Back in LaFargue’s office, the burly warden says, “That was Wilbert Rideau. The pods, they hold 24 men, but there’s only 18 in Rideau’s. We don’t want anyone who wants to be famous and shivs him, ‘cause Wilbert, well, he’s more than just a prisoner around here.”
That’s an understatement. A convicted killer, Rideau has been in jail longer than any other murderer in Louisiana, yet he’s about to be tried for the fourth time–despite the recommendation of four pardon boards that he be released. While incarcerated at Angola, Louisiana’s infamous state penitentiary, Rideau won his jailers’ trust with his good behavior and efforts to improve inmates’ lives. Yet he seems unable to muster even the simplest apology for the brutal crime that put him behind bars–a move that could help defang some of the passionate opposition to his release. At a time when American prisons are letting less-deserving inmates out early because of overcrowding and budget woes, Rideau’s case poses thorny questions about race, rehabilitation and the power of penitence.
On Feb. 16, 1961, Rideau, a 19-year-old high-school dropout, robbed Lake Charles’s Gulf National Bank. Armed with a .22 and a cheap blade, he walked in the bank just after closing and walked out with $14,000 cash and three prisoners. He murdered one of his hostages, a young teller named Julia Ferguson. He left another lying face down in the woods with her throat slit and a bullet in her spine. The bank’s manager escaped with a gunshot wound only because he ran for it before Rideau could take his life.
In the four decades he’s spent in jail, Rideau has done everything he can to make himself more than a murderous thug. In 1975 he was named the first black editor of Angola’s inmate magazine, the Angolite. He led investigations into life on death row. He won a George Polk Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. While at Angola, so great was the level of trust between him and his jailers that Rideau was often let out to tour the state and talk to youth groups about the dangers of crime. In 1993 Life magazine referred to Rideau as “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America.”
While Rideau was refashioning his life, his case was taking a circuitous route through the American judicial system. Rideau’s been convicted and sentenced to death three separate times in trials redolent of the racist legacy of the American South. The three juries were all white. During the second trial, a member of the white supremacist Citizens’ Council openly huddled with the prosecution.
The guilty verdicts handed down by those first two juries were thrown out by higher courts on procedural grounds. And in December 2000, a federal appeals court threw out the third conviction, ruling that Rideau’s original 1961 indictment couldn’t stand because of racial discrimination in the makeup of that long-ago grand jury. Delayed by a series of contentious pretrial –motions, Rideau’s new trial is expected to begin soon.
The prosecution argues that no amount of good works can erase Rideau’s coldblooded murder. “I don’t care if he’s black or white or green,” says Rick Bryant, the district attorney trying the case. “I’m not in the business of letting out killers.” But Rideau’s supporters–a group that includes newspaper editors, lawyers and university professors–say Rideau’s paid his debt to society, and that many other convicted murderers have been released. They point out that several pardon boards have recommended Rideau be released.
These are arguments that Rideau is practiced at preaching. “You know, there’s still racism in America,” he says in measured, careful tones. “Look at me. There’s still a judicial mechanism for lynching. I know that, I’ve had it done to me. I’ve reached a point where I don’t want to be judged by my accomplishments. I just want to be treated fairly.”
But Rideau’s been steadfast in his refusal to apologize for what he’s done. “Rideau seems to be staring across history at a person that seems vaguely familiar but fundamentally different,” says Jonathan Turley, a prison- reform expert. “I don’t know if he’s come to grips with the fact that it is the same person. I have never met a more articulate and engaging prisoner. And he committed some horrific crimes.”
When pushed about his feelings about what he did, Rideau stammers. “I’m, I think, I think a lot of bad things happened,” Rideau told NEWSWEEK. And then he changes the subject.
These days, Rideau spends his days writing and going over legal papers in the Calcasieu Parish Jail. To the prisoner, there are no ambiguities. “I think of a Biblical passage: evil was wished on me, but God wished for good to come from all this,” he says. “I’m not angry or bitter about any of it. I recognize it took everything that happened to make me the person I am. I like myself, and that’s significant, because there was a time in my life when I didn’t.”
Don Hickman, the son of the bank manager Rideau held at gunpoint, is less philosophical. “Yeah, I believe in redemption,” says Hickman. “Even for murder. But premeditated murder, you shouldn’t get out. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime, right? The way I look at it, he’s lucky the state didn’t execute him.”
