HBO to Air Matthew Shepard Documentary

L A R A M I E, Wyo., Aug.9 -- HBO will produce and air a full-lengthmovie based on the murder of gay University of Wyoming studentMatthew Shepard.

New York City playwright Moises Kaufman will write the movieadaptation of his play The Laramie Project, a docudrama aboutthe Shepard murder, said Chris Wiger of the Denver Center Theater.

The play has been performed nearly 100 times in Denver andoff-Broadway in New York City.

The movie will be filmed in Laramie within the next year, Wigersaid. The cast has not been chosen.

Decision QuestionedJim Mickelson, part-owner of the Fireside Bar in Laramie, doesnot like the idea of a movie.

“I don’t think Laramie needs a movie like that,” he said. TheFireside Bar is the place where Shepard met the two men who laterbeat him and left him to die outside of Laramie in October 1998.

Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson are both serving life termsin the Wyoming State Penitentiary for the killing.

Shepard’s murder became a rallying point for supporters of hatecrimes legislation nationwide.