Thomas Eugene Creech: Internet explodes with suggestions after failed attempts to execute Idaho inmate

Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers’ discretion advised.

KUNA, IDAHO: Idaho halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech on Wednesday, February 28 after medical team members repeatedly failed to find a vein where they could establish an intravenous line to carry out the lethal injection.

73-year-old Creech has been in prison for half a century, convicted of five murders in three states and suspected of several more. He was already serving a life term when he beat a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, to death in 1981, the crime for which he was to be executed.

The officials failed to execute Creech's execution

At 10 a.m., Creech, who has been on death row for the longest period in the United States, was brought on a gurney to the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

Josh Tewalt, the director of the Department of Corrections, stated at a press conference, per Yahoo,  that three members of the medical team attempted to set up an IV eight times. They experienced problems with vein quality in certain situations when they could access the vein, while in others they were unable to do so. They tried to get at his hands, feet, legs, and arms.

A member of the medical team once went to get extra supplies. At 10:58 a.m., the warden declared he was stopping the execution. The Department of Prisons announced that Creech's death warrant was about to expire and that it was thinking about what to do next.

While other medical procedures might allow for the execution, the state is mindful of the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, Tewalt said.

Creech said 'I love you' to someone in room

Creech’s attorneys immediately filed a new motion for a stay in US District Court, saying “the badly botched execution attempt" proves the department's “inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution.” 

The state will need to get a new warrant if it wishes to carry out the execution; the court granted the stay after Idaho pledged not to attempt to execute him before the death warrant expired.

“This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution,” the Federal Defender Services of Idaho said in a written statement. “This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the State and the Courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country’s oldest death-row inmates.”

Creech frequently looked toward his family members and representatives, who were sitting in a separate witness room. His arms were strapped to the table, but he often extended his fingers toward them. He appeared to mouth “I love you” to someone in the room on occasion.

The warden approached Creech after the execution was stopped, giving him a squeeze on the arm and whispering to him for a few minutes. In a statement issued a few hours later, Labrador said that "justice had been delayed again."

Creech, an Ohioan by birth, has been incarcerated in Idaho for most of his life. Authorities suspect he killed someone in Tucson, Arizona in 1973 even though he was cleared of the crime because he travelled to Oregon using the victim's credit card.

He was found guilty of two killings in 1974, one in California and one in Oregon where he went after receiving a weekend release from a mental health facility. After killing house painters Edward Thomas Arnold and John Wayne Bradford later that year, Creech was taken into custody in Idaho.

Internet reacts to Creech's failed execution

Thomas Creech's failed execution garnered a lot of attention on the Internet. On a Facebook post, a user opined saying, “There are other methods.” 

A next user wrote, “Get rid of him and others that deserve it.” Another user wrote, “I believe in the US a condemned prisoner is served with an execution warrant with the approximate date and time of execution. If the time passes the time on the warrant it makes the death warrant void and the execution therefore illegal and they then have to get a new one issued by the state.”

A user mocked and said, “What do u mean it's been called off it's not a game of soccer.” A user said, “I hear a big anchor tied to the ankles of a man dropped off the deck of a ship at sea works every time.”

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.