A death row inmate slated to be the first to be executed in Louisiana in 15 years has died.
Christopher Sepulvado, 81, passed away over the weekend after spending more than 30 years on death row.
Sepulvado had been scheduled to be executed by way of lethal gas on March 17th.
Attorney General Liz Murrill said she had no plans of calling off the execution had Sepulvado lived.
“I knew he was ill. We knew he was not in good health. Quite frankly, that’s not relevant to me.”
Sepulvado was convicted in 1992 in the DeSoto Parish murder of his six-year-old stepson, Wesley Allen Mercer.
His attorney, Shawn Nolan, blasted the state.
“Christopher Sepulvado’s death overnight in the prison infirmary is a sad comment on the state of the death penalty in Louisiana,” Nolan said in a statement. “The idea that the State was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric.”
Murrill says what he did to that six-year-old boy was even more barbaric.
“In probably just the most egregious way we can think of,” said Murrill. “I mean, it was barbaric. He tortured a child — a six-year-old child — and literally burned his skin off his body by hot water.”
Nolan says Sepulvado spent decades in prison repenting for his actions while becoming a devoutly religious man.
Murrill says God will now have the final say.
“It’s over for him,” Murrill said. “He will now face justice with God, and it’s out of our hands.”
Comments