Elmo Patrick Sonnier
Encyclopedia
Elmo Patrick Sonnier was a convicted murderer and rapist who was executed by electrocution
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

 at Angola (correctly known as Louisiana State Penitentiary
Louisiana State Penitentiary
The Louisiana State Penitentiary is a prison farm in Louisiana operated by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is the largest maximum security prison in the United States with 5,000 offenders and 1,800 staff...

) in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 on April 5, 1984. Sonnier, a troubled youth with a past riddled in criminal activity, received along with his brother Eddie James Sonnier a sentence of death on April 25, 1978 for the November 5, 1977 rape and murder of Loretta Ann Bourque, 18, and the murder of David LeBlanc, 17. Sonnier's presence on Louisiana's Death Row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...

 came to the attention of Sister Helen Prejean
Helen Prejean
Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., is a Roman Catholic religious sister, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, who has become a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.-Death row ministry:...

 when she was asked to write to death row inmates as part of her Order's community outreach program. He became the first of many death row inmates to receive her counsel and Sr. Prejean subsequently became a prominent anti-death penalty activist. He also became the subject of Prejean's best-selling book Dead Man Walking. The book was adapted to the big screen with the Academy-Award winning film of the same name, and its lead character, Matthew Poncelett, was based on an amalgam
Amalgamation (fiction)
Amalgamation or amalgam, when used to refer to a fictional character or place, refers to one that was created by combining, or is perceived to be a combination, of several other previously existing characters or locations...

 of both Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie
Robert Lee Willie
Robert Lee Willie was a convict on Death Row at Louisiana State Penitentiary. Sister Helen Prejean, one of the sisters of St Joseph of Medailles, served as his spiritual adviser. She based her book Dead Man Walking on him and Elmo Patrick Sonnier...

, another inmate for whom Sister Helen Prejean was spiritual advisor. Sean Penn
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...

 portrayed the Patrick Sonnier-inspired character of "Matthew Poncelett", and earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance.

Crime

On the evening of Friday, November 4, 1977, David LeBlanc, age 17, and Loretta Ann Bourque, age 18, attended a high school football game. Later that evening, they parked in a remote area of St. Martin Parish, known by many young couples as a "lover's lane". Later that night, at approximately 1 am Saturday morning, Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Eddie James Sonnier, who were rabbit hunting together, came across the couple's car. Using a badge one of the brothers had obtained while working as a security guard, and both armed with 22-caliber rifles, the two posed as police officers and approached and entered LeBlanc's car. The victims were informed that they were trespassing and that they would have to be brought to the landowner to determine if the landowner desired to press charges. They also confiscated each of the teens' driver's licenses to further their act. Miss Bourque and Mr. LeBlanc were then handcuffed and placed in the back seat of their own car.

Leaving their own car behind, the Sonnier brothers drove the couple 21 miles to a remote oilfield located in Iberia Parish, an area known well to the defendants. Once at the oilfield, both victims were removed from the car. David LeBlanc was taken into the woods and handcuffed to a tree. Loretta Bourque was taken a short distance away and raped by Eddie Sonnier. She then reluctantly agreed to have oral sex with Eddie Sonnier on the condition that they would safely release her and Mr. LeBlanc afterwards. Upon completion of the rapes, Patrick Sonnier removed their handcuffs and brought them back toward the road where the car was parked.

At that point, Patrick Sonnier told his brother that he feared he would be "sent back to Angola" (the Louisiana State Penitentiary
Louisiana State Penitentiary
The Louisiana State Penitentiary is a prison farm in Louisiana operated by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is the largest maximum security prison in the United States with 5,000 offenders and 1,800 staff...

) should the victims notify police. David LeBlanc and Loretta Bourque were then forced to lie side by side, face down, and were each shot three times at close range in the back of the head.

The Sonniers then drove Mr. LeBlanc's vehicle back to the original site where the couple was first accosted in order to pick up their own vehicle. Finding their car with a flat tire, the brothers used a jack from the LeBlanc vehicle to apply a spare tire. (The jack was later seized by police from the trunk of Sonnier's car.) The brothers then destroyed the victims' driver's licenses and the following day buried the rifles in a separate remote area. Investigation also revealed that between $30–$40, which was in the possession of the victims prior to the abduction, could not be accounted for.

Arrest

The Sonniers were arrested on December 5, 1977, following a tip from a local man who reported seeing the Sonniers' 1961 blue-colored Dodge Dart parked in the remote area during the early morning hours of November 5. They were advised of their rights and taken to the Sheriff's Office in New Iberia, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

. While there, Patrick Sonnier gave verbal and written confessions. The defendant was then transferred to a parish prison in an adjacent parish. While en route, he made other statements to the officers who were transporting him. The following day he agreed to a videotaped confession. All three statements indicated that Patrick Sonnier had participated in the abduction of the victims and had personally shot them.

The police, after direction from Patrick Sonnier, later recovered the two rifles used in the murders. Ballistics tests indicated that a bullet taken from a victim's head and four brass casings found by the police at the scene of the crime had positively been fired from the rifle which belonged to the defendant. Because of excessive damage, the other five bullets that were recovered could only be identified as having been fired from the same model, brand and caliber rifle as that belonging to the Sonniers. The handcuffs used in the abduction were later recovered from Patrick Sonnier's bedroom. The State also produced a witness who testified that he had seen the defendants' blue 1961 Dart at the place where the abduction occurred during the early morning hours of November 5, 1977.

