00:00:00
This is exactly right. an average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers
00:00:32
compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Wireless plan as of January 2026.
00:00:35
For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. How much do you weigh, Wanda? Right now, I'm about 130.
00:00:39
I'm at 183. We should race. No, I want to leave here with my original hips. On the podcast to match up with L'Aleah,
00:00:45
I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests. On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ,
00:00:51
Claressa Shields, and comedian Wanda Sykes to talk about Wanda's new movie, Undercard,
00:00:55
the art of trash talk, and what it really means to be ladylike. Open your free iHeartRadio app,
00:00:59
Search the matchup with Aaliyah and listen now. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports Network.
00:01:07
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
00:01:15
I vowed I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.
00:01:22
We always say that. Trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.
00:01:29
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't know.
00:01:34
I don't know. I don't know. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar.
00:01:59
That's Karen Kilgariff. This is podcasting. A 101. It is real basic. This is community college podcasting brought to you by?
00:02:07
The stoners in the back of the room. That's right. We'll see you at the smoking tree.
00:02:11
We're like. Extra credit. My favorite place, the smoking tree. We were like, we'll take this class.
00:02:16
We're going to audit this class. Right. Sure. They might try to give us a grade.
00:02:19
Right. I heard the teacher is like really chill. Like the final is bowling. You go bowling.
00:02:24
The final is you have to tell the same story 25 times. For 10 plus years. What a gift.
00:02:32
What's going on? Pick the wrong color foundation again. I thought you were going to say shirt because you're wearing a black shirt.
00:02:38
That looks black to me. Wrong color foundation. I bet I look kind of like a floating head over this table.
00:02:43
You do look like a mime. Yeah. There she goes. Don't make me put my piggy little hands up in the air.
00:02:51
Folks, you can see those hands on Netflix. Listeners, get up to date. You can also watch us and be watchers.
00:02:58
Put it on the background so Netflix thinks we're killing it. You don't even have to look at us.
00:03:02
That's right. Put it on the background. Mute it. Mute it for sure. You know what we should do?
00:03:06
Let's start pushing for the way I give cookie reggae. Let's start having people put this on for their pets when they leave them alone at the house.
00:03:13
That's right. Let's game the system. We fucking love animals so much. If you put this on while you're gone, it'll make your animals feel better.
00:03:22
It's good for your animals. It's good for numbers. You want to leave your children at home?
00:03:25
Yay! We're very soothing. We only say the F word every once in a while. We're basically babysitters.
00:03:31
At least at the top of the show. What are you up to? Nothing, but when this comes out, I'll have watched and known what happens in the last episode of Euphoria.
00:03:39
So I'm really jealous of my future. Oh, okay. Because you're just hanging on by thread?
00:03:43
I just want to see what happens. I'm hooked. I think I stopped watching Euphoria, and I'm sorry, because you know I love Martha Kelly the most.
00:03:51
Of course. I stopped watching after there was like some party that they all went to and things happened at it.
00:03:57
And then the anxiety that I felt during that entire scene, I was just like, oh, I don't have to live through this anymore.
00:04:04
You're not in high school anymore. It's very stressful. It's very flawed and imperfect.
00:04:09
But there's something about it that I and I'm totally not there like demographic as an old lady.
00:04:14
But it's Zendaya, right? Yeah. So it's like she's just incredible. I mean, everyone.
00:04:18
They're all incredible. Yeah. Shout out to Murderino, fucking Maude Aptow, by the way.
00:04:23
Oh, that's right. She's right up on that thing. I know. She's so good at it. Hi.
00:04:29
Congratulations. You're doing great. Iris, we love you too. Iris. All of you. Hey, we met you once.
00:04:35
That's so funny. I had actually a true crime update for you. Oh, that's okay. That's what this is.
00:04:40
It is what we're supposed to be doing. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But we were talking about the Murdoch murders and that update and basically saying to each
00:04:47
other, we wish we knew what things meant. Yeah. And what's exciting about that is because we have this podcast network.
00:04:53
We have podcasts on here with people who do know what things mean. Most recently, Brief Recess, hosted by Michael Foote and Melissa Malabranch, and they went over all of this on their show.
00:05:04
Oh. So I was like, oh, I'll just go get the information from them and tell you. So the source of this is Michael Foote, Melissa Malabranch, and the Brief Recess podcast, which if you haven't listened to it.
00:05:15
It's so fucking good. Michael is currently an immigration attorney fighting for people being kidnapped by ICE in New York City.
