DR. CANTWAY: I was working the emergency room the night Matthew Shepard was brought in. I don’t think that any of us, ah, can remember seeing a patient in that condition for a long time—those of us who’ve worked in big city hospitals have seen this. Ah, but we have some people here who’ve not worked in a big city hospital. And, ah, it’s not something you expect here.

Ah, you expect it, you expect this kind of injuries to come from a car going down a hill at eighty miles an hour. You expect to see gross injuries from something like that—this horrendous, terrible thing. Ah, but you don’t expect to see that from someone doing this to another person.

The ambulance report said it was a beating, so we knew.

AARON KREIFELS: There was nothing I could do. I mean, if there was anything that I could of done to help him I would’ve done it but there was nothing.

And I, I was yelling at the top of my lungs at him, trying to get something outta him.

Like: “Hey, wake up,” “HELLO!”

But he didn’t move, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t anything …

REGGIE FLUTY: He was tied to the fence—his hands were thumbs out in what we call a cuffing position—the way we handcuff people. He was bound with a real thin white rope, it went around the bottom of the pole, about four inches up off the ground.

His shoes were missing.

He was tied extremely tight—so I used my boot knife and tried to slip it between the rope and his wrist—I had to be extremely careful not to harm Matthew any further.

DR. CANTWAY: Your first thought is … well, certainly you’d like to think that it’s somebody from out of town, that comes through and beats somebody. I mean, things like this happen, you know, shit happens, and it happens in Laramie. But if there’s been somebody who has been beaten repeatedly, ah, certainly this is something that offends us. I think that’s a good word. It offends us!

REGGIE FLUTY: He was bound so tight—I finally got the knife through there—I’m sorry—we rolled him over to his left side—when we did that he quit breathing. Immediately, I put him back on his back—and that was just enough of an adjustment—it gave me enough room to cut him free there—

I seen the EMS unit trying to get to the location, once the ambulance got there we put a neck collar on him, placed him on a back board, and scooted him from underneath the fence—then Rob drove the ambulance to Ivinson Hospital’s emergency room …