Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, Matthew Wayne Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student from Laramie, Wyoming was beaten, taken to the outskirts of town,tied to a fence and left for dead tied to a fence. 18 hours later, he was discovered and taken to at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado where he survived for five days before dying on October 12. His story became the subject of massive national media attention and the focal point for gay rights groups who saw this as the culmination of a campaign of hatred against them.

Now, six years later, new information has come to light regarding this case, and, in interviews on tonight’s ABC news magazine show, 20/20, Shepard’s killers reveal their true motivations. Elizabeth Vargas has obtained the first interviews with Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, the two men who were convicted for his murder. Their stories belie the commonly held belief that this was a hate crime.

Initially, Shepard’s murder appeared to be a clear-cut case of a hate crime. Shortly after the attack, McKinney’s girlfriend told reporters that her boyfriend attacked Shepard because he had made a sexual advance towards him. After Shepard died, gay rights groups and others against violence took up candlelight vigils, some wearing white robes and angel’s wings. It was an event perfectly geared to the mass media.

But now it seems that this may not have been the case. In the interviews, both men reveal that their true motivations were monetary in nature. At the time, they were full-time roofers and McKinney was addicted to methamphetamines. According to one source, the week before his encounter with Shepard, he had been using the drug non-stop. The night of the attack, he and Henderson were drinking in a local bar and, in tonight’s interview, Henderson tells Vargas that he hoped that the drinking would bring McKinney down from his seven-day high.

Shepard asked the two men for a ride home, and McKinney planned only to steal his wallet. But the combination of drugs, alcohol and a new revolver, proved to be too much temptation. Henderson accompanied McKinney and was present when he began beating Shepard with the gun. Later that night, McKinney beat another man and cracked his skill.

Both men are now serving two life sentences. McKinney has waived his right to appeal, but Henderson is planning on appealing based on his claim that he was never fully advised of his rights. He is now claiming that the entire “gay panic” story was a fabrication, created by his defense attorney, in the hope that a jury would be more sympathetic to a man who had become violent after having been propositioned by another man. His girlfriend has now recanted her story.

Henderson expresses remorse in this interview and appears to be extremely depressed. When shown a photograph of himself as an Eagle Scout with the governor of Wyoming, he told Vargas, 'He got lost, on his path,' and says that the boy in the photo, 'is me as a smart kid, not a stupid adult.'

Matthew Shepard was born December 1. 1976 in Casper, Wyoming. He was the oldest son of Judy Peck Shepard and Dennis Shepard. At the time of his death, he was a first- year political science major at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.