00:05:24
You can follow him on TikTok. He talks about all the different things he goes through.
00:05:27
And he's delightful and like so entertaining. So funny. Lawyers, you're like, oh, lawyers, whatever.
00:05:33
But no, he's like joyous. He's an amazing man. And then he also started explaining things about this case where when I heard him talk about it,
00:05:41
It's that thing of like, oh, it's so much better when somebody who knows what they're talking about is breaking the news because they do things like, you know, he immediately said this does not mean that Alec Murdoch walks free.
00:05:54
OK so what does it mean So the South Carolina Supreme Court vacated his double murder conviction He currently serving a sentence of 40 years in prison for embezzling money many counts of embezzling money
00:06:07
But their appeals were made by Murdoch's lawyer, and it found that a county clerk improperly influenced jurors.
00:06:17
And so they basically said he didn't get a fair trial for those murders. The jury interference centered on comments that this county clerk made to the jurors telling them to watch Alec Murdoch's body language in court.
00:06:32
So kind of like— The county clerk shouldn't be saying anything to the jurors, right?
00:06:34
I don't think so. Okay. I mean, clearly not if what they do can vacate a guilty verdict.
00:06:42
That's insane. Of course, when they were discussing it, Michael and Melissa talked about how baffling that behavior was and that, of course, now other legitimate convictions can be overturned because of it or because of a county clerk that's interfering.
00:06:57
So apparently there will be a retrial. The stakes will be higher. Prosecution could recommend the death penalty this time around.
00:07:05
And Alec Murdoch is suing the county clerk in federal court for this influence. Personally suing her.
00:07:11
Yeah. I wonder what is her story. Yeah. Is this an overactive true crime fan that's like, hey, this is what needs to be happening here?
00:07:20
Or is it a person that's just like, hey, I've watched this person in this courtroom for my whole career.
00:07:26
Here's the thing he does when he's lying. Or it's just a nosy neighbor who's like, likes to chit chat.
00:07:32
It kind of doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It does not matter. But I'm so curious now.
00:07:35
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like, how could you have risked something this important?
00:07:39
I want to see Martha Kelly play her. Like, that's who I'm picturing. The county clerk?
00:07:44
A Martha Kelly character. That's so funny. All right. Well, should we get into it?
00:07:49
The highlights? Yeah. We have a highlight. We don't have a highlight network. This isn't Highlights Magazine.
00:07:54
We have a podcast network called Exactly Right Media. We should do a podcast about Highlights Magazine, though.
00:08:00
That would be so cute. I could read that thing forever. 90s Magazine's podcast. Hell yeah.
00:08:05
I think it started in the 50s or 60s, didn't it? Okay. Goofus and Gallant is not a 90s creation.
00:08:11
There's no way. This is exactly right media. That's correct. We have podcasts on our network.
00:08:17
Like the one I was just talking about. Exactly. Here are some more highlights. Yeah.
00:08:21
This week, it's the 300th episode of I Said No Gifts. Yes. On this episode, Bridger does everything he can to avoid fighting with Ellie Kemper.
00:08:29
You know her from Kimmy Schmidt, The Office. She does arrive with a gift, so a battle ensues.
00:08:36
and then they talk about everything from sunburns to the latest on a star's suspicious death.
00:08:41
I missed her in the office. I was so bummed. I was like there that day, but we didn't cross
00:08:45
paths. So were you on the office? In the office, our office. I was like, how do I not tell this? I missed her in our, I get that. Yep. I hear what you're
00:09:02
I was in our exactly right media offices, not on the TV show The Office. Oh, my God.
00:09:09
Over on Dear Movies I Love You, Millie and Casey kick off their month-long celebration of Video Nasties,
00:09:15
a famous collection of VHS tapes that were banned from the UK in the 1980s. So cool.
00:09:21
And they're calling it June-nasty? Yeah. As in June and nasty? That's right. First up is the 1963 horror classic Blood Feast.
00:09:31
You've got to love a band. movie. Yes. It's so good. Also, Millie is such a, what do you call it? Connoisseur? Yeah, but she's,
00:09:39
it's more than that. She's an archivist. She's an expert in movies. So she talks about it from
00:09:44
every perspective, which is like the fan perspective, the production perspective,
00:09:48
the time, the place, the history. It's so great. Also this week over on Hollywoodland,
00:09:53
Jake covers Lucille Ball's Red Scare scandal from the news report that exposed her former
00:09:59
ties to a communist party, to the government surveillance that continued on her long after
00:10:04
America had moved on from McCarthyism. I love when Desi said, the only thing read about her is her hair, and even that's fake.
