he kill her? He loved her. And I'm like, dad!

Oh, dad. That is the person that is most likely to fucking kill you exactly yeah and you know i did say about them making a deal in which mckinney wasn't allowed to talk to the media i don't know what happened with this deal and why this particular allowance was made but in 2006 mckinney and henderson sat down and gave their first media interviews with 2020 this interview we need to talk about it i will leave a link to this interview in the episode description below a lot of people when this interview came out lost their fucking minds as if this somehow blew the whole case wide open if you just google 2020 Matthew Shepard interview, all of the headlines that come up are

things like new details emerge in Matthew Shepard case. And I fell down this rabbit hole. I was like Googling doing the research for this episode and I was like, oh my God, new details. What are these new details? I sat reading all of this, watched the documentary and I'm like, sorry, what? What were the new details? I'm utterly baffled because Because in these interviews, you have Henderson and McKinney basically now saying that the murder of Matthew Shepard had absolutely nothing to do with him being gay. They say it was just a robbery gone wrong. The host interviews some strange characters from around town,

like a limo driver, who claimed that he'd seen Matthew and McKinney hook up. Not that this would prove that McKinney's murder of Matthew wasn't motivated by hate, but McKinney throughout this interview denies this happened. But they keep trying to push it, be like, look, the limo driver's saying it. And McKinney's like, I'm not bisexual. I never hooked up with Matthew Shepard. But everyone's like, well, I don't know, this limo driver's saying it. And you've got to watch it to meet this limo driver and you can decide how credible you think he is i really don't know why this interview was meant to be some sort of bombshell reporting like i'm actually baffled by what in here was new it's very strange also this interview what it does is that it completely ignores the fact that mckinney is the one who created the narrative of the murder having been

down to Matthew's sexuality by going for the gay panic defense. And now he says that he actually made the whole thing up at the time about Matthew touching him because he thought it would get him off. And I'm not saying that his lawyer didn't tell him, hey, we can go for the gay panic defense, but you've got to tell us that he was touching you. But he says this long before he even has a lawyer. He says this in his initial police interview. He starts saying this. And I don't think that McKinney is smart enough to have started building a gay panic defense from the minute he was arrested. I just don't think that's the case. No, I think that's fair enough. So why on earth is this kind of thing happening now? Why are people trying to rewrite the Matthew Shepard murder? Why are they trying to kind of, you know, quote unquote, de-gay it?

Are they trying to, and by they I mean Henderson and McKinney, trying to reduce the hate towards them and maybe reduce their sentences? I don't know. Who knows? But the 2020 documentary brings up stuff like interviews with McKinney's friends who say that he was high on meth all the time. And when he was, he would even attack them and beat them like savagely. So I guess that these people coming out and saying things like this are trying to say, look, he's an equal opportunities meth maniac. He attacks me and I'm his friend and I've seen him completely lose it after taking a shitload of meth and not sleeping for a week. But I really don't know how that goes towards reducing his sentence. He's just admitting to attacking more

people. It's a weird narrative that is trying to be spun here. When you wonder why bother with all of this, who stands to gain? I don't think it's really McKinney or Henderson. People aren't going to hate them less. And they're not going to be let out. This case is far too notorious. This rewriting of the Matthew Shepard case is, in our humble opinion, all down to a big push from the right to avoid and diminish hate crime legislation. And it's all based on the gay grievance argument. The idea that gay people and other marginalised people are just aggrieved and angry about everything, not at all like the angry and constantly aggravated white right.

And in any case, those who were closest to this case, like the detectives, have absolutely rejected any attempts to disregard Matthew's sexuality from the crime. According to Sheriff O'Malley, quote, we have never discounted ever that the initial motivation was robbery, but the robbery motive stopped really early in the contact and in my opinion, it was a hate crime. So we can argue all day long till we're blue in the face whether Matthew Shepard's murder was really down to the fact that he was gay, but there's no denying that his death had a huge impact on the LGBTQ community and made a lot of people question their prejudices. Sheriff O'Malley himself, one of the investigators on this case, said, quote, Prior to this investigation, I was pretty homophobic. I was mean-spirited towards the

gay population. I would be the first person to tell a joke about gay Americans, and the word fag rolled off my tongue very easily. And when I got involved in the investigation, I was forced to interact with Matthew's friends, many of whom were gay and lesbian, and I very quickly started to lose my ignorance. You have to kind of watch the many documentaries that are out there on Matthew Shepard to see Sheriff O'Malley. And he says this in interviews. And I think it's well worth watching because he is a quintessential moustached, cowboy boot-wearing, checkered shirt-wearing sheriff. And he is saying this, and I felt like, of all of the hideousness around Matthew Shepard's death, when you hear things like that, it's hard not to say

what an impact this case had on every person that came into contact with it. And I think that's Matthew Shepard's legacy, not this argument about whether specifically, as if we're in a court of law arguing whether it was a hate crime. They weren't even convicted of that. They weren't convicted of hate crimes. But to try and remove the anti-gay element now strikes me as incorrect as like a not correct thing to do because I agree with what Sheriff O'Malley said that it absolutely in my opinion did start off as a robbery they saw Matthew they saw that he was a small person a small guy and I think they looked at him he was well dressed and they thought he had money and they're like we're gonna attack

this guy because he's an easy target. But they used his sexuality as a ruse by themselves saying that they put on effeminate voices, pretended to be gay and used that as a ruse to lure him into the truck. And then also coming back to the attack, when they saw Matthew's body, like we said, the majority of the attack was around his face and neck, which in and of itself is a very personal overkill, which if they didn't know each other is a strange way to attack somebody you don't know. And also the bruising around his groin. That's a good point. I think the state in which they left him doesn't scream just mugging to me. I think it's extremely emotive and clearly motivated by anger. And where that anger comes from, I think, is pretty obvious. Absolutely. And you can say, as some people do,

that anger came from him not sleeping for a week and being off his face on meth, which I'm not disagreeing with. That's absolutely an element of this. But you cannot deny that from the minute that McKinney was arrested, even if you ignore the ruse and them tricking Matthew in the bar and all of that, from the minute that McKinney was arrested, even if you ignore the ruse and them tricking Matthew in the bar and all of that, from the minute that McKinney was arrested, he constantly used homophobic slurs when talking about Matthew and that night. And he wrote letters talking about how Matthew was a fag and how he was a homophobe and all of this. And then he was the one who used the gay panic defense in the courtroom. So I think that you cannot remove Matthew's sexuality

from this murder. It just doesn't make sense to do that. So what else remains of the legacy of Matthew Shepard? Well, since their son's death, Judy and Dennis Shepard have started the Matthew Shepard Foundation and made it their mission to advocate for LGBTQ rights. They travel all over the world, giving speeches to children, lobbying for policy change and all of this. And they also specifically spend a lot of their time lobbying for stronger hate crime legislation. They're just really lovely people. Definitely go watch all the documentaries that we'll link in the episode description. It's well worth your time. It's a really heartbreaking case, but one that is incredibly poignant. And I think, please, if you walk away from this episode remembering anything,

remember that the majority of states in the U.S. will allow the gay panic defense to this day. And if that doesn't scare you, then I'm sorry, I just don't know what will, really. Me either. So that is that, guys. If you feel like, oh, it's a fucking fucking bummer and you'd like to come listen to my story about mange that i'll be telling hannah over and under the duvet immediately after this episode you can do so if you are just a five dollar and up patron if you are ten dollar and up you can watch the video of us talking about it so head on over to patreon.com slash red handed

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