BATON ROUGE - Barry Seal was a Baton Rouge native who worked as a drug runner for the cartel, smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars of cocaine into the United States.
Nowadays, he is a huge figure in pop culture, even being portrayed by Tom Cruise in a movie.
Watch past coverage about Barry Seal from the WBRZ News Vault here
His daughter Christina Seal says that at the end of the day, Barry was her father, and he was unfairly taken from her when he was assassinated by contract killers in 1986.
"This man took away a father of five children," she said.
Last month, a clemency hearing was held for Bernardo Antonio Vásquez, one of the three men convicted with killing Seal.
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He was given a life sentence, but now, he may get out of prison early.
"My first reaction was shock, the anger, and then I became sad, and then I broke down in tears," Seal said.
Seal says she understands her father was far from perfect. However, her father will never have the chance to walk out of a prison to see his family.
"My dad's dead, and I know that, and there is nothing that is going to bring him back, and I know that. But there are consequences for people's actions. It's not okay that he gets to go home to his mother when my father doesn't get to come home to me," Seal said.
She says her father was trying to become a better person —at one point, even working with the government to try and bring down cartel leader Pablo Escobar.
"He was trying to right the wrongs in his life that he had done. He was trying to make things better for his family, not because he got caught, but because he wanted better for himself and his family," Seal said.
As for her father's killer, she says letting him leave prison after having a life sentence would send the wrong message, even thought the assassination happened over three decades ago.
"'He had all these glowing letters of recommendation and all these good things in prison, and he should be granted clemency,' and I'm just thinking — you are a murderer," Seal said.
She says she has forgiven her father's killers but also says that doesn't mean he should be released from prison.
"You can wish them the best in life, and you can be grateful that they found God, but you still have to pay the consequences of your actions," Seal said.
Friday afternoon, WBRZ reached out to the Governor's Office to see if Vásquez may get parole. They said they would give us an update next week.
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Daughter of infamous BR drug runner Barry Seal frustrated that her father's killer could soon walk free - WBRZ
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