Idaho’s longest-serving death row prisoner wants a life sentence. He has surprising allies

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Kathy Niecko used to frequent Idaho’s death row as a health care worker at the maximum security prison, making the rounds to check on her patients. That included the prisoner who has been there the longest, Thomas Creech.

In the ensuing years, after she was promoted to be the prison’s health services administrator in 2006, Niecko, a U.S. military veteran, began to trust Creech with her own well-being.

She recalled a time or two when the doors on a few of the prisoners’ cells malfunctioned. They swung open while she was walking the row to go speak with a prisoner, she said. And if it happened again, she told correction officers at the time, she wouldn’t be afraid to run to Creech’s cell, confident that he would ensure she was protected, she told the Idaho Statesman in an interview.

“I said to them, ‘Just so you know, if I’m ever out there and all those doors pop open or there starts to be a riot,’ I said, ‘I’m booking it to Creech’s cell and slamming the door,’ ” Niecko said.

Niecko, of Meridian, retired from the site of the state’s most violent imprisoned population in 2014, though other employees at the Idaho Department of Correction said Creech’s pleasant demeanor remains the same a decade later. During Niecko’s 13-year tenure working at the prison, Creech had always shown himself to be very respectful, she told the Statesman, especially to her female medical staff in the all-male prison.

“He really watched out for them,” Niecko said. “He was so different than any of the other death row inmates I’d ever been around.”

Now, Niecko is one of at least seven former state prison workers advocating on behalf of Creech, 73 — who was convicted of four murders — in his bid to have the state reduce his sentence to life in prison. So strong were the bonds that Creech developed with some IDOC workers that a guard at the time even introduced Creech to his mother, whom Creech later married from prison.

The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole agreed to consider Creech’s clemency request at a hearing on Jan. 19, the result of which Gov. Brad Little has the final say if he chooses.

The parole board’s decision halted the state’s latest attempt to execute Creech during his half-century of incarceration — the majority of that time on death row.

Creech, who grew up in Ohio, is a notorious figure among Idaho’s eight death row prisoners, in part because of his length of stay. Since he was first sentenced to death in 1976 for the murder of two men in Valley County, Creech has avoided a scheduled execution at least 11 times, according to records previously provided to the Statesman by his attorneys.

Supporters often characterize Creech as cooperative, friendly and engaging with prison employees and his fellow prisoners — on death row and otherwise. He’s artistic, plays the guitar and is a prodigious poet who sends his work to prison staffers. Over the course of his imprisonment, he’s become a deeply Christian man who prays several times a day, narratives included in his clemency petition submitted to the parole board stated.

“There have been some death row inmates that I’ve taken care of that … you can tell there is no remorse at all with them,” Niecko said. “But I really do believe there’s some remorse with Creech. I really do.”

Creech’s poems, Niecko said, some of which were included in his clemency petition, depict the side that supporters highlight. In his work, Creech frequently explores his personal faith, his trust in God and his admiration for the people who are the protectors of the world — including prison workers.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Creech penned in a 2007 poem by the same name. “For they shall be called the children of God. … Their days are surrounded by unstable men that society has sent away.”

The portrayal comes in sharp contrast to Creech’s criminal history. His detractors commonly refer to him as a “serial killer,” most recently including the 1981 beating death of fellow prisoner David Dale Jensen. Creech pleaded guilty to murder, prompting his latest death sentence, the only one still standing and under review by the parole board.

Creech, then 30, and Jensen, a 23-year-old man from Pocatello convicted of felony car theft, got into a fight while they were both serving time in maximum security prison. Jensen was partially disabled, with impaired speech and motor skills, after a portion of his brain had been removed and a plastic plate embedded in his skull, according to court records.

The court records also detailed the incident: Jensen swung at Creech with a sock filled with batteries, which Creech took away. Jensen returned with a razor blade mounted to a toothbrush and Creech hit him in the head with the sock weapon, knocking him to the ground and shattering the plastic plate that protected his brain. Blood from Jensen’s skull splattered onto the floor and walls. After the batteries broke from the sock, Creech kicked Jensen in the throat and head.

When a prison guard came across the blood, Jensen was sent to a hospital, where he died that day. Creech was charged with first-degree murder.

“Thomas Creech is a serial killer convicted of numerous atrocious murders and was lawfully sentenced to death in a court of law,” Madison Hardy, the governor’s spokesperson, said in a statement in October after the parole board granted Creech a clemency hearing. “He also bragged about killing many other people in other states but was never convicted of those crimes. Gov. Little supports capital punishment because it is sometimes the only way to bring justice upon evildoers and provide victims’ families with some measure of peace.”

Creech has at points, including under oath, claimed responsibility for killing as many as 42 people by the time he was 24 years old. He later lowered that total to 26 murders that he committed, or at least participated in. Creech has been convicted of four murders, though the larger numbers have added to his notoriety — in and outside the prison. He was convicted of a 1974 murder in Oregon after already receiving a death sentence in Idaho for the two Valley County murders.

