The Laramie Project Page #3

to do with it, and he walked off.

He said that's when him and Russ

went into the bathroom...

...and decided to pretend that they were

gay and get him in the truck and rob him.

They wanted to teach him a lesson

not to come on to straight people.

I'm not excusing their actions,

but it seems to be partially his fault...

...and partially the guys who did it,

so, you know...

...maybe it's 50-50.

They stated that Matt came on to them,

that he approached them.

I absolutely, positively disbelieve

and refute that statement 100 percent.

I'll give you two reasons why.

One, character reference.

Why would he approach them? He wasn't

approaching anyone else in the bar.

Okay, they say he's gay,

that he was a flaming gay.

He's gonna come on to people like that.

Bullshit! He never came on to me.

I mean, hello! Come on.

He's gonna approach these two guys?

Please.

And two, territorialism.

Matt was sitting there.

Aaron and Russell were back there.

Upon their first interaction,

they were in Matt's area...

...the area that he had been

seen sitting all night long.

So who approached who by that?

He'd never not talK to someone

for any reason.

If someone started talking to him,

he'd just be like, "Blah, blah, blah."

He had no problem just striking up

a conversation with anybody.

This is what I'm testifying to...

...because basically

I'm the key eyewitness in the case.

Basically, I'm going to be testifying

that I saw Matthew leave.

I saw two individuals leave with Matthew

Shepard, and I didn't see their faces.

I saw the back of their heads. At this time,

McKinney and Henderson aren't around.

You do the math.

I'm not super familiar with that area...

...which now maKes me thinK that

God wanted me to find him.

I was going for a ride on my biKe...

...and I noticed something

just laying there by the fence.

I think it's a scarecrow.

Halloween's coming up.

I think it's a Halloween gag.

I even noticed his chest

moving up and down.

I still thought it was a dummy.

I thought it was some kind of mechanism.

But when I...

When I saw hair...

...his hair...

...I knew it was a human being.

So what'd you do?

I ran to the nearest house

as fast as I could and called the police.

The Sheriff's Department

held a news conference today.

They're investigating the attempted

murder of 22-year-old Matthew Shepard.

The Sheriff says

they found the man badly beaten...

...and unconscious,

tied to a fence last night.

The brutal attacK left

Matthew Shepard in a coma.

The bicyclist who found him

said he first thought it was a scarecrow.

In jail now, charged with the crime...

...21-year-old Russell Henderson

and Aaron McKinney, of Kidnapping...

The victim, Matthew Shepard...

...is in very critical condition at this hour

in Poudre Valley Hospital.

The arraignment tooK place on Friday

around lunchtime.

More details about the case

had come out...

...like the fact that the perpetrators

themselves were kids.

Kids, local Kids, that everyone who's from

around here has some relationship to.

So then a judge comes in

and does a reading of the facts.

The Defendants, Aaron James McKinney

and Russell Arthur Henderson...

...met Matthew Shepard

at the Fireside Bar.

After Mr. Shepard confided he was gay...

...the subjects deceived Mr. Shepard...

...into leaving with them

in their vehicle to a remote area.

En route to said location, Mr. Shepard

was struck in the head with a pistol...

...and upon arrival at said area...

...both subjects tied their victim

to a buck fence...

...robbed him, tortured him,

and continued to beat and terrorize him.

When I got to the fence,

I seen what appeared to be a young man...

...13 or 14 years of age,

because he was so tiny, laying there...

...and he was bound

to the bottom of the pole.

- What did you do?

- I did the best I could.

He was covered in dried blood

all over his head.

The only place that

there wasn't any blood...

...was what appeared to be where

he had been crying down his face.

You know...

...he did not look normal.

I could tell that he had

a very harsh head wound.

You expect these Kinds of injuries

from somebody...

...crashing down a hill

in a car at 80 miles an hour.

You expect to see gross injuries

from something like that...

...this horrendous, terrible thing.

But you don't expect to see someone

doing this to another person.

Both defendants were later

contacted by officers...

...from the laramie Police Department,

who observed inside their pickup...

...a credit card

and a pair of black patent-leather shoes...

...belonging to the victim,

Matthew Shepard.

The thing that shocked me is,

it was a pristine crime scene.

How do you mean?

The tire tracks,

the impressions that the tire made...

...they were perfect

because of the sandy soil.

And we found a carpet fragment

from inside the truck.

That will always shock me until this day.

In Wyoming, the wind's so strong...

...you usually never find something

like that at an exterior crime scene.

His hands were thumbs out,

what we call the cuffing position.

It's how we handcuff people.

He was tied with a real thin white rope...

...and it was wound around the bottom of

the pole about four inches off the ground.

His shoes were missing.

He was tied extremely tight,

so I used my boot knife.

I tried to slip it in there,

between the rope and his wrist.

I had to be extremely careful...

...so as not to harm Matthew any further.

I was yelling at him at the top

of my lungs, "Hey, wake up!"

Something,

just trying to get anything out of him.

He didn't move, he didn't flinch,

he didn't anything.

We rolled him over onto his left side.

When we did that, he stopped breathing.

I immediately got him back on his back.

And that was just enough

of an adjustment.

It gave me just enough room for me to

slip my knife in there and to cut him free.

And then Rob drove the ambulance to

Ivinson Hospital's emergency room.

Once we saw Matthew, it was obvious

that his care was beyond our capabilities.

Phoned the neurosurgeon

over at Poudre Valley...

...and Matthew was on his way

in an hour and 15 minutes, I think.

A couple of days later,

they showed me a picture of Matthew.

I would have never recognized him.

Said defendants left the victim...

...tied to the fence, begging for his life.

You'd liKe to thinK

it was somebody from out of town...

...that's come through

and beaten up somebody.

But when you're seeing someone

who's been beaten...

...repeatedly by someone

in our own town...

...now that certainly offends us.

And that's a good word.

It offends us.

The defendants will remain in the custody

of the County Sheriff's Department...

...until dates can be set for their trials.

It was huge.

It was herds,

and we are talking hundreds of reporters...

...which maKes a huge dent

in this town's population.

Laramie, Wyoming,

often called "the gem city of the plains"...

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