00:10:11
What a time, McCarthyism. Feels familiar. And lastly, a reminder from our merch department.
00:10:18
Yes, that is in all caps. If you don't have anything nice to say, you can always wear it with our Fuck Politeness
00:10:23
merch. That's right. Grab the Fuck Politeness script unisex T-shirt, koozie or whistle now at exactlyrightstore.com.
00:10:32
The end. The end. Every story has a point where it's balanced on a knife's edge.
00:10:39
That's where we begin. For some, it's a confrontation no parent ever expects. They finally admit we're here to take your children.
00:10:47
The department has taken custody and we're here to take your kids. It was just shock and horror and desperation.
00:10:53
For others, it's surviving the unthinkable. As they're having this gun battle, thousands of feet up in the air,
00:11:01
many of the bullets start to puncture the aircraft. I thought we were going to die then.
00:11:06
The Knife is a podcast about real people whose lives were upended in an instant.
00:11:11
We talk to the people who lived it, unpacking what happened, how they got through it, and what came next.
00:11:18
And on our off-record episodes, we go even deeper into the reporting and answer the questions you can't stop thinking about.
00:11:25
New episodes drop every Thursday on the Exactly Right Network and the iHeart Podcast Network.
00:11:29
Listen to The Knife on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:11:34
Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was.
00:11:39
Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring
00:11:46
on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then we felt the plane turn in the air so much so that the bags that were under people seats just kind of flew into the aisle Each week we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy how it shapes our identities and relationships
00:12:06
and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know,
00:12:12
but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything.
00:12:17
And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
00:12:22
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him.
00:12:27
Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:12:34
I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.
00:12:44
Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything.
00:12:55
I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:13:06
All right. It's solo week, and I'm going. You're going to go. First and only. First and only and alone.
00:13:13
Good luck. You're leaving? Good luck, players. Goodbye. Yep. And then I just put a weird balloon with my head on it here, like with my face on it.
00:13:22
The black sweater. Okay. This one's heavy. So it's Pride Month. Yes. And today I'm going to cover a story about a horrific hate crime that would become one
00:13:32
of the most notorious in American history. And I do think it's surprising to some people that you and I have only discussed this in
00:13:39
a mini-sode. It's only been told in a mini-sode. And I think part of the reason we haven't covered it is because, despite it being a
00:13:45
hugely important story is because you and I were of age and young women when it happened in the
00:13:53
90s. And it was so horrific that even more than 25 years later, it almost feels too awful to talk
00:14:00
about. And it's such a shameful part of our U.S. history that you and I just haven't been able to
00:14:05
go there. There are definitely cases that we have talked about where the actual violence of the case
00:14:11
is so extreme and just repetitive and whatever that we're just like, we don't know how to handle
00:14:17
this correctly. Right. And especially after years of like hearing back when we don't handle things
00:14:22
correctly, I think more and more we got more and more careful with and we couldn't not handle
00:14:27
something correctly. Right. And so I've been really nervous about doing this. Thank you to
00:14:32
Ali Elkin, my researcher, because this also meant a lock to her as well. So I think we'll handle it.
00:14:37
It's important to do it. It's important to talk about it. Right. So the story is tragic, but it's also an event that completely changed the conversation around gay people in America, particularly young gay people.
00:14:49
It led to hate crime legislation being passed and it led to communities around the country realizing they must become safe places for their LGBTQ young people to live their lives truthfully and without fear.
00:15:01
But even though it's been close to 30 years, this is still an issue, obviously, that LGBTQIA plus people face daily.
00:15:07
So it's important for us to cover the story, I think. And this is the story of Matthew Shepard.
00:15:12
Yeah. The main sources for the story is a 1999 article from Vanity Fair by Melanie Thernstrom, as well as MatthewShepard.org and a BBC article called Matthew Shepard, The Murder That Changed America by Jude Sheeran.
00:15:25
And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So it's the evening of October 7th, 1998, and we are just outside of Laramie, Wyoming.
00:15:34
We're just east of the city. Laramie is home to the University of Wyoming. And like most college towns, it's considered to be pretty liberal for what is not a liberal state.
00:15:45
A mountain biker and University of Washington freshman named Aaron has just fallen off his bike,
00:15:50
just riding on some paths when he notices, leaning up against a wooden fence, what he thinks at first is a scarecrow.
