Read PEOPLE's 1998 Story on Matthew Shepard's Murder: Student Recalls Finding Dying Mathew Tied to Fence — 'Oh My God, It's a Person!'

Matthew Shepard.Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Shepard Foundation

Recently, the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which advocates for gay young people, announced Shepard’s asheswill be interred at the Washington National Cathedralon Oct. 26, giving his remains a final resting place after two decades.

Here is PEOPLE’s original story on Shepard’s brutal murder, published on Nov. 2, 1998, which honors his life and points forward to the fact that his death would not be in vain.

Judy and Dennis Shepard had appealed publicly for a “peaceful, dignified” service for their son Matthew, 21, a slight, 5-foot-2 college student who had met his grisly fate, police say, at the hands of two young men who brutally beat him, tied him to a fence and left him for dead, at least in part because he happened to be gay. By the time of his Oct. 16 funeral, Matthew had become something more than his parents’ son, a martyr whose slaying served as a brutal reminder of the human capacity for hatred and violence. “For a small person, Matt had great personal presence,” his cousin’s wife, Anne Kitch, a Poughkeepsie, New York, Episcopal priest, told the congregation of the 115-lb. Shepard. “He struggled to fit into a world that is not always kind to gentle spirits.”

Certainly it wasn’t kind to him. Late on Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, he had stopped at a Laramie bar called the Fireside Lounge, near the University of Wyoming, where he had just begun his freshman year. Having failed to enlist some schoolmates to join him, he found himself in conversation with Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, both 21 and high school dropouts, who were sharing a pitcher of beer. After Shepard confided that he was gay, police say, the two men lured him outside and into McKinney’s father’s truck.

Then things turned ugly. Police say Shepard was beaten with the butt of a .357 Magnum pistol as they drove to a remote bluff east of town, where they tied Shepard to a buck fence and, as he pleaded for his life, bludgeoned him, stole his wallet and black patent-leather shoes and left him for dead. Some 18 hours later, UW freshman Aaron Kreifels took a spill on his mountain bike outside of town. Standing up, he saw what he thought was a scarecrow hanging on a fence — until he noticed the human hair. “I realized, ‘Oh, my God, it’s a person!’ ” recalls Kreifels. Hospitalized in Fort Collins, Colorado, Shepard died five days later from his head injuries.

The older son of oil-company employee Dennis Shepard and his wife, Judy, Matthew, born prematurely, had always been small for his age. But at age 5, growing up in Casper, he found confidence while acting in community theater. “He was much older than he looked, so that gave him depth,” says Brenda Simpson, 46, who led a local theater program. And he had an infectious enthusiasm. “He was so bubbly,” says Leo Sanchez, 63, who taught Shepard history in junior high. “He literally used to bounce down the hallway.”

Laramie Daily Boomerang/Andy Carpenean/AP

Ultimately, that impulse brought him back in June to his home state, where he enrolled for the fall semester at his father’s alma mater, the University of Wyoming. He was majoring in political science, and friends say he hoped to pursue a public service career, perhaps working for human rights causes. In Laramie, Shepard also found acceptance in a group called the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendering Association, whose meeting he attended on Oct. 6, the last night of his life. After a session to plan for Gay Awareness Week — just five days away — he went to dinner with four women from the group, but couldn’t persuade anyone to join him for a beer. “We were all so tired and didn’t want to go for drinks on a school night,” says Meesha Fenimore, 18, the group’s secretary.

Bartender Matt Galloway remembers Shepard arriving around 10:30 that night and ordering a Heineken. “He was definitely a shy kid,” says Galloway, 23, a UW senior, who recalls seeing Shepard at the bar on several earlier occasions. “He was just here to have a beer and kick back.” Around midnight, Henderson and McKinney stepped to the bar and asked for a pitcher of beer, then ponied together the $5.50, mostly in dimes.

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It remains a mystery, particularly to his friends, why the neatly dressed Shepard would have hooked up with the two men, whom Galloway described as looking “grungy.” Perhaps it was just youthful naiveté. Says Romaine Patterson: “He went to meet anyone thinking, ‘This is a good person. This is someone worth meeting.'”

At one time, that optimistic description might have fit Russell Henderson, a former Eagle Scout who had once been an honor roll student at Laramie Junior High. But his parents split up when he was young; he dropped out of high school and took to working as a gas station attendant and roofer. Known as polite and considerate, Henderson frequently pitched in to help his grandmother, who runs a home daycare center. “Russell’s about the most American kid you can get,” says Carson Aanenson, who rented a trailer home to Henderson and his girlfriend, Chasity Pasley, 20. “He’s a pizza-eating, beer-drinking, fishing, hunting, work-on-your-car type of kid — just regular.”

Still, it remains a mystery what might have moved McKinney to the kind of violence that killed Shepard. Kristen Price toldThe Denver Postthat McKinney claimed Shepard had “pushed himself onto” McKinney, embarrassing him in front of his friends. Eyewitness Galloway, however, says, “I refute 100 percent that Shepard approached them.” To teach him a lesson, Price said, McKinney and Henderson told Shepard they were gay and lured him into the truck. “It wasn’t meant to be a hate crime,” she said. “They just wanted to rob him.” Yet once their blood was up, they didn’t stop. After disposing of Shepard, they returned to town around 1 a.m. and reportedly picked a fight with two Hispanic teenagers, one of whom was hospitalized after McKinney allegedly hit him on the head with a pistol butt. When McKinney finally came home, Price told ABC’s 20/20, “He just came in and hugged me and said, ‘I’ve done something horrible. I just deserve to die.'”

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• With VICKIE BANE and ELIZABETH LEONARD in Wyoming

source: people.com