- Pat is into having Prejean visit Sonnier. He decides to register her as his spiritual advisor, which means, among other things, that she can witness the execution.
- Months go by as the bureaucracy grinds on.
- Then Prejean gets a letter saying that she needs to go see the Catholic priest who serves as prison chaplain.
- It's 1982, if you're keeping track. There's no internet, Michael Jackson is big, hip-hop is barely a twinkle in a rapper's eye. That's 1982.
- Prejean mentions that Louisiana gives harsh sentences for crimes. There have been prison protests there against inhumane conditions, most notably by the Heel-string Gangs, who cut their Achilles tendons rather than be beaten while working in the fields.
- The chaplain warns Prejean that the prisoners are awful. Doesn't seem like a very Christian thing to say to us.
- The chaplain tells Prejean that she should wear her habit. Apparently, he's old school.
- Prejean thinks the chaplain is silly, but she's a nun, and nuns don't tell priests they're silly gooses to their faces.
- Prejean notes that she always had trouble wearing the veil and habit; they kept getting caught on things. She almost set herself on fire once.
- In September, Prejean gets the right to be a spiritual advisor. The letter says she can be strip-searched when she goes into the prison if the authorities want, and she's nervous about that. But when she gets there, nothing happens; the authorities just lead her into a room.
- Prison is ugly and depressing, Prejean discovers.
- Prejean's nervous about talking to Pat Sonnier for two hours… but here he is. Too late to back out now.
- Pat's chatty, and he thanks Prejean for asking some college students to write to him.
- Pat smokes a lot. You don't need to worry about long-term health when you're on Death Row, right?
- Pat says he hasn't done well with women. He has a daughter, Star, but he's estranged from her mother and hasn't spent any time with her.
- Pat grew up poor; his parents were separated. His father, Robert, died when he was young.
- Prejean leaves, and she's glad to be out of the prison. She thinks that if Pat were out of prison, he'd be pretty scary. She also notices that he doesn't talk about his crimes.
- Prejean says she was naïve about the justice system. She used to think it would provide adequate defense for those to be put to death, but now she knows it doesn't.
- Prejean keeps visiting Pat. He's worried about his brother, Eddie. Prejean decides she can visit him, too.
- Eddie gets in trouble often, while Pat has never had a disciplinary write up.
- Eddie hates prison. He feels trapped, he doesn't like the guards, and he's afraid of his fellow inmates.
- In July 1983, Pat calls her and tells her that he has an execution date set.
- So Prejean starts seeing him more often: once a week.
- Pat tells her they came in to weigh and measure him; maybe for his coffin? No; it turns out they're trying to figure out how many guards they need for the execution, in case he tries to break free.
- Pat is planning to move to the death house. Tom Dybdahl of the Prison Coalition (he's replaced Chava) is certain Pat will get a stay of execution.
- Prejean talks with Pat while they wait to find out if there's a stay.
- Pat's worried that Prejean will be scarred if she witnesses the execution, but she says she can handle it, with the help of God.
- That's the sort of thing you say if you're a nun, even if you are really not so sure how you'll handle something like witnessing an execution.
- Pat talks to Prejean about the execution. He says he thinks God has forgiven him. He also says that it was Eddie, not he, who shot the kids. Eddie was upset about a girl, and then David (the victim) said something, and Eddie flipped out.
- Pat says he's sorry for the children and the parents.
- Prejean says that one of the trustees said that Sonnier had great remorse for what he did.
- Pat insists he didn't rape Loretta. He confessed because he and Eddie had agreed to each say they did it, in order to confuse the police. On top of that, they were afraid the police would beat them if they refused to confess.
- Prejean isn't sure whether Pat's lying or not. In fact, we never really learn whether the guy is lying or not. That's the way it goes.
- Prejean leaves before they hear about the stay, but she hears on the radio on the way back that it's been granted.
- On her next visit she meets with Eddie, and he says he committed the murders. His girlfriend was pregnant and had refused to marry him; instead she was with a man named David.
- When he and Pat kidnapped the kids, Eddie conflated the other David with the David they'd kidnapped. Then he snapped and killed both David and Loretta.
- Eddie says he feels horrible guilt for what he did, but he doesn't think an apology would help.
- Prejean realizes in retrospect that she should have encouraged him to apologize, because it can be a comfort to the family. Lloyd LeBlanc, in particular, hoped for an apology.
- Eddie says he testified against Pat out of confusion: Pat's attorney messed up and didn't know what Eddie would say on the stand.
- Prejean realizes Pat's legal help is awful, and she decides to call a lawyer named Millard Farmer.