UPDATE: Less than two hours before Creech's execution, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block his execution from being stopped or delayed. His death is scheduled for 10 a.m. February 28.
Thomas Creech, a convicted killer and mass murderer will be put to death by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on Wednesday February 28th. Idaho News 6 looks back on his violent past that has given way to more peaceful times in his golden years.
- Creech is 73 years old and prison guards and fellow inmates who call him "Tom" say he is a peaceful man who they will miss.
- Creech has admitted to 26 murders and may be responsible for more than 40 killings although he denies the number was that high.
- Creech is on death row for beating 23 year old David Dale Jensen to death in prison in 1981.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Thomas Eugene Creech is a convicted serial killer. How many victims he has may never truly be known, and his motive?
Former Ada County Prosecutor Jim Harris has a theory:
“I think it was potentially the loss of his father at a very young age. Particularly since the man essentially died in his arms. His first enemy, his first attempted murder was the male nurse that failed to get help to his father before he died,” said Harris.
Retribution may have been a factor.
The Journal News out of Hamilton, Ohio reported that Creech claims he committed his first murder at the age of 17 by “...drowning a friend in New Miami who he believed was responsible for the traffic death of his girlfriend.”
Creech wrote Idaho News 6 a letter in 2019 in which he denies killing 42 people.
But in a Statement from the Idaho Supreme Court it notes that “Creech has admitted to killing or participating in the killing of at least 26 people. The bodies of 11 of his victims who were shot, stabbed, beaten, or strangled to death have been recovered in seven different states."
"They found a large number of skeletons that Tom led them to in a mine shaft in California," said Harris.
Creech is on death row for the 1981 killing of David Dale Jenson while in prison. He allegedly beat the 23 year old with a sock full of batteries and kicked and stomped his unconscious body.
Former Ada County deputy prosecutor Roger Bourne made this statement in court in 1995:
“If the death penalty doesn't fit this defendant. Who does it fit? This defendant is a mass murderer. He has shown extreme violence while in the penitentiary. If the legislature didn’t intend it to fit this defendant. Who could it fit any better?” said Bourne.
Creech is 73 years old. His supporters, even prison guards, say he’s turned over a new leaf is a kindly old man.
Nothing however that can change his violent past.
