JACKSON (AP) — A federal magistrate in Louisiana is recommending that a district judge deny a request to throw out the confession of a Mississippi man who was declared dead in 1994 but surfaced as a suspect in the deaths of a Las Vegas woman and her daughter.

Thomas Steven Sanders is charged in Louisiana with the kidnapping resulting in the death of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts, whose body was found Oct. 8, 2010, by hunters in Catahoula Parish, La. Her mother, 31-year-old Suellen Roberts, was found dead the following month in northwestern Arizona.

Sanders’ lawyers want U.S. District Judge Dee Drell to prevent Sanders’ confession from being used against him during the trial, which is scheduled for January.

U.S. Magistrate James Kirk held a hearing on the motion Feb. 10 in Alexandria, La. He recommended Wednesday that Drell deny the motion. Drell didn’t immediately rule.

Sanders’ lawyers did not respond to a message Friday.

Sanders was declared dead in Mississippi in 1994 after he abandoned his family seven years earlier. Despite the death certificate, Sanders was able to move about easily and undetected even though he was arrested over the years, including for drug paraphernalia and a number of traffic and motor vehicle incidents, all in Tennessee. He was sentenced to two years in Georgia for simple battery.

The legal wrangling over Sanders’ confession has provided most of the details that have become public about the killings so far.

 

The magistrate’s recommendation said that Sanders was living at a storage facility in Las Vegas when he apparently met Suellen Roberts. A relationship developed and the three planned a trip to Bearizona, a wildlife park in Arizona near the Grand Canyon, for the Labor Day weekend in 2010. They spent the night in a hotel and played in the swimming pool, Kirk wrote.

 

On their way back to Nevada, Sanders pulled over in the desert “ostensibly so Suellen could shoot his .22 rifle” but instead he shot her in the head, according to the 9-page court filing.

 

“Sanders then loaded Lexis, who was in hysterics over seeing her mother murdered, into the car and traveled to Louisiana. He took Lexis to a wooded area and shot her in the back of the head and, when she didn’t die, he shot her twice more in the head. When she still didn’t die, he tried to shoot her through the heart. When she still didn’t die, he cut her throat, killing her.,” Kirk wrote. “Sanders denied raping or otherwise abusing Lexis.”

 

Sanders’ attorneys have been trying to get the confession thrown out based on the argument that questioning continued after he asked for a lawyer.

 

Kirk disagrees, saying that Sanders only requested a lawyer to discuss certain questions: why he killed the mother and daughter, what he had been doing while in Nevada and whether he had worked for a mattress company.

 

“Sanders was very clear and specific in indicating what areas of the interview he would and would not discuss without a lawyer and there is no question in my mind that his actions and choices were knowing and voluntary,” Kirk wrote.

 

Sanders could face the death penalty if convicted in Lexis’ kidnapping and death. Authorities in Louisiana and Arizona have also said he could face state charges.