Complex sentence: Within hours of Shepard's discovery tied to the fence, his friends Walt Boulden and Alex Trout began to contact media organizations claiming Shepard had been assaulted because he was gay.
Split into simpler sentences: Within hours of Shepard's discovery tied to the fence, his friends Walt Boulden and Alex Trout began to contact media organizations. The two friends claimed that Shepard had been assaulted because he was gay.