According to his LinkedIn page, Shepard served as both a stunt double and a stand-in for the 50-year-old rapper during his first appearances, including the 2002 MTV Movie Awards and the 2002 Anger Management Tour.
Preliminary findings indicate that he died on January 31 when he walked into the path of an oncoming vehicle in Kennewick, Washington. The truck driver stayed at the site and was not intoxicated, according to the Kennewick Police Department.
After the event, Shepard was taken to a nearby hospital, but he later died there from his injuries. Kennewick police’s traffic division is still gathering information on what happened.
The Tri-City Herald reports that this is the second tragic accident in as many years to occur close to where Shepard was killed. Earlier this year, a station wagon struck and killed an 82-year-old pedestrian, an incident authorities attribute to low visibility due to rain and darkness.
For his employer, he tagged along on the Anger Management Tour’s stops in Europe and Japan. Meanwhile, he worked with Eminem on a number of music videos, including D12’s “Purple Pills,” in which he portrayed a heroic double of the rapper.
As soon as he left Eminem’s record company (Shady Records) in 2005, he began a new career as an engineer, first with Walt Disney Imagineering as a mechanical attraction engineer and then as a test automation engineer for SpaceX.
After verifying the story with Shepard’s brother Kyle, TMZ reported that Shepard leaves behind two children, ages 7 and 11. Sadly, his death occurred only four days before Hailie Jade, Eminem’s daughter, was about to get engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Evan McClintock
