The Laramie Project

“A Laramie Man” opens with Jon Peacock’s recollection of first hearing about the attack on Thursday evening, the day after it happened. The violence of the crime and the victim’s name were not revealed at first and he felt a great sense of disbelief when he learned that it was Matthew Shepard who had been attacked. Matthew’s friend, Romaine, first heard the news at work and wondered if the victim was her friend. She called her sister, Trish, to ask if she knew and Trish confirmed that it was Matthew who had been attacked. Matt Galloway learned of the attack on Friday and bought a paper to get further details, but before he could read it, his boss, Matt Mickelson, demanded a meeting to discuss what happened in the bar that night. Jon Peacock tells us that the ordeal was made worse when Rulon Stacey, the local hospital’s CEO and spokesperson, announced that the attack might have been a hate crime. Matt Galloway and his boss agreed to attend the arraignment to identify the perpetrators.

In “The Essential Facts,” a newsperson announces that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson have been charged with beating Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. Catherine Connolly attended the arraignment, at which point more details had emerged and everybody knew that the perpetrators were two local kids. The mood was very grave. The judge gave an account of the facts of the case that left everyone in tears. He ended with the fact that the “defendants left the victim begging for his life” (50).

The phrase “Live and Let Live” reappears as the title of the next moment, in which Laramie residents, including Detective Sergeant Hing, express their disbelief and their hope that the perpetrators were strangers. Catherine Connolly spoke of her extreme anxiety and her inability to sleep or eat in the aftermath of the attack and asks not to be left alone. Jon Peacock notes that as the local community learned the extent of the crime, the media descended, leaving them with no time to reflect on what had happened.

The effect of this media attention is brought to life in “The Gem City of The Plains.” The stage directions explain that the stage is filled with newspeople and TV monitors, showing “in live feed the newspeople onstage as well as other media images. The reporters’ texts overlap to create a kind of media cacophony” (51).

Many of Laramie’s residents found the media presence overwhelming; as Jon Peacock notes, they weren’t “used to that type of exposure” (52). Local reporter Tiffany Edwards is critical of the behavior of other journalist, recounting a story of how one reporter began to question the judge while he was at the urinal and was offended when the judge asked for privacy. Wyoming’s governor, Jim Geringer, who was up for re-election, expressed his outrage at what had happened, but when questioned about his stance on hate crime legislation, cautioned people against “overreacting in a way that gives one group ‘special rights over others’” (52).

Detective Sergeant Hing was dismayed by the sensationalist coverage, particularly because the perpetrators had been apprehended within a day of the crime. While some residents, like Gil and Eileen Engen, felt that the town had been treated unfairly and that gay people were exploiting the situation to their advantage, Tiffany Edwards notes that the media coverage forced Laramie to be accountable for what had happened. She says that “people were sitting in their homes…watching TV…and going, ‘Jesus Christ, well that’s not how it is here.’ Well, how is it here?”