A U.S. district judge issued a stay on Monday of the scheduled Nov. 13 execution of Idaho death row inmate Thomas Eugene Creech after Creech sought a new clemency hearing to challenge the assertion that he was responsible for the 1974 slaying of a man along the 40 Freeway in the San Bernardino County desert.
The Federal Defender Services of Idaho on Oct. 25 filed a lawsuit against San Bernardino County on behalf of Creech alleging that with little evidence, the Sheriff’s Department pinned the killing of 21-year-old Daniel Walker on Creech to support “the State of Idaho’s opposition to Mr. Creech’s petition for clemency and supporting the state’s execution of Mr. Creech.”
Creech, 74, has been convicted of five murders and confessed to dozens of killings that his attorneys believe he did not commit.
The lawsuit seeks the Sheriff’s Department’s records on the Walker investigation and its communication with Idaho authorities.
“The Sheriff and the DA used their records to pressure the victim’s family into believing Mr. Creech killed Daniel Walker and, in conjunction with Idaho prosecutors, the Sheriff also pressured the family into sending a letter opposing clemency in Idaho,” the lawsuit states. “In choosing to support Mr. Creech’s execution through this behavior, the County of San Bernardino, through the Sheriff and the DA, has sought to get rid of an unsolved case.”
San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson has not charged Creech nor sought to extradite him. The Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the allegations.
Walker’s slaying remains on the Sheriff’s Department’s cold case web page.
“Our investigation is complete and a report has been sent to the DA’s office,” Sheriff’s accuser Gloria Huerta said. “Our investigators remain in contact with the DA’s office.”
Creech was originally scheduled to be executed on Feb. 28. But prison doctors could not find a useable vein for the injection, and Creech was spared for the time being. But then he was again scheduled to die, this time by injecting the lethal chemical dose through a catheter.
Walker’s brother, Doug, said he has doubts about Creech’s role in Daniel Walker’s death. He wrote the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole on Oct. 24, asking the state to delay the execution so Creech’s connection to Daniel Walker’s death can be more thoroughly investigated.
Doug Walker wrote that investigators told him over the years that they had no leads. Then in January, a sheriff’s news release said investigators determined that Creech had killed Daniel Walker after they “obtained additional information,” prompting the cold case team to actively work the investigation starting in November 2023.
Walker said sheriff’s investigator Justin Carty told him that at some point, investigators in Needles found a written confession from Creech that had been misfiled at the Barstow station
Idaho prosecutors urged Doug Walker to write a victim impact statement that was read at a clemency hearing in January, Walker said in his letter to commissioners. At that hearing, the parole board declined to cancel the execution.
And, Walker said, he agreed to “close the case with Creech as the perpetrator” to obtain the sheriff’s case file. But all those documents did raise more questions, Walker wrote.
“The file is some 3,000 pages of an unorganized jumble of police reports, handwritten notes, lab reports, motor vehicle records and mugshots. Some of the details Creech gives line up with what’s in police descriptions of the crime scene, but there are some major discrepancies,” Walker wrote.
Walker was particularly concerned about an index card containing a typed note that says “(Creech) most likely was lying. … He did not have any details about the Walker (murder) to connect him with crime.”
On Oct. 1, 1974, Daniel Walker parked his Volkswagen van alongside the 40 Freeway some 60 miles west of Needles so his passenger, an 18-year-old hitchhiker, could rest. Someone showed up and fired on Walker several times as he begged for his life, inflicting fatal injuries, the Sheriff’s Department said. Walker’s van keys and money were ripped from a pants pocket, but other valuable property was left behind, a sheriff’s officer wrote in a letter to the family.
