Thomas S. Sanders Indicted Again for Murder of Lexis Roberts

A Louisiana Grand Jury has once again indicted convicted child killer Thomas S. Sanders for the 2010 murder of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts. The Catahoula Parish Grand Jury has announced its intent to pursue the death penalty, reigniting a legal battle years after Sanders’ federal death sentence was commuted by then-President Joe Biden.

Sanders, who was originally sentenced to death by a federal jury in 2014 for the murders of Lexis and her mother, Suellen Roberts, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment without parole by President Biden in December 2024. This act of clemency, part of a broader commutation of 37 federal death row inmates, stirred national controversy.

Catahoula Parish District Attorney Bradley R. Burget is now pursuing capital punishment at the state level. “In 2010, the state deferred prosecution to federal authorities, who successfully secured a death verdict. Yet, Mr. Biden chose to override that justice in favor of a convicted child murderer,” Burget stated to local outlet Natchez Democrat.

Sanders met Suellen while working in a Las Vegas warehouse in 2010. Just two months into their relationship, he took Suellen and her daughter Lexis on a trip to the Grand Canyon. On the return journey, Sanders fatally shot Suellen in the Arizona desert and abducted Lexis, holding her captive for several days. He ultimately murdered the young girl in a remote area of Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, shooting her four times and slashing her throat. Her remains were discovered by hunters in October 2010.

Following a month-long manhunt, Sanders was arrested at a Mississippi truck stop. His trial in 2014 ended in a federal death sentence, later appealed in 2020. Despite admitting to the killings, Sanders benefited from President Biden’s 2024 clemency decision, a move heavily criticized by incoming President Donald Trump.

Trump, addressing the issue on Truth Social, wrote: “To the 37 most violent criminals… who were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden… GO TO HELL!”

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell previously called the case “heartbreaking,” emphasizing the brutal nature of the crime. “A young girl witnessed her mother’s murder, was kidnapped, and then brutally killed. This verdict once provided a sense of justice,” Caldwell said in 2014.

Now, with Louisiana re-opening prosecution at the state level, Sanders once again faces the possibility of a death sentence — in what could become a precedent-setting case concerning the limits of presidential clemency and state-level justice.