A terminally ill man who spent over 30 years on death row in Louisiana for the killing of his stepson died days after a March date was scheduled for his execution by nitrogen gas.Christopher Sepulvado,

Louisiana death row inmate Christopher Sepulvado died Saturday his lawyers announced. He had been given an execution date in March.

Sepulvado was Louisiana's oldest prisoner on death row at 81. "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,

The state has never used that method to execute a prisoner. The last time an inmate was killed by a firing squad was in 2010 in Utah.

Sepulvado was sentenced to die for the 1992 murder of his 6-year-old stepson, Wesley Allen Mercer, whom authorities said was beaten and scalded to death. The boy’s mother Yvonne Jones was convicted of manslaughter in the death and served more than seven years in prison.

Christopher Sepulvado passed away at approximately 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 22, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

An 81-year-old death row inmate who was convicted of the brutal murder of his young stepson died one month before he was scheduled to be executed by the state of Louisiana, according to local reports.