Idaho Halts Man's Execution After Eight Failed Attempts Of Lethal Injection (image@Pixabay)
Idaho halted execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech. The halt was after a medical team repeatedly failed to find a vein for establishing an intravenous line to carry out the lethal injection. Creech is one of the longest-serving death row inmates the US, and has been convicted in five murders in three states.
He was wheeled into the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on a gurney around 10 am. Three medical team members tried over eight times to insert an IV. While sometimes they could not find the vein, they have concerns about the vein quality when they find one. The medical team attempted sites in his arms, legs, hands and feet, said Josh Tewalt, the correction director, during a news conference.
At 10:58 am, the warden said he was halting the execution. Talking to the reporters, Tewalt said, “we don’t have an idea of timeframes or next steps at this point”. Creech’s attorney immediately filed new motion for stay in the UD district court, which said, “the badly botched execution attempt” proves the inability of the department’s “inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution”.
In a written statement, the Federal Defender Services of Idaho said, “this is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution”.
Creech’s execution was Idaho’s first execution in 12 years. Six Idaho officials, including the attorney general Raul Labrador and four media representatives were on hand to witness the attempt.
Thomas Eugene Creech, is an Ohio native. He has spent over 40 years in prison in Idaho. His crimes occurred in several parts of US. He was imprisoned in 1974 for shooting deaths of John Wayne Bradford and Edward Thomas Arnold. Bradford and Arnold were two house painters who picked up Creech and his girlfriend while they were hitchhiking. While Creech was serving life sentence for the that murder, he committed another murder. In 1981, Creech beat 22-year-old David Dale Jensen to death. Jensen was disabled and was serving in prison for car theft.
In addition to murders in Idaho, Creech was convicted of killing of William Joseph Dean and Vivian Grant Ramsamooj in California in 1974. He was also charged with the murder of Sandra Jane Ramsamooj in Oregon in the same year. The charges on that murder was later dropped in light of his other murder sentences.
In 1973, Creech charged with the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader in Tucson, Arizona. He was later acquitted of the crime. However, authorities still believe that Creech was responsible for Schrader’s murder. They said that Creech provided them with information, which led them to bodies of two people near Las Vegas and one person near Baggs, Wyoming.
