The Tyler Civic Theatre in Tyler, Texas, received letters expressing concern about the subject matter of The Laramie Project — the play about the ‘gay-bashing’ death of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998 — which the theater had been planning to stage. Now information about that production has been removed from the theater’s website, while the board reconsiders it.

Four years before Shepard was killed, East Texas lost one of its own: 23-year-old Nicholas West.  Three men kidnapped and robbed West in Bergfeld Park.  They drove him to a remote Smith County location, shot him multiple times, including once in the head – all because he was gay.

David McMillan is now serving a life sentence for West’s murder.  Henry Dunn and Donald Aldrich have both been put to death.