AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post 1. The first openly gay UW faculty member and Wyoming’s first openly gay state legislator Cathrine Connolly. “I had people that were both concerned as otherwise that I would not get tenure because I was out. That would have been the mid- to late-90s. Things have changed in that regard.” As a lawmaker she adds, “Certainly as a state legislator, I have had horrific comments directed at me.” 2. A scenic view from near the site where Matthew Shepard was left to die outside of Laramie, Wyoming. The small town is home to thirty thousand residents and the state’s only four-year university. 3. The sun rises on the Albany County Court House where both killers Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were tried and convicted. 4. A dirt road near the site where Matthew Shepard was left to die. The site, which now sits on private land is inaccessible as residents of the small town have grown tired of media and onlookers accessing the land to view the site. 5. Dr. Rulon Stacey was the president of Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado where Matthew Shepard was treated before his death. Stacey, a mormon whose religious beliefs hold that any sex outside of marriage is wrong, was among the many people who, despite fundamental differences with the LGBTQ lifestyle, became friends with the Shepard family. Stacey announced Matthew’s death on Oct. 12, 1998. 6. Albany County Sheriff Dave O’Malley was the chief of police in Laramie at the time of Matthew Shepard’s killing. “When this case started, I was homophobic,” says O’Malley. “I was mean spirited when it came to the gay community. I’d walk into a locker room and be the first one to say, ‘Hey, did you hear the one about the three [expletives] that walked into a bar?’ Never caring or even thinking about if somebody standing next to me was gay or struggling with sexual identities. I was a real asshole. This investigation forced me to interact with our gay community. A switch went on. I started losing my ignorance.” 7. Crows gather on a tree in Laramie on Oct. 3, 2018. 8. Speaking to how he feels about subsequent generations not knowing the name of his son, Dennis Shepard says, “Well, divided. On one side, I want them to know, so that they understand that what they have, both straight and gay, the rights they have and privileges can be taken away so quickly. On the other side, I will be happy if they don’t know who Matt is because that means we have equal protection and equal respect across the board.” 9. Nichol Bondurant was one of the original angels that counter-protested against hate demonstrations after Shepard’s murder. “It runs the whole gamut,” says Bondurant on students’ understanding of the incident 20 years after the killing. “There are students whose parents tell them the story; students who believe the alternative narratives. There are kids who know nothing about it; there are kids whose parents knew Matt. I didn’t realize until this year that there are so many kids that didn’t know the story.” 10. Jim Osborn was a co-founder of the angels and is now a married father of one. “I thought I was the only one,” he says about growing up gay in the 1980s and 1990s in the rural reaches of the state. “There were no other gay kids. This was something that doesn’t happen here. In reality, it did. I believed all the myths and stereotypes. I grew up believing that those people would burn in hell. That was coming from people not realizing that one of those people was sitting on the couch right next to them.” 11. Jim Osborn is the central figure of a mural in downtown Laramie alongside fellow angles Romaine Patterson, left, and Nichol Bondurant, right. Osborn said of the group’s work, “For us it was thinking, ‘Somebody needs to respond to this message of hate,’ and making the decision that we were going to be the ones to do it and we weren’t going to sit by anymore.” 12. A tattoo on Dave O’Malley’s right forearm of O’Malley’s under sheriff Rob DeBree’s signature accompanied by a sheriff’s office badge. O’Malley and DeBree were tasked with investigating the murder of Matthew Shepard in October 1998. Both men were fundamentally changed by the events. 13. UW music professor Nicole Lamartine, who is producing a show titled ‘Angles’ that incorporates local school choirs and university students, spoke on younger generations learning about the murder of Matthew Shepard and the positives that resulted in reaction to his untimely death. “These kids weren’t born yet and I hope that their minds are open to change and how it occurs. Because if they want to be agents of change in our world, they need to know how change happens.” 14. A view of Second Street in Laramie after dark near where the Fireside Lounge once stood. The lounge was the last place Shepard was seen before leaving with killers Henderson and McKinney. 