Admitted child rapist and retired Roman Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker has died a little more than a week after he began serving a sentence of life imprisonment, officials said on Friday.
Hecker, 93, had pleaded guilty on 3 December to charges that he had kidnapped and raped a teenager at a New Orleans church in 1975. He had received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment on 18 December and, four days later, had been transferred to a Louisiana prison known as Elayn Hunt, according to the state’s department of corrections spokesperson Ken Pastorick.
Pastorick said Hecker died at about 3am on 26 December, at Elayn Hunt, of what were described as natural causes.
Hecker’s attorney Robert Hjortsberg said his client was meant to eventually be sent to Louisiana’s maximum-security state penitentiary, which is nicknamed Angola, before his death.
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