00:15:58
Aaron then realizes to his horror that he is looking at a person who has been beaten nearly to death.
00:16:04
He runs to a nearby residence to use the phone to call police. The victim is male, about five foot two and really slight.
00:16:11
So at first, responding officers think that it's a young teenager. He is unrecognizable and his face is covered in blood, except for the places where the tears have made tracks down his face, which is just a heart wrenching detail.
00:16:25
But he is alive. The boys rushed to the nearest hospital where, coincidentally, two other young men from town are being treated from injuries that they sustained in a street fight the night before.
00:16:36
And so police are aware of that. And these men had been driving a truck in which police had found blood, a gun and a wallet with an ID belonging to a 21-year-old named Matthew Shepard.
00:16:48
And so it doesn't take long for the police to realize that this is the identity of the young man who is now in the same hospital, very tenuously holding on to life.
00:16:57
And that the boys who were taken in the night before are part of this. So let me tell you a little bit about Matthew Shepard.
00:17:02
He's born on December 1st, 1976, to Judy and Dennis Shepard in Casper, Wyoming. He is a friendly child, though he is bullied by his peers sometimes for being small and relatively unathletic.
00:17:15
And also because as he gets older, he doesn't go to great lengths to hide the fact that he's gay.
00:17:20
From an early age, he's fascinated by politics. His mom's hairdresser recounts a story about Matthew when he's seven or eight years old ahead of a local election saying, quote,
00:17:29
he came into our shop and told us all how to vote. And he knew he knew the issues.
00:17:34
We all thought he was going to grow up to be the president, end quote. When Matthew is a teenager, his father, who works for the oil industry, takes a job in Saudi Arabia.
00:17:42
Matthew goes to the American school in Switzerland. In high school, he's elected by his peers to be a peer counselor.
00:17:51
And by all accounts he easy to talk to and makes friends easily When Matthew is a senior on a school trip in Morocco he is violently sexually assaulted by a group of locals His mother Judy says that she felt that his trauma made him more prone to further trauma and people could sense his vulnerability
00:18:10
After Matthew graduates high school, he officially comes out to his family who are supportive, especially his mother, who he's very close to.
00:18:17
When he's 21, he enrolls at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, majoring in political science with a minor in languages.
00:18:25
And it seems like he starts to thrive in the college setting. And he's actually chosen as the student representative for the Wyoming Environmental Council.
00:18:34
And it's his dream to work as a diplomat for the Department of State. And so let's look at a picture of him.
00:18:39
I mean, you and I know it's so well, it's just seared into our memories. But here's a picture of him, his braces and just like such a sweet looking kid.
00:18:49
So back to the night of October 6th, the night of the attack, Matthew had gone to a meeting of the college's LGBT association where he helps plan events for the upcoming Gay Awareness Week, which is set to begin the following Monday.
00:19:02
And after the meeting, Matthew says he plans to go to a bar called The Fireside, but no one else seems up for it.
00:19:09
So he goes alone and arrives around 10 p.m., has a few drinks at the bar, and it seems like he's also hanging out with two regulars named Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson.
00:19:18
Both are around Matthew's age, but they are not students at the university. They're actually locals known to be currently having issues with meth addiction and are possibly dealing meth.
00:19:29
And they're known to frequently get in fights and get in trouble. So they're more local, you know, troublemakers.
00:19:34
The detail that gets debated is whether or not Matthew had also been a user of meth or possibly involved in the meth trade and whether he knew Aaron and Russell prior to this evening.
00:19:43
And it's this whole controversial conversation around it. But I don't think it's important to the story.
00:19:50
And also we don't need him to be a perfect victim. No. Or have this in any way means he deserved something like this to happen to him.
00:19:58
So I don't even want to talk about that. Well, also, I do think there is, and this is you see it online all the time, but there's this kind of need that some people have to be like, I don't have to empathize with this because and then they find their reason.
