From The New West Blog

10 Years Later, Wyoming Murder Haunts Reporters

By Matthew Frank, 10-12-08

	On the anniversary of the slaying, a cross made of stones rests below the fence where Shepard was found. Click the image for a slideshow.

It’s been 10 years since Matthew Shepard, a gay college student at the University of Wyoming, ran into two young men at a bar in Laramie who robbed him, drove him to the edge of town, tied him to a wooden fence and struck him 18 times in the head with a .357-caliber Magnum handgun before leaving him to die.

This weekend National Public Radio looks back on how the murder turned Laramie into “the country’s newest symbol of hate,” and also how it deeply affected the journalists who covered it.

“I wanted to stand up with these people, with my neighbors and my community,” [says Heather Feeney, who reported on the Shepard case for Wyoming Public Radio]. “I wanted to hold a candle, too, and say this violence is not who I am. But that wasn’t part of the job, and there was no time to figure all of that out.”

It’s a poignant piece on the futility of objectivity. Click here to listen, and here for a slideshow.

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