True to its “hometown” character, Laramie is a community where more often than not everyone knows everyone else. The sentencing agreement written by Newcomb took the death penalty off the table and guaranteed Aaron McKinney two life terms with no chance of parole. But according to that same agreement, Aaron also pledged that he would not talk to the media about the case. It was I who asked him to disobey that provision in my hope of uncovering the truth behind the murder. Moreover, Newcomb’s informal but critical involvement in Aaron’s 1999 sentencing agreement did not prevent him legally or ethically from representing Russell Henderson in a 2004 appeal. As Newcomb studied the murder case more carefully, he became convinced that Henderson’s original defense team had ignored important evidence and issues in the case.
One thing that may have bothered former Clinton aide Sean Maloney is that several respected gay men had decided to take a more careful look at — or at least reconsider — what appeared to be an open-and-shut case of anti-gay murder, a de facto hate crime. Not just David Sloan and myself, but also celebrated journalist and blogger Andrew Sullivan, who appeared in the 20/20 report. In my interview with Sullivan, he commented on the value of seeking and understanding the truth surrounding the murder, whatever it is or wherever it may lead:
People really do want to mythologize important events in history … And in almost all cases, the mythology, to some extent, takes on a life of its own, and you forget what happened, or what might have been the reality.
It may be that as a culture we don’t want to let go of the myth. The myth serves far too many purposes. But myths aren’t truth, and however complicated the truth is, I think it’s worth finding out. Not to puncture any myth, but simply to find out the truth. I mean, nothing, no context could make this crime less awful …
If you’re going to base a civil rights movement on one particular incident, and the mythology about a particular incident, you’re asking for trouble, because events are more complicated than most politicians or most activists want them to be …
So what are we afraid of? Why are we afraid of this thing being more complicated than it may have been to begin with? Is it gonna make the murder seem any less awful? Of course not. No one should be afraid of the truth. Least of all gay people … Shouldn’t we understand better why and how?
Perhaps Maloney may have also been concerned that I was looking into what his own role may have been — and that of his former boss, Bill Clinton — in helping to shape and “spin” a misleading picture of Matthew’s attack from inside the White House. The president’s early statements on the case had a powerful and lasting impact on how the crime was perceived at the Justice Department, in the halls of Congress, and by the public at large.
In retrospect Ted Henson’s claim that he had been pressured to remain silent no longer seemed dubious or far-fetched. After the attempts to discredit the 20/20 investigation and me failed, at least two national gay organizations, GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the Human Rights Campaign, contacted ABC News executives in an attempt to intervene editorially. One prominent activist asked to pre-screen the story and offer feedback on its content before it was broadcast. But 20/20 head David Sloan declined the request.
Unhappy about ABC’s decision, GLAAD launched a national email alert in advance of the 20/20 broadcast, advising members of its concern that the program would raise questions about whether or not Matthew’s murder was really motivated by anti-gay hate.
In actual fact, no judge or jury found Aaron McKinney or Russell Henderson guilty of a hate crime. Instead it was the national media, special interest groups, and politicians — and hence the court of public opinion — that rendered the decision. Wyoming courts convicted the two men exclusively on felony murder and related charges. Even prosecutor Cal Rerucha, who won their double life sentences, has acknowledged, “I don’t think the proof [of a hate crime] was there.”
In emails Ted Henson wrote me over a four-day period in August 2005, he stated:
As I told you many times, Aaron is not telling you the truth. [He] did know Matt … Aaron does not want people knowing that he is bisexual …
I can tell you I thought I had Matt off meth … Matt was going thru [sic] some rough things at the time of his death. He knew that I found out about the meth … and that if it didn’t stop I was leaving him … I believe Matt was worried that I would find out about him and Aaron having sex as well. Matt did [not] like rejections. When Matt loved you, you got him completely. But I think with the meth Matt could not overcome it and did whatever he had to do to get it … Aaron did sell meth to Matt. And there was one time Aaron wanted more than just the money …
Aaron sold [himself] to be able to keep money for his drugs as well as extra money [in order to] buy and sell them … Aaron likes having sex with guys. How [do] I know he sold himself? Thru Matt. And John O.* knows [too] … Once when John was with Aaron they [saw] us in town and John walked over and introduced Aaron as his friend. When Aaron walked away to speak to someone else, [John] told me and Matt that Aaron was [an] escort.
