Ted’s statement that Aaron “could not back anything without help from someone” called to mind something Cal had mentioned years before: “Aaron was dangerous if he had help.”
I also remembered that Aaron, after pistol-whipping Matthew repeatedly, had threatened to give Matthew’s ID’s to “certain people” — an act of bullying in extremis.
“Hell, Aaron has no feelings,” Ted wrote in another email more than a year later, referring again to his joint encounter with Matthew and Aaron. “I was there one night on a 3 way with Matt and Aaron, and Aaron has no feelings, trust me. I [saw] that.”
During an earlier interview with Doc O’Connor in one of his hangar-sized warehouses in Bosler — a few yards from the shiny stretch limo that both Aaron and Matthew liked to ride in — he was asked, “Did you think that Aaron was bisexual?”
“No, I know he’s bisexual,” he said. “There ain’t no doubt in my mind. He is bisexual. Obviously.”
Doc, who claims he doesn’t know Ted and denies that he arranged for the sexual services of other males, was willing to talk about his decision to “out” Aaron, however.
“Did [Aaron] want you to keep his bisexuality a secret?” he was asked.
“Actually he did,” Doc replied. “He said, ‘Give me your word that this will never come out.’ ”
“Why was he so concerned about that?”
“Well, because he didn’t want it to come out. And I told him, ‘That’s fine. No biggy.’ The reason it’s coming out [now] is because I’ve dwelt on this for … months and years; because he needs to face his reality in life, of what was going on at the time … Aaron was kind of like, in the closet … or [a] closet case, and he just never wanted to come out.”
“Do you think [Kristen] knew he was bisexual?”
“I’d bet dollars that she knew.”
“Why are you sure she knew …?”
“She said that her [sic] and him and somebody else was in the same bed before. I can’t remember the other guy’s name. So, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Everybody in the world wants to make bisexuality a big deal, or gay a big deal. And it’s not really a big deal in Wyoming. It’s just not really discussed.”
We also asked Doc, “Why do you think … Aaron … was adamant about denying [to us] that he’d ever had sex with a man?”
He responded firmly, “I’ll take a lie detector test any day you want about Aaron McKinney. Period … Aaron McKinney is not telling you guys the truth in that particular situation. It’s not true. Period” (emphasis in original).
According to Stephanie Herrington, a Laramie woman who described herself as Doc’s “part-time girlfriend” at the time of the murder, she, too, had been with Doc, Aaron, and Matthew at an all-night party — the same one Elaine recounted to me in telling detail.
My first conversation with Stephanie took place in a rickety, second-floor apartment behind the Laramie post office, where she was living at the time. She told me timidly that Doc had instructed her not to speak with me unless he was present. But she said she wanted to talk and didn’t want Doc telling her what to say.
Later I interviewed Stephanie again at a sidewalk café in downtown Laramie — together with her ex-husband, Mark Herrington. Both of them mentioned that Doc had tried to silence other people in the past and that he sometimes made threats.
Eventually Glenn Silber and I filmed an interview with Stephanie for 20/20, but it wasn’t included in the final program. We simply had too many interviews to condense into a one-hour time slot.
Stephanie — like Elaine — said that Doc’s party, which had started in the limo and ended at his home in Bosler, took place “a couple of weeks before [Matthew] was killed.”
We told Stephanie that Aaron had informed us of his involvement with methamphetamine and asked her, “Were you aware of that?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Is it your impression that Matt was into these things as well?” Glenn probed.
“Yes, he actually tried to buy some from Doc …” she stated. “Matthew Shepard actually bought some from Doc. He was giving Doc money in the limousine at the time, so I know he was buying drugs from Doc O’Connor.”
When asked how she would describe Matthew, she said, “He was an easygoing, loving guy, easy to get along with … But it wasn’t a hate crime.”
“Is it your sense that when Matthew left [the Fireside Lounge] with [Aaron and Russell] that he had drugs on him?”
“Mm-hmm [yes],” she nodded. “And they were trying to collect and he wouldn’t give it to them … They went out together because they were interested in Matthew because he had drugs and … Matthew didn’t want to give them the drugs.”
“How do you know this?” Glenn pressed.
“It’s a fact.”
“It’s a fact?”
“Mm-hmm. I know he had drugs because he was trying to buy them from Doc … I was there when Matthew purchased the drugs from Doc.”
“How long … before the attack?”
“That was the night when I was in the limo with them and I heard them talking about drugs and they were passing money in the back. I turned my head and looked at them.”
Glenn pressed Stephanie again about her repeated references to “a drug deal gone bad.”
“So is this just something that people [in Laramie were] talking about, that that’s what they think happened?”
“I’m sure it happened,” she said.
“You’re sure it happened?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Based on what?” Glenn continued. “Just talk to me. Based on what?”
“On what people said and … from what I know,” she responded.
Later in the same interview, we asked Stephanie to revisit the night of Doc’s party for us. She stated:
Okay, we all met at the Buckhorn [Bar] … And then we just left the Buckhorn, gathered up in a limo and drove from there to [Doc’s] house in Bosler. And then that’s where they decided to play around … [Doc] asked me if I wanted to, with Aaron and Matthew, and I said “No,” and that’s when they paired off in … the small guest room that he had … Doc and Aaron McKinney and Matthew Shepard paired off … and did their thing … sexual activities.
