True Crime Friday: Thomas Eugene Creech, the Church of Satan Serial Killer
Thomas Eugene Creech was born September 9, 1950, in the State of Ohio. He is a serial killer and was convicted of two murders but has since confessed to at least forty-two murders across the United States. He was sentenced to death for the two murders he committed in 1974, That sentence was reduced to life in prison upon appeal. While in prison Thomas Eugene Creech confessed to a 1981 murder. Creech was then sent back to death row when he confessed to this murder. He killed a biker that belonged to the Church of Satan and other members of the church. The authorities were able to collaborate with some of the additional murders but not all of them. There is strong evidence that he murdered least seven more people than he was convicted of per the investigators. Thomas Eugene Creech has had ten failed executions by lethal injections in the State of Idaho.
The Early Childhood of Thomas Eugene Creech
As with most serial killers Creech grew up in an unstable household. Arguments between his parents were on a regular basis and they eventually divorced. Creech was left to live with his father. His father died in front of him while he was visiting Creech in prison in 1971. Creech apparently attacked the prison nurse for not being able to save his father’s life. Creech left his hometown and became a drifter traveling across the United States. He was in and out of prison for most of his early life. He was paroled in 1971 and that is when he embarked upon his killing career. Creech married 16-year-old Thomasine Loren White in 1973, in Oregon. She was with Creech in Arizona when he murdered Paul Schrader in a Tucson motel.Thomasine was in and out of a psychiatric hospital Oregon and she eventually killed herself in November of 1979. The reason was unknown why she killed herself but in a letter to a new station in Oregon Creech claimed that his wife had been raped by a gang of men and then thrown out a window, causing her debilitating physical and mental injuries that were the primary contributors for her decision.
The Victims of Thomas Eugene Creech
- Paul Schrader
- Daniel A. Walker
- Vivian Robinson
- William Dean
- Edward Arnold
- John Bradley
- David Dale Jensen
The Survivors of Thomas Eugene Creech
- Unknown Prison Nurse
- The Families of His Victims
Spaulding eventually pleaded guilty to accessory to murder. She was sentenced to two years in prison. She was pregnant at the time of the arrest and gave birth in a baby boy named Ben in prison.