15. Partners and UW LGBTQ advocates Christi Boggs, left, and Rachel Watson. The couple moved to Laramie in the fall of 1998 to pursue graduate degrees. The killing of Shepard shook them to the core and made them question whether to remain in Wyoming. “You don’t ever stop being afraid for safety, but you realize there are other things that are important,” says Watson of their decision to stay in Laramie after Shepard’s killing. “The risk of the closet is greater than the risk of not being safe. If you are invisible, you can never help somebody else.” 16. “Wyoming isn’t a place where there is overt homophobia, but there is erasure,” says UW senior Jess Fahlsing on growing up queer in Wyoming. “When I am back in Rock Springs, I am not visible or out. I mitigate who I am. It made it hard for me growing up there. Things are slowly, slowly getting better.” Click here to view the photos as a gallery: The Matthew Shepard killing 20 years later: Reflecting in words and pictures<doc-sep>Matthew Shepard was abducted, beaten and killed 20 years ago because he was gay. Twenty years ago, Matthew Shepard was a "smart, funny" 21-year-old, no different than any other young man that age. He was an "ordinary kid who wanted to make the world a better place," his parents remembered. But in October 1998, that all changed, when the openly gay college student was abducted, beaten and tied to a fence in Wyoming. His life ended a few days later, and with it came a widespread awareness of the dangers that members of the LGBTQ community face every day. The homophobic brutal killing also served as a catalyst for progress in America's laws and culture. In the two decades that have passed, however, it remains debatable how far the country has come since the shock of that crime. A gruesome attack Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, spent Oct. 6, 1998, at a meeting of the school's LGBTQ student group planning upcoming events for LGBTQ awareness week, Jason Marsden, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, told ABC News. He then grabbed coffee with friends before heading to a bar in Laramie in southeastern Wyoming. Shepard was sitting alone at the bar, drinking a beer, when he was approached by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. They later confessed they had "developed a rouse in which they'd pretend to be gay to win Matt's confidence," Marsden said. "They could offer him a ride home and rob him," he added. McKinney and Henderson kidnapped Shepard and told him he was being robbed, Marsden said. (MORE: 'Gay panic' defense still used in violence cases may be banned by new federal bill) McKinney hit Shepard about 20 times in the head and face with the end of the pistol, Marsden said, before the two stole Shepard's shoes, got in their truck and drove back to town. Shepard was found the next day, 18 hours later, by a passing cyclist. He was taken to a Laramie hospital but his head injuries were so severe that he needed a neurosurgeon, so he was moved to a Colorado hospital, Marsden said. Shepard's parents at the time were in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked. They flew back and were with their son at the hospital for his final few days, Marsden said. When his mother, Judy Shepard, saw the badly beaten college student in the hospital, "he was all bandaged, face swollen, stitches everywhere," she told ABC News' "Nightline." "His fingers curled, toes curled, one eye was a little bit open." Shepard died on Oct. 12. The loss "never heals," his father, Dennis Shepard, told "Nightline." "He was just an ordinary kid who wanted to make the world a better place. And they took that away from him. And from us." A promising young life cut short Matthew Shepard was a mischievous, stubborn and argumentative child, his father said. We didn't realize the amount of violence and discrimination ... against the gay community until after he died. He grew up to become very interested in international human rights, particularly women's rights in the Middle East and Asia, and he studied political science, said Marsden. "His goal was to work for the State Department to try to bring the same privileges and rights he thought he had in America to other countries," Dennis Shepard said. A few years before his death, Matthew Shepard came out to his mother on the phone. "He said, 'Mom I'm gay.' And I said, 'What took you so long to tell me?'" she recalled. "Rejection was not ever an issue in our family." Their son was then living an openly out life. "Everybody he met, he said, 'Just to let you know ahead of time, I'm gay,'" Dennis Shepard said. "It was like, 'This is who I am, and that's the way it's going to be,'" added Judy Shepard. Dennis Shepard wasn't worried about his son's safety. "We didn't realize the amount of violence and discrimination ... against the gay community until after he died," he said. "We thought, he was born here ... he has all the rights, responsibilities, duties and privileges of every other American citizen." The nation mourns The shocking homophobic crime in the sparsely-populated state garnered national sympathy. The outpouring of love was immediate as flowers and stuffed animals filled the hospital. "This is before the term viral existed, but it really did go viral," Marsden said. "It spawned candlelight vigils all over the country. There was a mass protest on Fifth Avenue in New York in which almost 100 people were arrested," Marsden said, as well as a vigil at the U.S. Capitol with celebrities and members of Congress. "All of these spontaneous vigils were organized by volunteers independently of one another. All of the calls to action for hate crime legislation were the work of individual civic and political leaders," Marsden explained. "It was a spontaneous outrage about the severity of this crime and the overall phenomenon of hate crimes against LGBT people, which were starting to get more social attention around this time than they had received in previous years." But it wasn't all sympathy. