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I think I may have found your source, a TV show described here:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/recount/article/95/

From the linked piece:

“The Matthew Shepard Story: Secrets of a Murder,” which aired Nov. 26, promised shocking new information about the case. But it contained mostly speculation, scandalous details, unreliable new witnesses and revised confessions. The premise of the report by Elizabeth Vargas was that McKinney attacked Shepard during a robbery under the influence of crystal meth and that the murder had nothing to do with the victim’s sexuality. The report used sensational language to describe “the high plains of Wyoming, a lonely place to die,” where “the life drained out of” Shepard who had been “beaten so badly that the only part of his face that was not drenched in blood was where his tears had washed it away.”
Vargas went out of her way to show that McKinney and Henderson did not hate gay people. She questioned previous reports that characterized them as “rednecks” (her word), and tells viewers that in fact they had steady jobs and girlfriends. Vargas reported that Shepard’s friends promoted the hate crime theory in the days following the attack. The report suggested that McKinney himself was bisexual, even though in an interview with Vargas, McKinney denies ever having sexual contact with another man. She also suggested that Shepard and McKinney were not strangers, but that they knew each other from Laramie’s underground drug scene.

BTW it sounds like the crotch-grab may never have happened:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/1999/11/06/witness/index.html

However, one of the killers was forced to perform oral sex on a neighbor when he was seven years old. From the Salon piece:

But one aspect of the defense's portrayal of McKinney did hold up under investigation. Independent of Henderson's testimony, the detectives concluded that McKinney's stunning allegations that a neighborhood bully forced the 7-year-old McKinney to perform oral sex on him were completely true. O'Malley lived next door to McKinney for several years, and he said his son was prepared to testify to witnessing those events during the penalty phase of the trial. Both detectives said the bully had left Laramie years ago.

Now that makes some sense as a motive. Gee I wonder why the "killed because he was gay" set chose to ignore the gay pedophile bully forcing the seven year old to have oral sex?