LARAMIE - Until Oct. 12, 1998, Judy Pantier harbored a secret fear that one of her children might turn out to be homosexual.

On that day, however, Pantier learned that gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard had succumbed to injuries from a brutal attack that many believe was perpetrated because of his sexual orientation.

The heartbreak Pantier felt for Shepard and his family forced her to take stock of her beliefs. She said she realized that homosexuals have as much value as anyone else.

"When (my children) were growing up, that was my fear of having a child that was gay," said Pantier, a Laramie native who clerks at a downtown bookstore. "But after that happened, it popped my eyes open."

A decade after Shepard's death, just about everyone who lives in Laramie has an opinion about the events. They've reached vastly different conclusions, however.

Some, like Pantier, feel a deep sense of pain and regret that two young men from their community took Shepard's life because of his sexual orientation.

Shepard, 21, died from severe head injuries. Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were convicted of his murder.

Others doubt that hate motivated the murder. They insist that drugs or robbery were behind it, or at least big factors.

Many also resent the portrayal by the national news media of Laramie as the host of a notorious hate crime against a homosexual.

Lois Chickering, who owns a Laramie bookstore and lived in Laramie 10 years ago, takes a nuanced view of Shepard's murder and the aftermath.

On one hand, she thinks Laramie residents are more aware of diversity. But she also believes people in Wyoming probably still need more introspection about issues including race and the treatment of gays.

"I don't think I see Wyoming's attitudes changing very much, and I think that applies similarly to homophobia," Chickering said.

On the other hand, Chickering said the national news media provided an inaccurate, two-dimensional version of Shepard's murder, and of Laramie.

"If the Shepard story is your image of Wyoming, that image is inaccurate," Chickering said. "Wyoming is so much more."

Homophobic, or not?

Adam Osborne, a 21-year-old Douglas native who moved to Laramie five years ago, is like many Laramie residents who are not convinced that Shepard's murder was motivated by hate.

After hearing from a number of people with ties to the case, he thinks factors other than sexual orientation probably played an important role in the killing.

But that hasn't stopped the national news media and some advocacy groups from perpetuating that image to the rest of the world, Osborne said, and that's upsetting.

"I'm always a little offended when someone brings it up under the context that he was a gay guy who was killed," said Osborne, adding that Laramie and Wyoming have been unfairly branded as unfriendly toward homosexuals.

"There are definitely homosexuals here who feel comfortable living here," he said. "I don't feel like it's a dangerous community."

Osborne said Shepard's death continues to be on the minds of many people in Laramie and in Wyoming.

"Its such a small community," Osborne said. "Something extraordinary happens here, and people talk about it for a long time."

Leeann Guenther, a Laramie native, takes a different view.

Guenther lived in Nevada when Shepard was killed and moved back to Wyoming about five years ago. She said she was surprised to find that many Laramie residents harbor the same fears and prejudices about gays that they did before Shepard's death.

"People are still homophobic," said Guenther, who said she is unemployed because of a disability. "I have some gay friends who don't come out because it's a threat in this community. We're backwards or something. We're not caught up with the rest of the world."

In some circles in Laramie, Shepard's death isn't much of a topic at all.

A Laramie-area ranch manager, who declined to be identified because he said his employer might not want him to speak publicly about Shepard's death, said people don't seem to talk about it much anymore.

When they do, it's often about what they see as misconceptions, perpetrated by the national news media, about Laramie and the people who live here.

He said the stereotypes of Wyoming people as ignorant and homophobic are as offensive and bigoted as stereotypes about gays.

He said many rural Wyoming residents today are educated and hold views of gays that represent that population as a whole.

"I don't think Wyoming is any more prejudiced about gay people than anywhere else," he said.

Contact reporter Jared Miller at (307) 632-1244 or at {M3jared.miller@trib.com.