The hour of Thomas Eugene Creech’s death has been set. On Wednesday morning Idaho prison officials will have the 73-year-old brought into the state’s execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise.

The hour of Thomas Eugene Creech’s death has been set, and it is rapidly approaching.

On Wednesday morning Idaho prison officials will ask the 73-year-old if he would like a mild sedative to help calm him before his execution at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise. Then, at 10 a.m. local time, they will bring him into the execution chamber and strap him to a padded medical table.

Defense attorneys and the warden will check for any last-minute court orders that would halt the execution of Creech, who is one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the U.S.

Barring any legal stay, volunteers with medical training will insert a catheter into one of Creech’s veins. He’ll be given a chance to say his last words, and a spiritual advisor may pray with him. Then the state will inject a drug intended to kill the man who has been convicted of five murders in three states and is suspected in several more.

  • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    Creech’s supporters have pushed to have his sentence converted to life without parole, saying he is a deeply changed man who has become a kind and supportive force inside the Idaho Maximum Security Institution cell block where he lives. Several years ago he married the mother of a correctional officer, and former prison staffers 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 Prosecuting Attorney Jill Longhorst did not dispute that Creech can be polite and friendly with correctional officers. But she said he is a psychopath — a man who can be charming and likeable but who lacks remorse and empathy for others.

    Sounds like his behavior has changed over the decades, and of course the prosecutor is going to describe him in the worse possible way as that is their job. If he hasn’t been violent in jail for decades, killing him at this point does not accomplish anything at all even if he is just pretending to be good. The alternative being pushed for was life in prison.