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ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) — A federal jury has imposed the death penalty on a Mississippi man who was declared dead two decades ago, only to resurface as a murder suspect.
U.S. Attorney Stephanie A. Finley said jurors Friday returned the sentence against 57-year-old Thomas Sanders for the 2010 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jurors convicted Sanders of kidnapping resulting in death and using a firearm in a violent crime that resulted in death.
Sanders confessed to killing the young girl and her mother, Suellen Roberts after his arrest in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Sanders left his family in Mississippi in 1987. He was declared dead in 1994 after he had been missing for years.
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