Louisiana Judge Schedules Nitrogen Gas Execution for 81-Year-Old Who Killed His Stepson

The state of Louisiana ended its pause on capital punishment and scheduled the deaths of several inmates, including Christopher Sepulvado, who was found guilty of murdering his stepson, Wesley Allen Mercer, in 1992.
Judge Amy Burford McCartney set the date.


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Sepulvado's attorney, Shawn Nolan, urged the state to change his client's execution date of March 17, due to his health challenges.
According to Nolan, Sepulvado has "stage 4 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with extensive coronary calcification, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, asthma, prediabetes, degeneration of his spine and shoulders, and cellulitis." 

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Due to his condition, Nolan thinks his client's death sentence should be changed.
"Chris Sepulvado is a debilitated old man suffering from serious medical ailments," Nolan said in a statement. "He is confined to a wheelchair, he falls frequently, and his heart and lungs are struggling to keep working."

Despite brutally killing and torturing Mercer, Nolan shared that Sepulvado turned his life around.
"He spends his time serving his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and trying to help others," he revealed. "There is no conceivable reason why 'justice' might be served by executing Chris instead of letting him live out his few remaining days in prison."

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Sepulvado claimed at the time that "it was an accident" and the young child slipped into a tub of hot water.
However, Dr. Jeffrey Evans, who was present when Mercer arrived at the hospital, believed the physical harm caused to the youngster was intentional.
"Obviously, he had burned badly. The flesh was coming off of him," Evans told KSLA News.
"It was obvious something terrible had happened to that child," Lieutenant Joe Morris added.

Mercer's mother, Yvonne Jones, was also convicted of manslaughter and served seven-and-a-half years in prison.

"I went into a state of shock, I had nothing to do with the death of my son," Jones told the local station in 2013. "He was my life."

Jones' first trial ended in a mistrial before she was convicted, but jurors and investigators believed the mom could have prevented her ex-husband from harming her son.
"You were there you should've stopped it," Jones claimed officers told her.



"I do consider myself a victim," she defensively noted. "Every battered woman is a victim."