With Louisiana leaders intent on first execution since 2010, DA obtains death warrant

by Greg LaRose, Louisiana Illuminator
February 11, 2025

A Rapides Parish man could be the first person Louisiana puts to death in 15 years after the district attorney there obtained a warrant Monday for his execution.

Larry Roy has been on death row since his 1994 conviction for double murder in Cheneyville. Police said Roy attacked his ex-girlfriend, Sally Richard, and her ex-husband, Freddie Richard Jr., with a knife in front of her two children. The woman and her children survived, but Roy killed her aunt, Rosetta Salas, and Freddie Richard Jr.   

KALB-TV reported Rapides DA Phillip Terrell obtained the warrant Monday, requesting an execution for March 29. Shortly after his announcement, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry publicly declared the state had established its protocol for using nitrogen gas as an execution method. 

Last year, the Louisiana Legislature and governor approved nitrogen hypoxia to carry out the death penalty. They followed the lead of Alabama, where GOP Gov. Kay Ivey adopted the method and used it to execute three people in 2024 and a fourth man last week.

“For too long, Louisiana has failed to uphold the promises made to victims of our State’s most violent crimes; but that failure of leadership by previous administrations is over,” Landry said in a statement. “The time for broken promises has ended; we will carry out these sentences and justice will be dispensed.” 

Attorney General Liz Murrill also issued a statement in support of resuming the death penalty as soon as possible, implying more executions could be in the works. In addition to Roy, there are 57 people on death row in Louisiana.

“I look forward to each judge upholding their statutory duty to execute these death warrants according to the law,” Murrill said. “The families of these victims have waited long enough for justice, and Louisiana will put them first.” 

Louisiana has not put a condemned person to death since 2010, when Gerald Bordelon waived his right to appeals and died by lethal injection. Bordelon had been convicted of the 2002 rape and murder of Courtney LeBlanc, his 12-year-old stepdaughter in Livingston Parish.

Groups opposed to the death penalty are expected to challenge Louisiana’s use of nitrogen hypoxia to carry out executions. A comparable lawsuit unfolded in Alabama last year after its first nitrogen execution. Witnesses said Kenneth Eugene Smith struggled significantly as corrections officers administered nitrogen gas. The state reached an undisclosed settlement with Alan Eugene Miller but still put him to death in September.  

Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel, executive director of the Center for Social Justice at Loyola University in New Orleans, confirmed via text message that her organization intends to challenge the death warrant obtained for Roy.

“Seeking executions can only be meant to distract from the very real problems with the death penalty in Louisiana, which impacts not the worst of the worst, but those with mental illness, brain damage, devastating childhood trauma, and often all three,” Kappel said.

The Promise of Justice Initiative, a New Orleans-based organization opposed to mass incarceration, is expected to be part of that lawsuit. Its leader, Samantha Kennedy, referred to the actions from the governor and attorney general as “a stunt motivated by politics.”

“The Governor’s actions are evidence of what we’ve known for a long time: the government and politics have no place in deciding who lives and who dies,” Kennedy said in a statement. “… Louisiana can, should, and will demand better of our leaders.”

Michael McClanahan, president of the NAACP Louisiana State Conference, also criticized the governor’s announcement and its timing, given that Roy is Black. 

“We refuse to stand by while Louisiana resurrects the racist cruelties of the past, echoing the brutal injustices of lynching and slavery, especially offensive during Black History month, a month meant to honor freedom and accomplishment,” McClanahan said. “The death penalty was wrong then, and it is wrong now.”  

Louisiana’s most recent involuntary execution was in 2002, when a lethal injection was administered to Leslie Dale Martin for the murder of Christina Burgin, a 19-year-old McNeese State University student, in 1991. 

The state stopped using the electric chair for executions after 1991 and has put eight people to death with lethal injection since adopting that method in 1993. 

Some states that have used lethal injection to carry out executions have put their death sentences on hold, citing the lack of availability for the drugs needed. Under public pressure, some pharmaceutical companies have stopped making the mixture used to carry out such executions. Opponents have argued the method amounts to a “cruel and unusual punishment” method that’s unconstitutional.     

The method is still in use in some states, with Texas having administered a lethal dose to Steven Lawayne Nelson last week for the 2011 murder of Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old Arlington pastor. 

Lethal injection was used in 10 U.S. executions last year, including two each in Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas. 

Mississippi and Oklahoma have approved the use of nitrogen hypoxia should courts declare lethal injection unconstitutional. Alabama is still the only state to have carried out executions using nitrogen. 

Other states have looked to older methods. In 2023, Idaho’s legislature reauthorized the use of firing squads, and legislators this year are looking to make it the preferred method of execution.

Utah also allows the use of firing squads but has not done so since 2010.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.