DR. CANTWAY: Now, the strange thing is, twenty minutes before Matthew came in, Aaron McKinney was brought in by his girlfriend. Now I guess he had gotten into a fight later on that night back in town, so I am workin’ on Aaron and the ambulance comes in with Matthew. Now at this point I don’t know that there’s a connection—at all. So I tell Aaron to wait and I go and treat Matthew. So there’s Aaron in one room of the ER and Matthew in another room two doors down.

Now as soon as we saw Matthew … It was very obvious that his care was beyond our capabilities. Called the neurosurgeon at Poudre Valley, and he was on the road in an hour and fifteen minutes, I think.

REGGIE FLUTY: They showed me a picture … days later I saw a picture of Matthew … I would have never recognized him.

DR. CANTWAY: Then two days later I found out the connection and I was … very … struck!!! They were two kids!!!!! They were both my patients and they were two kids. I took care of both of them.… Of both their bodies. And … for a brief moment I wondered if this is how God feels when he looks down at us. How we are all his kids.… Our bodies.… Our souls.… And I felt a great deal of compassion.… For both of them.…

END OF ACT ONE

ACT II

MOMENT: A LARAMIE MAN

NARRATOR: This is Jon Peacock, Matthew’s academic adviser.

JON PEACOCK: Well, the news reports started trickling out on Thursday, but no names were mentioned, the brutality of the crime was not mentioned. All that was mentioned was that there was a man, Laramie man, found beaten, out on the prairie basically. Later on in the evening they mentioned his name. It was like, That can’t, that’s not the Matthew Shepard I know, that’s not my student, that’s not this person who I’ve been meeting with.

ROMAINE PATTERSON: I was in the coffee shop.

NARRATOR: Romaine Patterson:

ROMAINE PATTERSON: And someone pulled me aside and said: “I don’t know much, but they say that there’s been a young man who’s been beaten in Laramie. And they said his name was Matthew Shepard.” And he said, “Do you think this could be our Matthew?”

And I said, “Well, yeah, it sounds like it could be our Matthew.”

So I called up my sister Trish and I said, “Tell me what you know.” I’m just like, “I need to know anything you know because I don’t know anything.”

TRISH STEGER: So I’m talking to my sister on the phone and that’s when the whole story came up on Channel 5 news and it was just like baboom.

JON PEACOCK: And the news reports kept rolling in, young University of Wyoming student, his age, his description, it’s like, “Oh my God.”