Editors Letter

Some Mother's Son

There were few images last year more haunting than that of a simple wooden buck fence near Laramie, Wyoming, the dusty, high-plains town that is home to cattle ranches, grain silos, and the University of Wyoming. The fence stands four miles from the popular Fireside Bar, a comfortable, unassuming gathering place. The bar is also the spot where a bright, 21-year-old U.W. politicalscience major named Matthew Shepard had his last drink before being viciously beaten and left to die on the fence. Shepard was gay, and the two highschool dropouts who attacked him allegedly had a thing against homosexuals. When the young man's bloodied body was discovered, he looked as if he'd been crucified. His face was streaked where tears had washed away his blood.

It's difficult to overstate the impact of Shepard's death, which appears to rank among the nation's most infamous hate crimes and evokes the 1955 case of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched in Mississippi because locals thought he had flirted with a white woman. (Shepard's killers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, are said to have claimed—unconvincingly— that Shepard made a pass at them.) Shepard's slaying triggered a nationwide outcry, and in humble Laramie (population: 27,000) the locals did not welcome the implication that the town is a bastion of unrestrained homophobia. V.F. dispatched writer Melanie Thernstrom to determine how and why a quiet, five-foot-two college freshman could have met such a horrible fate. Thernstrom's report, "The Crucifixion of Matthew Shepard," begins on page 209.

Thernstrom is an ideal reporter for this story, having written memorable books on two extremely sensitive tragedies. One, Halfway Heaven, concerned the notorious 1995 murder of Harvard junior Trang Phuong Ho at the hands of her jealous roommate, Sinedu Tadesse. For this month's article, Thernstrom spent two weeks in Laramie and, typically, unearthed a number of hidden truths.

For one thing, Thernstrom reports, Laramie is decidedly not the hateful town of tabloid caricature. Almost everywhere she went, Thernstrom witnessed palpable sadness and regret over Shepard's killing. In the end, she concludes, Laramie simply suffers from the kind of muted, I-once-met-a-gay-guy homophobia evident in any rural town where the locals aren't all that familiar with people who aren't just like them. Thernstrom was granted an exclusive interview with Shepard's mother, Judy, who emphasized that her son was an intelligent, likable young man with a turbulent past which included bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts; he had also been the victim of at least two previous assaults. To the American gay community and beyond, Matthew Shepard has become a symbol; to his family, he is a loved, lost son. .