XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: deewain@chimpolla.com   
      
   ALEXANDRIA, La. –  The lawyer for a Mississippi man who was   
   declared dead two decades ago, only to resurface as a murder   
   suspect, does not deny that her client killed his girlfriend and   
   her daughter, but she said Wednesday that he's being tried in   
   the wrong court.   
      
   In opening statements, attorney Cristie Gibbens said it was   
   improper to charge Thomas Steven Sanders in federal court for   
   the 2010 slaying of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts. She said   
   prosecutors lack evidence to prove that Sanders committed a   
   federal crime, rather than a crime that should be addressed in   
   local courts.   
      
   Otherwise, she said, "We agree with the government on almost all   
   of the facts."   
      
   Gibbens said Sanders "accepts full responsibility for the death   
   of Lexis Roberts."   
      
   Roberts' skeletal remains were found off a gravel trail in rural   
   Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, in October 2010, a month after   
   authorities say Sanders dumped her body. Her mother's body was   
   found later in Arizona.   
      
   Prosecutor Bill Flanagan said Sanders shot the girl's mother,   
   Suellen Roberts, on a trip all three took to a wildlife park   
   near the Grand Canyon, then drove Lexis Roberts to Louisiana,   
   where he shot her four times and cut her throat.   
      
   Gibbens, who offered no explanation for the shootings called it   
   "a vacation that went terribly, horribly, sadly wrong,"   
      
   Sanders was identified as a suspect long after he was thought   
   dead. Sanders had left his family in Mississippi in 1987, and   
   his relatives and ex-wife had him declared dead in 1994 after he   
   had been missing for years.   
      
   A middle-aged, balding man, Sanders sat quietly with his lawyers   
   as the killings were described, periodically wiping his eyes.   
   Dressed in a blue shirt and khakis, he wasn't handcuffed, but a   
   U.S. marshal sat nearby.   
      
   Sanders is charged with two crimes: kidnapping resulting in   
   death and using a firearm in a crime of violence that caused a   
   person's death. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.   
      
   After opening statements Wednesday, witnesses described finding   
   Lexis Roberts' remains on hunting property.   
      
   Photos of a skull with small pink braces still attached to the   
   upper teeth were shown in court, along with a purple unicorn   
   stuffed animal that was found in the woods near Roberts' bones.   
   Sanders' lawyers didn't dispute that the remains were identified   
   as Lexis Roberts.   
      
   Flanagan said Sanders met Suellen Roberts while working and   
   living at a storage facility in Las Vegas. Within a few months,   
   they started dating and planned the Labor Day weekend trip that   
   would end with both mother and daughter shot and killed, the   
   prosecutor said.   
      
   After visiting a wildlife refuge known as Bearizona and stopping   
   at the Grand Canyon, the trio pulled into a remote stretch of   
   desert off an interstate so Suellen Roberts could shoot Sanders'   
   22-caliber rifle, Flangan said. Instead, Sanders shot the   
   mother in the head while her daughter sat on a blanket nearby,   
   Flanagan said.   
      
   Sanders left the body where it fell and drove Lexis Roberts over   
   several days to northeast Louisiana, where he shot her three   
   times in the head and once in the chest, the prosecutor said.   
      
   "Lexis Roberts still had not died, and so he took his knife and   
   he cut her throat," Flanagan told jurors.   
      
   Flanagan said Sanders confessed to the child's death after being   
   arrested in Gulfport, Mississippi, while still driving Suellen   
   Roberts' car, and told investigators how to find her body in   
   Arizona.   
      
   Gibbens said Sanders was in love with the mother. She said he   
   acknowledged, "I just shot her. I didn't know what to do after   
   that." Gibbens said after learning how Lexis Roberts' body had   
   decomposed in the woods, Sanders replied: "She didn't deserve   
   that."   
      
   http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/03/mississippi-man-who-once-   
   was-declared-dead-goes-on-trial-for-2010-slaying-   
   12/?intcmp=obinsite   
      
       
      
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