Like the state he was killed in and why he was killed:
Matthew Shepard's murder: 'What it came down to is drugs and money'
In 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered in Wyoming, the apparent victim of gay-hate. But a new book suggests fresh answers may lie in the crystal meth subculture of his home town
theguardian.com
....... Instead, Jimenez makes a persuasive case – based on interviews with the murderers, their former girlfriends, friends of Shepard’s, and police investigators – that Shepard was already acquainted with his killers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. That acquaintance hardly casts Shepard in the best light.
All three of them, Jimenez argues, were involved in Laramie’s crystal meth subculture, as users and dealers. McKinney and Shepard may also have had a casual sexual relationship.
“Shepard’s sexual preference … certainly wasn’t the motive in the homicide,” Jimenez quotes police investigator Ben Fritzen as saying. “What it came down to really is drugs and money.” A number of other sources close to the story and the protagonists confirmed much the same thing.
As Jimenez reconstructs it, McKinney was coming down from a week-long meth binge and desperate to cover his mounting debts. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that Shepard could lead him to a delivery of about $10,000 worth of meth coming in from Denver, which he intended to steal. McKinney’s plan was to beat the information out of Shepard, but the beating, fueled by severe drug-induced paranoia, ran quickly out of control.
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