The Mystery of Death

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"I want to live in the reality that death is part of it, but to live because death can just punch you in the stomach and knock the wind out," he says. "When it comes to loving in the criminal justice system, it means working really hard for justice and for people's voices to be heard."

In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was writing letters. And lo and behold, two years later, I am in that execution chamber.” She’s now 81, and has been present at the executions of six men.

Sister Helen’s book, Dead Man Walking, is about her time as a spiritual advisor to Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie. It was adapted into a movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

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