Thomas Creech will remain Idaho’s longest-serving death row prisoner after the state parole board recommended Monday against his plea to avoid execution with a reduced sentence to life in prison.
Creech was convicted of five murders, including the beating death of fellow prisoner David Dale Jensen in 1981. He is suspected of at least several others across the Western U.S. but asked that he be allowed to die of natural causes at a formal hearing earlier this month.
The Commission of Pardons and Parole deadlocked in a 3-3 vote, which upholds Creech’s death sentence because a majority did not support his request. The parole board’s seventh member, a retired longtime Idaho State Police officer, recused himself from the clemency hearing for undisclosed reasons.
“We do not believe Mr. Creech is worthy of grace or mercy,” the three unnamed parole board members said in the ruling . “This decision was based on the coldblooded nature of David Dale Jensen’s murder and the sheer number of victims that Mr. Creech has created over his lifetime, which shows that he does not place value on human life, other than his own.”