There were probably about a hundred people from town and probably as many news media. By that point, a lot more of the details had come out. The fact that the perpetrators were kids themselves, local kids, that everyone who’s from around here has some relationship to. And what—Everyone was really I think waiting on pins and needles for what would happen when the perpetrators walked in. And what happened—there’s two hundred people in the room at this point … they walked in in their complete orange jumpsuits and their shackles, and, you could have heard a pin drop.

It was incredibly solemn.

I mean, lots of people were teary at that point. Then the judge came in and did a reading—there was a reading of the evidence that the prosecution has and—it’s just a—it’s a statement of facts, and the reading of the facts was …

JUDGE: The essential facts are that the defendants, Aaron James McKinney and Russell Arthur Henderson, met Matthew Shepard at the Fireside Bar, and after Mr. Shepard confided he was gay, the subjects deceived Mr. Shepard into leaving with them in their vehicle to a remote area. Upon arrival at said area, both subjects tied their victim to a buck fence, robbed him, tortured him, and beat him.… Both defendants were later contacted by officers of the Laramie Police Department, who observed inside the cab of their pickup a credit card and a pair of black patent leather shoes belonging to the victim, Matthew Shepard.

(The JUDGE goes sotto voce here while CATHERINE CONNOLLY speaks.)

The subjects took the victim’s credit card, wallet containing twenty dollars in cash, his shoes, and other items, and obtained the victim’s address in order to later burglarize his home.

CATHERINE CONNOLLY: I don’t think there was any person who was left in that courtroom who wasn’t crying at the end of it. I mean it lasted—five minutes, but it kept on getting more and more horrific, ending with:

JUDGE: Said defendants left the victim begging for his life.

MOMENT: LIVE AND LET LIVE

NARRATOR: Sergeant Hing:

SERGEANT HING: How could this happen? I—I think a lot of people just don’t understand, and even I don’t really understand, how someone can do something like that. We have one of the most vocal populations of gay people in the state.… And it’s pretty much: Live and let live.

NARRATOR: Laramie resident Jeffrey Lockwood:

JEFFREY LOCKWOOD: My secret hope was that they were from somewhere else, that then of course you can create that distance: We don’t grow children like that here. Well, it’s pretty clear that we do grow children like that here …

CATHERINE CONNOLLY: So that was the arraignment, and my response—was pretty catatonic—not sleeping, not eating. Don’t—you know, don’t leave me alone right now.