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested the funeral, picketing with anti-gay signs. Rev. Fred Phelps and his parishioners traveled from Kansas to Laramie for the funeral and trial, protesting with brightly colored signs and spewing hatred. Friends of the slain student dressed in angel costumes and staged a counter-protest encircling the parishioners so their signs wouldn't be visible. Two killers head to court After McKinney and Henderson were arrested, Henderson waived his pre-trial investigation and took a plea agreement, agreeing to two life sentences. McKinney went to trial, and defense attorneys argued his violent actions were "gay panic" -- a reaction to Shepard making a sexual advance. "When the defense gets out there and starts talking out of, the victim's fault, you know, 'gay panic,' ... you just really want to scream," Judy Shepard said. "One of the portions of his statement was that Matt was coming onto him ... if that's your defense, then every woman in a bar who gets hit on, she has the right to murder the guy sitting on her? That's just absurd." The "gay panic" defense is still legal in most states but has been outlawed in a few. It's been used since the 1960s in more than half of the states in the country, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. McKinney was convicted on numerous kidnapping and murder charges. Before sentencing, his attorneys, the Shepards and the prosecutors agreed to two consecutive life sentences in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. McKinney has declined to speak to ABC News while Henderson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Change in Washington Shepard's murder shined a light on the scope of federal hate crime laws, which at the time did not include sexual orientation or gender identity. "Matt's murder immediately raised the visibility of that effort and, although it took until 2009, it did eventually pass and was signed into law by President Obama," Marsden said. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act added crimes motivated by the victim's gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability to the federal hate crime law. James Byrd Jr., who was black, was murdered by three white supremacists in Texas in June 1998. Byrd was dragged behind a pickup truck, decapitated and dismembered. The moment Obama signed the hate crimes law "was amazing," Judy Shepard said. "He understood social injustice. And to be there with James Byrd's sisters when they, when he actually signed, signed into law, it was an incredible experience. And it was a relief and it was also a total understanding that there was just really a lot more left to do." "There's now been dozens of cases prosecuted against violent offenders who attack people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity or other characteristics that are now easier to prosecute than they were under the previous law," said Marsden. "Also several states either passed hate crime legislation for the first time or made their hate crime laws tougher." Beyond the federal hate crime law, in the years since Matthew Shepard's death, among the most substantive legislative wins for the LGBTQ community were the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell in 2010, so gay military members can serve openly without fear of being dismissed, and the legalization of same-sex marriage across the country in 2015. A shift in American culture The tragic murder also led to the creation of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the mission of which "is replacing hate with compassion, understanding and acceptance," Judy Shepard said. "The core of what we do is trying to get individual people excited about making a difference," Marsden said of the foundation. "If millions of people wanted to act in tandem, we could make hate obsolete. We could define our social norms in such a way that this kind of behavior would start to go away." For Judy Shepard, one of the best signs of cultural progress is seeing Gay Straight Alliance groups ramping up in schools. In Wyoming, where there's a population of just 500,000, she said there are 19 Gay Straight Alliances. Matthew Shepard's story has also lived on through various creative works, including the "The Laramie Project" and "The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later" plays, which tell the story of how Laramie residents reacted to the murder. They are among the most performed plays in American high schools, Marsden said, and have even been performed across the world in different languages, Judy Shepard said. "It's a universal story," she said. "If you remove the sexuality from the story and insert race or religion, it's exactly the same story of intolerance in a community or intolerance of individuals and how it affects a community." "Matt's story, I think, was inspirational to many people, especially people his age who had not previously been active in LGBT rights who started doing so. Some have gone on to be really prominent activists in the community," Marsden said. Back to 'ground zero' "I thought we were making such great progress in the Obama administration," Judy Shepard said, but after the 2016 presidential election, she felt the progress of the foundation was at "ground zero again." The Trump administration has brought changes including an order to ban transgender troops in the military and a new "religious liberty task force" that advocates fear will provide an excuse for discrimination. Just this month, a new policy went into effect in which the Trump administration will no longer provide visas for same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats and U.N. officials serving in the U.S. "I'm just so mad