Matthew Wayne Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming

The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...

 who was torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d and murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

ed near Laramie, Wyoming

Laramie, Wyoming

Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 30,816 at the . Located on the Laramie River in southeastern Wyoming, the city is west of Cheyenne, at the junction of Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 287....

, in October 1998. He was attacked on the night of October 6–7, and died at Poudre Valley Hospital

Poudre Valley Hospital

Poudre Valley Hospital , located in Fort Collins, Colorado, is part of and serves northern Colorado, southern Wyoming, and western Nebraska. The hospital has 241 beds, and is a level III trauma center. It also houses 11 surgical suites, five intensive care unit beds, and a level III neonatal...

 in Fort Collins, Colorado

Fort Collins, Colorado

Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, and is the county seat and most populous city of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Fort Collins is located north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. With a 2010 census...

, on October 12 from severe head injuries.

During the trial, witnesses stated that Shepard was targeted because of his sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

. Shepard's murder brought national and international attention to the contention of hate crime

Hate crime

In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

 legislation at the state and federal levels.

In 2009, his mother Judy Shepard

Judy Shepard

Judy Shepard is the mother of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student at University of Wyoming who was murdered in October 1998...

 authored a book The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed.