At twelve fifty-three A.M. Matthew Shepard died. His family was at his bedside.

The family did release the following statement,

The family again asked me to express their sincerest gratitude to the entire world for the overwhelming response for their son.

The family was grateful that they did not have to make a decision regarding whether or not to continue life support for their son. Like a good son, he was caring to the end and removed guilt or stress from the family.

He came into the world premature and left the world premature.

Matthew’s mother said:

Go home, give your kids a hug, and don’t let a day go by without telling them that you love them.

MOMENT: MAGNITUDE

RULON STACEY: And—I don’t know how I let that happen—I lost it on national television, but, you now, we had been up for like seventy-two hours straight and gone home and gone to sleep for half an hour and had to get up and come in—and maybe I was just way—I don’t know—but (pause) in a moment of complete brain-deadness, while I was out there reading that statement I thought about my own four daughters—and go home, hug your kids (he begins to cry) and, oh, she doesn’t have her kid anymore.

And there I am and I’m thinking, “This is so lame.”

Um, and then we started to get people sending us e-mails and letters. And most of them were just generally very kind. But I did get this one. This guy wrote me and said, “Do you cry like a baby on TV for all of your patients or just the faggots?” And as I told you before, homosexuality is not a lifestyle with which I agree. Um, but having been thrown into this (pause) I guess I didn’t understand the magnitude with which some people hate. And of all the letters that we got, there were maybe two or three that were like that, most of them were, Thank you for your caring and compassion, and Matthew had caring and compassion from the moment he got here.

MOMENT: H-O-P-E

STEPHEN BELBER: I spoke with Doc today and told him we would soon be coming back out for the upcoming trials of Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, and this is what he had to say.

DOC O’CONNOR: I’ll tell you what, if they put those two boys to death, that would defeat everything Matt would be thinking about on them. Because Matt would not want those two to die. He’d want to leave them with hope. (Spelling) H-O-P-E. Just like the whole world hoped that Matt would survive. The whole thing, you see, the whole thing, ropes around hope, H-O-P-E.

END OF ACT II

ACT III