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US serial killer with penchant for poetry to be executed after nearly 50 years

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US serial killer with penchant for poetry to be executed after nearly 50 years


For nearly 50 years, Idaho’s prison staffers have been serving Thomas Eugene Creech three meals a day, checking on him during rounds and taking him to medical appointments.

This Wednesday, some of Idaho’s prison staffers will be asked to kill him. Barring any last-minute stay, the 73-year-old, one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates, will be executed by lethal injection for killing a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981.

Creech’s killing of David Jensen, a young, disabled man who was serving time for car theft, was his last in a broad path of destruction that saw Creech convicted of five murders in three states. He is also suspected of at least a half-dozen others.

But now, decades later, Creech is mostly known inside the walls of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution as just “Tom,” a generally well-behaved old-timer with a penchant for poetry. His unsuccessful bid for clemency even found support from a former warden at the penitentiary, prison staffers who recounted how he wrote them poems of support or condolence and the judge who sentenced Creech to death.

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“Some of our correctional officers have grown up with Tom Creech,” Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt said Friday. “Our warden has a long-standing relationship with him… There’s a familiarity and a rapport that has been built over time.”

Creech’s attorneys have filed a flurry of last-minute appeals in four different courts in recent months trying to halt the execution, which would be Idaho’s first in 12 years. They have argued Idaho’s refusal to say where its execution drug was obtained violates his rights and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected an argument that Creech should not be executed because he was sentenced by a judge rather than a jury.

It’s not clear how many people Creech, an Ohio native, killed before he was imprisoned in Idaho in 1974. At one point he claimed to have killed as many as 50 people, but many of the confessions were made under the influence of now discredited “truth serum” drugs and filled with outlandish tales of occult-driven human sacrifice and contract killings for a powerful motorcycle gang.

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The execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution is shown where Thomas Eugene Creech is set to be executed. Photo / AP

Official estimates vary, but authorities tend to focus on 11 deaths. Creech’s attorneys did not immediately return phone calls from the Associated Press.

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In 1973, Creech was tried for the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader, a retiree who was stabbed to death in the Tucson, Arizona, motel where Creech was living. Creech used Schrader’s credit cards and vehicle to leave Tucson for Portland, Oregon. A jury acquitted him, but authorities say they have no doubt he was responsible.

The next year, Creech was committed to Oregon State Hospital for a few months. He earned a weekend pass and traveled to Sacramento, California, where he killed Vivian Grant Robinson at her home. Creech then used Robinson’s phone to let the hospital know he would return a day late. That crime went unsolved until Creech later confessed while in custody in Idaho; he wasn’t convicted until 1980.

After he was released from the Oregon State Hospital, Creech got a job at a church in Portland doing maintenance work. He had living quarters at the church, and it was there he shot and killed 22-year-old William Joseph Dean in 1974. Authorities believe he then fatally shot Sandra Jane Ramsamooj at the Salem grocery store where she worked.

Creech was finally arrested in November 1974. He and a girlfriend were hitchhiking in Idaho when they were picked up by two painters, Thomas Arnold and John Bradford. Creech shot both men to death and the girlfriend co-operated with authorities.

While in custody, Creech confessed to a number of other killings. Some appeared to be fabricated, but he provided information that led police to the bodies of Gordon Lee Stanton and Charles Thomas Miller near Las Vegas, and of Rick Stewart McKenzie, 22, near Baggs, Wyoming.

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Creech initially was sentenced to death for killing the painters. But after the US Supreme Court barred automatic death sentences in 1976, his sentence was converted to life in prison.

That changed after he killed Jensen, who was serving time for car theft. Jensen’s life hadn’t been easy: He suffered a nearly fatal gun injury as a teen that left him with serious disabilities including partial paralysis.

Jensen’s relatives opposed Creech’s bid for clemency. They described Jensen as a gentle soul and a prankster who loved hunting and spending time outdoors, who was “the peanut butter” to his sister’s jelly. His daughter, who was 4 when he was killed, spoke of how she never got to know him, and how unfair it was that Creech is still around when her father isn’t.

