BOISE, Idaho — Idaho's longest-serving death row inmate, Thomas Eugene Creech, has been identified as a suspect in a cold case murder in California from nearly 50 years ago.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Daniel Walker was shot multiple times by a suspect who woke him up while sleeping in a parked van alongside Interstate 40 on Oct. 1, 1974. Walker's passenger escaped and was able to get the attention of a passing driver. Walker was eventually taken to an area hospital, where he later died.
No workable leads were developed in the case by a homicide unit, and the sheriff's department said the suspect got away unidentified. In November 2023, a cold case team resumed the investigation into Walker's murder.
On Wednesday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department identified Creech as a suspect in the murder based on additional evidence collected by cold case detectives.
"While working with the Ada County District Attorney's Office in Idaho, Cold Case Detectives were able to corroborate intimate details from statements Creech made regarding Daniel's murder," the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a news release.
Creech's legal team issued a statement in response to him being identified as a suspect in the 1974 murder in California, which is included below in its entirety:
"The announcement by the San Bernardino Sheriff that Thomas Creech is a 'suspect' in Daniel Walker's death only underscores how false and irresponsible it was for the Ada County prosecutors to claim at last Friday's clemency hearing that the case was 'closed' and Mr. Creech was guilty.
"Sheriff Dicus says nothing in his press release about the case being closed, let alone that there is any real evidence against Mr. Creech. Instead, the Sheriff relies entirely on unspecified 'intimate details' supposedly provided by Mr. Creech a long time ago that are for unexplained reasons just being revealed now, decades later. These details somehow now make Mr. Creech a new suspect in a crime that has never been tied to him, despite several efforts to link it to him as far back as 1975, when teams of federal and local law enforcement officials were determined to prove the fantasy that he committed 50 murders.
"It is troubling that the Ada County prosecutors would attempt to use this thinnest of cases to assert that they had solved a 50-year-old murder in a single PowerPoint slide created to deny Mr. Creech his chance for clemency. The prosecutors' distortions prove how desperate they are to focus on fabrications from the 1970s rather than deal with the undeniable fact that Mr. Creech has become a remorseful, compassionate person with deep support from correctional staff, religious leaders, the many friends he's made, and even the judge who sentenced him to death.
"We are confident the Parole Commission will see through the prosecutors' ruse and judge Mr. Creech based on the man he is in 2024, whose execution would accomplish nothing but more death and devastation."
Creech, now 73, was convicted of killing two people in Valley County in 1974 and sentenced to death. That sentence was later reduced to life in prison.
In 1981, while serving his sentence for those murders, Creech confessed to killing fellow inmate Dale Jensen.
He was sentenced to death for that murder and has been on death row for 40 years.
As previously reported by KTVB, Creech had a clemency hearing on Friday, Jan. 19, where his legal team asked that his sentence be reduced to life in prison instead of the death penalty.
The Ada County Prosecutor's Office has asked the Commission of Pardons and Parole that Creech's sentence be upheld. The commission will give its recommendation to Idaho Gov. Brad Little, who will make the decision.
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