Thomas Eugene Creech (born September 9, 1950) is an American serial killer.
He was convicted of two murders committed in 1974, and sentenced to death row in Idaho. The sentence was reduced two years later on appeal to life imprisonment. He was sent to back to Idaho's death row for a 1981 murder committed while imprisoned. Creech personally confessed to a total of 42 murders in various states, some of which allegedly involved the Hells Angels and the Church of Satan. Most of his additional confessions are uncorroborated, but police believe strong evidence links Creech to seven additional murder victims.
As of 2019, Creech was the longest-serving death row inmate in the state.
Early life
Creech was born on September 9, 1950, in Hamilton, Ohio. He grew up in an unstable household where his parents frequently argued with one another, eventually leading to a divorce. Creech was left to live with his father, who years later would die from unclear causes right in front of him. At that time, he claimed to have attacked the male nurse who had tended to his father.
The next few years of Creech's life are difficult to verify, as they are interwoven with hearsay and his own uncorroborated claims. From what little can be definitively confirmed, he ran away from his hometown and became a drifter, travelling frequently cross-country. On December 11, 1969, he was sentenced to a 2-to-50-years prison term for unarmed robbery. He was paroled in 1971. In 1973, he married 17-year-old Thomasine Loren White of Boise, Idaho, who allegedly became a participant in at least one of his murders. She was eventually moved to a psychiatric hospital in Salem, Oregon, where she subsequently committed suicide. In a letter that Creech sent to KIVI-TV decades after the fact, he claimed that his wife had been raped by a gang of men and then thrown out a window, causing her debilitating physical and mental injuries that were the primary contributors for her decision to end her life.
On August 22, 1973, he broke the conditions of his parole by allegedly stealing 13 cartons of cigarettes in Portland. The charges were dropped after he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a mental evaluation. Creech was housed in an open ward and was described as a model patient during his short stay, being released only a week later after it was determined that he did not suffer from any mental illnesses. He then moved back to Portland, where he found a job as a sexton for the St. Marks Episcopal Church. He later quit his job after the body of a man was found in his living quarters. Shortly thereafter, he and his new girlfriend, 17-year-old Carol Spaulding, would move to Idaho.
Idaho murders and arrest
On November 6, 1974, Creech and Spaulding were hitchhiking in Idaho from Lewiston south to Donnelly when a 1956-model Buick Century, operated by two house painters, 34-year-old Edward Thomas Arnold and 40-year-old John Wayne Bradford, picked them up. Along the way, Creech pulled out a rifle and shot both of them in the head, then buried their bodies along Highway 55 in Valley County near Donnelly, north of Cascade. Their bodies and blood-spattered car were found on the next day. In the meantime, Creech had befriended a 26-year-old named Gene Alvin Hilby, who later agreed to bury the rifle at his behest, unaware that it was a murder weapon.
Two days after the murders, after Creech was proposed as a suspect in two additional murders in Oregon and for supposedly sending death threats to the newly-elected Colorado senator Gary Hart, he and Spaulding were arrested in Glenns Ferry (in Elmore County) by police officer Bill Hill, who had been notified that they were fugitives wanted for murder. While both of them were arraigned on murder charges, Creech was cleared of his supposed involvement with the death threats, as it was determined that it was just rumors that spread from a police officer, one of Hart's campaign managers and a prosecutor. Briefly held at the Valley County jail in Cascade, Creech was transferred south to the more secure Ada County jail in Boise.
Trial and imprisonment
About a week after his arrest, Creech attempted to commit suicide by slashing his wrists with a broken piece of mirror, but managed only a minor injury before being restrained by prison guards and moved to another cell. Hilby, the man who had buried the supposed murder weapon and had originally also been charged with participating in the murder, was later released on probation after pleading guilty to hindering a murder case. In January 1975, it was decided that the now-18-year-old Spaulding would be tried as an adult for the two counts of first-degree murder.