Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

The media have been using the 1998 murder of a homosexual man named Matthew Shepard as a cudgel to bludgeon the public about the horror of “gay hate crimes” so it should come as no surprise that they are completely ignoring a book by an investigative journalist – who is also a homosexual – which provides evidence that Shepard’s death was related to drugs, not his sexual orientation.

Newsbusters is reporting on the dead silence of the media about a new book by author Stephen Jimenez entitled The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard which contains convincing evidence that Matthew Shepard was killed for money by two men who were on a methamphetamine binge at the time of the crime.

According to Jimenez, he originally intended to write the book as a tribute to Shepard, but his investigation led him to uncover evidence showing that the murder was not motivated by hate for homosexuals. A  key piece of evidence came in the form of an anonymous letter found in formerly-sealed court documents.

“Basically the letter was saying that the defense raised by Aaron McKinney’s defense team of ‘gay panic’ was false and the evidence that was cited for that was that Aaron McKinney had been a male hustler, that he was familiar with gay guys in gay bars,” Jimenez told The Dish. “It mentioned at first both Aaron and Russell [Henderson], but as the letter went on it spoke more about Aaron, mentioning that he really did like having sex with gay guys, that he wasn’t unfamiliar with homosexuality and the gay world.”

During an interview with 20/20 in 2004, McKinney and accomplice Russell Henderson, both of whom are serving life sentences in Wyoming for the killing, said robbery was the motive for the crime.

On the night that the crime occurred, they found Shepard sitting at a bar, well-dressed and with a wallet full of money.

“All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him … Seemed like a good idea at the time,” McKinney told 20/20.

He said that when he asked Shepard for a cigarette, he was told that he felt “too drunk to go home” and asked for a ride. Once they got him outside, McKinney said they realized Shepard wanted sex in return for drugs, but decided to rob him instead. They proceeded to pistol-whip Shepard and continued beating him even after he handed over his wallet.

“Sometimes when you have that rage going through you, there’s no stopping it,” McKinney said. “I’ve attacked my best friends coming off of meth binges.”

As Jimenez documents, McKinney’s attorney, Dion Curtis, said as long ago as 2004 that drugs and money were the primary motives for the killing. Even the prosecutor in the case, Cal Rerucha, said the case was too complex to be merely categorized as a hate crime.

Since Shepard’s death, the media have trumpeted it as the most notorious hate-crime in the U.S. and used it to advance the militant agenda of homosexual extremists. But now that a new set of facts is arising, the mainstream media is refusing to report on it.

In fact, after interviewing Jimenez on his show, Newsmax TV‘s Steve Malzberg contacted the morning shows, which normally rush to interview authors on controversial new books, but discovered that none of them booked Jimenez.

Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard was also unable to find anything in print about the new book at the Associated Press, the New York Times, USA Today, or the Washington Post.

Coincidentally, the Washington Post recently featured four articles on an upcoming play about Shepard’s death which will begin running at Ford’s Theater on September 27. None of the articles about the play mentioned Jimenez’s groundbreaking new book.

Only a leading LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) publication, The Advocate, dared to publish an article about the new book. “How do people sold on one version of history react to being told that facts are slippery — that thinking of Shepard’s murder as a hate crime does not mean it was a hate crime? And how does it color our understanding of such a crime if the perpetrator and victim not only knew each other but also had sex together, bought drugs from one another, and partied together?”

Now that the book has gone public, it will be interesting to see which media outlets dare to speak the truth and which ones continue the cover-up.

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