Angola's Death Row Population on April 11, 1962
(The day of Wilbert Rideau's arrival)

When Louisiana's portable electric chair quit making the rounds from parish to parish in 1957, executions were centralized at the state penitentiary. Death Row was established at Angola. As the condemned awaited execution in their solitary 6' by 8' cells, they were kept in a state of idleness and stasis around the clock, a living state as close to death as the human mind can devise.

Wilbert Rideau described that existence, in a letter to the pardon board, as "the zenith in human cruelty." In 1989, he explained to ABC-TV's 20/20: "In a cell, all the normal psychological and social crutches that prop you up and enable the average person to walk around and go about his life, all that's removed when you're in solitary confinement. I mean, you have absolutely nothing. You have got to build an existence in a vacuum. You have to justify living from day to day. I mean, to yourself, because it's senseless. You're just there, and that's all. And you're just waiting to die."

After his conviction by the Calcasieu Parish "kangaroo court" in 1961, Wilbert Rideau was kept in the parish jail until the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence on an automatic appeal. On April 11, 1962, he was sent to Angola. There, thirteen other doomed men occupied cells in that narrow steel and concrete netherworld known as Death Row.

Ten were African American and three were white.

The three white men were all there with murder convictions.

Delbert Eyer shot Myrtle Jones Pichon in the back of the head at point-blank range during an armed robbery of a dimestore, then dragged her body 42 feet and hid it behind a counter. His death sentence was commuted to "Life" by the governor, and a second commutation to "time served" allowed him to go free after serving only 8 years.

Brodie Davis murdered an elderly man during an armed robbery. The victim was bound and beaten to death, then thrown in the Ouachita River near Monroe, Louisiana. Davis was a burly, six-foot, 220-pound ex-convict on parole at the time of the crime. His sentence was judicially amended to "Life" pursuant to Witherspoon v. Illinois; a governor's commutation to "time served" released him from prison after he served 18 years.

Roy Fulghum murdered four people: his wife, both of her parents, and her teenaged brother. He was resentenced to "Life" pursuant to Witherspoon. In 1984, after serving 24 years, he was released on a medical furlough, a release mechanism intended for terminally ill prisoners with six months or less to live. Roy Fulghum lived a full, active, and non-criminal life as a free man for seven years before dying.

The other ten Death Row inmates were African Americans. Four were convicted of raping white women: Andrew Scott, Alton Poret, Edgar Labat, and Emile Weston. Scott was paroled in 1973. Poret, Labat, and Weston were released from Death Row prior to Witherspoon. None served more than 11 years.

The six remaining African Americans on Death Row when Wilbert Rideau arrived were there for murder.

Freddie Eubanks was condemned for beating and stabbing to death a seventy-year-old woman during an armed robbery in New Orleans. He was released on parole after serving 16 years.

Edward Davis was convicted in 1959 of murdering a white police officer who had gone to Davis' home in response to a domestic dispute. Davis was an ex-con who had previously served time in Angola in connection with the shooting of his father-in-law. Since there is no record of a clemency for him, he most likely regained his freedom through the courts. He was released on October 13, 1971 after serving 12 years.

Joseph Jenkins arrived on death row February 16, 1961 for a 1957 murder committed in New Orleans. His sentence was commuted to "Life" pursuant to Furman. He was given a given a governor's commutation and freed in 1991 after serving 34 years.

Parnell Smith went to prison with a life sentence for murder. He killed another man while in prison, for which he was sentenced to death. Resentenced to "Life" pursuant to Furman v. Georgia, he served 31 years before being released by a governor's commutation.

Thomas Goins was convicted of murder during an armed robbery in New Orleans. Research has been unable to determine how he was released from prison. He did not die in prison and appears to have been released prior to Witherspoon, meaning he served no more than 13 years.

Ora Lee Rogers was convicted of the rape and murder of a white store owner in 1959. He was resentenced to "Life" pursuant to Furman. The only one of the April 11, 1962, Death Row population to die in prison, he had a heart attack in 1975 after serving 16 years.

Wilbert Rideau, convicted of the murder of a white teller in the aftermath of a bank robbery, is the only one of the April 11, 1962, Death Row population to remain in prison today. He has served 40 years, and faces retrial by a district attorney campaigning for re-election.