The man who allegedly set fire to a New Orleans house killing three children inside remains at large.
Surveillance video shows a person walking out of the house on America Street near Dwyer Road as the house becomes engulfed in flames. That person then gets into a car and drives away. According to investigators, the children's mother told authorities that their father told her he intended to burn the house down.
Police say they know who the suspect is, but they have not released his name.
According to one legal analyst, what authorities know right now is enough for the district attorney to seek the death penalty when the case goes to court.
"You're committing another felony in connection with the murders," WWL's All Things Legal host Doug Sunseri said, citing the statutory requirement for first-degree murder in Louisiana.
Sunseri says this is a cut-and-dry capital murder case. Although it's been 27 years since a New Orleans jury handed down the death penalty in a murder case... Sunseri says the gruesome murder of three children could sway a jury to vote for execution.
"Typically, you have a lot of death penalty cases that there are some mitigating factors such as the police investigation or you have sort of a bad guy that you can blame for the crime or be partly responsible for it," Sunseri said. "In this case, when you have a father killing three of his children, this would probably be an ideal case to try the capital murder case for the death penalty. I don't think they get more gruesome than this, and I don't think there's any mitigating circumstances in this fact scenario to where they would not."
Sunseri says he would surprised if District Attorney Jason Williams seeks the death penalty in this case.
"I think reality has hit him as far as some of the idealism as he had entering as a district attorney," Sunseri said, adding that Williams's time in office and what he's experienced during that time makes him much more apt to seek the death penalty in this case. "I think early in his term, he would not, but I think he's evolved in the last three years."
