Parents to share tragedy, triumphs at Tucson event 25 years after Matthew Shepard murder

Judy Shepard remembers that in the days and hours before her son Matthew died on Oct. 12, 1998, the hospital where he was being treated received hundreds of emails.

The internet was in its infancy back then and the email crush crashed the hospital’s servers, Shepard recalled.

Most of the messages were for Judy and her husband, Dennis, from people who wanted the couple to share their story of accepting and supporting their 21-year-old gay son, who lay dying after an attack prompted by his sexuality.

Most of the emails had a similar plea to the couple: As “accepting parents,” please share your story to inspire families with gay children to accept them “because they still have them and you don’t,” Judy Shepard recalled.

Before the year was out, the Shepards and their younger son, Logan, founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to promote human dignity for all through outreach, advocacy and education programs.

“We felt, the three of us, that we could do this for Matt,” Judy Shepard said. “We owed this to Matt and his friends and his peers to try and make a difference.”

The Shepards have traveled the world on behalf of the foundation to speak with law enforcement, educators and young people about their son and what he represented.

“By talking about Matt, we’re actually trying to represent and talk about all of the marginalized communities that don’t have all the equal rights and they face so much injustice and discrimination around the country,” Dennis Shepard said. “So we’re fighting for all the kids.”

The Shepards will bring that discussion to the University of Arizona in Tucson on Oct. 19 for “Matthew Shepard’s Legacy: Then and Now” in the UA’s Gallagher Theater. Tucson mother and son Lizette and Daniel Trujillo, local trans activists, will be part of the free panel discussion that starts at 7 p.m.

The panel discussion is part of the UA School of Theatre, Film & Television‘s presentation of “The Laramie Project,” Tectonic Theater Project‘s verbatim play based on 200 interviews with residents of Laramie, Wyoming, where Matthew Shepard was killed.

The play opens on Oct. 12, the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, and runs through Oct. 22 at the UA Tornabene Theatre, with a preview on Oct. 7.

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As the Shepards mark that somber 25th anniversary, they say their work is far from over. Far-right politicians nationwide have taken aim recently at the trans community, focusing largely on youths.

“I think that the extreme right-wing religious folks and political folks, they have a moment in time that they can achieve that, but it is a moment in time,” Judy Shepard said. “But I also think they understand they have lost the war. ... I think in the long run, people are tired of the hate.”

“The young people, they realize now, after 2020 and 2022, they have power,” Dennis Shepard added. “They don’t give a rat’s who’s holding whose hand. They are more concerned with gun violence, climate change, what they’re going to do when they get out of school for a job. They are going to make the change.”

In addition to the panel discussion, the Shepards plan to be in the UA audience on Oct. 20 for “The Laramie Project” and will participate in a post-show discussion.

Judy Shepard said they have seen the play dozens of times and every time when they get to the scene where Dennis makes his victim impact statement at Aaron McKinney’s sentencing, she loses it.

“I end up right back in that courtroom that day,” she said, her voice breaking into a sob.

McKinney and Russell Henderson were convicted of murder in Matthew Shepard’s killing and are serving two life terms.

That courtroom scene takes Dennis Shepard back to the phone call he received the day their son was found near death in a field and taken to a hospital with severe head trauma. The couple was living in Saudi Arabia, where Dennis Shepard worked, and the trip home took 45 hours.

“We had a lot of time to think about our son and worry if he was going to make it or not because we didn’t know until we got to the hospital and actually saw him,” Dennis Shepard said.

Matthew Shepard died of his injuries four days after his parents arrived at his bedside.