Wilbert Rideau

Wilbert Rideau was born in 1942 in Louisiana and raised in Lake Charles, attending segregated public schools. At age 19 in 1961, he committed an armed bank robbery, took hostages, and killed bank teller Julia Ferguson, leading to his conviction for first-degree murder and death sentence by all-white juries in multiple trials. While imprisoned for 44 years at Angola Prison, he self-educated, served over 20 years as editor of the prison magazine The Angolite—winning major journalism awards including the George Polk Award—and contributed to documentaries like the Oscar-nominated The Farm: Angola, USA, as well as authoring notable works such as In the Place of Justice (2010) and Life Sentences (1992). In a 2005 retrial, he was convicted of manslaughter and released after serving beyond the maximum sentence.