Creech’s supporters, meanwhile, say decades spent in a prison cell have left him changed. One death row prison staffer told the parole board last month that while she cannot begin to understand the suffering Creech dealt to others, he is now a person who makes positive contributions to his community. His execution date will be difficult for everyone at the prison, she said, especially those who have known him for years.

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“I don’t want to be dismissive of what he did and the countless people who were impacted by that in real significant ways,” said Tewalt, the corrections director. “At the same time, you also can’t be dismissive of the effect it’s going to have on people who have established a relationship with him. On Thursday, Tom’s not going to be there. You know he’s not coming back to that unit — that’s real. It would be really difficult to not feel some sort of emotion about that.”

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Idaho

It’s Official: Putting Truck Nuts On Your Pickup Isn’t Welcome In Idaho

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It’s Official: Putting Truck Nuts On Your Pickup Isn’t Welcome In Idaho


If you had plans to slap a pair of truck nuts on the back of your F-150 and haul ass to Idaho in hopes of maybe catching some publicly exposed breasts, I’m afraid you may want to change your plans…

The State of Idaho, renowned for its potatoes and… lots of other cool stuff, has passed a new law that has criminalized the public exposure of breasts.

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House Bill 270 as it’s known — although I’d argue that it was a real missed opportunity on the part of the Idaho State legislature not giving it a funny name like the “No Nipples Act” or something — was signed into law by Governor Brad Little this week and is effectively an updating of the state’s pre-existing indecent exposure laws, according to EastIdahoNews.com.

The law states that a person will be charged with a misdemeanor if one exposes “his or her genitals,; exposes developed female breasts, including the areola and nipple; exposes adult male breasts, including the areola and nipple, that have been medically or hormonally altered to appear like developing or developed female breasts; exposes artificial breasts, including the areola and nipple, intended to resemble female breasts; or displays toys or products intended to resemble male or female genitals.”

Wow… they really covered every conceivable base in there, didn’t they? The “It was only my areola and/or nipple” defense will not fly in the great state of Idaho.

But it’s that last part that rules out truck nuts because they count as a toy or product that resembles genitals. This could lead to police getting calls about them, according to Idaho Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow.

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“They’re gross, they’re offensive, and kids on the road see them. So why wouldn’t the police get a call and say, ‘That offends me, pull it off the truck?’” Wintrow said. “Because now this bill will allow it. And I talked to police and they said, ‘Indeed it would.’”

There’s an interesting gray area here. Are truck nuts protected speech? Boobs aren’t; especially not on CNN as OutKick founder Clay Travis famously learned.

I don’t know. I’m not a truck nuts guy. They’d look a little goofy on my 2022 Kia Forte… although I’ve never given them a shot; they might look awesome.

Since I don’t live in Idaho, I can still give them the ol’ college truck nuts try.
 

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Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger penned essay showing he knew how to cover tracks

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Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger penned essay showing he knew how to cover tracks


Idaho prosecutors have unveiled a college essay from student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger that shows he knows his way around a crime scene, new court filings reveal.

In the missive, written in 2020 during finals for a 300-level criminal justice course, Kohberger described how crime scene investigators use “fiber-free” overalls, gloves and booties to avoid contaminating the location with their own DNA and fingerprints.

At 1122 King Road, where he allegedly killed four University of Idaho undergrads in November 2022, police have revealed little evidence aside from a Ka-Bar knife sheath found under one of the victims that allegedly had Kohberger’s DNA on the snap.

Before the FBI identified him as a person of interest through investigative genetic genealogy, his name was unknown to detectives. 

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Bryan Kohberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022, walks past a video display as he enters a courtroom to appear at a hearing in Latah County District Court, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. AP

He went into other aspects of a crime scene investigation, but repeatedly referenced measures police should take to protect the location, shared his thoughts about circumstantial evidence, identified domestic partners as potential suspects and warned that crime scenes could be staged.

“Prosecutors are going to talk about this when they bring up the lack of forensic evidence left by the killer,” said Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD cold case investigator and a criminal justice professor at Penn State-Lehigh Valley.

