A drug-dealing roofer was found guilty of murder in the beating of gay college student Matthew Shepard, a death so brutal that it set off hate-crime legislation campaigns across the United States.

   The verdict of two counts of felony murder makes Aaron McKinney eligible for the death penalty. He was also convicted of second-degree murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping.

   Shepard, 21, a University of Wyoming freshman, met McKinney and Russell Henderson at a Laramie bar on October 6, 1998.

   Prosecutors said McKinney, 22, and Russell Henderson lured Shepard from the bar and drove him to a remote spot on the prairie, where they tied him to a wooden rail fence, robbed him of $US20 ($A30.62) and pistol-whipped him into a coma.

   Eighteen hours later, Shepard, bruised and bleeding, was found still lashed to the fence. He died five days later at a Fort Collins, Colorado, hospital without regaining consciousness.

   Authorities said robbery was the primary motive but that Shepard also was singled out because he was gay.

   McKinney and Henderson were charged with kidnapping, robbery and murder. Henderson pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping and murder, and is serving two life sentences.

   Defence attorneys argued that McKinney, in a drug-induced rage, lost control after Shepard made an unwanted sexual advance.

   They were barred from using a "gay panic" strategy, which is based on the theory that a person with latent gay tendencies will have an uncontrollable, violent reaction when propositioned by a homosexual.

   District Judge Barton Voigt ruled that the strategy was akin to temporary insanity or a diminished-capacity defence - both prohibited under Wyoming law.

   Shepard's death sparked vigils denouncing the murder as a hate crime and renewed efforts for laws protecting homosexuals from such crimes.

   In Wyoming's Legislature, however, proposed hate-crime bills failed. Opponents complained that gays and other protected groups would get special treatment and argued that existing laws are enough. President Clinton's push to expand federal hate crime legislation to protect gays also fell short.

   Shepard went to high school in Switzerland, spoke three languages and had travelled the world before returning to his native Wyoming to attend the university. He was raised in a close, loving family made comfortable by his father's job in a multinational oil company.

   McKinney and his friend Henderson came from the poor side of town. Both were from broken homes and as teenagers had had run-ins with the law. They lived in trailer parks and scratched out a living working at fast-food restaurants and fixing roofs.