Media Matters: Debunking Stephen Jimenez's Effort To De-Gay Matthew Shepard's Murder
Grr. Revisionist history really pisses me off.
Journalist Stephen Jimenez's The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard makes the bombshell claim that illicit drug use, not homophobia, was the central factor in the gay University of Wyoming student's brutal 1998 murder. Shepard truthers in the right-wing media have pounced on the book to assail hate crime legislation and the larger push for LGBT rights. But Jimenez's argument is tainted by its reliance on wild extrapolation, the use of highly questionable and often inconsistent sources, paranoia that critics of his work are engaged in a "cover-up" of politically sensitive truths, and the cavalier dismissal of any evidence that runs contrary to his central thesis.
BACKGROUND
A year and a half after Shepard's October 1998 murder, Jimenez arrived in Laramie, Wyoming, to research a screenplay on Shepard's life and death. By that point, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson had received life sentences for the killing. There was no federal or Wyoming hate crime law, but media reports and McKinney's use of a "gay panic" defense at trial indicated that anti-gay bias motivated the crime. According to Jimenez, he accepted this version of the story when he arrived in Wyoming in February 2000.
When Jimenez returned to Laramie for a "final research trip" in October 2000, he stumbled upon a letter from an anonymous "Concerned Citizen," addressed to prosecutor Cal Rerucha. The letter expressed disbelief that McKinney had claimed "gay panic" at trial, because "[d]eep down inside, a small part of him really liked some homosexual action." This anonymous letter, Jimenez writes, became the starting point for "a second look at the whole case." "If Aaron McKinney, who reportedly targeted Matthew because he was gay, was not 'straight' himself, what else was going on that October night when he unleashed his rage?" Jimenez asks.
RUMORS, INNUENDO, AND QUESTIONABLE SOURCES
Jimenez's reaction to the "Concerned Citizen" letter is typical of his reporting style. The letter-writer's anonymity and lack of any actual evidence regarding McKinney's sex life doesn't appear to raise any red flags for Jimenez, who assumes that this anonymous tipster has revealed long-concealed truths about the Shepard case.
Anonymous or simply unreliable sources are at the heart of Jimenez's effort to de-gay Shepard's murder. An anonymous "Wyoming law enforcement official" told him that "Shepard's murder had nothing to do with his sexual preferences." Jimenez doesn't elaborate on the extent of this official's involvement with the case, but he assures readers that the official's claim was "an assertion I would come to hear often during interviews." Among the others repeating that assertion was Glenn Duncan, a disbarred attorney who lost his law license after allegations of misusing clients' funds. Duncan agreed to an interview with Jimenez on the condition "that someone in the media finally tells the truth about Shepard's murder."
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http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/02/debunking-stephen-jimenezs-effort-to-de-gay-mat/196229
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