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CATAHOULA PARISH, La. — This week, a Catahoula Parish Grand Jury indicted Thomas Steven Sanders again for the 2010 first-degree murder of 12-year-old Lexis Kaye Roberts, a crime for which he had already received a life sentence in federal courts.

However, the new charges are not the same as double jeopardy, explained Seventh Judicial District of Louisiana District Attorney Bradley Burget.

“Because the case occurs in two jurisdictions, it is not considered double jeopardy,” Burget said. Sanders faces a first-degree murder charge in the State of Louisiana, which is different than the federal charge for which Sanders has been convicted.

“It may be the same facts, but they were different crimes by definition,” he said.

There are multiple factors for a Catahoula Parish jury to consider, said Burget. One, whether Sanders is innocent or guilty of the crime of first-degree murder. State prosecutors have been given the blueprint for trying Sanders after his federal conviction.

Secondly, if found guilty, the same Catahoula Parish Jury will also decide if Sanders should be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty, Burget said.

While a federal death row sentence has been reclassified by former President Joe Biden to life without parole, this will have no effect on the state prosecution of Sanders, Burget said.

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.

This kind of case “erodes the public’s faith in the justice system,” Burget said.

“I found it shocking and disrespectful to the jury,” Burget said of former President Biden’s actions. At least in Louisiana, “Whether (Sanders) faces life imprisonment or the death penalty will be decided by a jury. Not by me or any one individual.”

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.