that we are regressing," Judy Shepard said. "We're back on the road talking about hate and acceptance and loving your neighbor and, you know, all those things again." During the Obama administration, the Department of Justice "was working with us." "They would set up conferences to educate law enforcement, NGOs and nonprofits on how to deal with hate crimes. How to address them, how to identify them, how to work with victims. And they would invite us to come," Judy Shepard said. "We visited several countries, 25 countries with [the] State Department. Now we're not." "Now the [Department of Justice] definitely does not want to work with us," she continued. "Civil rights is not an issue, a primary issue, for the DOJ anymore. ... So we don't get calls from them anymore." To Marsden, the degrees of progress for LGBTQ rights in the past 20 years vary. Especially in urban areas, Marsden said he thinks "LGBT people have a good deal more personal freedom, career opportunities, are much less subject to discrimination. I think a lot of our schools are safer, including bullying issues, which of course affect people way beyond the LGBT community -- they affect anyone who is different in some way or another than the perceived norm.<doc-sep>
The ashes of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old gay Wyoming college student whose 1998 murder made him a symbol of violence against LGBTQ people, have lacked a final resting place for two decades. All the while, his parents and many supporters ensured his death would not be in vain, waging a cultural and political battle against discrimination and hate crimes. Twenty years after his murder, Shepard’s remains will have a permanent home — and in a prominent setting that has hosted funerals for presidents and other national figures, most recently the Washington, D.C., memorial for Sen. John McCain, and alongside the remains of some 200 other celebrated Americans including president Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller. His ashes will be interred Oct. 26 at the Washington National Cathedral, Jason Marsden, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, confirms to PEOPLE. “This whole thing is such a grace note,” says Marsden, a friend of Matthew’s, whose killing became a flashpoint that drew large numbers of mourners and support for the family but also bigoted anti-gay protesters, and led his parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, to fear their son’s eventual burial site might lead to disruption or invite desecration. “This whole 20 years has just been so harrowing for the Shepards, and they’ve been such great stalwarts,” says Marsden. “This is kind of a piece of closure that none of us had expected. I found myself surprised by how emotionally powerful it was, and I talk about Matt every day.” Washington, D. C. Cityscapes And City Views Washington National Cathedral | Credit: Raymond Boyd/Getty Matthew died in a Colorado hospital on Oct. 12, 1998, five days after he was abducted, robbed, beaten, and left tied to a fence in the cold outside Laramie, Wyoming. His convicted killers, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, both are serving two consecutive life terms for his kidnap and murder, after a prosecution in which the suspects raised a “gay-panic” defense and said they beat Matthew because he made an alleged sexual advance. The path to having Matthew’s ashes rest in the National Cathedral evolved in conversations between the Shepards, who have participated over the years in social programs at the Episcopalian cathedral — most recently a screening of the 2013 documentary Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine — and the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, Marsden says. “He’s a dear friend of the Shepards,” Marsden says of the retired bishop. After the parents learned the cathedral offered a final resting place for prominent Episcopalians, Judy Shepard called Marsden about it. “She said, ‘We’ve been looking for the right place to put Matt to rest, and it looks like the National Cathedral is an option,'” he says. Robinson, who has worked alongside the parents in outreach on LGBTQ issues, helped secure the placement, Marsden says. “God can take something very, very bad and make something good come out of it,” Robinson told The New York Times. “I think that’s exactly what the Shepards have done for all of us, taking this tragic, awful event and making something meaningful and productive out of it.” Matthew’s murder “became a symbol of the kind of mindless, pointless violence against us for no other reason than being who we are,” Robinson said. “It is important for us to remind ourselves that we are still trying to come out from under that shadow.” Matthew Shepard Memorial Bench Judy and Dennis Shepard in 2008 | Credit: Laramie Daily Boomerang/Andy Carpenean/AP Hate Crimes Legislation Named After Shepard In recognition of the advocacy work by the Shepards and their foundation, Matthew’s name was attached to a 2009 federal hate crimes prevention act signed by then-President Barack Obama that extended existing hate-crimes laws to include gender and sexual orientation. In the ensuing years, the Shepards have kept up their fierce advocacy. Among other facets, the foundation’s web site includes resources for coming out and for conversations around local productions of The Laramie Project, a play based on interviews with “real people who lived at the epicenter of one of the nation’s most heinous anti-gay hate crimes,” according to the foundation.