Christopher Sepulvado, Louisiana’s oldest death row inmate, dies 3 weeks before he was to be state’s first execution in 15 years
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A terminally ill Louisiana man on death row for brutally murdering his six-year-old stepson in 1992 died Saturday of “natural causes,” three weeks before his scheduled execution date.
After Wesley Allen Mercer returned home from school with soiled trousers, Christopher Sepulvado, 81, abused him for two straight days, beating him over the head with a screwdriver handle before submerging the unconscious boy in a bathtub filled with scalding water, according to prosecutors. He suffered third-degree burns over nearly 60 percent of his body, along with multiple head wounds that separated his scalp from his skull.
An autopsy determined his cause of death as heart and lung failure due to his injuries. Sepulvado had been housed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, the largest maximum-security lockup in the United States and the site of the nation’s longest-running prison rodeo.
Sepulvado, who admitted to hitting Wesley but insisted he had fallen into the water by accident, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The oldest of Louisiana’s condemned inmates, Sepulvado would have been the first person executed by the state on March 17 following a 15-year pause. Yvonne Mercer Sepulvado, Wesley’s mom, was convicted of manslaughter, serving 7.5 years of a 21-year sentence. She was released in 2002.
Reached for comment on Monday, Mercer Sepulvado – who still lives in Louisiana but is now going by a new last name – said she was still processing the news of Sepulvado’s passing.
“Give me a little time,” she told The Independent. “I’m not ready to comment yet.”
At the time of his death, Sepulvado was suffering from, among other maladies, COPD and a gangrenous leg, which was amputated last week. His previous execution dates had been delayed due to the state’s inability to procure a supply of sodium thiopental to be used in a lethal injection; he was reportedly going to be put to death with nitrogen gas.
In a statement, attorney Shawn Nolan, a member of Sepulvado’s legal team, called his client’s death a “sad comment” on Louisiana’s decision to bring back the death penalty.
“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,” he said. “Such pointless cruelty in scheduling his execution in the face of all this overlooked the hard work Chris did over his decades in prison to confront the harm he had caused, to become a better person, and to devote himself to serving God and helping others. It was my honor to fight for Chris, a man who redeemed himself. May he rest in peace.”
A letter written more than a decade ago and sent to Louisiana officials by a group of religious leaders in support of Sepulvado claimed he had suffered brain damage as a result of childhood beatings, and developed severe mental health issues as an adult.
Sepulvado, who was 69 at the time of the murder, was “deeply remorseful and has turned to God as he struggles to atone for his crimes,” the letter said. “During the twenty years that he has been incarcerated, he has complied [sic] an exemplary record and has consistently spent his time on death row tutoring and ministering to other inmates. He realizes the severity of his crime warrants a life sentence. He wishes for nothing other than this.”
Catholic nun Allison McCrary, Sepulvado’s spiritual advisor, deemed him “rehabilitated,” calling him “faithful, prayerful, [and] studious.” However, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on Sunday decried the years-long delays in executing Sepulvado, who spent three decades on death row.
“Justice should have been delivered long ago for the heinous act of brutally beating then scalding to death a defenseless six-year-old boy,” she said in a statement. “The State failed to deliver it in his lifetime but Christopher Sepulvado now faces ultimate judgment before God in the hereafter.”
In a separate statement, Governor Jeff Landry argued that Sepulvado “was able to live to a ripe old age because of the failure of the justice system.”
“He can no longer escape his judgment day,” Landry said.
Doctors had recommended Sepulvado be placed in hospice care to live out his final days, guidance which Louisiana rejected.
