The Laramie Project Review

Over the course of studying the Laramie Project and hearing all of the different views towards Matthew Shepard's murder, the most interesting thing discovered was that his death wasn't even intended to be a hate crime at all. A hate crime is a purposeful intended crime where one person is targeted by one or more people and beaten or killed because of a lifestyle they are living that others don't necessarily believe in. Since Matthew was gay and clearly comfortable with that fact, it appeared that he was killed in a hate crime when really that was not the intention by Aaron Mckinney and Russell Henderson. Aaron, Russell, and Matthew all had their share of a meth addiction. When Aaron and Russell began to run low on money, they decided they would rob someone in order to get the money to pay for more meth. That's when they arrived at the Fireside Bar and saw Matthew there. He had asked Russell and Aaron for a ride since he was too drunk to drive himself home. This is when the two men saw their opportunity, especially since Matt came from a wealthier family. In the car ride, Aaron exclaims that Matt was attempting to grab him and make a move on him and this is when the beating started. They drove to a secluded area where Russell tied Matt to a fence post. Aaron was beating Matt senseless and he says this is when Russell became scared. He was yelling at Aaron and telling him that Matt had enough, but instead of stopping, he turned around and whacked Russell in the mouth with the butt of the gun. After aggressively assaulting and robbing Matthew, Aaron and Russell ran in to a group of men in town where they got in to another fight that was broken up by the police. At this moment, the two were captured. In conclusion, Matthew Shepard's murder did include some hate but overall, his death was not intended to be a hate crime but a simple robbery that turned ugly due to the main fact that the men were strung out on meth which is proven to intensify and cause highly aggressive behavior. The fact that his death was not actually a hate crime was surprising because this murder is one of the most widely known hate crimes and it wasn't even a hate crime.

"It wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him." -Aaron Mckinney

"The reason he was targeted was not because he was gay. It was not because me and Aaron were against gays." -Russell Henderson