His child, Bear Updyke, told AL.com that he passed away of natural causes in Louisiana on Thursday.
He was 71.
As part of the sentence, he was put under 5 years of supervised probation, consisting of a restriction on attending any collegiate occasion or stepping on Auburn University home.
Auburn police jailed him for dousing the landmark trees on the edge of the Auburn campus with herbicide so powerful that agronomists said they had little to no opportunity of survival.
Updyke pleaded
guilty to poisoning oak trees that drew generations of Auburn University football fans to Toomers Corner after huge victories. The event, which happened in 2010, outraged Auburn fans.
Authorities first learned of the herbicide after a caller who determined himself as “Al from Dadeville” telephoned into a Birmingham, Alabama, radio talk show, stating he had actually poisoned the popular oaks after Auburn won a contentious November 2010 football video game versus the University of Alabama.
“Al” ended the call with “Roll Damn Tide,” a fight cry for the University of Alabama.
He was sentenced to serve at least six months of a three-year sentence for criminal damage to a farming center, the Lee County District Attorney said at the time.
