Murder of Jesse Dirkhising

Who was Murder of Jesse Dirkhising?

Jesse William Dirkhising, also known as Jesse Yates, was an American teenager from Prairie Grove, Arkansas, who was kidnapped by two men who bound, drugged, tortured and repeatedly raped him. Dirkhising died from drugging and positional asphyxia during the ordeal.

Dirkhising's death received only regional media coverage until a Washington Times article ran a story nearly a month after his death, noting the lack of national coverage in contrast to that given to the 1998 death of Matthew Shepard. The Shepard murder was approaching its first anniversary and as such was getting another round of national attention coupled with updates on pending hate crime legislation. Prompted by coverage in the Washington Times, the Dirkhising case gained notoriety as conservative commentators compared media coverage of the two cases and explored the issues of what was considered a hate crime. The added attention resulted in mainstream media also reporting the Dirkhising case in relation to the coverage of the Shepard case, with many attempting to explain why the two were handled differently by the media, and perhaps received differently by readers.