The execution by
lethal injection
of a convicted
serial killer
, scheduled in the state of
Idaho
, in the northwest of the United States, was suspended this Wednesday after a medical team could not apply it within the legal period, so the condemned man returned to his cell, officials from the local prison system reported.
It was after
eight failed attempts to find a vein
.
Thomas Creech
, 73, was going to be executed this Wednesday morning, but the execution of the death sentence was canceled an hour later, the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) said in a note.
"After consulting with Chief Josh Tewalt it was determined that the medical team could not establish an intravenous line, making execution impossible and as a result the death sentence will expire," the IDOC explained in a statement.
"The state of Idaho will consider next steps," he concluded.
Josh Tewalt, director of the Idaho Department of Corrections, addresses the press following the stay of execution of Thomas Creech.
AP Photo.
This determined that Creech was returned to his cell, according to the AFP news agency.
Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) Director Josh Tewalt said the execution was
called off after eight attempts
to place an IV in
Creech's
arms and legs failed.
"We have no idea of the timeline or the next steps" for a new execution attempt, Tewalt told reporters at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, south of the capital, Boise.
Brenda Rodriguez, a reporter for local television station KTVB, said Creech did not appear to be in severe pain, although at one point she commented that
his "legs hurt a little
. "
"When the execution stopped, he was simply looking up," said Rodríguez, a journalist authorized to participate as
a witness to the execution
.
"He also felt like he was almost relieved," she added.
The place where they tried to apply the lethal injection 8 times to the death row convict who has been awaiting execution for the longest time.
AP Photo.
The last botched execution in the United States was that of convicted murderer Kenneth Smith in Alabama in November 2022, also by lethal injection.
Smith was finally executed in January of this year in the first execution in the country carried out with nitrogen gas, a procedure highly questioned and discouraged by doctors and magistrates, who consider that it can cause unnecessary suffering due to asphyxiation.
This method involves depriving the prisoner of oxygen and making him breathe only nitrogen.
This prevents the brain and other tissues from receiving oxygen, causing death.
Who is Thomas Creech, the serial killer who cannot be executed?
Bald on top of his head, but with white hair on the sides.
His goatee-style beard ends the face of Thomas Creech, identified with
number 14,984
in the Idaho prison where until this Wednesday he was waiting to be executed by lethal injection.
Thomas Creech, the serial killer they tried and failed to execute eight times.
AP Photo
Now, after eight failed attempts, he waits in his cell for
the next steps
decided by the state authorities.
Creech, 73 years old, is the oldest of the prisoners on
"death row
," as the last pavilion they occupy before being executed is called in the United States.
He has been behind bars
for half a century
after being accused of killing two men in 1974. He had been sentenced to death in that case, but by decision of the United States Supreme Court, his sentence was reduced to life.
Religious protesters pleaded for Creech's life outside the Idaho prison complex.
AP Photo
Although at that trial
he denied killing
Edward T. Arnold, 34, and John W. Bradford, 40,
he confessed to killing 42 other people
.
He later said that there had actually been 26, although not even his lawyers believed him, according to a profile published by the local press.
He would later admit that he became entangled in his own lies and
does not know the exact number
of his fatalities.
In 1982, he told the AP that 11 men raped his wife before throwing her from a second floor and, although his wife survived, Creech said that led him to want revenge on his attackers.
According to what he himself revealed,
he murdered 9 of them
.
He even told The Wall Street Journal that some of the crimes he committed were under the influence of amphetamines and other drugs.
In 1981, when he was 30 years old,
he killed another inmate in a
maximum security prison with a stocking full of batteries, punches and stomping on the head and throat.
While waiting to be executed this Wednesday, the AP agency detailed that, already on the stretcher, with his arms and legs tied, he kept looking at his relatives and even seemed to say to someone "I love you."
A prosecutor went so far as to not deny that Creech was "charming."
Born in Ohio, he has followers who claim that he "changed."
He married the mother of a prison officer and they claim that he likes to write poetry.
D.S.