Wilbert Rideau Biography

Wilbert Rideau (born February 13, 1942) is a convicted killer and former death row inmate from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who became an author and award-winning journalist while in prison. Rideau was convicted of first-degree murder in the course of a bank robbery in 1961 and sentenced to death. After the United States Supreme Court ruled that states had to rework their death penalty statutes because of constitutional concerns, the Louisiana Court judicially amended his sentence in 1972 to life in prison. During his 12 years in isolation on Death Row, he began to educate himself, reading numerous books, a practice he continued.