Thomas Eugene Creech was set to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday (Picture: AP)
A serial killer’s execution was halted after eight failed attempts to insert an intravenous line for a lethal injection.
Thomas Eugene Creech, 73, who was convicted of five murders across three states and beat a fellow inmate to death, was wheeled on a gurney into an execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday morning.
Creech’s execution was to be carried out as he remained one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the US – but medical team members could not find a vein to insert the IV line despite eight attempts.
Following the failed tries, Creech’s lawyers quickly filed a motion for a stay.
Thomas Eugene Creech was sentenced to the death penalty after beating a fellow inmate to death (Picture: Idaho Department of Correction)
‘The badly botched execution attempt’ proves the corrections department’s ‘inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution’, stated his lawyers in the filing in US District Court.
Idaho confirmed it would not attempt to execute Creech again before his current death warrant expires, and the court granted the stay.
The Federal Defender Services of Idaho claimed accused the department of allowing ‘unknown individuals with unknown training’ to carry out an execution.
‘This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the State and the Courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country’s oldest death-row inmates,’ stated the Federal Defender Services.
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