Skip to main content

Idaho death row inmate Thomas Creech reflects on failed execution

"When they mapped my veins a couple nights before and seen exactly where my veins were at – I watched them map it – I thought, 'man I'm gone,'" Creech told KTVB.

BOISE, Idaho — Three and a half months ago, Thomas Eugene Creech narrowly escaped death inside the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

"When they mapped my veins a couple nights before and seen exactly where my veins were at – I watched them map it – I thought, 'man I'm gone,'" Creech said. 

Idaho's longest-serving death row inmate was supposed to be executed in February after a death warrant was signed. But, after eight attempts, an Idaho Department of Correction medical team was unable to establish an IV line to carry out the lethal injection. 

Creech and his wife recently reached out to KTVB's Morgan Romero. He wanted to finally share why he believes he dodged the state-sponsored execution and what it was like. 

The 73-year-old also said he wants people to see he's a changed man. 

Around 10 a.m. on Feb. 28, Creech expected to take his final breath. After being in prison a half century, Creech said he "fully believed I was gonna die," and had "convinced myself that was it."

"They came in to the death cell and handcuffed me and strapped me to the board. The execution team, they call it the strap down team, they put me on the gurney and wheeled me in through the execution room," Creech said. "Then once they had me in there, they started adjusting my hands and legs to strap me down, and then the warden told them to go ahead and proceed with the execution. I looked over to the right and saw my wife sitting there and she had the most devastating, horrible, terrorized look on her face that I had ever seen in my life. It made me sick to my stomach, it was horrible."

Creech's wife, Leanne, was crying while sitting next to his priest. 

His son, who Creech said looked man, also was there.

"They started in my right arm, up by my elbow and that was the first place that they poked me," Creech said. "I could feel it. It was like a sting. The part that hurt was when they moved the needle around trying to get the vein to accept it. Then they kept it moving down my arms and feet several times."

Creech remembers a total of 10 attempts, but the Idaho Department of Correction said it tried – and failed – eight times to establish an IV line where they would inject pentobarbital into Creech's veins. 

"I don't know if it was wishful thinking or I actually saw, but I thought I saw angels standing on each side of my bed," Creech said. "I think I started crying. I pointed up to the sky and told my wife I was sorry."

Creech told KTVB his veins collapsed, meaning the veins' walls squeezed shut, preventing blood from flowing through. 

Just under an hour later, at 10:58 a.m., IDOC leaders announced they were halting the execution. 

"What they encountered in some instances was an access issue, but in others where they could establish access, they were unable – it was a vein quality issue that made them not confident in their ability to administer chemicals through the IV site once established," IDOC Director Josh Tewalt said in a news conference. 

IDOC Director Josh Tewalt addresses the media after the planned execution of Thomas Eugene Creech was called off, Feb. 28, 2024, in Kuna, Idaho.

"My thought was, 'wow, this is a divine intervention.' Only thing I could think of, otherwise I'd be dead," Creech said. "I believe it was god almighty that had his hand in it that stopped it. I don't want to believe anything else."

Thomas Creech
IDOC's medical team, escort team and incident command staff trained for and rehearsed his execution multiple times. 

Creech said they never practiced on him. 

The Idaho Department of Correction requires medical team members taking part in an execution to place IV catheters and establish drips in at least two volunteers within the year leading up to execution. 

In the two days prior to the execution, they also have to take part in at least four training sessions and two rehearsals. 

"When I was in the death house for 30 days before execution, every two to three days they would take me down to medical and practice doing the execution," Creech said. "They would come get me out of the room I was in, take me to medical and when I was in medical, they'd go back and forth into the room and have somebody act like they were me."

The medical staff even mapped out his veins in the days leading up to the execution, but Creech said IDOC knew it was a challenge to get needles in his veins, and he had surgery on an aneurysm. 

"They've known this forever, even when they did blood draws on me for diabetes and stuff, they had a hard time accessing the veins," Creech said. "My attorneys warned them about this, but apparently didn't take it to heart."

Since the failed execution, which was to be Idaho's first execution in 12 years, Creech said his health deteriorated. 

"Some days I'm not even sure if I'm gonna live until the next day," Creech said. "I have chest pain all the time … I continue to have nightmares. One of the dreams I have is I wake up and I'm back on that table again and they're standing around me putting needles in again. Then the other one that really terrorizes me is I go into that room and it's my wife on that table – not me, she's on the table – and they're trying to put drugs in her arms and I'm trying to break the window out to get to her. And then I wake up."

Creech's death warrant expired that night, and a new warrant has not been issued. 

"Living with the death penalty is the worst part of having the death penalty," Creech said. "If they execute you, it's over with. There's not more hurting. But when you're under the death penalty not knowing from one day to the next if you're going to get a death warrant or not, it's really bad. It plays on your mind every day. Like I said, I'm no saint, but I feel bad. As bad as a person can possibly feel."

Creech and KTVB's Morgan Romero talked about the murders he committed back in the 1970s, the ones that first landed him in prison and got him his first death sentence in Idaho. 


He explained why he killed a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, in 1981 and the remorse he said he feels over it now. 

