Blind Item #10 - Badlands - A Birdie Blind Item
Yes, the original reporting barely scratched the surface of this twenty year old murder, which received more than national attention. As the contrarian who wrote a book on the subject said, there were drugs involved - both the victim and the two perps used and dealt them. But in the end it was about the author's other discovery, which is to say an ongoing casual relationship (of a certain kind) between the victim and one of the perps, as well as (I'll add) the two perps, both of whom were deeply ashamed to be half this way.
Enter a third party, known to the victim, but who wanted in with the circle that included the two perps (which is to say their connection), as well as the victim and perps' turf. He was the man who caught the one perp together with the victim on the outskirts of town. They didn't see him, but he saw them, and later he told the perp that the victim had been outing him to everyone they knew. No, that never happened. But you all know what happened next.
Afterward, the survivor - by which I mean the person in this story who didn't end up dead or in prison - became the Walter White of this one state, and parts of neighboring states. To this day, he still jokes about his "hostile takeover."
Enter a third party, known to the victim, but who wanted in with the circle that included the two perps (which is to say their connection), as well as the victim and perps' turf. He was the man who caught the one perp together with the victim on the outskirts of town. They didn't see him, but he saw them, and later he told the perp that the victim had been outing him to everyone they knew. No, that never happened. But you all know what happened next.
Afterward, the survivor - by which I mean the person in this story who didn't end up dead or in prison - became the Walter White of this one state, and parts of neighboring states. To this day, he still jokes about his "hostile takeover."
Michael Alig etc?
ReplyDeleteTiger Woods
ReplyDeleteNever mind. Had to re-read a few times to make sense of it. Matthew Shepard?
ReplyDeleteBrandon Teena
ReplyDeleteNevermind. Died in 1993
DeleteClearly meant to be Shepard.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Matt
Yes V., Matthew Shepard. I've heard this version of the story a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteStephen Jimenez of 20/20 would be the author who wrote The Book of Matt about the drug use and suggesting a homosexual relationship between murderer and victim. Of course that had to be shouted down as crazy, because it was Important to use Shepard's death to push hate crimes legislation.
ReplyDeleteGreat guess, V. Definitely Matthew Shepard.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/26/the-truth-behind-americas-most-famous-gay-hate-murder-matthew-shepard
There's still the question of who did the "hostile takeover," but I'm guessing that's not someone we would know.
ReplyDeletei love birdie blinds, please keep the blinds coming! They're always so interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe true story didn't fit the narrative so never made the MSM. Too bad, the true story is much more compelling.
ReplyDeleteGood link Blank, wow never heard this part of the story.
ReplyDelete"Jimenez found that Matthew was addicted to and dealing crystal meth and had dabbled in heroin. He also took significant sexual risks and was being pimped alongside Aaron McKinney, one of his killers, with whom he’d had occasional sexual encounters."
“Aaron and Matthew had a friendship. They’d been involved sexually, they bought and sold drugs from each other. That complicates the original story of two strangers walking into a bar and targeting Matthew – someone they did not know – because he was gay.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/26/the-truth-behind-americas-most-famous-gay-hate-murder-matthew-shepard
Victim would still be alive if they only offered them shrimp
ReplyDeleteThey weren't able to keep everyone quiet, since Jimenez found out and published his book, and even the Wikipedia editors haven't scrubbed that. It seems McKinney's girlfriend tried to testify about the sex, because she thought it would help him in court if he killed to protect his secret or in a lover's quarrel instead of out of homophobic hate. But she recanted. The murderer who killed to stay in the closet wasn't about to come out after being convicted. Shepard's friends had no reason to tell the truth, if they knew, because the official narrative made him a martyr. And everyone else was invested in the hate-crime narrative. No one had a reason to tell the truth.
ReplyDelete@Cail
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty good summation.
The death of Matthew was horrible nonetheless.
