"The George School students have studied and rehearsed for four months for their play, "The Laramie Project," based on the murder. The drama recounts Shepard's brutal slaying at the hands of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson on the outskirts of Laramie, a cattle town in Wyoming.
The two men are serving life sentences for the crime. They met Shepard, who stood just 5 feet, 2 inches tall, in a Laramie bar, pretended to be gay and then lured him to their pickup truck. They drove to a secluded area where they pistol-whipped, burned and robbed him. Shepard was found 18 hours later, tied to a fence and left for dead.
Like a documentary, the play recounts the crime. The actors portray Laramie residents who give their opinions of the attack.
Directed by acting teacher Nelson Camp, students will perform "The Laramie Project" at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the George School's Walton Center...
Teachers said the play forces students to confront homophobia.
"It's been a powerful experience already," said Carolyn Belle Lyday, a religion teacher and adviser for the school's gay and lesbian club. "It helps people be honest about how they really feel."
Patterson, who lives in Brooklyn, worked for various gay and lesbian activist groups before founding an organization called Angel Action, which holds peaceful demonstrations. She travels the nation giving speeches and is a satellite radio talk show co-host for a 24-hour gay talk channel. Her show is called "Derek and Romaine."
"I love it. I talk to a lot of straight people every day on satellite radio. That is a form of activism that's very new to me," Patterson said..."
Note that the 1998 Matthew Shepard murder, portrayed as a hate crime because Shepard was homosexual, was in fact a bungled burglary and not motivated by hate, as documented in reply 326 in this thread.
An excerpt from "New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder"
" Former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the case, also believed robbery was the primary motive. "Matthew Shepard's sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn't the motive in the homicide," he said.
"If it wasn't Shepard, they would have found another easy target. What it came down to really is drugs and money and two punks that were out looking for it," Fritzen said.
Asked directly whether he targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, "No. I did not. … I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."
But if the attackers were just trying to rob someone to get a drug fix, why did they beat Shepard so savagely?
Rerucha attributes McKinney's rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. "The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs," Rerucha said.
Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells "20/20" the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior.
"In the first weeks after you've stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It's completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off" Rawson said.
"If Aaron McKinney had not become involved with methamphetamine, Matthew Shepard would be alive today," Rerucha said..."