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A Preliminary Hearing |
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By Jack Nichols
Laramie, Wyoming— In a preliminary hearing, Prosecutor Cal Rerucha told a packed courtroom Thursday morning how 21-year old Matthew Shepard, a university student, had, allegedly, been viciously tortured by townsmen of his same age, would-be-thieves who tied the 5 foot 2-inch male to a buck fence, beating him into insensibility while demanding to know where valuables might be found in his apartment.
"He lay there bleeding and begging for his life," said Rerucha, describing the horrors that had characterized the gentle youth's death, a murder shocking and saddening to people of all persuasions and from every corner of the globe. The preliminary hearing involved only one defendant, Aaron James McKinney, who was accompanied by guards from his jail cell to the Laramie courtroom directly across the street. McKinney is being charged with first degree murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping as well as with intent to inflict bodily injury and to terrorize his victim. Courthouse security was tight. Police carefully scrutinized automobiles parked nearby.
Law enforcement officers were subpoenaed to testify before an audience of approximately 100 citizens. The prosecutor, as yet, has given no indication as to whether he will seek the death penalty. Reportedly, on October 7, McKinney and Henderson led Shepard out of a Laramie bar by pretending themselves to be gay, and with full knowledge that their victim was, in fact, gay. After sustaining massive injuries, Shepard lapsed into a coma sometime prior to being discovered 18 hours later by another student, a bicyclist who, by chance, had fallen from his bike. When he looked about, he first believed Shepard's form to be a scarecrow or, perhaps, a Halloween prank. The image of Matthew Shepard, his arms stretched out on the fence, brought to many minds a kind of crucifixion scene. A vast outpouring of sympathy for both Shepard and his family attended his death. Taken from the fence, he was quickly transported to a Ft. Collins, Colorado hospital where he died without regaining consciousness on October 12.
Matthew Shepard's murder, according to seasoned gay news veterans , has generated more publicity than any other event in homosexual history. Because the culprits accused knew Shepard to be gay and were said to chose him as a victim on that account, his death has been widely perceived as a hate crime. Outrage in gay communities erupted in late October and early November. Groups currently seeking to pass hate-crime legislation for the protection of homosexuals are doing so under banners that bear Matthew Shepard's name.
Henderson and McKinney have been held by Wyoming authorities without bond. Their girlfriends, Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen LeAnn Price, 18, have been charged as accessories after the fact of first-degree murder. Lacking $30,000 with which to pay their bonds, both young women are scheduled to enter a pleas on December 9 and, like Henderson, have waived their rights to a preliminary hearing. |
