Show Mercy

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The parents of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998, rejoiced over the guilty verdict reached by a Laramie jury in November 1999. The judge told a packed courtroom that the jury's verdict "showed true courage" and sent a message that violence is not the solution to differing views on sexual orientation.

Courtroom observers were not prepared for what Dennis and Judy Shepard did next. After waiting 13 months for a guilty verdict for their son's killers, Matthew Shepard's parents asked the judge to spare the lives of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson by giving them life sentences rather than the death penalty.

According to attorney Cal Rerucha, who prosecuted the case, "They (the Shepards) could look into the eyes of the man who took their son and give him mercy."

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