A convicted child murderer whose death sentence was commuted by former President Biden during his last weeks in office has been indicted by a Louisiana Grand Jury for the same heinous crime.
A Catahoula Parish Grand Jury will seek the death penalty for Thomas S. Sanders — 15 years after he kidnapped and murdered Las Vegas girl Lexis Roberts, 12, according to KALB.
The killer had been sentenced to death row by a federal jury in Louisiana in September 2014 after a four-year trial — during which he admitted to killing Lexis and her mother, Suellen — a sentence he later appealed in the Federal Court of Appeals in New Orleans in 2020.
Biden granted the sicko clemency in December 2024 and commuting his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parol.
However, Catahoula Parish District Attorney Bradley R. Burget said he will pursue the death penalty for the child murderer at the state level, which could undo Biden’s act of clemency.
“In 2010, the state deferred prosecution to the federal authorities, who successfully prosecuted and achieved justice for Lexis,” Burget said, according to the Mississippi outlet Natchez Democrat.
“Yet, Mr. Biden commuted the federal death sentence imposed on Mr. Sanders to a sentence of life in prison choosing to spare the life of a convicted child killer over the victim, Lexis Kaye Roberts.”
Sanders was working in a warehouse in Las Vegas in the summer of 2010 when he met Roberts’ mother and started dating.
Two months into their relationship, Sanders, Suellen, and Roberts took a trip to the Grand Canyon over Labor Day weekend, according to the Department of Justice.
As they were returning from Nevada, Sanders drove off into a remote location in the Arizona desert and shot Suellen and kidnapped the 12-year-old, keeping her captive for several days as he drove across the country.
He later shot the Roberts four times and cut her throat in a remote wooded area of Catahoula Parish. Hunters found her body on Oct. 8, 2010, over a month after she was murdered.
A nationwide manhunt ended with police capturing the child murderer at a truck stop in Mississippi more than a month later.
“This is a heartbreaking case,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said at the time of Sander’s sentencing in 2014.
“A young girl witnessed the murder of her mother, was held captive for days, and had her life cut tragically short by a senseless, brutal murder. We hope today’s verdict will help Lexis’ family as they continue to struggle with the loss of their loved ones.”
Biden ended up commuting his sentence and the sentences of 36 other men on federal death row, including at least four other child killers and several mass murderers, as one of his last acts as president.
President Trump — who was awaiting to take office for his second term — bashed Biden for the move, which was announced on Christmas Day.
“[T]o the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky ‘souls’ but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL!” he added.
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