“He was obviously a murderer, though I’ve never been sure whether the number of people he killed was in the teens or the 40s,” former Ada County Prosecutor Jim Harris, who prosecuted Creech for Jensen’s murder, told the Statesman in October. “Let’s face it, the guy is a really, really, really good killer. He’s certainly proven that in his life.”

Creech’s 256-page clemency petition paints a different picture and includes 19 signed letters from supporters, including the seven former IDOC workers. The others are from fellow prisoners, his wife and sister, longtime friends and the judge who sentenced Creech to death and now agrees he should be spared from execution.

Which version of Creech the parole board settles on could be the difference in whether they recommend his sentence be reduced to life in prison, or he’s eventually served a 12th death warrant and once again scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Executions have the potential to cause secondary trauma for those charged with carrying out capital punishment and the people who know the prisoner put to death, according to academic research. The phenomenon is also sometimes referred to as “compassion fatigue.”

Matthew Barry Johnson is a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City who has made secondary trauma originating from state-sponsored executions an area of focus. The concept has in recent years become more widely recognized but still lacks sufficient scientific study, because death penalty states have not been willing to give researchers access to their execution processes or the people involved in them, he told the Statesman by phone.

“Discussions of the death penalty are largely about, does this particular individual who has been condemned deserve to live or be killed?” Johnson said. “What we’ve tried to do is ask, ‘What are the other impacts, are they substantial, and also are they being taken into consideration regarding this policy for the typical citizen?’ ”

The idea was one presented by Jeanette Griggs, another of the former IDOC workers who is backing Creech for a reduced sentence to life in prison. Griggs, who worked as a ranking corrections officer in Idaho until retiring in 2007, said she has long believed in the death penalty but raised concerns about the pain it would cause others who have interacted with him over the decades.

“I strongly believe executing Mr. Creech will be emotionally stressful for the staff who have gotten to know him,” Griggs wrote in her signed declaration. “How can anyone have any kind of relationship with an inmate for that long and not be impacted by it? I know Mr. Creech’s execution will take an emotional toll on me, even though I retired 16 years ago and have not had any contact with him since then.”

Former IDOC Director Brent Reinke steered the state’s two most recent executions, in 2011 and 2012, both by lethal injection. While he told the Statesman he had no misgivings about his past involvement in them, Reinke acknowledged the difficulties the situation presents, including for IDOC employees.

“We made sure that there was counseling available in all areas, because of the challenges you can run into with this,” he said. “So I can vouch for the fact that it is a very traumatic event.”

In her support letter for Creech, Griggs wrote about her personal experience as a state prison worker during the execution of prisoner Keith Wells in 1994 — Idaho’s first by lethal injection.

“Nearly 30 years have passed since his execution, and I can still recall my mental stress and emotional distress surrounding it,” Griggs said. At the time, she thought she was mentally prepared. But when she arrived at work the next morning and was told about the execution, she wrote, she had to step into an empty hallway as she struggled to compose herself.

Niecko also remembered the state’s other two lethal injection executions to date during Reinke’s watch, of convicted murderers Paul Rhoades in 2011 and Richard Leavitt in 2012. A number of prison guards and medical staff noted their discomfort to Niecko, she said, expressing their concerns if it were ever “Creech’s turn.”

Some were vocal that they wouldn’t come to work that day, Niecko said, and suggested that they would either call in sick or schedule vacation.

Creech’s execution would deliver sadness to many, Niecko said. She counts herself among them.

“I think there will be a lot of people that will be affected if he’s gone,” she said. “I just see nothing to be gained by his execution, nothing at this point in time.”

Niecko plans to testify at Creech’s Jan. 19 clemency hearing. Creech also has two standing appeals before the Idaho Supreme Court. Both are scheduled for oral arguments next month.

One appeal argues that Creech’s death sentence is unconstitutional because a judge imposed it. The U.S. Supreme Court set a revised standard in 2002 that the death penalty may only be decided by a jury.

The other appeal argues that Creech received ineffective legal counsel during his prosecution for the Jensen murder. Creech’s history of childhood physical and sexual abuse, and traumatic head injuries, each contributing to mental health problems, were not presented to the judge for consideration at sentencing, his attorneys contend.

Before then, former Idaho maximum security deputy warden Gary Hartgrove hopes the parole board — and Little — will decide to allow Creech to live out his life in prison. Hartgrove retired from IDOC in 2020 after more than 40 years in corrections, including five of them helping to manage the state’s death row, where Creech remains imprisoned.

“I walked death row regularly and got to know all the inmates on the tier including Creech,” Hartgrove said in his signed declaration included in the clemency petition. “I am aware of the crime that he was convicted of perpetrating.”

Hartgrove, of Eagle, bristles at arguments that the death penalty is the only way to ensure that violent prisoners, including Creech, are adequately punished for their past crimes.

“I just don’t believe at his age, in his health — he’s really kind of benign in the unit — that an execution is absolutely necessary and what we need to do to protect society,” Hartgrove told the Statesman in a phone interview.

Other state prison workers may seek to testify as well. On Monday, IDOC Director Josh Tewalt sent an all-staff email, which the department provided to the Statesman, granting permission to all IDOC employees to testify at Creech’s hearing if they choose. They can do so without fear of any form of retaliation, the email read.

