The Laramie Project: Act 2

By this time, I was starting to get upset, but still the severity wasn’t out yet.

The fact that the perpetrators were kids themselves, local kids, that everyone who’s from around here has some relationship to.

And what happened — there’s 200 people in the room at this point...They walked in in their complete orange jumpsuits and their shackles, and you could have heard a pin drop.

Then the judge came in and did a reading — there was a reading of the evidence that the prosecution has and — it’s just a — it’s a statement of facts...

The essential facts are that the defendants, Aaron James and McKinney and Russell Arthur Henderson, met Matthew Shepard at the Fireside Bar, and after Mr. Shepard confided he was gay, the subjects deceived Mr. Shepard into leaving with them in their vehicle to a remote area.

The Judge goes sotto voce here while Catherine Connolly speaks.

So that was the arraignment and my response — was pretty catatonic — not sleeping, not eating.

More and more details came in about the sheer brutality, um, motivations, how this happened.

The reporters texts overlap to create a kind of media cacophony.

The cowboy state has its rednecks and yahoos, for sure, but there are no more bigots per capita in Wyoming than there are in New York, Florida or California.

The cowboy state has its rednecks and yahoos, for sure, but there are no more bigots per capita in Wyoming than there are in New York, Florida or California.

The voices and sounds have escalated to a high pitch.

I am outraged and sickened by the heinous crime committed on Matthew Shepard.

I am outraged and sickened by the heinous crime committed on Matthew Shepard.

You’ve got the beginning of the news story where they have the graphics in the background, and they’ve got, “Murder in Wyoming,” and Wyoming’s dripping red like it’s got blood on it or something, and it’s like what’s the — what is this, this is sensationalism.

And for us to be more or less maligned.

And I think that the gay community took this as an advantage, said this is a good time for us to exploit this.

Matthew’s major injuries upon arrival consisted of hypothermia and a fracture from behind his head to just in front of the right ear.

There were also several lacerations on his head, face and neck.

Matthew’s temperature has fluctuated over the last twenty- four hours, ranging from 98 to 106 degrees.

Their girlfriends, Chasity Pasley and Kristin Price also pled not guilty after being charged as accessories after the fact.

I know how to take care of myself, and I was irrationally terrified.

If I had — amazing hindsight of 20/20 — to have stopped — what occurred...and I keep thinkin’, “I shoulda noticed. These guys shouldn’t a been talking to this guy. I shoulda not had my head down when I was washing dishes for those twenty seconds.”

And quite frankly I wanted to lash out at somebody.

...I’m not going to persecute them or anything like that.

On a day that is traditionally given over to nothing more profound than collegiate exuberance and the fortunes of the University of Wyoming football team, this community on the high plains had a different kind of homecoming Saturday, as many searched their souls in the wake of a vicious, apparent anti-gay hate crime.

I really haven’t been all that involved, per se. My husband’s a highway patrolman, so that’s really the only way that I’ve known about it.

And a lot of it is my feeling that the media is portraying Matthew Shepard as a saint. And making him as a martyr.

Everybody’s got problems. But why they exemplified him I don’t know.

And I do not mean to condemn Matthew to perfection, but I cannot mention anyone who has done more for this community than Matthew Shepard.

And I would resent it immensely if you use anything I said, uh, you know, to — to somehow cultivate that kind of violence, even in its smallest form — I would resent it immensely.

I am not afraid to be controversial or to speak my mind and that is not necessarily the views of my congregation, per se.

Now, those two people, the accused, have forfeited their lives.

...I will work for his salvation.

He came into the world premature and left the world premature.