Matt owed Aaron money for meth. Matt did tell [him] that I knew about what they were doing. Aaron was scared that it was going to get back to his [girlfriend] … [He] was worried that she would leave with his only child …
I believe Aaron threatened Matt about the money … [Matt wrote,] “I am not sure how I am going to finish paying this guy I owe some money to, he is coming up to me all the time saying where’s my money”…
I went once in the limo with Doc … Matt liked to ride in [the limos] and … Doc would not charge Matt … Matt and Aaron had sex while doing the drugs in Doc’s limo …
I know I should have told you a lot before your 20/20 but I got worried …
Matt was a very sweet person … Have you ever had someone you could never get enough of holding or kissing? If so, you know how I [felt] for Matt. Matt was like a bright light for me … But I have to understand that sometimes people do things for drugs that they would not normally do.
Little by little I will give you information, ok?
It was not until five months later — in January 2006 — that Ted Henson finally agreed to meet in person in Memphis, Tennessee.
Our first encounter took place over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, at a scruffy gay bar called J-Wags where Ted was working as a bartender. He said someone would fill in for him behind the bar while the two of us talked.
Despite our lengthy email communications, I was anxious about the meeting. I really didn’t know what to expect from Ted or what I might be walking into at the bar. He had recently let me know that his older brother, a convicted felon serving a long sentence in California, was a member of “NLR,” the Nazi Low Riders, a much-feared prison gang and white supremacist organization. But by then I was more concerned about a network of drug dealers in Wyoming and Colorado — people with whom I was convinced Matthew had become ensnared, and perhaps Ted, too. Glenn Silber and I had already interviewed a few of the dealers for the 20/20 report, but there were others who were not happy about the areas we’d been digging into.
To be on the safe side I hired a former Memphis cop to accompany me undercover to J-Wags, a bar with a reputation for a rough hustler trade and other goings-on in the darkened backyard behind the premises.
As I sat down to talk with Ted in a booth, I was relieved to find that his earlier doubts about me had apparently dissipated. Tall and personable, his short hair streaked with blond highlights much like the style Matthew had worn, he made sardonic remarks in his polite Gulf Coast drawl about his current workplace with its “parade of weirdos” drifting in and out.
A few yards from where we were sitting, the detective I had hired was perched on a bar stool sipping a Coke, pretending he was a patron but keeping an eye on everyone coming through the front door. Earlier that day he had come to check the place out, to avoid any surprises. Just knowing he was there provided a measure of comfort.
Ted was more than
willing to share his memories of Matthew, but it would take several more face-to-face interviews before he felt comfortable enough to explain how he had come to know so much. And although he had mentioned previously that his brother was serving serious time, I experienced in Ted’s presence the same incomprehension I had felt when I began to realize that Matthew had gotten involved in a hardcore underworld. With his wholesome boyish looks Ted seemed totally out of place at this dingy hole-in-the-wall, yet at the same time cheerfully sheltered there.
Eventually he confided that his brother’s conviction was related to methamphetamine and said that Matthew and his brother had met during a trip Matthew took to California. While I found Ted’s revelations disturbing, my unease was compounded when he later informed me that his brother would now be serving additional time for stabbing a prison guard with a homemade weapon.
During that first meeting in Memphis, however, I also realized that Ted was more than a source for a “story.” He was slowly becoming an ally and a friend — as determined in his own way as I was to unmask the secrets behind Matthew’s murder. Soon he agreed to go on the record confirming that Matthew and Aaron had known each other well; that he himself had been together with them several times under less-than-flattering circumstances; and that Russell Henderson had never been present with the three of them. As far as Ted knew, Matthew had never met Russell before the night of the attack.
