Death row inmate Thomas Creech, 73, has claimed to have killed 42 people over an eight-year span
A convicted Idaho serial killer currently on death row has been named as a suspect in a 1974 cold case murder in southern California , investigators said Wednesday.
Thomas Creech, 73, was convicted in October 1975 for two counts of first-degree murder, though Creech claimed to have killed 42 people over an eight-year span. Creech subsequently killed a fellow inmate at the Idaho State Correctional Institution in 1981 and was sentenced to death. He has been on death row since then.
The San Bernardino Police Department implicated Creech in the Oct. 1, 1974, death of Daniel Walker, who was shot multiple times by an unknown assailant while sleeping in his van on the side of Interstate 40, roughly 60 miles west of the city of Needles.
Cold case detectives had exhausted all leads in the years following Walker’s death until November 2023, when investigators found new information connecting Creech to the murder. Detectives were also able to corroborate details from statements made by Creech about Walker’s murder, according to the San Bernardino Police Department.