Attack on Gay Was Planned, Witness Says

LARAMIE, Wyo. —  Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson plotted to pose as gays and rob Matthew Shepard, and McKinney later acknowledged they had killed him, McKinney’s then-girlfriend testified Thursday.

McKinney claimed “a gay guy had been hitting on him” in the bar, Kristen Price, 19, told jurors. “They decided in the bathroom to pretend they were gay, get him in the truck and rob him.”

Later that night, McKinney, covered in blood, returned to their home and told her “he had killed someone,” she said. He went to a sink to wash off a wallet, two driver’s licenses and a voter registration card.

She also testified that she didn’t see any sign that McKinney had been using drugs.

Her testimony countered defense contentions that the robbery wasn’t planned, and that McKinney went into a drunken, drug-induced rage after a sexual advance from Shepard triggered memories of a childhood homosexual assault.

The judge, however, on Wednesday said he wasn’t sure whether state law allowed McKinney’s attorneys to use a so-called “gay panic” defense.

The 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student was beaten and left to die on a fence in a remote area near Laramie on Oct. 7, 1998. His death galvanized those seeking to expand the nation’s hate-crime laws.

McKinney, 22, is charged with robbery, kidnapping and murder, and could be sentenced to death if convicted. Henderson, 22, is serving two life sentences for murder and kidnapping.

Later, prosecutors played an hourlong tape-recording of McKinney in jail, where he confessed to hitting Shepard. He said he struck him after Shepard touched his leg.

When asked about his attitude toward gays, McKinney said: “I really don’t hate them but I don’t like them.”

Price testified that she didn’t think McKinney was telling the truth about the killing--”He always exaggerated so much I didn’t believe him”--and that Henderson later assured her “that Aaron was just exaggerating.”

Though Price said she saw no sign McKinney had been using drugs, she also said she had often shared methamphetamines with him.

Earlier in the day, Chasity Pasley, a girlfriend of Henderson’s, testified that she saw no indication of drug use by McKinney. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged she was not in McKinney’s company continuously in the hours before the attack.

In other testimony, Pasley said Henderson and McKinney got together in the hours after the beating “so they could get their story straight.”

“I knew that they beat somebody up and he was tied,” she said.

McKinney sat back in his chair at the defense table and smiled briefly when Pasley pointed to him.

When interviewed by police the day after the attack, Price initially stuck by a story the four friends had allegedly concocted, but when she learned that Shepard was near death, she asked to change her statement.

Pasley received up to two years in prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory to first-degree murder for helping hide bloody clothes. Price’s trial on accessory charges is to begin Jan. 3.