NedNickerson
JUB Addict
Tomorrow (October 12) will be the eleventh anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard...
I can still remember the shock I felt when I first heard about it on the evening news, how he was beaten and hung on a rail fence in the middle of nowhere and left to die. I remember reading accounts of people who said they drove past the fence and thought it was a scarecrow someone had hung there (since it was so close to Halloween, no one thought twice about what they'd seen). When they found him 18 hours later, he was still alive, but unconscious, and his face and head were bloodied, except for tracks left by his tears. He never regained consciousness for six days until his parent decided to remove him from life support.
Police arrested his killers Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck.
The two men had attempted to persuade their girlfriends to provide alibis.
Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999, and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he received two consecutive life sentences. The jury in McKinney's trial found him guilty of felony murder. As they began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
I can still remember the shock I felt when I first heard about it on the evening news, how he was beaten and hung on a rail fence in the middle of nowhere and left to die. I remember reading accounts of people who said they drove past the fence and thought it was a scarecrow someone had hung there (since it was so close to Halloween, no one thought twice about what they'd seen). When they found him 18 hours later, he was still alive, but unconscious, and his face and head were bloodied, except for tracks left by his tears. He never regained consciousness for six days until his parent decided to remove him from life support.
Police arrested his killers Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck.
The two men had attempted to persuade their girlfriends to provide alibis.
Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999, and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he received two consecutive life sentences. The jury in McKinney's trial found him guilty of felony murder. As they began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