00:20:14
reason. It's a very sad kind of human denial of like, I can't handle this or I can't
00:20:19
be made to think more than one way about this topic. Right. Right. 100%. But the story that most people, including the police and Matthew's
00:20:27
family, believes that Matthew did not have any significant prior interactions with Aaron and
00:20:32
Russell and whether or not he had a drug problem, which is unclear, is pretty immaterial to the rest
00:20:38
of the story. So witnesses at the bar see the three men leave together around midnight. And at
00:20:43
1.30 in the morning, according to Aaron's girlfriend, Aaron returns home covered in blood,
00:20:49
saying he has done something horrible that he may have killed someone. Aaron says that he and
00:20:55
Russell had made plans to pose as being gay so that they could rob Matthew. And that was the
00:21:01
whole point. And they drove him to a remote area. But even though Matthew gave them his wallet,
00:21:07
which, by the way, only had $20 in it. It's just so fucking senseless. They tied him to the fence,
00:21:12
beat him brutally and repeatedly with the handgun and took his shoes so he would not be able to walk
00:21:18
and get help. And so then Aaron and Russell head towards Matthew's home with, it seems like,
00:21:24
plans to rob it because they had Matthew's key and had taken it from him. But they get sidetracked
00:21:30
in that street fight on the way. Oh, the street fight was real. Street fight's real. On the way, they get in a street fight, which seems like they were the...
00:21:38
Yeah, I think it's probably pretty safe to say that Matthew Shepard was not like friends or associates with these people.
00:21:46
You're right. It's just people wanting to not have to care as much about other people.
00:21:51
So Russell is caught and taken to the hospital. Aaron escapes and runs off and goes home, tells his girlfriend what happened.
00:21:58
But then he goes to the hospital where the police catch up with him and they find that evidence in his truck.
00:22:03
So in his official confession to the police, Aaron says the motive was robbery and that they had tried to kill Matthew because they believed he could identify them.
00:22:11
But his girlfriend says that the fact that Matthew was gay was a key reason they wanted to hurt him.
00:22:16
And this is like something that's just debated since then and to this day. And he doesn't admit it on the official record at the time.
00:22:24
But later in 2009, Aaron tells a journalist, quote, the night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals, end quote.
00:22:31
So it's from the actual perpetrator who says that. So what's the debate? Sorry. Are people saying the debate is it just was that they were trying to rob him and it was not associated with that?
00:22:42
Yeah. That then they would have just robbed him. Right. Right. Right. It's so frustrating when you hear all of that and you know where it's just like, sure, if you want to entertain every possibility in the world so that there is no actual accountability.
00:22:57
Totally. Then you can introduce ideas like that all day long. Yeah. You know you're bullshitting.
00:23:02
If you're the one introducing these reasons why you shouldn't have to feel bad for someone who was murdered, then you need to look at your own self.
00:23:09
It's like, it's about you. It's fully about you. It's not. Look, there's a thing called projection and you need to look it up at the library.
00:23:19
Every story has a point where it's balanced on a knife's edge. That's where we begin.
00:23:24
For some, it's a confrontation no parent ever expects. They finally admit, we're here to take your children.
00:23:31
The department has taken custody and we're here to take your kids. It was just shock and horror and desperation.
00:23:37
For others, it's surviving the unthinkable. As they're having this gun battle, thousands of feet up in the air,
00:23:45
many of the bullets start to puncture the aircraft. I thought we were going to die then.
00:23:50
The Knife is a podcast about real people whose lives were upended in an instant.
00:23:55
We talked to the people who lived it, unpacking what happened, how they got through it and what came next. And on our off-record episodes, we go even deeper into
00:24:05
the reporting and answer the questions you can't stop thinking about. New episodes drop every
00:24:10
Thursday on the Exactly Right Network and the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen to The Knife on
00:24:14
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you
00:24:20
think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.
00:24:25
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
00:24:34
Just then, we felt the plane turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle.
00:24:43
Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves.
00:24:54
my daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me
00:24:59
alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine.
00:25:04
He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped
00:25:08
in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family
00:25:12
Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:25:17
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers
00:25:27
behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating
00:25:33
and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face
00:25:40
and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says, she's gone, she's gone.
00:25:46
These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever.
00:25:54
Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do.
00:26:00
You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that really happened.
00:26:05
Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network.
00:26:12
Listen to Wicked Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:26:20
So in the background of all of this, let's talk about this. There is already a lot of big conversations going on in the country about the visibility of gay people.
00:26:31
I think in the 90s is kind of when it started to be accepted in mainstream culture a little bit more.
00:26:38
There was like a tipping point when gay people and gay stories are being fully integrated into mainstream culture and into the media.
00:26:46
In 1994, Wilson Cruz is the first openly gay actor playing an openly gay character in my so-called life.
00:26:52
So that's 1994. Yeah. Of course, Ellen DeGeneres in 1997 comes out both as her character on the huge sitcom Ellen and in real life on the cover of Time magazine.
