1 of 2 Thomas Eugene Creech in 2009 Photo: AP Thomas Eugene Creech in 2009 Photo: AP
The US state of Idaho on Wednesday (28) halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech after the medical team responsible for the lethal injection could not find a vein to administer the poison intravenously.
Creech, 73, is one of the longestserving people sentenced to death in prison: He has been serving his sentence for 50 years. He was convicted of five murders in three different states. He is suspected of committing further murders. (see below).
This Wednesday he was taken to the place where he was to be executed, a maximum security facility in the state of Idaho.
Three members of the medical team tried to find a vein to inject the poison in total there were eight attempts to insert a catheter into a blood vessel. In some cases they were unable to access a vein, in others they were, but they feared that access in the middle of the procedure would cause problems.
Professionals tried veins on the arms, legs, hands and feet.
After about an hour, the execution was suspended.
This would be the first execution in the state of Idaho in 12 years.
The team responsible for the killing consisted of volunteers whose identities were not revealed. They wore masks to hide their faces.
During the injection attempts, Creech looked several times at his family members who were sitting in an adjacent room.
Punishment Division Director Josh Tewalt said there are other forms of execution, but there is an article in the U.S. Constitution that prohibits cruel or unusual punishment.
The condemned man's lawyers went to court and requested a stay of the execution on the grounds that “the terribly botched execution attempt” demonstrated the “inability of the department to carry out a humane and constitutional execution.”
The court agreed, and now the state must obtain another execution order if it wants to kill the man.
The crimes he was convicted of
Creech spent most of his life in the state of Idaho. In 1973, he was acquitted of murder charges in the state of Arizona (authorities believed he was guilty because he used the victim's credit card to travel, but he was still not convicted).
He was later convicted of a 1974 murder in Oregon and another in California.
That same year, Creech was arrested in Idaho after killing two house painters who were driving him and his girlfriend home.
Back in 1981, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and in prison he beat another prisoner until he killed him. For this crime, Creech was sentenced to death.
2 of 2 Location where an attempt was made to execute Thomas Eugene Creech Photo: Jessie L. Bonner/AP Location where an attempt was made to execute Thomas Eugene Creech Photo: Jessie L. Bonner/AP