Media featuring Matthew Shepard

Aaron McKinney interviewing with Elizabeth Vargars on 20/20

The video clips and interviews that are shown on television about certain actions taken place throughout the world there will always be different stories that people say about it that ends up questioning the critics into whether a story is true or not. In this past week watching the 20/20 on the murder of Matthew Shepard was similar to what has been said about Matthew and The Laramie Project. When watching the video go back and forth through Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson asking questioning stating the murder of Matthew. As many media says that Aaron and Russell murdered Matthew because of him being gay was not the truth. When 20/20 aired with Elizabeth Vargas she interviewed them individually asking them the same question they've been answering since the day he was found. When it came time to interview Aaron it was a different story than people were expecting. He stated that he was a sociopath and was drained from emotion that he didn’t think anything of it anymore. Elizabeth stated in the 20/20 clip "Money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred gays." As with any drug including meth in which Aaron and Russell were fused with can lead to things that typically don't occur on a regular bases in a day to day life. Before the murder had occurred, Aaron and Russell had been smoking meth and had been up for two weeks with not just three to four hours of sleep but no sleep at all. The side effect of taking the meth was not only getting no sleep but the loss of control over both of them when this took place. Aaron’s childhood was why he got into this stuff in the first place having a father who was never around and a mother who died when he was sixteen years old. He had no one to look up to and started getting into bad stuff. Russell on the other hand grew up with a mother who was an alcoholic and always had alcohol and drugs surrounding him. It’s not their faults that Aaron and Russell have these effects of addiction but they grew up around it, which meant that it was okay to do. During the end of the video Russell Henderson had apologized to all of the people of there and especially the Shepard family for what he did and said that he deserves his time in jail for what he did. 

Many other video clips had been being made from the tragic hate crime of Matthew Shepard including the HBO movie, which was a react of The Laramie Project. From the scenes that were shown from the viewing of the HBO movie itself, there were several things that were changed when comparing the original piece to the HBO movie. For example in the scene from when officer Reggie got the phone call saying she might have had HIV from Matthew was different from what the original play intended it to be. HBO decided that it would be a good idea to add to the fact that Officer Reggie had a life outside of her just being an officer. The movie made her look relatable to a typical independent mother who puts food on the table for her two kids and lived a normal life like everyone else in Laramie Wyoming. Also reading parts of The Book of Matt written by Stephen Jimenez there were many things that added on to the list of why this all occurred in the first place. While The Book of Matt is not all about why Matthew was murdered but the events leading up to the crime. Matthew was a methamphetamine dealer and eventually stealing meth which led up to his murder. He sold to people including Aaron and Russell making exchanges in drugs but when Aaron and Russell found out Matthew was stealing methamphetamine that's when everything went downhill.  Stephen quoted Cal Rerucha on his opinion on Aaron saying "[Aaron] was a different individual... From the time that he was in school... he was violent. Physically violent. Almost a person without a conscience"(Rerucha). Even when Aaron wasn't on drugs he still was a violent kid. Growing up in an environment like Aaron's he was used to violence. After looking into deeper detail about the murder of Matthew it concludes that Matthew was addicted to methamphetamine and had a relationship with Aaron and Russell from the exchanging of drugs with each other. Yes, the murder of Matthew was unnecessary and wrong on so many levels, but in the end Matthew shouldn't have been in the drug business because that eventually led up to this crime happening.