UNIT 1012 BOOK CLUB: DEAD FAMILY WALKING

            To denounce Helen Prejean’s book, ‘Dead Man Walking’, we the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, recommend people who want to know the truth to read this book, ‘Dead Family Walking: The Bourque Family Story of Dead Man Walking’. We will post information about this book from several sources.

Dead Family Walking Book

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Family-Walking-Bourque-Story/dp/0977188108]

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Family-Walking-Bourque-Story/dp/0977188108

Dead Family Walking: The Bourque Family Story of Dead Man Walking Paperback – September 30, 2005

by D. D. Devinci (Author)

7 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0977188109 ISBN-10: 0977188108

A "True Account" of what Dead Man Walking(by Sister Prejean) did not tell and did not want you to know. Dead Family Walking sheds the truth about the life of the murderer-rapist buried next to bishops, priests and nuns on "sacred ground" in a Baton Rouge cemetery and details of his forbidden death row intimacy no one was supposed to know about.

Nun's book contains questionable embellishments and according to one victim's parent who was sent a manuscript of Dead Man Walking, "There were lies in there!" Incarcerated Governor Edwards writes jailhouse letter contradicting nun's version of killer's last day and her secret whereabouts the night of killer's execution. Thirty days before execution, killer divulges details to homicide detective of shocking death-row proposal including confessing his hunger to kill again.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A very compelling and moving read. This is sure to be a very powerful, very impactful book." -- Judy Kellum, Hollywood scripts, June 2005

Being familiar the truth makes you realize that Dead Man Walking truly belongs on the shelf in the Fiction category. -- Steve Durr, Retired School Teacher, 3/05

Your exhaustive research made you more knowledgeable of the case-facts than I, or anyone in law enforcement ever was. -- Dracos Burke, 86, Prosecutor of Sonnier Trials, 3/05

From the Publisher

Was Louisiana Nun’s Dead Man Walking An Earlier Million Little Pieces? NEW IBERIA, LA. 3/9/06 So says D.D. de Vinci, author of recently published true story, "Dead Family Walking: The Bourque Family Story of Dead Man Walking". From the first page turned, when a mother wakes from a 3 a.m. scream heard miles away, de Vinci wields your heart in the portrayal of a family’s perpetual suffering resulting from a Catholic nun’s prior relationship with an executed killer that inspired her exaggeration-filled book, "Dead Man Walking,"( written by Sister Helen Prejean ) which the writer claims destroyed the lives of an American Family. On November 5, 1977 the Bourque’s teenage daughter, Loretta, was found murdered in a trash pile near the city of New Iberia, La, lying side-by-side near her boyfriend with three well-placed bullet holes behind each head. No apparent motive. Very little clues. While the devout-Catholic Bourque family fought to piece their lives back together after the capture and trials of the killers of their daughter, they suddenly faced an unexpected opponent, Sister Prejean, who would use their story in a religious-political spin that would take the world by surprise. Prejean’s award winning book later published in 1993, based on the crimes and executions of Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie, instantly catapulted her to international fame and recognition. Her polemic defense and arguments against the death penalty appeared to be her main inspirations for writing the book, but details fueled by a tape recorded conversation with a Catholic priest and an interview with a homicide detective led de Vinci to a conspiracy theory which readers and maybe Hollywood may find intriguing.

Almost three decades after the murders and thirty exhaustive months of research later, de Vinci’s fact-filled "Dead Family Walking" sheds the truth about the early life of the murderer-rapist, Elmo Sonnier, who remains buried next to bishops, priests and nuns on sacred ground in a Baton Rouge cemetery and details a forbidden death row intimacy no one was supposed to know about.

"In the tortured logic peculiar to those in love"(excerpt from "Dead Family Walking"), de Vinci’s investigative research indicates that Prejean’s book is not honest. According to a 2004 interview with Detective Russell Duplantis, who spent over an hour at Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary thirty days prior to his execution on April 6,1984, Sonnier revealed shocking information about his relationship with Prejean that still stuns the New Iberia homicide detective to this day. Duplantis is quoted from "Dead Family Walking": "All these years, I have kept this information to myself, but now it needs to come out. The Bourques got a raw deal from the Church and Prejean. They had to go through much pain and anguish. Sister Prejean has been using the Bourques for her anti-death penalty and got away with it! The public needs to know that she and Elmo fell in love."