00:27:04
So if you're not old enough to remember it, that's a good indication of what the culture was like.
00:27:07
it was such a big deal that someone was coming out both in their show and in person that it was in
00:27:12
the cover of a magazine front page news yeah and there were plenty of people who were outraged and
00:27:18
advertisers who pulled out from that episode of ellen because it was yeah it's so different now
00:27:25
i know and it's beautiful how different it is now but to think about that time is so bizarre
00:27:31
whereas like yeah when you started talking about like there was representation a little bit here
00:27:35
and there. It's like, right, you get like one funny over the top gay guy who had to be mocked
00:27:42
the whole time. Like the representation was so skewed and weird and bigoted in a weird way.
00:27:49
Although Wilson Cruz really, that was a watershed moment. Yeah. So I was a teenager at the time.
00:27:55
And like we used the, we called people gay as a insult. That was like, I feel like people don't,
00:28:01
The F word was used all the time, just casually. And I'm from a really conservative town.
00:28:08
And the only out gay people were the goths. So it was already them being totally ostracized.
00:28:15
It was the only way you could come out. And I had some cousins and friends who were, but it was not mainstream at all.
00:28:24
No. It was, no. Everybody had to go find their niche to go be in and be out of the mainstream.
00:28:31
Right. Because you weren't going to be a quarterback and you weren't going to be the head cheerleader.
00:28:34
So go find the other people who are outcasts. I'm talking about the theater department.
00:28:42
So slurs were regularly and casually used in society and in the media. The AIDS crisis stigmatized gay people as it was thought of as a gay, quote, gay disease.
00:28:50
The quote gay panic defense was a real fucking legal strategy that was frequently used and it would allow the perpetrators to claim temporary insanity or extreme fright
00:29:03
upon discovering a person's sexual orientation, which often resulted in lenient sentences or acquittals for assaulting or murdering LGBTQIA plus individuals.
00:29:12
So if you say, yes, I violently murdered someone because they put their hand on my leg
00:29:18
and I realized they were gay and hitting on me and I went crazy, that was a legitimate defense that worked.
00:29:24
Yeah. And now we know that actually that's just admission that you probably harbor a lot of
00:29:29
feelings that you're conflicted and worried about. So that's actually what was going on there. I mean,
00:29:34
like there has been progress culturally in terms of just people's understanding. But I think it's
00:29:41
because more and more people have the ability, like there's so many more people that are able
00:29:45
to have a voice these days. Yeah. And represent. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously we're not saying everything
00:29:49
is great right now and that doesn't need so much more work. But from where we're coming from in the 90s in this era, like it was just fucking disgusting.
00:29:58
Also, hear our point, because women are constantly explaining why, but we're not covering this
00:30:04
and we're not, but we do mean this and it's just like, you know what we mean. Yeah.
00:30:09
Well, not the people who don't want to. Right. The people that we talk to, to go to the library and look up those people don't want to know.
00:30:15
No, no. They're not here for this, though. Those people are always, they're just online.
00:30:19
This isn't your show. There's so many true crime shows. This isn't yours. Go find another one.
00:30:24
Have you been in the comments recently? Is this what's happening? Me? No, but it has stuck with me.
00:30:30
Yes. Yeah. So that's what's going on in the background with the news of Matthew Shepard's horrific injuries comes out.
00:30:37
Matthew was transferred to a more resourced hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. His parents have to fly back from Saudi Arabia.
00:30:44
I mean, imagine them on that flight home, how fucking terrified they were. The sheriff, O'Malley, he says that Matthew was, quote, struck in the head and face between 19 and 21 times with the butt of a very large Smith & Wesson revolver.
00:30:59
The only time I've ever seen those dramatic of injuries were in high speed traffic crashes, you know, where there was just extremely violent compression fractures to the skull, end quote.
00:31:11
And in fact, his parents only recognized him when they come into the hospital room at first because they saw his braces.
00:31:17
Like he just was unrecognizable. Ultimately, Matthew Shepard had been tied to a split rail fence, beaten with the butt of a gun, and left to die in the cold of the night until he was found almost 18 hours later.
00:31:31
And only because that kid fell off of his bike. While his parents are at Matthew's bedside, the story gets bigger and bigger.
00:31:38
It's on the cover of Time. President Bill Clinton calls them. Elton John, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, they are all getting involved.
