Idaho

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

Published

2 years ago

February 25, 2024

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

“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

University of Idaho professor awarded $10M after TikTok tarot influencer claimed she ‘ordered’ quadruple murders

Published

5 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

University of Idaho professor awarded M 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

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Idaho

Gas prices expected to exceed $3 as the Iran conflict prompts supply shortages

Published

17 hours ago

March 2, 2026

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Gas prices expected to exceed as the Iran conflict prompts supply shortages

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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Idaho

Idaho Lottery results: See winning numbers for Pick 3, Pick 4 on March 1, 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

The results are in for the Idaho Lottery’s draw games on Sunday, March 1, 2026.

Here’s a look at winning numbers for each game on March 1.

Winning Pick 3 numbers from March 1 drawing

Day: 7-2-3

Night: 2-7-6

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 4 numbers from March 1 drawing

Day: 4-7-9-3

Night: 8-7-7-3

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Idaho Cash numbers from March 1 drawing

03-06-07-33-41

Check Idaho Cash payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from March 1 drawing

10-11-12-35-56, Bonus: 04

Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

When are the Idaho Lottery drawings held ?

Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
Pick 3: 1:59 p.m. (Day) and 7:59 p.m. (Night) MT daily.
Pick 4: 1:59 p.m. (Day) and 7:59 p.m. (Night) MT daily.
Lucky For Life: 8:35 p.m. MT Monday and Thursday.
Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
5 Star Draw: 8 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
Idaho Cash: 8 p.m. MT daily.
Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a USA Today editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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