I read this version on reddit a while ago, maybe on unresolvedmysteries or morbidreality sub, the book tells the real truth, very tragic. It wasn't a hate crime,they killed him because of drugs and money. Matthew was doing meth, he was very different than what the media portrayed
ReplyDeleteI guess fake news and alternative facts are nothing new.
ReplyDeleteBased on emerging details of this infamous social murder story, hopefully some people will reconsider believing everything they read the first time they read it.
Unfortunately I believe so little these days from any source I no longer know what can be relied upon to be true. So I guess THE RUSSIANS WON but that's okay at least I'm a critical thinker.
Oooooh, I have some bad news about your alleged status as a critical thinker
DeleteSo I have always related this as a horrible truth that this poor boy, as he was only 22, was murdered because of his drug affiliation, but the narrative made it horrifically an indictment of Society against gays and that didn't have shit to do with it?
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the saddest things I've read. I cannot stand illegal drug culture...
Horseshit. I knew Matthew Sheppard, we both went to Catawaba College in Salisbury, NC. Albeit not well but he was a great guy and not, I repeat NOT into hard core drugs. Maybe weed, idk but very respected and well educated young man on our campus. Yes I am from NC, moved to NM and back to NC. I hope his parents sue the Guardian.
ReplyDeleteTo add to what Jenna is saying, I'm actually not here for straight people deciding whether this case was homophobic or not. And yes, I know the guy who wrote the original piece was gay, but I'm now noticing that Conservatives are suddenly pretending that A) They care about gay people and B) they care about whether cases like this get to qualify as gay hate crimes because Matthew was addicted to drugs and prostituting...allegedly. Puh-lease...
ReplyDeleteAre we seriously going to say because he was a prostitute or could have been a drug addict that doesn't make it a hate crime? There are lots of gay sex workers who get killed because they are treated as "predators". Just watch Paris is Burning; a huge chunk of the people who appeared in that film died because they were sex workers, and that type of profession both comes with an increased danger, and it's intensified when there is a risk of being exposed as a man. So for me, that doesn't mean homophobia was not a component of why they killed him, or that it didn't act as a motivating factor as to why his crime was so gruesome. The blind itself paints a picture that they might have killed him out of fear of being outed, so it seems to be equally making a case for homophobia being a factor.
+1
DeleteJennaCheryl wrote: "I knew Matthew Sheppard, we both went to Catawaba College in Salisbury, NC. Albeit not well but he was a great guy and not, I repeat NOT into hard core drugs. Maybe weed, idk but very respected and well educated young man on our campus. Yes I am from NC, moved to NM and back to NC. I hope his parents sue the Guardian."
ReplyDeleteSo you "knew" him, yet go on to admit yourself that you did NOT know him well and that you don't know. Just because you didn't see that side of him, doesn't mean it didn't exist. It is sounding like he was a typical doped up drugged up rentboy, setup and murdered so that those two idiot rival dealers could be taken off the table and in fact the board could be cleared. Big question is, who is/was the guy who set it all up and benefited by becoming the Walter White of presumably Colorado and the region? Any notable Colorado legalized marijuana business owners/backers that can be tied, tangentially or otherwise, to Matthew Shepard?
@hunter
ReplyDeleteSo the Russians are controlling everyone's thoughts but yours but you are the "critical thinker"? Unsolicited advice, but here it is: Stop parroting the double-think phrase "critical thinking". Just use the word "thinking" and try to think instead of trying to critically think. That should help with the Russians.
Plenty of 'educated' people are involved in both using and dealing hardcore drugs.
ReplyDeleteThis was a horrific murder (as all murders are) but don't pull the wool over your eyes because you kind of knew someone back in the day. Nobody is saying that his addiction made him a bad person, people are just pointing out that this was not a hate crime like the media tried to show it to be.
I wonder if it was the bartender at the dive bar they were all hanging out at the night they killed him? Fucking asshole.
ReplyDelete