In October 1998, Aaron Kreifels, a young resident of Laramie, Wyoming, discovered the limp body of Matthew Shepard tied to a fence . From afar, Kreifels mistook Shepard's slender figure for a "scarecrow," and was horrified to discover otherwise (Kaufman). Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, was beaten beyond recognition and, while technically still alive, was rushed to emergency care. He died, after falling into a coma, six days later (Kaufman). Shepard was a homosexual man, and his murder was labeled a hate crime, a murder that, in the late 1990s, dominated the airwaves: "Matthew Shepard" was the name on the tip of everyone's tongue, but What made his murder special? JoAnn Wypilewski points out in her essay “A Boy's Life” that “gay men are being murdered horribly everywhere in this country, more than thirty since Shepard – one of them in Richmond, Virginia, was beheaded” (609). When so many men are killed in such a context, why do we care about Matthew Shepard specifically – or why not? Simply searching for the name “Matthew Shepard” in Google's database yields thousands of results in the form of articles, news periodicals, and videos. The media coverage of the Matthew Shepard case is overwhelming. Information overload can leave us in the dark. As twenty-year-old college students fifteen years after the accident, how can we care about Matthew Shepard? There is no denying that the murder of Matthew Shepard was brutal and unnecessary. His killer, Aaron McKinney, committed a heinous act and was punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, we must simply dismiss the killers by demonizing them as monsters while Shepard is left as an angel... middle of paper... humanity is still prevalent today, and the impact of Shepard's death, will be to allow college students of twenty-first century to be interested in Matthew Shepard. Shepard has become a symbol of sexual equality and tolerance. Whether or not his tragic death was motivated by homophobic hatred no longer matters. Works Cited Gumbel, Andrew. “Matthew Shepard Murder: 'It Was About Drugs and Money'.” The Guardian. N, p., October 14, 2013. Web. April 10, 2014. Kaufman, Moises, dir. “The Laramie Project.” 2002. http://www.grpl.org/. DVD-ROM. April 2014. “New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder.” ABC News. Np, January 6, 2006. Web. April 10, 2014. Olsen, Eric. "Why does sensationalism sell?". WordsSideKick.com, October 25, 2012. Web. April 10, 2014. Wypijewski, JoAnn. “A boy's life”. The composition of daily life. Eds. Mauk and Metz. 4th ed. Boston: Wadsworth. 2013. Print.