00:31:45
And the hospital is so overwhelmed by calls to check on his condition that it begins posting updates on its nascent website in 1998, which wasn't really a thing back then.
00:31:56
So the shepherds in the nation are devastated when Matthew succumbs to his injuries on October 12, 1998.
00:32:03
And just so everyone knows how hateful it all was. At his funeral service in the family's hometown of Casper, Wyoming, a week later, it is picketed by anti-gay preacher Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.
00:32:17
Yeah. Along with his followers, including children, they held placards with homophobic slurs and shouted to the mourners that the dead student was burning in hell.
00:32:27
And in fact, this is so horrific, Dennis Shepard, Matthew's father, was made to wear a bulletproof vest to his son's funeral.
00:32:34
And the church had been checked by bomb-sniffing dogs, and there were SWAT teams at the front and back of the building and police snipers on rooftops.
00:32:43
For the funeral of a victim of this horrible attack. The story immediately sparks national outrage.
00:32:50
Writer Andrew Sullivan says, quote, I think a lot of gay people, when they first heard of that horrifying event, felt sort of punched in the stomach.
00:32:57
I mean, it kind of encapsulated all our fears of being victimized, end quote. So Aaron and Russell are both charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery, and their girlfriends are charged as accessories since both try to dispose of the clothes Russell had been wearing.
00:33:14
Russell pleads guilty, and Aaron goes to trial and is found guilty, and each are given two life sentences.
00:33:20
And the story there is a lot bigger. I definitely think people should go look it up.
00:33:24
So in the wake of Matthew's death, his parents formed the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which has online and offline resources for creating safe schools and communities.
00:33:33
They also lobby for years for federal hate crime legislation to be expanded to include crimes based on sexuality and gender identity.
00:33:42
This is a long story, and there's a documentary called The Matthew Shepard Story and American Hate Crime.
00:33:47
But essentially the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act finally passes and is signed by President Barack Obama in October of 2009 11 years after Matthew death
00:34:01
And just to note, James Beard is a black man who was murdered by white supremacists
00:34:05
in Texas in 1998. Yeah. Matthew's parents hold onto his ashes for 20 years because they're so afraid that if
00:34:14
they enter him in a public place, his grave will be vandalized. They don't want to see that happen, obviously.
00:34:20
And then in 2018, the right Reverend Marianne Buddy invites the Shepard family to inter Matthew in the National Cathedral.
00:34:30
So on October 26, 2018, Matthew is laid to rest in the National Cathedral's tomb alongside the likes of former President Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller.
00:34:40
Holy shit. Yeah. I didn't know that. And not even Harvey Milk, you know, another prominent gay man who was murdered was buried there.
00:34:47
Well, that was so long before where it was like... Totally. Yeah, 2018 it took to allow it.
00:34:56
During the ceremony, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop, the Right Reverend Gene Robinson, says, quote,
00:35:03
Gently rest in this place. You are safe now. Matthew, welcome home. So a collection of personal effects were donated by his family in 2018 for display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
00:35:17
in the U.S. Capitol, which I didn't know about. His schoolwork, some of his theater scripts,
00:35:23
and items from his everyday life as a reminder that he was a normal American boy
00:35:28
were donated by his family as well as condolence cards and correspondence that the Shepards received following his death, which must be so powerful.
00:35:37
Judy Shepard, his mother, who frequently speaks out against Trump administration policies
00:35:41
that have ruled back or undermined the protections she's fought for in the wake of her son's death,
00:35:46
said about the Smithsonian donation, quote, For 20 years, we have tried to share the meaning of our son's life
00:35:52
as well as his dreams for a kinder, more accepting and loving world. It is deeply comforting to know the Smithsonian will preserve his story
00:36:00
and meaning for future generations. We cannot think of a better way to honor Matt's life and legacy.
00:36:06
It ends with this quote, The life and death of Matthew Shepard changed the way we talk about
00:36:11
and deal with hate in America. Since his death, Matt's legacy has challenged and inspired millions of individuals to erase hate in all its forms.
00:36:20
Although Matt's life was short, his story continues to have great impact on young and old alike.
00:36:25
His legacy lives on in thousands of people who actively fight to replace hate with understanding, compassion, and acceptance.
00:36:33
And that is the story of the life, death, and legacy of Matthew Shepard. Wow. The worst possible story.
00:36:41
I know. But with real life impact. Yeah. I mean, when you first were talking about it and then you said something about his mother, I immediately was like Judy Shepard.
00:36:50
His parents have been working for so long to make change and to make sure that this isn't something that is, I don't know.
