Elmo Patrick Sonnier illness, at Louisiana State Prison . He is buried in the prison cemetery. Sister Helen Prejean published a book, "Dead Man Walking" (1993), about her relationship with Elmo Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie, another inmate on Death Row whom she counseled. The book was adapted as a 1995 film of the same name directed by Tim Robbins and starring Susan Sarandon as Sister Prejean and Sean Penn as Matthew Poncelett, an amalgam of Sonnier and Willie. Her book was also adapted as an opera of the same name, first produced in 2000 by the San Francisco Opera. Elmo Patrick Sonnier
Dalton Prejean requirements be imposed. On December 10, 1976, Prejean was released to the custody of his aunt in Houston, apparently without any probation requirements. Within seven months, Dalton was once more under arrest for murder. At about five o'clock in the morning of July 2, 1977, Prejean, his brother Joseph, Michael George, and Michael Broussard left Roger's Nite Club in Lafayette Parish. The four had spent the night drinking in various lounges in the vicinity. They left Roger's Nite Club in a 1966 Chevrolet driven by Dalton, with his brother in the front seat and the other two in the back.