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CATAHOULA PARISH, La. — While a federal death row sentence has been reclassified by former President Joe Biden to life without parole, the State of Louisiana still seeks the death penalty for a man convicted of the kidnapping, torturing and murdering a child in Catahoula Parish.

According to a statement by the Seventh Judicial District of Louisiana District Attorney Bradley Burget, on Monday, a Catahoula Parish Grand Jury indicted Thomas Steven Sanders for the first-degree murder of 12-year-old Lexis Kaye Roberts in 2010.

Furthermore, the District Attorney’s Office will seek the death penalty for the crimes Sanders committed in Catahoula Parish, Burget said, adding, “Biden’s action to commute the federal death penalty will have no effect on the state prosecution of Sanders.”

On December 23, 2024, the former president used his clemency authority to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, including Sanders.

Sanders had been prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. In 2014, a federal petit jury convicted and sentenced him to death for the 2010 kidnapping and brutal murder of Lexis.

The child lived with her mother, Suellen Roberts, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Over Labor Day weekend in 2010, they accompanied Sanders on a vacation to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Sanders reportedly shot and killed Suellen with a single gunshot to the head in front of Lexis.

The child was then forcefully seized and transported to Catahoula Parish by Sanders, who then shot Lexis multiple times in the head and chest with a single shot .22 caliber rifle and slit her throat with a homemade knife. During the federal trial, it was learned that Sanders had ties to Catahoula Parish and that most of his mother’s family is buried there.

Sanders had been declared legally dead in 1994 after going missing in 1987. He resurfaced some years later in Las Vegas and began dating Suellen.

In early October 2010, hunters found Lexis’ skeletal remains, including her pink braces, which were key in identification.

Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Department investigated with assistance from the Louisiana State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and LSU FACES. Sheriff Toney Edwards served as the lead detective in this investigation.

The crime of interstate kidnapping landed the case against Sanders for Lexis’ killing in a federal jurisdiction, while the murder of Suellen remained a case in Arizona.

“In 2010, the State deferred prosecution to the federal authorities, who successfully prosecuted and achieved justice for Lexis. 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,” Burget said.