Source: ktvb.com, Morgan Romero, June 13, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________








"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Most viewed (Last 7 days)

China | Singer-actor Zhang Yiyang was executed in 2024 for murder of teenage girlfriend, court confirms

China singer-actor Zhang Yiyang was executed in 2024 for murder of teenage girlfriend, court confirms Chinese singer-actor Zhang Yiyang was sentenced to death by firing squad in December 2024 for the murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend in 2022, a recent investigation report from a Chinese court has confirmed. Zhang is said to be the first Chinese entertainer to be given the death penalty. The report from the Intermediate People's Court of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, which has circulated in Chinese media, stated that Zhang and his then-girlfriend started dating in September 2021. But when she would propose to break up, Zhang would refuse and often threaten her with suicide.

Woman who watched nearly 300 executions explained moment she had to give it up

Michelle Lyons' job wasn't for the fainthearted A woman who watched nearly 300 death row executions take place over 12 years opened up about how her macabre career impacted her life. For more than a decade, it was part of Michelle Lyons' job description to observe the final moments of hundreds of prisoners in the US state of Texas. She says the process never 'become mundane or normal', although she did become acclimatized to it - as she went on to watch so many executions that she 'can't recall' a lot of them.

Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered nine in 2017

TOKYO — Japan on Friday executed a man dubbed the "Twitter killer" who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation's first enactment of the death penalty since 2022. Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged for killing his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after contacting them on the social media platform now called X. He had targeted users who posted about taking their own lives, telling them he could help them in their plans, or even die alongside them. Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi's crimes, carried out in 2017, included "robbery, rape, murder... destruction of a corpse and abandonment of a corpse".

Inside a Mississippi execution: Clarion Ledger reporter recounts what it was like

The visitation center at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman has no windows, just fluorescent lighting, plastic chairs and tables in a cafeteria-style room. I could technically step outside, but only through a single entrance and doing so meant going through the full security screening all over again — it didn’t feel worth it. A few friendly prison staff walked around, quietly watching us. The Wi-Fi cut in and out. All the while, I returned to the thought I was there to watch someone die.

Utah corrections officials say they’ll be ready to execute Ralph Menzies by firing squad

It’s been less than a year since Utah’s last execution — but more than 15 years since its last firing squad. State officials say they will ‘do it right,’ with date set for Sept. 5 Utah Department of Corrections officials say they’ll be ready to carry out the upcoming execution of death row inmate Ralph Menzies that’s currently scheduled to take place shortly after midnight on Sept. 5. A Utah judge signed Menzies’ death warrant last week , setting the date for the 67-year-old man with dementia to die by firing squad. That is, barring any other legal hurdles.

Tennessee death row inmate makes last-ditch effort to prevent Aug. 5 execution

Attorneys for a Tennessee death row inmate have launched a last-ditch effort to prevent his Aug. 5 execution. In Nashville 's Chancery Court, they are asking a judge to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to deactivate an implanted defibrillation device similar to a pacemaker in the moments before Byron Black 's execution. If the judge rules in their favor, such an order could potentially delay the execution until the state finds someone willing to do the deactivation.

Inside Japan's secretive execution jails where death row inmates are given minutes notice before facing the noose

From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House looks much like the other tall, austere buildings native to Katsushika City, but its drab facade and tree-lined grounds conceal a far more sinister reality. It is here that Japan's most deplorable criminals are plucked from their cells and hanged underneath fluorescent lights in a cold, bare wood-panelled room.  There is a chillingly theatrical element to how the condemned are executed in the East Asian country - the only member of the G7 besides the US that still metes out capital punishment.  Shackled prisoners are led past a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion, as they enter their sterile execution chamber. 

Alabama Gov. sets execution date for Geoffrey Todd West

Ivey sets execution for Geoffrey Todd West for 1997 murder at Alabama convenience store ATTALLA, Ala. – A man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a 1997 robbery in Attalla is now scheduled to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia later this year, nearly three decades after the crime shook Attalla and Etowah County.

Texas death row prisoner dies after more than 30 years behind bars

A Houston-area man convicted of killing his wife died this week after more than 3 decades on death row, marking the 2nd condemned prisoner to die behind bars in the past month.  Prison officials confirmed that William "Billy the Kid" Mason was taken to the hospital on Wednesday and died of cardiac arrest Friday morning.  The 71-year-old was originally sent to death row in 1992, after prosecutors said he'd kidnapped his wife and beaten her to death under a bridge because she was playing the radio too loudly. According to court records, her body was found several days later under some logs near the San Jacinto River.

Louisiana | Mother calls for man exonerated of raping and murdering her child to go free

Wrongful convictions by 2 discredited Mississippi experts tops at least 10. A victim’s family in Louisiana is now speaking out.  Prosecutors fighting the release of death row inmate Jimmie Duncan after a judge found him “factually innocent” of raping and murdering 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux are “not speaking for Haley’s family,” her mother says.  Speaking publicly for the 1st time, Allison Layton Statham called for Duncan to go free in a July 22 bail hearing. “This innocent man is on death row,” she told Mississippi Today. “Justice needs to be done.”  In April, a judge threw out Duncan’s conviction, questioning their conclusions and citing the failures of his court-appointed counsel.