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Right - Albany County Sheriff Dave O'Malley sits at his desk in the basement of the Albany County Courthouse on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018. Left - A tattoo on O'Malley's right forearm of his under sheriff Rob DeBree's signature accompanied by a sheriff's office badge. O'Malley and DeBree were tasked with investigating the murder of Matthew Shepard in October 1998. Both men were fundamentally changed by the events. Before the murder, O'Malley now admits that he was homophobic, "I've spent 20 years talking about it and it's hard for me to... I almost feel hypocritical. When this case started, I was homophobic. I was mean spirited when it came to the gay community. I'd walk into a locker room and be the first one to say, 'Hey, did you hear the one about the three [expletives] that walked into a bar?' Never caring or even thinking about if somebody standing next to me was gay or struggling with sexual identities. I was a real asshole. I think my kids understood that dad was an asshole. I embarrassed them with the way I talked. I never called anybody gay. It was any other term than that. This investigation forced me to interact with our gay community. A switch went on. I started losing my ignorance. All I succeeded in doing when I was that way was precluding a really fine group of folks from being my friends. I have some really spectacular people in my life because I changed my attitude."

Left - Jess Fahlsing, a UW senior majoring in sociology and gender and women's studies, is a Wyoming native who grew up 200 miles west of Laramie in Rock Springs. Right - Grand Avenue at sunrise on Oct. 4, 2018. Fahlsing, 22, was born just 2 years before Matthew Shepard's death and didn't find out about his murder until high school. "Wyoming isn't a place where there is overt homophobia, but there is erasure. When I am back in Rock Springs, I am not visible or out. I mitigate who I am. It made it hard for me growing up there. Things are slowly, slowly getting better."

Top - Jim Osborn, who in 1999 formed a group of students who dress as angels to counter-protest anti-gay sentiment spewed by Westboro Baptist Church supporters, is still a central figure in the Wyoming gay rights community. Bottom - Osborn is the central figure of a mural in downtown Laramie alongside fellow angels Romaine Patterson, left, and Nichol Bondurant, right, as seen on Oct. 4, 2018. Osborn, who is now married and a father of one, talked about growing up gay in the 1980s and 1990s in the rural reaches of the state. "I thought I was the only one. There were no other gay kids. This was something that doesn't happen here. In reality, it did. I believed all the myths and stereotypes. I grew up believing that those people would burn in hell. That was coming from people not realizing that one of those people was sitting on the couch right next to them." On being one of the two founders of the angels along with Romaine Patterson, Osborn says, "For us it was thinking, 'somebody needs to respond to this message of hate,' and making the decision that we were going to be the ones to do it and we weren't going to sit by anymore."

Right - University of Wyoming professor of gender and women's studies Catherine Connolly was the first openly gay faculty member when she started working at the school in the early 1990s. Connolly is also the state's first openly gay legislator serving as a Democratic state house representative. Left - A view of Laramie from near the site where Matthew Shepard was found tied to a fence on a frigid morning on Oct. 7, 1998. Connolly moved to Laramie from Buffalo, New York and says she did not expect or know that she would be the only openly gay person on campus. "I had people that were both concerned as otherwise that I would not get tenure because I was out. That would have been the mid- to late-90s. Things have changed in that regard." Connolly was asked in her second or third year to arrange a potluck for LGBTQ faculty at UW. The event was to take place at her house and she sent notes to each department. "I'll be honest I got hate mail," says Connolly. "I got back from anonymous department heads great big, 'I will not share this, I do not want you here, this is a sin.' I got from faculty that they needed anonymity." Twenty years later, the hate mail never arrives by way of UW mail, but in her political role, "certainly as a state legislator, I have had horrific comments directed at me."

Left - Nichol Bondurant, who is now a teacher at Laramie High School, was among the original dozen or so angels who made their first appearance to counteract the hate-filled protest of Matthew Shepard and the LGBTQ community by the Fred Phelps-led Westboro Baptist Church at the trial of Russell Henderson on April 5, 1999 in front of the Albany County Courthouse. Left - The sun rises on a dark, cloudy Laramie morning Oct. 4, 2018. "It runs the whole gamut," says Bondurant on students' understanding of the incident 20 years after the murder. "There are students whose parents tell them the story; students who believe the alternative narratives. There are kids who know nothing about it; there are kids whose parents knew Matt. I didn't realize until this year that there are so many kids that didn't know the story."

Right - Partners and UW professors Christi Boggs, left, and Rachel Watson, right, stand near the Agriculture Building adjacent to the Matthew Shepard memorial bench on the campus of the University of Wyoming on Oct. 2, 2018. Right - Second Street in Laramie is illuminated at night near the site where the Fireside Lounge formerly stood before it was recently renovated into a new brew pub. In the fall of 1998, Boggs and Watson moved to Laramie to pursue masters degrees. Just a little more than a month into their studies, Shepard was killed. The fear of living in a community with no support lead the women to consider leaving Laramie. They stayed and are now leading voices for LGBTQ advocacy in Laramie in their roles as instructors and ski coaches at UW. Watson said of the LGBTQ community in the Laramie of 1998, "People were deeply closeted at that time. No matter who you were, you were closeted. I remember conversations of, 'how do you set up the living space, so that it appears that there isn't a relationship there?' Networks were somewhat underground. Professors were awesome about holding [LGBTQ] events in their homes. Cathy Connolly, for years, would hold a reception for LGBT faculty in her house. Those networks became personal." Twenty years later, Watson says of sticking it out in Laramie and making her voice heard, "You don't ever stop being afraid for safety, but you realize there are other things that are important. The risk of the closet is greater than the risk of not being safe. If you are invisible, you can never help somebody else. Being visible and being active on campus is what gives people hope." Boggs, who was a four-time NCAA All-American skier for UW in the early 1990s, spoke of her reaction to returning to Laramie for graduate studies shortly before the murder of Shepard. "Shocking is the right word. I can remember having a conversation in the kitchen, 'Can we stay here? Is there somewhere we can stay and be safe?' The response was very... love. Very peaceful. The overwhelming feeling was that everybody was shocked and upset and wanted to do something positive about it." She continued on about the resulting change in Wyoming after the incident, "We still don't have a non-discrimination act in Wyoming. We could get married, but we could still get fired. It's still not quite there. I have certainly become the advocate and person I am because of that for sure. I want to make sure other people feel safe."

Left - Nicole C. Lamartine arranged the university's musical project titled, 'Angels' about the group of UW students who dressed as angels to counter-protest Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church as they attempted to spew hate-filled rhetoric about the LGBTQ community after the murder of Matthew Shepard. Right - Crows on a tree in Laramie on Oct. 3, 2018. Lamartine's production combined the talents of local choirs from the high school and junior high alongside university students and the readings of original angels Jim Osborn and Nichol Bondurant. "I think that we cannot forget what happened," says Lamartine. "We've made so many strides in our culture in anti-hate crime legislation. These kids weren't born yet and I hope that their minds are open to change and how it occurs. Because if they want to be agents of change in our world, they need to know how change happens."

Left - Dr. Rulon Stacey was the president of Poudre Valley Hospital where Matthew Shepard was treated before his death. Right - A dirt road near the site where Matthew Shepard was left to die. Stacey, a Mormon whose religious beliefs are that any sex outside of marriage is wrong, was among the many people who, despite fundamental differences with the LGBTQ lifestyle, became friends with the Shepard family. Stacey announced Matthew's death on Oct. 12, 1998.

Bottom left - Joe Foster, development director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, at their downtown offices in Denver. Bottom right - Sara Grossman, communications director, at the foundation's downtown Denver office.