But both Stephanie and Elaine agreed that the activities had started earlier in the limo, and that Doc had hired another chauffeur to drive that night.
“We were on the highway heading to Bosler and they were actually playing around in the back,” Stephanie recalled. “… I was in the front seat and then [Doc] had the window rolled down … That’s how I saw. I just turned my head and, ‘Oops.’ ”
According to Elaine:
I believe it started out with Doc telling Aaron and Matthew to do some stuff, and then Doc ended up getting involved in it later before we got to Bosler … It was mostly oral …
I was trying not to look back at them too much because I just wasn’t really interested in what was going on back there. But … the money exchange and stuff went on … before they started doing the oral … thing.
I didn’t really know exactly for sure what was going on at that point. Until Doc started talking … to mostly Aaron about … “You need to get my money from that son of a bitch” or something.
Earlier, I’d asked Elaine, “So what did you think was going to go on once you got up to Doc’s place, given what you [saw] in the limo?”
“I have no idea,” she responded, “I was pretty nervous about it. I didn’t want to go up there. [Pause.] To be perfectly honest with you, I thought that there would be some drug exchange or … they were going to get some drugs or something. I thought that that’s what would happen.”
But Elaine said that while they were riding in the limo:
I got the impression that Aaron already owed Doc some money for drugs or for — having sex with another man. And that Doc was unhappy about Aaron needing more [money] when they still owed him, and so they were kind of having a conversation about that …
I can’t r
eally remember word for word … It was mostly Doc that did most of the talking. Aaron was just answering to Doc.
… I just — I remember the feeling, the tense feeling in there. I remember the anger that Doc was expressing to Aaron … something to the effect of, “I can’t believe you let this son of a bitch get away with that … he owes me money.”
… Doc would talk about [Aaron] being with somebody and, “Where’s the money?” … Doc didn’t try to hide it at all. He didn’t try to hide the fact that Aaron was working for him. And Doc would come right out and tell people. He would offer Aaron to people, right, flat out. Flat out. He would just offer him …
I had [also] heard Doc and Aaron talking about pimping Matthew out … so I knew [the attack] wasn’t because [Matthew] was gay and it made me angry. It made me really angry that it just blew over as a hate crime, that, you know, because Matthew Shepard was gay. It had nothing to do with Matthew Shepard being gay, nothing. It was about drugs and money.
… They were all friends … [but] Russell wasn’t even really involved in that little clique … The main thing was — with Matthew and Aaron and Doc — was sex. And drugs.
During our interview with Stephanie, Glenn returned to the subject of drugs and asked Stephanie to tell us again what she remembered about the exchange of money.
“… [As] I was riding [in] the limo and going to a party, [Doc] was exchanging money with Matthew Shepard,” she said. “Aaron I’m not sure about at the time.”
A few moments later Glenn inquired, “Has Doc ever told you, asked you, threatened you to … never talk about this stuff?”
“He said if I would confront a reporter by the name of Steve, not to mention anything to him because he’s worried about this …”
“But was he saying that because he didn’t want to really help Steve or because he wanted to protect himself?”
“I think to protect himself.”
“Why are you telling us all this tonight, Stephanie?”
“Because I want to, I’m tired of hearing the false rumors that are going around about the gay hate crime and I just want to go on with my life and just … try to straighten it out.”
“Are you worried about Doc at all trying to … come after you … or you think he’ll just deny it? What do you think he’ll do?”
“I’m — I’m worried. That Doc or somebody else might try to come after me.”
“But you’ve just decided to sort of tell it like it is?”
“Yes. I want to tell it like it is and get the truth out there.”
“Did you ever tell this to anybody else at the time, what happened?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Not even your husband?
“My husband, he knew what was going on but he kept to himself about it.”
Stephanie went on to say, “[Doc] wasn’t being honest with me, I know that … Every time I’ve seen [him], he’s told me not to say anything period … because he was worried about his safety.”
But according to Stephanie and Elaine, Aaron and Matthew were definitely among the small batch of guests who stayed overnight at Doc’s.
“The next morning, Doc decided to give them all a ride [back to Laramie], Matthew Shepard, Aaron McKinney, and the other people that were with them …” Stephanie said. “And then I stayed behind, which was really in the afternoon, and then he took me home as well.”
THIRTY-SIX
An Easy Mark
Shortly after Russell arrived at the state penitentiary in Rawlins in April 1999 to begin his orientation as a “lifer,” prison officials moved him into protective custody because he was apparently being preyed upon sexually. Word also came back to the jail in Laramie that Aaron could expect the same treatment when he got sent up.
From spring to early fall of that year, Aaron’s court-appointed defense team — attorneys Dion Custis, Jason Tangeman, and Barbara Parnell — kept Cal Rerucha busy by filing scores of motions, most of them aimed at forestalling the possibility of a death sentence. On the public relations front, two Catholic chaplains from the University of Wyoming’s Newman Center supported the attorneys’ legal efforts by attacking Cal in the local press, mainly with the argument that capital punishment was a violation of Catholic doctrine. One of the priests, Father Roger Schmidt, was also Aaron’s personal confessor.
