Elmo Patrick Sonnier - Execution

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 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, Sonnier directed his last statement 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 inmates as "Gruesome Gertie", the state's oak electric chair. 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 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.