Idaho
Supreme Court won't halt Idaho's execution of Thomas Creech, who has spent 4 decades on death row
BOISE, Idaho — The hour of Thomas Eugene Creech’s death has been set, and it is rapidly approaching.
The 73-year-old serial killer, one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates, spent time with his wife Tuesday evening and ate a last meal including fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and ice cream.
On Wednesday morning Idaho prison officials will ask if he would like a mild sedative to help calm him before his execution at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise. Then, at 10 a.m. local time, they will bring him into the execution chamber and strap him to a padded medical table.
Defense attorneys and the warden will check for any last-minute orders from Idaho Gov. Brad Little that would halt the execution. Little has previously said he does not intend to do so, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Creech’s request for a stay Wednesday morning.
If it happens, the execution will be Idaho’s first in 12 years.
Barring any reprieve, volunteers with medical training will insert a catheter into one of Creech’s veins. He’ll be given a chance to say his last words and a spiritual advisor may pray with him. Then the state will inject a drug intended to kill him.
Creech, who has been convicted of five murders in three states and is suspected in several more, has been imprisoned since 1974. He was originally sentenced to death for fatally shooting John Wayne Bradford and Edward Thomas Arnold, who picked him up while he was hitchhiking. That punishment, however, was changed to life in prison after the state’s sentencing law was found unconstitutional.
Then, in 1983, he was sentenced to death for the murder of fellow inmate David Dale Jensen. Jensen was 22, disabled and serving time for a car theft when Creech attacked him with a battery-filled sock on May 13, 1981.
Jensen’s family members described him as a gentle soul who loved hunting and being outdoors during Creech’s clemency hearing last month. Jensen’s daughter was 4 years old when he died, and she spoke about how painful it was to grow up without a father, piecing together everything she knows about her dad from other people’s memories.
In court documents filed late last week, Idaho officials said Creech’s spiritual advisor would be allowed to place a hand on his shoulder during the execution. The Episcopal bishop won’t be allowed to hold his hand or make any noise once the drug is administered. Creech will also be allowed to wear a crucifix, and his wife will be seated in the witness area where he can see her.
Creech’s supporters have pushed to have his sentence converted to life without parole, saying he is a deeply changed man. Several years ago he married the mother of a correctional officer, and former prison staffers said he was known for writing poetry and frequently expressing gratitude for their work.
During his clemency hearing, Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jill Longhorst did not dispute that Creech can be charming. But she said he is nevertheless a psychopath — lacking remorse and empathy.
Creech’s attorneys filed a flurry of late appeals hoping to forestall his execution. They included claims that his clemency hearing was unfair, that it was unconstitutional to kill him because he was sentenced by a judge rather than a jury and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.
But the courts found no grounds for leniency. Creech’s last chance — a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court — was denied a few hours before the scheduled execution Wednesday.
In addition to the Idaho murders, Creech has been convicted of killing William Joseph Dean in Oregon and Vivian Grant Robinson in California in 1974. He was also charged with killing Sandra Jane Ramsamooj in Oregon that year, but the charge was later dropped in light of his other murder sentences.
In 1973, Creech was tried for the killing of 70-year-old Paul Schrader in Tucson, Arizona, but was acquitted. Authorities still believe him to be responsible and say Creech also provided information that led them to the bodies of two people near Las Vegas and one person near Baggs, Wyoming.
Creech’s execution will be the second in the U.S. this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The first was in Alabama last month, when Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first death row inmate to be executed using nitrogen gas. Alabama officials said the method would be humane, but Smith seemed to remain conscious for several minutes and appeared to writhe in agony for at least two minutes.
Another execution in Texas is also scheduled for Wednesday. Ivan Cantu was sentenced to die for the fatal shooting of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his cousin’s girlfriend, Amy Kitchen. Cantu has maintained he is innocent.
Idaho’s death penalty was established in 1864, about 26 years before statehood. Since that time, 29 executions have been carried out, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, including the state’s last hanging in 1957.
Executions became rare in the following decades. Though dozens of people have been sentenced to death since the 1970s, Creech will be only the fourth to be executed by the state since 1957 — all by lethal injection.
Keith Eugene Wells, 31, was executed in 1994 for the murders of John Justad and Brandi Rains committed in Boise four years earlier; he had given up his appeals and demanded to be put to death. Paul Ezra Rhoades was executed in 2011 for the 1987 murders of Stacy Dawn Baldwin and Susan Michelbacher in eastern Idaho. Richard Albert Leavitt was executed in 2012 for the 1984 murder of Danette Jean Elg in eastern Idaho.
After Creech’s execution, just seven people will remain on Idaho’s death row. A handful of those sentenced to death in the state in the past 50 years have died of natural causes, and at least two were exonerated. Many others have had their sentences reduced on appeal.
Earlier this year Idaho lawmakers considered adding the death penalty as a possible sentence for people convicted of lewd conduct with a child, but the legislation did not make it through the House of Representatives.
For the second year in a row, House lawmakers will consider urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
The nonbinding resolution, which carries no legal weight, says the decision in Obergefel v. Hodges violates the longstanding religious definition of marriage between one man and one woman.
“The current definition of marriage that allows for same-sex marriages is a defilement of the word marriage,” said Rep. Tony Wisniewski (R-Post Falls), who sponsors the measure.
