Robert Lee Willie

A juror who was removed from consideration for the Willie trial due to her stated opposition to capital punishment was seated for the Vaccaro trial when she said she was fine with it. This juror became the sole vote against a death sentence for Vaccaro, and as Louisiana law requires successful votes for capital punishment to be unanimous, Vaccaro instead got a life sentence under state law. In total, Vaccaro received two life sentences for the murder of Hathaway and the kidnapping of Cuevas & Brewster. Vaccaro served his sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and died in prison on January 22, 2008, at the age of 55.

Michael L. Varnado, the detective in the case of Faith Hathaway wrote Victims of the Dead Man Walking (Pelican Publishing, 2003) recounting his views on the case.

Debbie Cuevas later married and had a son and a daughter. Known then as Debbie Morris, she still struggled to come to terms with her experience. She eventually forgave both Willie and Vaccaro for their crimes against her. In a memoir, Forgiving the Dead Man Walking: Only One Woman Can Tell the Entire Story (Zondervan Publishing, 2000), she tells of her spiritual journey. She writes that she had decided to forgive Willie for the crimes he committed. After her book was published, Morris began writing to Vaccaro in prison. Through this period, Morris also established a friendship with Sister Prejean. Morris opposes capital punishment. She has said in her book that she believed her testimony contributed to Willie's being sentenced to death and executed.

Her book was adapted for a 1995 film of the same name, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The character Matthew Poncelet, played by Penn in the film, and his crime, were drawn from Willie and Sonnier. The book was also adapted as an opera by the same name, first produced in 2000 by the San Francisco Opera.

Sister Helen Prejean, a teacher and one of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille from New Orleans, began to write to him and later served as his spiritual adviser. In her book Dead Man Walking (1993), she explored her experiences with men on death row and the basis for her growing opposition to the death penalty. The book was adapted as a 1995 film of the same name, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The book was also adapted as an opera, first produced by the San Francisco Opera in 2000.

Sister Prejean wrote a non-fiction book Dead Man Walking (1993) about her encounters with Willie and Elmo Patrick Sonnier, the first convicted murderer for whom she had served as spiritual adviser, and with personnel in the prison system. She explored the effects of holding people on death row and being involved in executions for guards, chaplains and other officials. She has become an advocate to abolish capital punishment.

In May 1984, serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole confessed to killing Wagner. Willie then recanted completely, saying he'd only confessed to Wagner's murder so he could stay in the St. Tammany Parish Jail since he thought it was easier to escape from. They were charged with murder shortly after Willie's execution, but a grand jury declined to indict them. It was later found that Lucas and Toole could not have been involved in Wagner's murder.

Willie was executed on December 28, 1984. He was the sixth man in Louisiana to be executed in a 13-month period. Willie asked Sister Prejean to be with him the day of the execution; he was also visited by his mother and brothers. Sister Prejean attended the execution at his request; he winked at her before the end.

It was later revealed that Willie had pleaded guilty in his federal kidnapping case in an attempt to avoid execution in Louisiana. He believed the state wouldn't be able to execute him if he was already in federal custody. However, federal authorities said they could transfer Willie. In 1983, he was transferred from USP Marion to the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean began to write to Willie, at the request of the prison chaplain. A teacher in New Orleans, she was one of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille and had acted as spiritual adviser to another inmate on death row.

On May 28, 1980, Willie and Joseph Jesse Vaccaro picked up Faith Hathaway, who was walking home after celebrating with friends the night before she was to enter the U.S. Army. They drove her to a remote area, raped her, and stabbed her to death. They left her body at Frickes Cave, a borrow pit, south of the parish seat Franklinton, Louisiana, along Highway 25 and near the Bogue Chitto River.

Three days later, on May 31, 1980, the pair kidnapped 20-year-old Mark Allen Brewster and his girlfriend, 16-year-old Debbie Cuevas, both from Madisonville. The two were forced to drive to Alabama, and Cuevas was repeatedly raped throughout the kidnapping. In Alabama, Brewster was taken out of the car and tied to a tree. Willie and Vaccaro shot him twice in the head and slashed his throat before leaving him for dead. Brewster survived his injuries, but was partially paralyzed. Reports vary, but he was either paralyzed on his right side or paralyzed from the waist down. Cuevas was then driven back to Louisiana, where Vaccaro raped her. Willie and Vaccaro then drove to the trailer home of Tommy Holden. Holden made sexual advances on Cuevas, but panicked when she told him that she'd been kidnapped and raped. Willie and Vaccaro had been planning to kill Cuevas, but Holden talked them into releasing her.

On May 23, 1978, Willie and his cousin, Perry Wayne Taylor, beat and drowned 19-year-old Dennis Buford Hemby, and then stole his marijuana.

While on death row, Willie pleaded to second degree murder for killing Dennis Hemby and received a life sentence. Taylor pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a 21-year sentence. In addition, Willie confessed to participating in the murder of 25-year-old St. Tammany Parish Deputy Sheriff Louis Wagner II on June 3, 1978. He implicated three other men, Richard A. Lott, Perry O. Phillips Jr., and Bobby K Raney. Wagner was allegedly killed as retaliation for repeatedly arresting one of the four men. The four men were charged with murder, but the charges against the others were dropped after Willie recanted and said the others had nothing to do with the murder. He pleaded guilty to second degree murder and received another life sentence. Willie allegedly recanted that others were involved after his father told him he'd violated the code of honor among criminals by being a snitch.

Willie was the 32nd person executed in the United States since 1977. As of February 2018, Willie's execution is the only one successfully carried out in the post-Furman era between Christmas and New Year.

Robert Lee Willie (January 2, 1958 – December 28, 1984) was an American serial killer who killed at least three people in Louisiana from the late 1970s to 1980. He was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 18-year-old Faith Hathaway and was executed in 1984.

Willie's father, John Willie, served 27 years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary for a number of crimes. In 1954, he went to prison for cattle theft. He went back to prison for aggravated battery and violating his parole. In 1964, John was returned to prison once more with a life sentence for second degree murder. He was released from prison in 1972 after his sentence was commuted to 10 years, but went back to prison for aggravated battery, and was released for the last time in October 1983.