Sister Helen Prejean, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness of The Death Penalty, will be guest speaker at Brite Divinity School’s Fifth Roman Catholic Lecture on Tuesday, March 2, at 7 p.m. in Ed Landreth Auditorium. Topic is “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.”

 

 

General admission is $15, free with a TCU ID. For tickets, go to www.brite.tcu.edu or phone ext. 7575.

 

 

A Roman Catholic Sister of the Congregation St. Joseph, Sister Helen began her prison ministry in 1981 when she dedicated her life to the poor of New Orleans. While working in the St. Thomas housing project, she became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers, sentenced to die in the electric chair at Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. Her book, an indictment of capital punishment in the United States, was made into the film Dead Man Walking, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

 

 

Fifteen years since beginning her crusade, the Roman Catholic sister has witnessed five executions in Louisiana. As the founder of Survive, a victim's advocacy group in New Orleans, she continues to counsel not only inmates on death row, but also families of murder victims. Her most recent book is The Death of Innocence: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.