Guilty Verdict In Gay Murder
Aaron McKinney whispered "I love you" to his family as he entered Wyoming courtroom Wednesday. He the stood motionless as the verdict was read moments later: Guilty of kidnapping, guilty of aggravated robbery and guilty of felony murder in the fatal beating last year of gay college student Mathew Shepard, reports CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers.
The facts were not in dispute. McKinney, 22, and another man pistol-whipped Shepard, 21, and left him for dead tied to a fence post outside of this college town. Shepard was found some 18 hours later and died in a hospital Oct. 12, 1998.
But the jury of seven men and five women found McKinney not guilty of first-degree premeditated murder - meaning they were not convinced he intended to kill Shepard.
CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen says that gives the defense a sense of what jurors are thinking as they prepare to decide whether McKinney should live or die.
 Matthew Shepard |
"I think it says, look folks, I believe you when you said your guy didn't intend to kill Matthew Shepard, and if you further convince me of that we're going to have the sympathy to give your guy life as opposed to a death sentence," Cohen said.
And in the penalty phase, Judge Barton Voigt may allow the defense to employ a controversial "gay panic" argument that he ruled inadmissible during the trial. McKinney's attorneys will argue Shepard's unwanted advances triggered memories of sexual abuse that McKinney suffered as a child, causing him to lose control and become a killer.
Shepard's parents made no statement after the verdict, but the people of Laramie are talking about what it's been like to live under the cloud of this case for the last year.
"I don't think you can blame the people of Wyoming for a couple of jerks that beat up somebody," said Laramie resident Gary Johnson.
You could also say executing people isn't Wyoming either. In fact, this state currently has only two men on death row. And the last time a Laramie jury sentenced a man to die was more than 100 years ago.
The jury will be back in the courtroom on Thursday when the penalty phase of the trial begins. Prosecutors will try to persuade jurors the crime was so heinous that McKinney deserves to die, while the defense will plead with the jury to spare the life of the father of one.
The other man arrested in the slaying, 22-year-old Russell Henderson, pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping and murder and is serving two life sentences.