Non-fictional facts disputed. "Prejean wrote in ‘Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States,’ that she was at Angola for the entire evening of Sonnier’s last day alive," says de Vinci, a Louisiana writer. " She even mentions the exact time on her wristwatch as events occurred up until his execution." Not so, according to incarcerated former Gov. Edwin Edwards in a jail-house letter written from a Dallas Texas prison in February of 2004, confirming the validity of a twenty-year old memorandum which stated that he called Angola Warden Maggio on the night of the execution at 8:20 p.m., from the Governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge with Prejean at his side. But on page 88 of Prejean’s book, she wrote that she looked at her watch at 8:40 p.m. next to Sonnier’s cell–which was twenty minutes after the call from the Governor. A well-known fact that cannot be disputed is the one-hour drive from the Governor’s mansion to Angola. "Who was telling the truth? Who was lying?" writes de Vinci. In a time when the literary world of non-fiction is under microscope, "Dead Family Walking" reveals an explosive 1978 courtroom document that defies the ending of Sister Prejean’s book (another Oprah guest) which potentially makes her use of the Lord’s Prayer in her finale one of the most disrespectful profanations history will ever record, and certainly makes "Dead Man Walking" compete with James Frey’s "Million Little Pieces" in their race towards deception.

From the Author

"DeVinci suggests that Prejean's words and writings are,at best,a fountain of naive information,and,at worst,part of a deceptive attempt by the Catholic Church to carry out its anti-death penalty stand." --Associated Press 4/3/06

About the Author

D. D. deVinci is a freelance writer with 25 years experience in the publishing industry. Author of more than a dozen books, he lives with his wife near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is presently working on an action adventure novel, Runaway Computer, scheduled for publication in 2006.

INTERNET SOURCE: http://off2dr.com/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=22

Dead Family Walking:

The guru of death row inmates, Sister Helen Prejean, wrote a book Dead Man Walking. One of the victims' family has finally answered her in DEAD FAMILY WALKING. available from the publisher www.deadfamilywalking.com.

Sister Helen Prejean is a fountain of misinformation; all taken as fact because of course a nun wouldn't lie. (They can be deceived, naive and gullible, however) She has never answered why the murderers get more support than the victims or their families. She says this is not her intent, but it is the end result.

         By D. D. deVinci 

On November 5, 1977, the Bourque's teenage daughter, Loretta, was found murdered in a  

trash pile near the city of New Iberia, Louisiana lying side by side near her boyfriend–with three well-placed bullet holes behind each head. No apparent motive. Very little clues. 

 

WHAT THE PUBLIC KNEW 

While the families of the murdered teenagers tried to find closure, a Catholic nun becomes spiritual advisor to one brother on death row and made it her mission to defend him, arguing that the crime was a single act of violence for which the other brother  was solely responsible. Her attempts failed, killer is executed in 1984 when she and killer vow love for each other before he dies. Nun takes body to Baton Rouge for free funeral and mass performed by Bishop. Fifteen nuns brought in from New Orleans to attend funeral for stranger. Body laid to rest in Baton Rouge cemetery on sacred ground. Nun later writes book: Dead Man Walking. 

                                         

WHAT THE PUBLIC DID NOT KNOW 

Prior to the murders, posing as police, the brothers would hunt people on weekends kidnapping an estimated 30 couples. Boys would be handcuffed in view of girls being held down, raped, threatened and released.  Secret conversation with Catholic priest revealed killer’s funeral staged by Church hierarchy to protest capital punishment and said Bishop was subdued. Funeral home pressured for free funeral. Grounds keeper of cemetery said nun went behind Mother Superior's back to have killer buried. Thirty days after burial, upset nuns secretly tried to have killer's corpse disinterred. 

After 6 years of trials and appeals, the devout-Catholic Bourques hoped with the killer's execution they could put the nightmare behind them and find some peace with which to live. Instead, the surprising scorn from Church leaders in Baton Rouge was just the beginning of family pain causing them to stop attending church—but they eventually returned with unexpected disrespect for Church personnel. 

Nun's book contains questionable embellishments and according to one victim's parent who was sent a manuscript of Dead Man Walking, "There were lies in there!" Incarcerated Governor Edwards writes jailhouse letter contradicting nun's version of killer's last day and her secret whereabouts the night of killer's execution. Thirty days before execution, killer divulges details to homicide detective of shocking death-row proposal including confessing his hunger to kill again. 

Victim's family endures 25 unsuccessful years of seeking closure, finally contracting investigator to dig-up details of crime and fallacies of Dead Man Walking. Disgusting discovery found in killer's briefcase stored in courthouse evidence room for 20 years. Divine message from God to young child pertaining to murdered girl deciphered 15 years later in 2004.  Surprise conversation with homicide detective reveals details of an unknown American hero that will warm the hearts of all who read this story.