A man whose death sentence was pardoned by Democrat Joe Biden was prosecuted again for a horrific crime
On their return, Sanders shot and killed Suellen in Arizona and subsequently took Lexis to Catahoula Parish, Louisiana. There he killed her by shooting her multiple times and then used a knife against her.
Her remains were found by hunters in October 2010 and later identified with the help of the Catahoula Parish Sheriff's Department, the Louisiana State Police, the FBI, and the LSU FACES forensic laboratory.
Thomas Steven Sanders, a man whose death sentence was commuted by former Democratic President Joe Biden in December 2024, has been formally charged with first-degree murder for the homicide of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts, according to Catahoula Parish District Attorney Bradley R. Burget.
The indictment was issued on April 16, 2025, by a grand jury in that jurisdiction, and the prosecution announced it will seek the death penalty again, this time at the state level, noting that Biden's federal commutation will not affect this new process.
Sanders was originally sentenced to death in September 2014 for the kidnapping and murder of Lexis that occurred in 2010. After a trial that lasted four years, a jury in the federal court in Alexandria sentenced him to capital punishment.
The case caused national shock, especially after Sanders confessed to killing Lexis's mother, Suellen Roberts, in Arizona, before taking the girl to Louisiana, where he brutally murdered her.
According to the information presented by Burget, Suellen and Lexis lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, and on the Labor Day weekend of 2010, both took a trip with Sanders to the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Despite being sentenced to death in 2014, Sanders continued appealing his case until 2020 in the Federal Appeals Court in New Orleans. However, in December 2024, the infamous former President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 inmates on the federal death row, including Sanders, as part of his policy of opposition to capital punishment.
Nevertheless, the recent judicial process in Catahoula Parish is independent of the federal case. District Attorney Burget has made it clear that, because Lexis's crime occurred on state soil, his office has full jurisdiction to retry Sanders for first-degree murder and seek the death penalty.
The case has reignited the debate over presidential commutations, especially when it comes to extremely violent crimes, and raises questions about the consequences of these decisions on public safety and the perception of the judicial system.
