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(New York City) A segment on the news program 20/20 about the murder of Matthew Shepard to be aired tonight on ABC is causing a storm of controversy even before it is broadcast and once it appears is likely to result in an even greater uproar.
Last week 365Gay.com first reported that the program would carry assertions by Shepard's killers that the murder was not a hate crime, but instead a robbery gone wrong.
Matthew Shepard's family and friends are protesting the suggestion, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation accuses ABC of ignoring important aspects of the case.
Shepard, a 21 year old University of Wyoming student was kidnapped by two men he met in a bar in October 1998. He was pistol-whipped, robbed and left tied to a fence on a rural snow swept country road outside Laramie. He died five days later in hospital from massive head injuries.
Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney are serving double life sentences for the killing.
The pair gave 20/20's Elizabeth Vargas their first interview on the killing.
In the program McKinney tells Vargas that Shepard "was pretty well-dressed, had a wallet full of money."
"All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him. ... Seemed like a good idea at the time."
He said he wanted the money to buy methamphetamine.
Henderson also said that money for drugs was the motive. He told 20/20 that McKinney had been bingeing on meth for days.
At one point McKinney asked Shepard for a cigarette.
"He said he was too drunk to go home and then he asked me if I'd give him a ride," McKinney said.
In the truck, McKinney claimed, the two learned Shepard wanted sex in return for giving them drugs, but McKinney decided to rob Shepard instead.
According to McKinney, Shepard grabbed his leg and he struck Shepard with his gun and demanded money. Although Shepard handed over his wallet, the beating continued the men admitted to 20/20.
"Sometimes when you have that rage going through you, there's no stopping it," McKinney said. "I've attacked my best friends coming off of meth binges."
They decided to dump Shepard in a secluded spot, and when they came upon a fence along a deserted country road, McKinney decided to tie him to it.
In June Henderson Henderson was denied an appeal for a shorter sentence.
Shepard's parents, Judy and Dennis, said they'd sought unsuccessfully to view a tape of the 20/20 episode, but were allowed only to read a network news release, which they described as "sensationalistic in nature . . . its implications have caused many of us to be concerned."
The couple are in Saudi Arabia, where Dennis Shepard works, and have made arrangements to have the program taped.
GLAAD denounced the show for ignoring basic facts.
"There is no discussion of the details of Aaron McKinney's confession to the police, where anti-gay bias is central to his characterization of the events of Oct. 6, 1998," GLAAD said in a statement.
Nor is there any mention of Rob DeBree, the investigator who took that statement and was one of the key witnesses as to the investigation and the confession at McKinney’s trial.
The program also fails to mention the plea bargain that spared McKinney's life or the provision of that plea bargain where McKinney and his attorneys agreed not to speak to the press about this case.
"Don't 20/20's decisions to turn a blind eye to the facts of this case, to not include interviews with those who can substantiate them, and to evade any discussion of the ethical issues involved in circumventing one of the key provisions of McKinney's plea bargain raise some serious doubts as to the credibility of this piece?" GLAAD asks.
©365Gay.com 2004
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