BAPTIST MINISTER’S WIFE: Well, I don’t think he’ll want to talk to you. He has very biblical views about homosexuality—he doesn’t condone that kind of violence. But he doesn’t condone that kind of lifestyle, you know what I mean? And he was just bombarded with press after this happened and the media has been just terrible about this whole thing.

AMANDA GRONICH: Oh, I know, I really understand, it must have just been terrible.

BAPTIST MINISTER’S WIFE: Oh, yes, I think we are all hoping this just goes away.

AMANDA GRONICH: Well, um, do you think maybe I could call back and speak with your husband just briefly?

BAPTIST MINISTER’S WIFE: Well, all right, you can call him back tonight at nine.

AMANDA GRONICH: Oh, thank you so much. I’ll do that.

MOMENT: THE FIRESIDE

STEPHEN BELBER: Today Barbara and I went to the Fireside Bar, which is the last place Matthew was seen in public.

BARBARA PITTS: The Fireside—definitely feels like a college bar, with a couple of pool tables and a stage area for karaoke. Still, the few regulars in the late afternoon were hardly the college crowd.

STEPHEN BELBER: First person we talked to was Matt Mickelson, the owner.

MATT MICKELSON: My great-great-grandfather moved here in eighteen sixty-two, he owned Laramie’s first opera house, it was called Old Blue Front, and in eighteen seventy Louisa Grandma Swain cast the first woman’s ballot in any free election in the world, and that’s why Wyoming is the Equality State, so what I want to do is reestablish my bar business as the Old Blue Front Opera House and Good Time Emporium, you know, I want to have a restaurant, I want to have a gift shop, I want to have a pool hall, and do all this shit, you know … every night’s ladies’ night …

So the Fireside is the first step towards the Old Blue Front Opera House and Good Time Emporium.

BARBARA PITTS: So, what about the night Matthew Shepard was here?

MATT MICKELSON: We had karaoke that night, twenty or thirty people here—Matthew Shepard came in, sitting right—right where you’re sitting, just hanging out.… I mean, if you wanna talk to somebody, you should talk to Matt Galloway, he was the kid that was bartending that night. You’d have to meet him, his character stands for itself.

(Calling) Hey, is Galloway bartending tonight?

MATT GALLOWAY: Okay. I’m gonna make this brief, quick, get it over with, but it will be everything—factual. Just the facts. Here we go. Ten o’clock. I clock in, usual time, Tuesday nights. Ten-thirty—Matthew Shepard shows up—alone—sits down, orders a Heineken.

NARRATOR: Phil Labrie, friend of Matthew Shepard:

PHIL LABRIE: Matt liked to drink Heineken and nothing else. Heineken even though you have to pay nine-fifty for a six-pack. He’d always buy the same beer.

MATT GALLOWAY: So what can I tell you about Matt?