Idaho Abandons Execution Attempt After an Hour

On Wednesday, Idaho attempted to carry out its first execution in almost 12 years. It did not go smoothly. Prison officials say the attempt to execute 73-year-old serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech by lethal injection was abandoned after almost an hour because the medical team was unable to establish an IV line. Creech “will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility,” the Idaho Department of Correction said in an email to the Idaho Statesman. “As a result, the death warrant will expire. The state will consider next steps.”

Creech’s lawyers said the team tried 10 times to find a vein in his arms and legs to inject pentobarbital; Corrections Director Josh Tewalt says eight attempts were made at sites in Creech’s arms, legs, hands, and feet. Tewalt said they were either unable to access the vein or did access the vein but were worried about the quality of it.

“We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today,” they said in a statement, per CBS News. “This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution.” They said it was “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 in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources.”

An AP reporter was among the witnesses Wednesday. “Each attempt took several minutes, with medical team members palpating the skin around the IV site and looking closely while trying to position the needles,” the AP reports. After the execution was called off, “the warden approached Creech and whispered to him for several minutes, giving his arm a squeeze.” Creech has been imprisoned since 1974. He was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of a fellow inmate and has been convicted of four other murders. (Read more on Creech and Idaho’s plan to execute him here.)