LARAMIE, Wyo. (Reuters) - High school dropout Russell Henderson was jailed for life Monday after pleading guilty to the brutal murder of gay Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, an attack that threw the spotlight on hate crimes and anti-gay violence.
"I hope you never experience a day or night without experiencing the terror, humiliation, hopelessness and helplessness my son felt that night," Shepard's mother Judy told Henderson, 21, through her tears.
Henderson, one of two men charged with the murder last October, pleaded guilty in exchange for two consecutive life terms in jail. Prosecutor Cal Rerucha had sought the death penalty.
Judge Jeffrey Donnell, passing a sentence which appeared to rule out any possibility of parole, said he felt Henderson did not realize the horrific nature of his crime. "Quite frankly the court does not believe you really feel a true remorse for your role in this matter," he said.
Henderson, a roofer and a high school dropout, and his friend Aaron McKinney, also 21, stood accused of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery in the slaying of Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming.
Prosecutors say the two lured Shepard from a Laramie bar, pistol-whipped him and lashed him to a fence on a country road in sub-freezing temperatures. Shepard died five days later in a hospital.
Henderson's decision to plead guilty to felony murder and kidnapping cut short a trial that had been scheduled to begin Tuesday with opening statements, and it may set the stage for him to testify at McKinney's trial in August.
McKinney, who could still face a death sentence, has admitted that the two beat Shepard but has said he dealt only the three final blows.
Appearing solemn and wearing gray pants and a light gray shirt, Henderson rose at the start of Monday's hearing and made a brief apology to Shepard's parents.
"Mr. and Mrs. Shepard, there is not a moment that goes by that I don't see what happened that night. I'm very sorry, I'm ready to pay my debt for what I've done," he said.
He sat and listened as Judy Shepard described arriving at the hospital to find her son so badly beaten that the only feature still recognizable on his head was a distinctive bump on his ear.
Shepard's murder brought an unwelcome glare of media attention on the small college town of Laramie, whose 26,000 residents expressed shock over the brutality of the crime.
Gay activists have said the attack showed the need for anti-hate crime legislation. It spurred vigils and rallies and turned the desolate, windswept hill where the attack occurred into a pilgrimage site.
Prosecutors have said Shepard, a boyish freshman who weighed just 105 pounds, spent 18 agonizing hours tied to the fence before being found by a passerby.
McKinney's girlfriend, Kristen Price, 19, told police that McKinney became enraged after Shepard flirted with him in the bar, which embarrassed him and sparked the attack. But McKinney denied that Shepard made any advances to the two defendants.
Price and Henderson's girlfriend, Chasity Pasley, 20, were charged as accessories for allegedly destroying bloody clothes and providing the two men with false alibis.
Pasley pleaded guilty and will be sentenced later this year. Price's trial is set for May.
The prosecutor has tried not to let Shepard's homosexuality become an issue in the trial.
But it was clearly an issue outside the Albany County courthouse Monday as about a dozen anti-gay protesters faced off with a group calling themselves "Angels of Peace" who came dressed in angelic costumes complete with wings.
The anti-gay group led by Kansas preacher Fred Phelps has picketed a number of gay events and demonstrated outside the church at Shepard's funeral in Casper, Wyoming.