Russell had been telling me that right along, but for a long time I didn’t believe him. Since he and Aaron had worked together as roofers and constantly hung out as a foursome with their girlfriends, I assumed Russell, too, must have known Matthew, even in passing. But I was wrong.
According to Ted, he and Matthew ran into Doc O’Connor and Aaron at a gay bar in Denver in 1997 — a year before the murder and a year before Aaron and Russell became friends.
“In Denver we [saw] Doc and Aaron a lot … they would come to the bar together and leave with someone, in fact many someones,” he recalled.
But perhaps the most disquieting piece of information Ted shared during my first trip to Memphis had to do with a conflict that had existed between Aaron and Matthew prior to the attack, including a threat Aaron had made while Ted was present. Ted said that he had driven with Matthew to a Laramie convenience store weeks before the murder when an argument had erupted between the two men. He described the incident further in an email:
I was waiting in the car while [Matt] went in for some [cigarettes] and some drinks. When he came out, Matt and another guy whom I find out is Aaron [were] in an argument. Aaron was yelling at Matt. I got out of the car and asked if there was a problem and Aaron said no, there’s not a problem. While Matt and I [were] walking back to the car Aaron told Matt you better watch your back.
Ted’s follow-up communications by email and phone also continued to surprise me, including his eagerness to “help” Russell. He felt strongly that an “injustice” had occurred when Aaron and Russell received the identical sentence of two life terms. Knowing of the personal relationship between Matthew and Aaron, and the escalating tension between them weeks before the crime, Ted said he regretted having kept quiet for so long.
“Matt would never want Russell to get life when he never raised a hand against him and never wanted to hurt him,” he wrote me in an email. “Russell has to do some kind of time, but he shouldn’t be paying for what Aaron did.”
Yet Ted was quick to add that he doesn’t have a grain of sympathy for Aaron. “He should’ve got the death penalty,” he said. “It isn’t too late if you ask me.”
EIGHTEEN
Family Circle
Ted Henson’s intimate relationship with Matthew was “on again, off again,” as they struggled with their drug use and the competing affections of other guys each of them would occasionally meet. According to Ted, he “wanted to get away from meth” when he realized the destructive impact it was having “on Matt’s life and mine.” Not only was crystal meth a source of friction between them, he said, but he had also gotten “very worried watching Matt get really sick” from his excessive drug use. In addition, the two men had to deal with the stress of living apart. Though they’d spent a good deal of time in close proximity to each other, including in Denver, “things got harder” once Matthew started attending the University of Wyoming.
From interviews with several of Matthew’s friends, it appears that the only other men with whom he was deeply attached emotionally and romantically were Lewis Macenze, who had been his lover at Catawba College in 1995–96; and Carl*, a man a few years older than Matthew who lived in an apartment on 17th and Logan in the Capitol Hill district of Denver. Carl sold crystal meth and other drugs and was also the person who introduced Matthew to heroin — but then frantically struggled to get him off it.
Soon after Matthew died, Carl, who had grown up in Laramie, moved away from Denver and essentially disappeared. However, his identity has been confirmed by multiple sources, including one of the lead detectives that investigated Matthew’s murder.
In late May 1997 Lewis, whose feelings for Matthew were still strong, returned to Aurora, Colorado — a Denver suburb — from an assignment with the Red Cross providing emergency relief to flood victims in Minnesota and North Dakota. Lewis had joined AmeriCorps in 1996 shortly after his graduation from Catawba. At the time, Matthew had been living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he had gone for psychiatric treatment. But now both young men were living in the Denver area and were apparently still trying to sort out their feelings for each other.