“While I won’t speak for anyone else, I know all too well the internal conflict and difficulty that comes from implementing this law while still believing wholeheartedly in the capacity for redemption,” Tewalt wrote. “It is a lot to reconcile.

“The decision to testify in this matter is entirely yours. While your opinions may have been formed in an official capacity with IDOC, your testimony is offered in a personal capacity. Please be mindful that you are representing yourself and not IDOC.”

Creech’s attorneys with the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho criticized the timing of his message to IDOC employees, which left them with limited chance to decide whether to participate in their client’s clemency hearing.

“At the eleventh hour, with only about a week left before the hearing, we have little if any time to find and organize support from within IDOC staff,” Deborah A. Czuba, supervising attorney for the legal nonprofit’s death penalty unit, said in a statement to the Statesman. “This is unfair to Mr. Creech, as it is well known that he is widely backed by the (prison) rank-and-file, many of whom have grown up with him and believe he deserves mercy, and who will certainly suffer if he is executed.”

After he was sentenced to death for Jensen’s murder in 1982, Creech told the Associated Press in an interview that he preferred just to be executed.

“I think dying would be best,” Creech said, describing Jensen’s death as an act of self-defense. “I don’t really think I should die for the Jensen murder, no. … But I pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. I just think it would be best for my family, because if they put me back at the Idaho Penitentiary, I’ll kill again, there’s no doubt about it.”

Creech’s past request differs dramatically from his signed declaration included in his clemency petition. Creech’s attorneys declined to make him available to the Statesman for an interview.

“I’ve changed a lot since 1981,” Creech wrote. “I’m not the person I was. I believe I’ve touched a lot of hearts in the last 40 years. If my sentence were commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole, I would do my best to continue having a positive impact on people’s lives.”

Former state prison guard Rodney Schlienz agreed that Creech is not the same man today that he once was. He noticed Creech changed after he married his wife, LeAnn, in 1998.

“Though never a problem, Tom seemed to develop a brighter outlook on life,” Schlienz wrote in his support letter for Creech. “I have nothing negative to say about Tom. … I think it would be fair for him to be resentenced to life without parole.”

Creech met his wife two years before they married while he was on death row. Her son was a guard at the prison and introduced them, according to LeAnn Creech’s signed declaration in support of her husband.

She also referenced the personal torment she would experience if her husband of 25 years were executed. LeAnn Creech said she would be devastated if the state enforced his death sentence. She declined to comment by email to the Statesman.

“Tom is my whole life,” she wrote. “If he were executed, I think I would crawl up into a ball and just give up. I have a lot of health problems, and being there for Tom is what keeps me going.”

The governor, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, has the authority to reject the parole board’s recommendation, whether it maintains Creech’s death penalty or grants him clemency. Little pledged earlier this month to allow the process to play out before making any decisions about Creech.

“When those come to me, it usually isn’t just a black and white,” Little told the Statesman at a media event ahead of the start of the legislative session. “It’s usually, here’s that condition, and until I know — until that hearing takes place — I have no idea, because what were their grounds for doing that? And that’s what will help me make my determination.”

In 2021, Gerald Pizzuto, another death row prisoner convicted of four murders, came before the parole board for a clemency hearing. The seven-member commission voted to reduce Pizzuto’s sentence to life in prison, which Little immediately blocked to maintain his death sentence.

“The severity of Pizzuto’s brutal, senseless and indiscriminate killing spree strongly warrants against commutation,” Little said in his statement at the time.

Hartgrove, the former deputy warden of the Idaho maximum security prison, said he thinks Creech would pose little risk to other prisoners if he received a reduced life sentence, including if he were released back into the prison’s general population.

After more than 40 years of incarceration, Creech should be spared from execution, Harris, Ada County’s former elected prosecutor, agreed. But it’s because Harris thinks the judicial system has failed for decades to deliver on the rightful sentence, not because Creech didn’t deserve capital punishment, he said.

Harris expressed reservations about Creech returning to the general prison population if he were granted the reduced sentence. Creech has a track record of developing connections with prison staff and law enforcement, Harris said, but preserving conflict with other prisoners he doesn’t like. Creech and Jensen were rivals, he said.

“So if he goes back into the yard, he’s going to be confronted with these people that obviously some of whom he probably won’t like,” Harris said. “There’s definitely a possibility that he’d find a way to at least attempt to kill somebody out in the yard. That’s been his history, and different things set him off, obviously.”

To those who have worked in the state prison system or continue to do so and have taken issue with Creech’s possible execution, Harris is blunt.

“These employees are state employees, and have to do what they’re ordered to do,” he said. “And if they think a death penalty situation is going to interrupt their lifestyle or philosophy of life, or be considered something they don’t want to do, then they should look for another job.”

Reinke, the former IDOC director from 2007 to 2014, said he understands the emotional challenges those workers may face.

“There’s no question that it’s a very difficult situation,” he said. “But when you look at the laws of the state of Idaho, that’s what you’re there to carry out.”