‘There’s no forgiveness in us’: 25 years after Matthew Shepard’s murder, his parents want the world to remember
The grieving father imagined his murdered son breathing in sagebrush and pine on his last day of life, and hearing the “ever-present Wyoming wind for the last time”. He spoke of his love and pride for the 21-year-old university student, who was extroverted, fluent in several languages and studying foreign relations and political science with plans to work in the US state department.announced to the court that morning that saved the convicted man from the death penalty.
“When Dennis gave that speech and looked at his son’s killer and he said he granted him life in the name of somebody who no longer lives, to me, that was the most hopeful thing, because it means that the only end to violence will be forgiveness. That violence cannot be fought with violence.”But 25 years on, Dennis begs to differ. “There’s no forgiveness in either one of us,” he says, sitting alongside Judy in Washington DC. “We still believe in the death penalty.
Dennis adds: “ enabled all the haters to come out from underneath the rocks and now the language he used and that they use has become so commonplace that you don’t think about it any more. That in itself is a travesty. That kind of language and those kinds of attitudes need to be put back away.”