00:36:59
There's something about it that like, as you tell it in retrospect, it feels like there was a conscious decision culturally.
00:37:08
Yeah. By a majority of people. Of course, never everyone. And certainly there's always going to be people with serious issues and serious problems of their own that are going to stand in the way of this.
00:37:19
But it was almost like people going, how can we be letting things like this happen and be OK with it?
00:37:25
It was shameful as a country that we allowed this to happen. It was 1998. We think we're so, you know, past all of that.
00:37:33
Yeah, we're so evolved. And then this horrific thing happens and everyone is like, this cannot be swept under the rug.
00:37:43
We have to be held accountable, not just the murderers, but us as a society who allows this to happen and thinks this is kind of normal.
00:37:52
And then things get turned into like, oh, it's PC. It's woke. Right. You're being this.
00:37:57
You're being that. It's like, no, no, no. These are the moments where the reality punctures through of how people are really being treated that are not white men with money.
00:38:08
And so any story of things happening to black people and suddenly it's like, don't be political, don't be woke, don't be this.
00:38:15
And it's like, no, no, no. These are things you need to know about the facts of people's real lives.
00:38:20
And then there's so many people who are like, no, that actually things like this happen to us all the time.
00:38:24
Constantly and you ignore it and don't listen in these rationales. And then it's like something puncturing through that way because it's like it's Wyoming.
00:38:32
It's out in the middle of nowhere. And it's just like there's so many people at risk because they live in the wrong place.
00:38:39
They're surrounded by the wrong people as opposed to that they're wrong. Right. And it does seem like Laramie, Wyoming has tried very hard to.
00:38:48
Can you imagine Your name has become synonymous with like gay murder Yeah Yeah It seems like they tried to change their ways and show that they not like that
00:38:57
And hopefully we get some emails from hometowns of people from there. There were a lot of emails of people being like, I'm from here and I just want you to know that it's not like that anymore and we've changed and we accept it.
00:39:08
People have tried to memorialize it and really learn from it. And I don't know, it's so tough. It's just so big.
00:39:16
Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. I think that discussion is just like you can't put a silver lining on a thing that continues to just be this fight.
00:39:24
Right. This is just one marginalized group. This is just one of the many in this country that this happens to constantly.
00:39:33
Yeah, totally. I do think it is this funny thing of like us older people. Like when I see a gay couple or have, you know, my friends who are gay, I'm just so happy for them because we think about how difficult.
00:39:46
used to be how it used to be and how oh dude when i watch trixie and katya videos and i'm laughing
00:39:52
my ass off and they're like doing live shows with gigantic audiences and stuff and i'm like this is
00:39:57
the dream yeah of me and my high school friends yeah in the in the theater department all the
00:40:03
nerds and weirdos where it was like but but all these nerds and weirdos are the funniest and most
00:40:09
talented and the best ones and like we're the ones that should have a say yeah and it's like
00:40:13
And hopefully we're clawing toward a world. The worse things get, the more people know and understand how much they have to fight and fight for each other in whatever way you are marginalized or you are separate or different.
00:40:29
It's just like then that's how you have to bring the fight for everybody else. Well, should we end it by doing a donation to the Matthew Shepard Foundation?
00:40:37
Yes, we should. Okay, it's MatthewShepard.org and we're going to donate $10,000.
00:40:42
And you go donate whatever you can. If you don't have money, you can volunteer. You can get involved.
00:40:47
Yep. Well, great job. And you're right. It's an important story to tell. Yeah. And a good way to kick off Pride Month.
00:40:53
Right. Totally. I wore my Pride dress on purpose. Hey, I didn't notice those little rainbows.
00:40:59
I can't believe it still fit me. I know. That is the most 80s dress of all time.
00:41:04
I know, isn't it? So good. And look at my tiny little heart necklace. Aw, you have so many things.
00:41:10
I have so many things. Well, thank you guys for listening. Email us your memories about this time if you need to get it off your chest or how it's affected you.
00:41:18
I mean, I'm sure we have listeners that it's affected them personally as well. Yes.
00:41:21
So email us at Gmail. For sure. At Gmail. At my favorite murderer at Gmail. Just call Gmail and tell them you need to send us a message.
00:41:28
That's right. Yes. Write in anything you think you'd like us to know. Yeah. And stay sexy.
00:41:34
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
00:41:47
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
00:41:53
This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Allie Elkin.
00:41:58
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.
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