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Famed prison journalist Sinclair paroled
By Associated Press
Published: 04/25/2000

A convicted killer who won awards as an inmate journalist was released from prison Monday in Baton Rouge, LA and left for Houston.

Billy Wayne Sinclair served 40 years of a 90-year sentence for killing a Baton Rouge convenience store clerk in a 1965 robbery. He won parole last week, said Margaretta Blades of the parole board.

"He plans to live in Texas," Blades said. "The parole is for him to move to that state.”

Sinclair gained fame for his work on The Angolite, the inmate publication at Louisiana State Penitentiary. He published the magazine with Wilbert Rideau, a fellow Angola inmate who was released last year.

Their magazine won national prizes including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award and the George Polk Award for special interest reporting.

Sinclair also came into the public eye as a government witness who helped expose a 1980s pardon-selling scandal in Louisiana. He told authorities what he knew after rejecting an offer for his release for a $15,000 bribe.

Rideau and Sinclair were both spared execution when the Supreme Court overturned the death penalty laws that existed in 1972.

Sinclair is in poor health, afflicted by Kearns-Sayre syndrome, a rare neuromuscular disorder that creates heart and vision problems, according to his wife.



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