“They’re going to say, ‘Look how much he knew about this. He talks about fiber-free clothing.’”

Kohberger enters the courtroom for his arraignment hearing in Latah County District Court, May 22, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho. Getty Images

Kohberger mentioned fiber-free overalls, shoe covers, gloves, hair nets and more when talking about protective gear an investigator should wear to avoid contaminating a scene.

“This is not helpful for him,” Giacalone said.

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“The same way he talks about this fictitious cop about not leaving evidence behind…we might have a little insight into how, or at least an answer about, the lack of forensic evidence was left behind,” Giacalone told Fox News Digital. “He doesn’t mention it by name, but Locard’s Exchange Principle, the theory of transfer between all evidence, he does talk about transfer of evidence a number of times throughout this.”

But Kohberger also made some mistakes in the piece, Giacalone said.

This photo released by the State of Idaho, which prosecutors claim to have been taken from Bryan Kohberger’s phone, shows Kohberger, accused of slaying 4 University of Idaho students, gesturing in a selfie on Nov. 13, 2022, hours after the homicides occurred. AP

“He said staging is common,” Giacalone told Fox News Digital. “It’s not common. You know, most of the things that happen at crime scenes are mistakes or just panic mode.”

He also doesn’t believe that Kohberger, if he committed the crimes as alleged, would have had time to stage the scene after killing four people in roughly 15 minutes, then running into an eyewitness on the way out, who he did not attack.

“I think there’s no way that he didn’t see her,” he said. “So the staging part of this, I don’t find it plausible for him in that scenario.”

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Kohberger, who, through his attorneys, has argued there was blood and DNA evidence at the victims’ home that could point to potential alternate perpetrators, wrote in his essay that crime scene investigators don’t have the responsibility of vetting potentially planted evidence.

“Even if there was an item introduced to the scene by an offender to throw off investigators, it is not the job of the criminal investigator processing the crime scene to jump to conclusion,” Kohberger wrote. 

Giacalone said if Kohberger turned in the paper for one of his classes, he’d probably give it a B.

“He knows a lot, but you can get this out of any academic book,” Giacalone said. “You can learn about this, but putting it into practice and doing it are two other things.”

Kohberger graduated from DeSales University with a master’s degree and then went on to Washington State University to pursue a Ph.D. in criminology.

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The school is just 10 miles away from the University of Idaho, where he is accused of entering a house at 4 a.m. and killing four of the six students inside on Nov. 13, 2022.

The four University of Idaho students who were found dead in off-campus housing were identified on Monday as Madison Mogen, 21, top left, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, bottom left, Ethan Chapin, 20, center, and Xana Kernodle, 20, right.

The victims were Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

The three young women were all roommates. Chapin lived nearby and was dating Kernodle.

Kohberger’s trial on four charges of first-degree murder and another of burglary is set to begin on Aug. 11. Jury selection is scheduled for July 30.

A previous judge entered not-guilty pleas on Kohberger’s behalf at an arraignment in May 2023.

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He could face the death penalty if convicted. 



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Idaho lawmakers float 'embryo adoption' tax break

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Idaho lawmakers float 'embryo adoption' tax break


Idaho lawmakers are considering giving people a tax break on certain costs related to in vitro fertilization, though it won’t happen this year.

The proposed deduction would apply to legal and medical expenses related to so-called “embryo adoptions.”

“Those donated embryos are the results of other families that have gone through the IVF process and, in the end, they have extra embryos and they want to put them out there for adoption,” said one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Brooke Green (D-Boise)

Multiple embryos are typically produced during each cycle of in vitro fertilization, but not all of them get used.

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That tax break would be capped at $10,000 and would only be available if the embryo results in a live birth.

“This sends a much needed message about the importance of families and that we are looking for avenues to help send out the message that we want to help families grow on their own terms,” said Rep. Britt Raybould (R-Rexburg).

A House committee voted to introduce the bill Thursday morning to discuss the issue further over the next year.

Copyright 2025 Boise State Public Radio

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