According to Lewis, on May 22, the day he arrived back in Aurora, “Matt was waiting for me in front of the compound where I lived … [He] apologized to me and asked to get back together [but] I declined … I was very upset that he was sleeping with other people. I wrote [in my journal] that the guy who was giving Matt a ride was described [by Matt] as ‘just a fuck mate, nothing serious.’ ”
But looking back on their encounters in Denver, Lewis wrote,
i still cant help but think how these poorly thought out actions have shaped my life. i see now that these were tough times for him and me. i suppose that i, like so many others, turned my back on him when he most needed someone who truly cared about his well being. i can justify my decisions on being young, still experiencing the world and myself, and of course just not knowing the severity of the situation … but i am just as guilty as everyone else who abandoned him.
Without offering specifics, Lewis referred to some of Matthew’s difficult experiences “growing up … being sent to boarding school and having so many superficial people floating in and out … [It] was a recipe for the inevitable,” he said.
Over the next several months, despite living in the same trendy gay neighborhood of Capitol Hill, the two didn’t see each other. But then on December 15, Lewis wrote in his journal:
I saw Matt today. It was the most bizarre run-in. We came from opposite directions with the same agenda: to buy a bag of weed at Civic Center Park. A run-in which lasted for 3 hrs or so. It was nice walking down 16th Street, talking, laughing … I miss that friendship. But things are different now. We live only a few blocks apart, but there is so much distance. I miss him.
With [Matt] I truly felt that my being was so vital. I never thought I could love … but I do. My attraction isn’t merely physical; he’s cute but that’s not it. That crooked face. His left ear lobe is attached, the right one isn’t. And he’s so damn skinny … but so cute. Damn! And those braces send shivers down my spine! This imperfect boy that I can’t seem to get enough of …
I wanted tonight to last forever; wanted things to be like they were in [North] Carolina. But it’s different now.
Two days after Matthew and Lewis bumped into each other in Denver’s Civic Center Park, Aaron McKinney burglarized the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Laramie with a couple of his friends. Afterward Aaron boarded a plane for Florida with Kristen Price’s twin brother, Kevin. Kristen, who was then seventeen and pregnant with Aaron’s child,
would later say that shortly after he arrived in Florida he told her “he wanted to get his life together.” She also said he stopped using meth for a time “and was just smoking weed.”
Although Denver is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Laramie, Aaron was apparently well acquainted with the Mile High City by 1997. In addition to Duane Powers and Rob Surratt, the former bartenders who had seen Aaron at Mr. Bill’s bar, Matthew’s friend Ted Henson felt pretty certain that he had met Aaron the first time “around June … or the very beginning of July [1997]” while he was at a Denver bar with Matthew. Aaron had come to the bar with Doc, Ted said.
“Aaron introduced himself to me,” he recalled. “I know it was before the fishing rodeo in Gulfport, Mississippi, [because] Matt and I went to that in July of ’97” — some fifteen months before the Laramie attack.
Coincidentally, it was around that same time, in June 1997, that Kristen was introduced to Aaron by one of her girlfriends. Aaron was then living in a Laramie trailer with David Farris (Russell’s half brother); nineteen-year-old Rod Becker (the stepson of Dennis Menefee, who would later be convicted in the rape and death of Russell’s mother); and two other friends, “Tex” and Cory — both of whom confirmed the extent of Aaron’s meth-related activities at the time and subsequently. Both men also stressed that they had gotten away from those activities a number of years ago.
While Matthew was living in Denver in 1997 and 1998, he struggled with addiction to a mix of prescription and street drugs and became increasingly worried about the amount of alcohol he was drinking. He had first used marijuana and cocaine in high school, but in Denver he was introduced to crystal meth and other hard drugs. He also got swept up in a fast lifestyle in the Capitol Hill area, much of it revolving around bars, dance clubs, and, according to several sources, all-male escort activity. But it was with a network of friends involved in the drug trade, a makeshift “family” of dealers — straight, gay, and bisexual — that Matthew cemented ties that would remain intact after his move to Laramie in the summer of 1998 to begin classes at the University of Wyoming. A couple of the dealers had grown up in Laramie and, like Matthew, traveled back and forth to Denver regularly.
The Book of Matt Page 14