BOISE, Idaho-
The time of death for Thomas Eugene Creech has been set and is rapidly approaching.
On Wednesday morning, Idaho prison officials will ask the 73-year-old if he would like a mild sedative to calm him before his execution at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, south of Boise. Then, at 10 a.m. local time, you will be taken to the execution chamber and strapped to a padded medical table.
Defense attorneys and the director will check for last-minute court orders stopping the execution of Creech, one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the United States.
Barring a legal hold, volunteers with medical training will insert a catheter into one of Creech’s veins. You will be given the opportunity to say his last words and a spiritual advisor will be able to pray with him. The state will then inject a drug intended to kill the man who has been convicted of five murders in three states and is a suspect in several more.
Creech has been incarcerated since 1974 and was originally sentenced to death for the shooting deaths of John Wayne Bradford and Edward Thomas Arnold. That sentence, however, was changed to life in prison after the state’s sentencing law was ruled unconstitutional.
Then, in 1983, he was sentenced to death for the murder of David Dale Jensen, who was 22 years old, disabled, and serving time for car theft when Creech beat him to death at the Idaho State Penitentiary on May 13, 1981.
Jensen’s family members described him as a gentle soul who loved to hunt and be outdoors during Creech’s clemency hearing last month. Jensen’s daughter was only 4 years old when he died and she talked about how painful it was to grow up without a father, piecing together everything she knows about her father from other people’s descriptions and memories.
In court papers filed late last week, Idaho officials said Creech’s spiritual advisor would be allowed to stand next to Creech with a hand on his shoulder during the execution. The Episcopal bishop will also be able to pray silently for Creech, but will not be allowed to hold his hand or make any noise once the administration of the lethal injection chemical begins, according to the court document. Creech will also be allowed to wear a crucifix, according to the document, and his wife will be seated in the witness area, where he will be able to make eye contact with her.
Creech’s supporters have pushed for his sentence to be converted to life in prison without parole, saying he is a profoundly changed man who has become a kind and caring force inside the cell block of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution where lives. Several years ago he married the mother of a correctional officer, and former correctional officers said he was known for writing poetry and frequently expressing gratitude for the work done by correctional officers.
During his clemency hearing, Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Jill Longhorst did not dispute that Creech can be polite and friendly with corrections officials. But she said he is a psychopath, a man who can be charming and likable but who lacks remorse and empathy for others.
Creech’s lawyers filed a series of late appeals in hopes of stopping his execution or converting his sentence to life in prison without release. They included claims that his clemency hearing was unfair, that it was unconstitutional to kill him because he was sentenced by a judge and not a jury, and that he received ineffective legal counsel.
But judges in four courts who reviewed the petitions have so far found no grounds for leniency. Creech’s last chance hinges on a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court filed Monday night, asking for a stay of execution so the high court can weigh Creech’s claim that prosecutors lied during his clemency hearing. , violating their rights to due process.
In addition to the Idaho murders, Creech has been convicted of killing William Joseph Dean in Oregon and Vivian Grant Robinson in California in 1974. He was also accused of killing Sandra Jane Ramsamooj in Oregon that year, but the charge was later dropped. in light of his other murder sentences.
In 1973, Creech was tried for the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader in Tucson, Arizona, but was acquitted of the crime. Authorities still believe he is responsible for Schrader’s death and say Creech provided information that led them to the bodies of two people near Las Vegas and one person near Baggs, Wyoming.
Creech’s execution will be the second in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The first was in Alabama last month, when Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first death row inmate executed with nitrogen gas. Alabama officials said the method would be humane and predicted death would occur within a few minutes, but Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes and appeared to shake and writhe in agony for at least two minutes.
Another execution is also scheduled in Texas for Wednesday: Iván Cantú was sentenced to death for shooting dead his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his cousin’s girlfriend, Amy Kitchen. Cantú has maintained that he is innocent.
The death penalty in Idaho was established in 1864, about 26 years before the territory became a state. Since then, 29 executions have been carried out, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, including the last hanging in the state in 1957.
Executions became rare in the following decades. Although dozens of people have been sentenced to death since the 1970s, Creech will be only the fourth executed by the state since 1957, all by lethal injection.
Keith Eugene Wells, 31, was executed in 1994 for the murders of John Justad and Brandi Rains in Boise just four years earlier; he had given up his appeals and demanded to be executed. Paul Ezra Rhoades was executed in 2011 for the 1987 murders of Stacy Dawn Baldwin and Susan Michelbacher in eastern Idaho. Rhoades was also convicted of killing Nolan Haddon that year, and authorities said they suspected him in other deaths as well. Richard Albert Leavitt was executed in 2012 for the 1984 murder of Danette Jean Elg in eastern Idaho.
After Creech’s execution, only seven people will remain on death row in Idaho. A handful of death row inmates in the state over the past 50 years have died of natural causes, and at least two were exonerated of those crimes. Many others have had their sentences reduced on appeal.
Earlier this year, Idaho lawmakers considered adding the death penalty as a possible sentence for people convicted of lewd conduct with a child, but the legislation failed to pass the House.