Well if tax payers are concerned with the cost to a tax payer it costs less to keep them in prison for life than to carry out the death penalty. The only way to make the death penalty cheaper than life imprisonment is to skip all the legal processes of appeals and kill the person after the conviction. Which in a case like this where there is no question as to whether he did it not, I understand the thought of people wanting to just say fuck it and have the guy killed. But that sets the precedent and someone else in the future will be screwed over if they aren't given the chance to appeal. So it does boggle the mind that death penalty is more costly than life imprisonment. But just skipping the appeals process to save money is just going to lead to an innocent person being killed by the state. The United States has executed multiple people who were later discovered to be innocent. And making it more likely that a person could be executed in error is not something that we should be comfortable with. Even one innocent person executed is a travesty. It does kinda suck tax payers have to pay for him to be alive but the alternative is inevitably going to lead to an innocent person murdered by the state.

Misconception is it costs more to "room & board" the person. No it costs more with the death penalty. Personally, & this is something that very well could change if it had been my loved one, but I would rather that person spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Because once they dead, they dead. They are not having to deal with anything. Of course if you believe in heaven & hell, you might think he will go to hell then. But that is a bit off base, since you should also believe it is up to God on what the judgement should be.