The resolution further states that the Obergefel decision “arbitrarily and unjustly” rejects the historical definition of marriage.
Idaho voters passed a constitution amendment in 2006 that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, which was invalidated by the Obergefel ruling.
Wisniewski said regulating marriages should be a power left to the states.
Rep. Brent Crane (R-Nampa) agrees.
“If you want to get things … closer to the people with respect to some of these more complex social issues, I think the best place for those things to happen is in the states,” Crane said.
Doing so is a risk, he said.
“You may have states that choose to acknowledge [polyamorous relationships]. You may have states that choose to have relationships between adults and younger children,” Crane said.
Cities in neighboring Oregon and Washington, for example, are considering giving those in polyamorous relationships legal recognition.
But he said that risk is worth it to allow other states that choose to only recognize traditional marriages.
Four lawmakers on the House State Affairs Committee opposed the resolution.
Rep. Erin Bingham (R-Idaho Falls) said she’s tried to balance her own religious beliefs with those of others while considering the measure.
“I do feel like that it is important for us to work together, to find ways to compromise and to live together in peace and mutual respect,” Bingham said.
The resolution now goes to the House floor for consideration.
House lawmakers last year passed a similar measure, but it never received a hearing in a Senate committee.
Copyright 2026 Boise State Public Radio
Idaho
University of Idaho professor awarded $10M after TikTok tarot influencer claimed she ‘ordered’ quadruple murders
A University of Idaho professor won a $10 million judgment after a tarot TikTok influencer publicly pushed false claims that she was behind the savage quadruple slayings of four college students.
A Boise jury in US District Court ordered fortune-telling Texas TikToker Ashley Guillard on Friday to pay $10 million after concluding she falsely accused professor Rebecca Scofield of having a secret romance with one of the four victims and orchestrating their killings, the Idaho Statesman reported.
Following the verdict, Scofield thanked the jury and said she hopes the case sends a clear warning that making “false statements online have consequences in the real world.”
“The murders of the four students on November 13, 2022, were the darkest chapter in our university’s history,” Scofield told Fox News.
“Today’s decision shows that respect and care should always be granted to victims during these tragedies. I am hopeful that this difficult chapter in my life is over, and I can return to a more normal life with my family and the wonderful Moscow community.”
Scofield, the university’s history department chair, filed the lawsuit in December 2022 — just weeks after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were brutally stabbed to death at an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.
Guillard began uploading videos to her more than 100,000 TikTok followers in late November 2022, accusing Scofield of a secret relationship with one of the students and claiming she had “ordered” the killings, garnering millions of views across the social media platform.
The complaint states that Scofield had never met the victims and was out of state when the murders occurred.
Even after being served with cease-and-desist letters and after police publicly confirmed Scofield had no connection to the murders, the Houston-based tarot reader continued posting videos, the history professor’s legal team argued.
Guillard doubled down on her accusations against Scofield after being sued, posting a defiant video saying, “I am not stopping,” and challenging why Scofield needed three lawyers to sue her “if she’s so innocent.”
The professor’s legal team argued the defamatory accusations painted her as a criminal and accused her of professional misconduct that could derail her career.
Bryan Kohberger, then studying criminology at Washington State University, pleaded guilty in July 2025 to the quadruple murders in a deal that took the death penalty off the table. He is currently serving four consecutive life sentences in Idaho.
In June 2024, Chief US Magistrate Judge Raymond Patricco found Guillard’s statements legally defamatory, leaving damages to be decided by a jury.
During the damages trial, Scofield described the anguish of seeing her name tied to the murders online, the Idaho Statesman reported.
However, Guillard, acting as her own attorney, insisted her comments were simply beliefs based on tarot card readings.
She claimed to have psychic powers and testified that she relied on tarot cards to try to solve the shocking homicides that shook the rural college town and sparked global attention.
It took jurors less than two hours to return their verdict, the outlet reported.
The jury awarded Scofield $7.5 million in punitive damages in addition to $2.5 million in compensatory damages.
With Post wires
BOISE, Idaho — AAA is warning Idaho gas consumers that pump prices will likely rise as the conflict in Iran disrupts oil and gas supply chains worldwide.
The ongoing turmoil in the Middle East will likely push the price for a gallon of regular gasoline past the $3 mark over the coming days.
“On one hand, the crude oil market had time to account for some financial risk in the Middle East as forces mobilized, but a supply shortage somewhere affects the global picture,” says AAA Idaho public affairs director Matthew Conde. “If tankers can’t move products through the region, there could be ripple effects.”
On Monday, March 2, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $2.97, reports AAA, which is 12 cents more expensive than it was a month ago but 20 cents less than this time last year.
State / Price: 1 gallon of regular gasoline
- Washington / $4.37
- Oregon / $3.92
- Nevada / $3.70
- Idaho / $2.97
- Colorado / $2.89
- Montana / $2.82
- Utah / $2.74
- Wyoming / $2.73
In terms of the most expensive fuel in the nation, Idaho currently ranks #14. However, buying a gallon of regular gas in neighboring states such as Oregon and Washington could cost a whole dollar more. In contrast, gas prices in Utah, Montana, and Wyoming are anywhere between 15 to 24 cents cheaper than fuel in the Gem State.
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