The defendant and his brother were jointly indicted on two counts of first degree murder by the grand jury of Iberia Parish. On January 19, 1978, Patrick was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Trial

During the trial, the brothers traded accusations on who did the actual killing. Patrick was eventually convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death based on his confessions and his brother's testimony that he was the initiator and more dominant participant. This made no difference because separate juries each returned guilty verdicts on each brother and both were sentenced to death. After their first appeal, the death sentences were reversed due to procedural mishaps and new sentencing hearings were issued. Now free from the threat of death, Eddie James Sonnier dramatically recanted his testimony during his brother's second penalty hearing. He had then claimed that it was actually he that did the actual killings and not Patrick. He also expressed that he was the more dominant offender, and even sent a letter to Governor Edwin W. Edwards explaining this. However, the Prosecution successfully attacked Eddie James' credibility and therefore was able to establish that Patrick was the most in charge of the criminal situation. The state of Louisiana imposed a second sentence of death on Patrick, this one to remain. Eddie's sentence was changed to life without the possibility of parole.

Sister Helen Prejean has said Patrick was not actually the one who killed the two teenagers, his brother Eddie was, but she says that although he was not guilty of murder he still felt guilt over his criminal past and parts in the rape of not only the murdered girl, but also many other teenage girls who had come down "lover's lane" with their boyfriends. She said the two brothers had frequently stopped teenagers, saying they were trespassing and then saying if the girl slept with them, they wouldn't say anything, but on this occasion Eddie got out of hand.

Execution

According to Sister Helen Prejean's book, Patrick Sonnier struggled with ambivalent feelings toward the fathers of his victims, who asked to watch the electrocution, during the last hours before his execution. Prejean, Sonnier's personal choice as spiritual advisor, sat with the condemned Sonnier during his final hours. Godfrey Bourque and Lloyd LeBlanc, the respective fathers of Loretta Bourque and David LeBlanc, were granted permission to witness the execution.

Sonnier had heard news reports quoting Bourque as saying he would "like to pull the switch himself". Sonnier angrily expressed to Prejean that "If they want to pull the switch, OK, let 'em!" Through much of his last day he repeatedly smoked cigarettes and drank coffee. But in the end, Prejean convinced Sonnier that redemption would only be achieved through repentance and taking responsibility for his role in the murders. According to Prejean, Sonnier eventually said he "don't want my final words to be angry ones".

Prejean, who talked to Patrick Sonnier through a steel mesh window most of the day, said he bore no ill will toward Eddie Sonnier and dictated a letter to her Wednesday afternoon to give to his brother. "He told him to be cool, keep his head and stay out of trouble. He ended it, 'I love you, your big brother.'" Elmo Sonnier never really believed his appeal would be successful, she said. After he ate a steak dinner, she said the death house phone rang and then a guard came and told Sonnier his appeals had been turned down by the federal courts. "I know I'm not going to make it", he told Prejean. Minutes later, Sonnier received a telephone call from Governor Edwin W. Edwards, who insisted that he personally deliver the news that he decided not to interfere with the criminal process and that the execution would move forward. It was then that "there was fear and anguish on his face", as documented by Sister Prejean. Guards, dressed in customary black, came in and shaved his head, eyebrows, and leg. Resigned to his fate, Patrick started talking about life after death. He also vowed that "no one was going to see him break".

At the permission of Warden Ross Maggio, Prejean was allowed to follow Patrick Sonnier to the execution chamber. With her hand on his shoulder, she read from Isaiah
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...

 Chapter 43: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you ... When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned ... Lead out the people who are blind though they have eyes, who are deaf though they have ears."

Once in the execution chamber
Execution chamber
An execution chamber, or death chamber, is a room or chamber in which a legal execution is carried out. Execution chambers are almost always inside the walls of a maximum-security prison, although not always at the same prison where the death row population is housed...

, Sonnier directed his last statement
Last words
Last words are a person's final words spoken before death.Last Words may also refer to:* Last Words , an Australian punk band* Last Words , a memoir by George Carlin* Last Words , a 1968 short film directed by Werner Herzog...

 to Lloyd LeBlanc, saying "I can understand the way you feel. I have no hatred in my heart. As I leave this world, I ask God to forgive...me for what I did. I also ask your forgiveness for what I did." LeBlanc nodded, and then Bourque remarked quietly "He didn't ask me." Sonnier was then strapped in what was known to Louisiana Death Row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...

 inmates as "Gruesome Gertie
Gruesome Gertie
Gruesome Gertie was the nickname given by death row inmates to the Louisiana electric chair.-History:The 1940 Louisiana legislature had changed the method of execution, making execution by electrocution effective from June 1, 1941. Louisiana's electric chair did not have a permanent home at first,...

", the state's oak electric chair
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

. While the guards secured Sonnier to the chair, he caught Prejean's eye, told her "I love you", to which she replied "I love you, too." Then his face was covered with a veil, and the executioner
Executioner
A judicial executioner is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice.-Scope and job:...

 pulled the switch at 12:07 a.m., sending four alternating jolts of 2,000 volts and 500 volts of electricity through his body. He was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m.

Shortly after, Warden Maggio, on behalf of the State of Louisiana, announced that the sentence of death had been carried out. Elmo Patrick Sonnier was 34 years old.

Burial

Sr. Prejean and other Catholic nuns took responsibility in ensuring a proper Catholic burial for Patrick Sonnier. The service, which was presided over by the bishop of Baton Rouge, Stanley Joseph Ott
Stanley Joseph Ott
Stanley Joseph Ott, S.T.D., was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Baton Rouge from 1983 until his death in 1992...

 (typically unheard of for non-well respected members of the Catholic Church), was held at a Baton Rouge area funeral home. Sonnier was laid to rest in Roselawn Memorial Park, in a burial plot normally reserved for nuns. Among those in attendance was his brother and accomplice, Eddie, who was heavily shackled.

See also

  • Capital punishment in Louisiana
  • Capital punishment in the United States
    Capital punishment in the United States
    Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...



Sources

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