The Laramie Project: Not Just in Laramie

Eight years before there were Matthew Shepard,  Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in Laramie, there were Terry Dorff, Reginald Tweed and David Sumner in Fargo.

A decade after “The Laramie Project” became a theatrical phenomenon, its creators are back with an epilogue. This new project adds a riveting prison interview with the killer of gay college student Matthew Shepard — depicting him as candid but not remorseful over the murder.

The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later will be performed at 7:00 pm October 12 at the Fargo Theater by acclaimed local company Theatre B.  The new production plays simultaneously at more than 130 theaters around the world. It focuses on the dichotomy of how public attitude towards the gay community has changed positively while an undercurrent of virulent homophobia seeks to rewrite recent history.

When I was asked to write this theatrical article for HPR, I never thought it would abruptly transport me back eighteen years to 1991, when a heartbreakingly similar murder rocked Fargo.

First, a reminder about the Matthew Shepard murder.  Early on Oct. 7, 1998, Aaron McKinney and his accomplice, Russell Henderson, targeted 21-year-old college student Matthew Shepard at a bar in Laramie, WY. because they assumed he was gay.

“Well, he was overly friendly. And he was obviously gay,” McKinney is quoted as saying. “That played a part ... his weakness, his frailty.”

McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car, then robbed and savagely pistol whipped him, and left him tied to a fence in a remote area outside town. The University of Wyoming student was found 18 hours later and died in a Colorado hospital on Oct. 12.

Eight years prior to that on April 8, 1991, the body of gifted young Fargo computer whiz and businessman (32-year-old Terry Dorff) was discovered in his south Fargo apartment.  According to media reports, Dorff had been bound and gagged and struck multiple times in the head by a large rock.
Among the evidence discovered in Dorff’s apartment was an unidentified set of keys. Fargo police gave photos and descriptions of the keys to the media and asked for the public’s help in identifying their owner.  Within a few days, the police had a call connecting the key chain to 23- year-old Reginald Tweed of Moorhead.
 
Additional evidence tied Tweed to David Sumner (22) also of Moorhead. The night of the murder, Tweed, Sumner and Dorff had been seen together at an adult bookstore in downtown Fargo.  Tweed and Sumner were questioned and arrested early on April 13.  They were held in the Cass County Jail on $100,000 bond each.

Soon after Dorff’s identity was released, rumors began to circulate that he was gay.  This was acknowledged by a couple of his openly gay friends and appeared in the media. Immediately the tenor of the case changed and attitudes began to shift.  The largely closeted gay population of Fargo became extremely fearful. True and false rumors traveled like wildfire.
Word got out that Terry Dorff’s personal computer, a somewhat rare thing in Fargo in 1991, had been seized for evidence and a “Gay List” had been found on it. All over Fargo, gay and straight men and single and married men were terrified that they might be named.
 
It was a devastating time for Fargo’s gay community. In the straight community folks started saying that Dorff had “asked for it” and “deserved what he got.” Tragically, 32-year-old Terry Dorff was outed to his own mother by a member of the media.

David Sumner and Reginald Tweed each testified to Fargo police that they had struck Terry Dorff multiple times with that seventeen pound “decorative rock,” killing him.
In the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s murder, Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999, and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he received two consecutive life sentences.

The jury in McKinney’s trial found him guilty of felony murder. As they began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard’s parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.  Henderson and McKinney were incarcerated in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins but were transferred to other prisons due to overcrowding.

During the past eleven years Matthew Shepard’s mother has become a strong public spokesperson against homophobia and has worked hard for the inclusion of gay bashing in the legal definition of Hate Crimes. The Matthew Shepard Act has bounced around in Congress since 2001. The present bill passed the Senate when the Defense bill passed on July 23, 2009. Currently, the House version of the defense bill does not include the hate crimes legislation, so the difference will have to be worked out in a Conference committee.  President Obama has stated that he will sign the bill.

In 1991 Tweed testified that he struck Terry Dorff in the head with a 17 pound rock. Jurors convicted Tweed of murder for Dorff’s death. Tweed is serving a life sentence in the North Dakota State Penitentiary. Tweed agreed to testify against David Sumner at Sumner’s subsequent trial. Tweed, however, changed his mind and refused to testify against Sumner.  Sumner walked.

In the eighteen years after Terry Dorff’s murder, Fargo’s attitudes to homosexuality have changed.  There is more acceptance of the gay community in Fargo. There’s a gay bar in Moorhead. Fargo boasts an entire Gay Pride Week now, with a parade, dances, concerts and family-friendly festivals in the park.
Both MSUM and NDSU have active gay student organizations.  Fargo South has a gay student organization too, the first at the high school level in North Dakota.

The Fargo Police Department has a Liaison Officer to the gay community.  Fargo’s District 21 was the only ND legislative district to vote to accept same sex marriage.  Sadly, although there are notable champions of gay rights among Fargo area legislators, North Dakota has still failed to create a Human Rights Department.

In the course of writing this, I was told one story that really haunts me.  At the end of Reginald Tweed’s trial, many of his friends and members of his family were sitting behind the defendant in the courtroom. On the other side of the courtroom sat Terry Dorff’s mother, stunned, devastated, and alone. She waited while Tweed’s family filed out.  Following them into the hallway, she collapsed. Where were the people who should have been there to support her? They must have been too afraid.

Note:  I was here in Fargo when Terry Dorff was murdered and had close friends in the gay community. My thanks for this article however, go to a number of former Fargo reporters.  Special thanks to nineteen and a half year veteran Forum crime reporter Tom Pantera, now managing editor of the FM Extra, for his generous time and prodigious memory.

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If You Go

What: The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later
When: Mon, Oct 12, 7pm
Where: Theatre B
How much: Free will offering to benefit The Rape and Abuse Crisis Center
and the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition.