About 100 people have attended a ceremony at the University of Wyoming dedicating a memorial bench in honor of a gay student who was murdered nearly 10 years ago.
Matthew Shepard died Oct. 12, 1998, five days after he was found brutally beaten and tied to a fence outside Laramie. The two men who killed him are serving life sentences in prison.
The crime triggered nationwide sympathy and revulsion and brought a re-examination of attitudes toward gays.
Shepard’s parents established a foundation to fight hate and promote diversity and both spoke at the short ceremony on Saturday.
Read the full story from the Associated Press.