Dead man walking - by Sister Helen Prejean

"Dead man walking"

by Sister Helen Prejean

At first I would like to say a few words about the authors biography and after that I will come to the story of the book which is completely different from the story of the film and in the end we will see a little excerpt of the German version of the film

Sister Helen Prejean

Sister Helen Prejean, the Author of dead man walking, was born on the 21^st of April in 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and has lived and worked in Louisiana all her life. She joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957. Her ministries have included teaching junior and senior high students.

Involvement with poor inner city residents in the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans in 1981 led her to prison ministry where she counseled death row inmates in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. She has accompanied three men to the electric chair and witnessed their deaths. Since then, she has devoted her energies to the education of the public about the death penalty by lecturing, organizing and writing. She also has befriended murder victims' families and she  helped to found 'Survive' a victims advocacy group in New Orleans. Currently, she continues her ministry to death row inmates and murder victims'. She also is a member of Amnesty International.

The story

In 1977, Patrick and his Brother Eddie had abducted a teenage couple, Loretta Bourque and David Le Blanc, from a lovers' lane, raped the girl, forced them to lie face down and shot them into the head. It had taken a month to capture the killers. Pat was sentenced to death and his younger brother Eddie got a life sentence.

In 1978, Chava Colon from the Prison Coalition asked Sister Helen to become a pen-pal to Elmo Patrick Sonnier called Pat , the death-row-inmate.

In her first letter Sister Helen told him a little bit of her, where she was working and that she would keep on writing to him, even if he wouldn't answer. But only a week later, she received a letter from Pat, saying that he would enjoy exchanging letters with her.

So they soon became steady correspondents.

Nobody thought that Pat would answer her letters because she wasn`t the first person trying to become his penpal but she was the first person getting an answer from him.

Pat never talked in the letters about the dead the state had planned for him. He said he was glad that he had someone to communicate with, because he was so lonely.

On the 15^th of September 1982 they had their first meeting and Pat put her on his visiting list as a spiritual adviser so she could stay longer than relatives or friends and she even was allowed to witness the execution. After their meeting they continued to write and she visited him every month. She also started to visit Eddie, his younger brother.

In July 1983 Pat called Sister Helen and told her that a guard had given him a paper called "Warrant of Execution in capital case" and on that paper he found the date of execution: 19^th of August 1983. That was the second date for his executing and so he was sure that it was the last date, too, and he moved into the death-watch-cell.

When she visited Eddie, Pats younger brother, he told her that he and not Pat killed the two teenagers.

Then the fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans denied Patrick's appeal and Helen called an attorney in Atlanta named Millard Farmer, who defended death-row-inmates. Millard told her a week later that he would help them and that he had reviewed Pat's transcriptions and had prepared petitions for the fifth Circuit Court, for the US Supreme Court and for the governor. But the courts, the governor and also the pardon board found that clemency should be denied to Patrick Sonnier.

Helen promised him that she would be there and that she would stay with him in the death-house until his execution.

At that time Pat knew for sure that he was going to be killed by the state. At his execution he asked for forgiveness for what Eddie and he had done.

After his dead Sister Helen organized Pat's funeral and a lot of projects, discussions and protest marches to abolish the death-penalty.

When Millard Farmer asked her if she would like to become a spiritual adviser for another death-row-inmate, she answered that she would do it, although she first thought she couldn't do that another time.

Robert Lee Willie, the death-row-inmate, and his friend Joseph Vaccaro had 1980 brutally raped the 18 year old girl, Faith Hathaway, stabbed her and left her to die in the woods. Shortly after the killing of Faith Hathaway, they had kidnapped a teenage couple and raped the girl. They had shot her boyfriend, so that he had been paralyzed from the chest down. Prior to these crimes, Willie had been involved into other violent crimes.

Willie had been sentenced to death and Joseph had been given a life-sentence.

Helen wrote her first letter to Willie and six month after Pat's execution they had their first meeting.

Sister Helen also started to visit Faith' parents, but all that her parents wanted was the death of her child's murderer. They hoped that, when Willie's death would come, it would ease their pain and their loss. At least, they would have justice. Helen and Faith's parents had different point of views, but they respected each other and their opinions.

Willies petitions had all been denied and at that time Helen remembered the words the guards used to say, when a death-row-inmate was let out of his cell and was brought to his execution: Dead Man walking, and she knew that Willie would also be executed by the state.

After the pardon board had denied his petition, Millard Farmer told her that there wouldn't be another stay of execution for him, his date for the execution was settled for December 28^th.

She visited him every day when he moved to the death-house on Christmas eve and he seemed to accept his fate. But he wanted to make a polygraph-test to show his mother that he wasn't guilty, that he didn't kill Faith. He didn't fail the test, but his responses had registered stress, but who wouldn't show stress in this situation. Before his execution he said his last words to Faith' parents that he hoped that they got some relief from his dead and he also said that killing is never right, neither for him and nor for the state. Then he was executed on the electric chair like Pat before.

Sister Helen decided to become a spiritual adviser for other death-row-inmates and she would also give lectures, workshops and organize public demonstrations for the abolition of the death-penalty.