As Aaron’s trial drew closer, the animosity between Cal and the Newman priests intensified. Some Catholics in town, including a few parishioners at St. Laurence O’Toole — the church Cal had attended all his life — proposed that he be excommunicated.
A devoted Catholic, Cal said he was enraged by the priests’ political maneuverings and their “complete disrespect for the separation of church and state.” Not only did he fight back hard against their efforts, but by the time of Aaron’s trial in the fall Dennis Shepard would join Cal in expressing his disdain. On the day Aaron was sentenced, Matthew’s father stated in court:
I find it intolerable that the priests of the Catholic Church and the Newman Center would attempt to influence the jury, the prosecution, and the outcome of this trial by their castigation and persecution of Mr. Rerucha and his family by [their] newspaper advertisements and by their presence in the courtroom. I find it difficult to believe that they speak for all Catholics. If the leaders of churches want to speak as private citizens, that is one thing; if they say they represent the beliefs of their church, that is another. This country was founded on separation of church and state. The Catholic Church has stepped over the line and has become a political group with its own agenda.
But Dennis Shepard would also make a few statements in court that day that raised different concerns among some observers, including gay attorneys and activists who attended the trial. Some questioned whether the essential, time-honored boundary between an impartial prosecution by the state and the rights of crime victims had been breached in the Shepard case. Moments before he criticized the Newman priests, Dennis Shepard had acknowledged:
Mr. Rerucha took the oath of office to protect the rights of the citizens of Albany County … regardless of his personal feelings and beliefs.
At no time did Mr. Rerucha make any decision on the outcome of this case without the permission of Judy and me. It was our decision to take the case to trial just as it was our decision to accept … the earlier plea bargain of Mr. Henderson. A trial was necessary [for Aaron McKinney] to show that this was a hate crime and not just a robbery gone bad. If we had sought a plea bargain earlier, the facts of this case would not have been known, and the question would always be present that we had something to hide.
A New York–based gay activist, Bill Dobbs of Queer Watch, who was among the most vocal opponents of the death penalty while the Shepard case was in progress, later commented that he’d found “the very active role” played by Matthew’s parents in the prosecution of Aaron and Russell “troubling from a legal standpoint … insofar as justice was concerned.”
After Russell’s sentencing in April, Dobbs — who is also an attorney — had been quoted by the Associated Press.
“For us who are opposed to the taking of life, if we helped to stop an execution, that’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s bittersweet. Matthew Shepard is not going to be brought back by this plea or this sentencing but it is a victory over violence because a possible execution, another death, has been averted.”
But another gay activist, who asked not to be identified, said that it wasn’t only the Catholic priests who had an agenda or a strong personal stake in the outcome of the case. According to the activist, the persuasive courtroom statements read by Matthew’s parents at Russell’s sentencing hearing and later at Aaron’s trial had been carefully crafted with the help of gay organizations in Washington and Los Angeles.
With Aaron’s trial scheduled to begin on the one-year anniversary of Matthew’s murder in October, the eyes of the world would be on Laramie again. Meanwhile, in the intervening months, gay rights activists had continued to lobby for federal ha
te crime legislation, using the murder to rally support.
But the media frenzy around Aaron’s trial would prove to be more intense than anything that had preceded it. More protesters came to town, requiring more security for blocks around the courthouse. In addition to the now-familiar band of hellfire fundamentalists led by the notorious preacher Fred Phelps, there were activists against the death penalty (ACLU, Amnesty International, Quakers); locals dressed as white-robed angels; numerous national and regional gay organizations, including Act Up, the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda, GLAAD, and Dykes on Bikes; and even a fringe group that staged a mock execution in front of the courthouse, showing Aaron being beaten to death just as Matthew had been beaten.
During a tedious jury selection process, Cal and the defense attorneys had screened hundreds of potential jurors.
Russell, who had been transported back to the county jail for the trial, was still expected to testify for the prosecution — which left many wondering if there would be any surprise revelations from the witness stand. But after the trial began, Russell changed his mind and refused to testify. His decision angered Cal, but with two consecutive life sentences Russell had little to gain and a great deal to lose: If fellow inmates got word that he had testified against Aaron, it would brand him forever as a snitch. (Russell later credited one of his attorneys, Jane Eakin, with helping him make that decision. Eakin, who today serves as a circuit court judge in the town of Rawlins where Russell is serving out his life terms, apparently understood the personal harm that could come to him if he took the stand.)
In his opening statement to the jury on October 25, 1999, Cal began: “Ladies and gentlemen … the evidence in this case will show that Matthew Shepard was 21 years of age. He was a student at the University of Wyoming, and he was openly gay. This case will not be about the life of Matthew Shepard. It will simply be about the pain, suffering, and death of Matthew Shepard at the hands of the defendant … Mr. McKinney.” Cal promised to present evidence of kidnapping, robbery, aggravated robbery, and premeditated first-degree murder with malice.
The Book of Matt Page 33
