The brutal murders of gay student Matthew Shepard and African-American James Byrd Jr that led to the creation of hate crime laws
October 22 will mark the 10th anniversary of passing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Conceived as a response to the brutal murders of the two men it was named after, it was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama and expanded the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
But the fact remains that it took over 11 years for it to get through the House and the Senate. Eleven years during which the murders of Shepard and Byrd, as well as the indecisiveness of the government to pass legislation that would curb such crimes, continued to appall those around the country.
It came as little surprise as well, considering that both the murders had taken place just a few months apart in 1998, and the sheer brutality of them meant that they weren't going to leave the public conscience any time soon.
Forty seven-year-old Byrd was the first to fall victim, in Jasper County, Texas. On June 7, As he made his way home from his niece's bridal shower, Byrd accepted a ride from Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King.
But instead of taking him home, the trio took him to a remote county road out of town, beat him severely, urinated and defecated on him, chained him by ankles to their pickup truck, and then dragged him for around 3 miles, during much of which he was still alive. Byrd died halfway through the brutal dragging when his right arm and head were severed as his body hit a culvert, and his mutilated remains were dumped in front of an African-American church.
All three responsible were convicted of the murder, with Brewer and King receiving the death penalty, and Berry receiving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Brewer was executed by lethal injection on September 21, 2011, and King on April 24, 2019.
Just a few months later, on the night of October 6, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was approached by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who were also around his age, at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming.
In a striking similarity to Byrd's murder, McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride home, but then drove him to a remote area and proceeded to rob, pistol-whip, and torture him before tying him to a fence and leaving him there to die in almost freezing temperatures.
Shepard was beaten so brutally that his face was completely covered in blood, except in the small areas where they had been partially erased by his tears. He was in a coma when he was discovered by Aaron Kreifels, a cyclist, 18 hours later - miraculously still alive.
He had suffered fractures to the back of his head and in front of his right ear. He had sustained severe brainstem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate his heart rate, body temperature, and other vital functions, and he also had a dozen small lacerations around his head, face, and neck.
His injuries were so severe that doctors could not operate on him, and he was eventually pronounced dead six days after the attack.
It emerged that Shepard had been targeted by McKinney and Henderson because he was gay and on the night of his torture and beating, he had gone to the Fireside Lounge after a meeting of his college LGBT association, where the group was planning awareness activities.
The case caught national attention, centered around the fact that Wyoming did not have any laws that prosecuted hate crime at the time. There were no federal protections for victims who had been targeted because of their sexuality, gender et al either.
The uproar and the gruesome nature of the crime saw that McKinney and Henderson -- who were initially charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, and aggravated robbery, had their charges upgraded to first-degree murder, which meant they were eligible for the death penalty. Their girlfriends, Kristen Price and Chasity Pasley, were charged with being accessories after the fact.
During their trial, Sergeant Rob Debree testified that McKinney had told police in an interview that he and Henderson had identified Shepard as a robbery target and pretended to be gay to lure him out to their truck. He said they attacked the 21-year-old after he put a hand on his knee. Detective Ben Fritzen similarly testified that Price stated McKinney told her the violence against Shepard was triggered by how McKinney "[felt] about gays."
Both suspects were eventually sentenced to two life terms without the possibility of parole, though the family's fight did not end there. They banded together with the family of Byrd to fight for legislation at the federal level, continuing to campaign for more than a decade before the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act finally became law.
And while October 22 marks 10 years since what was supposed to be a watershed moment, hate crimes and hate speech seem to have only gone up since, with groups emboldened by the shroud of anonymity that social media provides.
Oxygen's 'Uncovered: Killed by Hate,' was released on October 20 at 7 pm PT/ET, and explores some of the country's worst cases involving hate crimes, including that of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, as well as the Charlottesville riots, the murder of Blaze Bernstein, and the Portland train attack.