The Laramie Project

SUMMARY

A montage of images - the prairie, cattle ranches, fast-food restaurants, a cement factory, car dealers, the University of Wyoming - reveals the town of Laramie, Wyoming, pop. 26,687. As the town's police sergeant says, "It's a good place to live. Good people - lots of space. We're one of the largest states in the country, and the least populated." Laramie residents take pride in being part of the "gem city of the plains," and appear to believe in the motto "Live and Let Live."

What happens to a town like Laramie when something unexpected, unconscionable and unforgivable rips it apart? What happens to its people when they are thrust into the unrelenting glare of a national media spotlight? And what happens to a community when trust among its own people has been shattered?

For a group of young actors and writers from a New York City theater company, these are the questions that have led them to this unassuming town, where they seek out Laramie residents - shopkeepers, teachers, students, bartenders, social workers - whose lives were forever changed on October 6, 1998. That was the night when a gay college student named Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tied up and left for dead on a fence off a rural road... and when Laramie, Wyoming became the Hate Crime Capital of America.

Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, Matthew Shepard was in a local Laramie Wyoming bar, the Fireside Lounge. While at the bar, 21-year-old Shepard met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. According to McKinney, Shepard asked them for a ride home. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, severely beaten, punched and hit with the butt of a gun, tied to a fence and left to die. Shepard was discovered by a bicyclist 18 hours later, still alive but unconscious. Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support. He was pronounced dead at 12:53 a.m. on October 12 at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck.

Five members of the theater company - Moises, Greg, Leigh, Steve and Amanda - have arrived here to research a play they are writing about how the Shepard assault has changed this town. The details of the case are clear-cut and well-known. On October 6, Matthew Shepard met two men at the Fireside Bar in Laramie. Eighteen hours later, a cyclist found Shepard unconscious, severely beaten and tied to a fence. He never regained consciousness, and died five days later. Two Laramie residents, aged 20 and 21, were apprehended for the crime, which became front-page news around the country. But as Moises explains as the company assembles at a local diner, "This is not about the case. This is about the town: why did this happen here, what are people saying, how do they feel and think about what happened."

Armed with a list of names, Moises and his fellow company members interview a cross-section of Laramie residents who reveal as much about the collective psyche of their town as they do about the crime itself. Among those who we meet (and whose stories are interwoven throughout the narrative): a University of Wyoming Theater Department teacher who was originally skeptical about The Laramie Project but who now feels that talking about the incident will be therapeutic for the community; a student who won a theater scholarship by performing (against his parents' wishes) a scene from "Angels in America"; a car-service driver who drove Matthew Shepard to a gay bar in Fort Collins, Colorado, an hour away (there are no gay bars in Laramie); a teacher who was the first lesbian to be "outed" at Wyoming University; the bartender of the bar where Matthew was picked up; the cyclist who found an unconscious Matthew by the fence; the officer who was first on the scene, and who later feared she had been exposed to the AIDS virus when it was determined that Matthew was HIV-positive; friends and acquaintances of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, the two Laramie men accused of the crime; several ministers from local churches, who preach tolerance but do not condone the homosexual lifestyle; the leader of an anti-gay group that crashes the Shepard funeral; and many others.

The Laramie Project includes scenes from the separate trials of McKinney and Henderson, climaxing with an impassioned speech from Matthew's father at McKinney's sentencing. "I would like nothing better than to see you die," Dennis Shepard tells one of his son's killers. "However, this is the time to begin the healing process, to show mercy to someone who refused to show mercy... I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives." Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999, and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he received two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The jury in McKinney's trial found him guilty of two counts of felony murder. As it began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney also receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. Shepard's parents stated, "We are giving him life in the memory of one who no longer lives." As Shepard lay in intensive care, candle-light vigils were held in support around the world. The public reaction and media attention focused on Shepard's sexuality.

The anti-gay Fred Phelps of Kansas's Westboro Baptist Church and his supporters picketed Shepard's funeral as well as the trial of his assailants. They displayed signs of their protests, with slogans such as "Matt