Billy Wayne Sinclair

One of America’s most famous prisoners, Billy Wayne Sinclair, a man known to many as a latter-day Robin Hood, tells an amazing story of Crime, Courage & Redemption.

Sentenced to death in 1965 at age twenty for an unpremeditated murder during the bungled holdup of a convenience store, Billy Wayne spent his first 7 prison years on death row. When the death penalty was abolished, his sentence was commuted. Serving a total of 40 years in the Louisiana prison system—20 years at the nation’s worst prison, Angola, Billy became a well educated advocate of prison reform.

• Largely responsible for integrating the once fiercely segregated Angola State Penitentiary
• Respected, self-trained jailhouse lawyer who has helped hundreds of fellow inmates get a fairer deal
• Award-winning journalist, editor of the highly respected prison journal The Angolite Whistle-blower extraordinaire, the man who blew wide open the pardons-for-sale scandal that rocked the Louisiana government and helped send key officials, such as former Governor Edwin Edwards to jail
• Married by proxy, behind the backs of prison officials, to a pretty, feisty television anchorwoman, Jodie Sinclair, who has been his staunch supporter and helpmate for thirty years and is now his coauthor for both these amazing books.

During nine-year tenure with prison publication, the Angolite, the magazine was a finalist in the 1978 National Magazine Awards competition; a recipient of the 1979 Robert F. Kennedy Special Journalism Award; a recipient of the 1981 Sidney Hillman Award; and recipient of the 1981 and 1982 American Bar Association’s Certificate of Merit. Was an individual recipient of the 1980 George Polk Award and the 1980 American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award.

Listen to his unvarnished story taking you behind the metal doors of the Angola State Penitentiary–and other Louisiana prisons–to reveal the brutal truth of life inside.