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This day in history: Thomas Creech, who claimed he killed 42, convicted of murdering 2. Proposed candy store near Roosevelt school sparked outrage

Residents near Roosevelt school near 14th Avenue and Bernard Street on the South Hill were angry about a proposal to build a candy store cross the street from the school, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on Oct. 22, 2025. The newspaper also ran a picture of James Hungate who had arrived in Olympia hoping he could sign the state Constitution. Hungate was a member of the 1889 state constitutional convention while living in Pullman but had been called home before it was signed. He finally was able to sign the Constitution in 1931 after the Legislature passed a law allowing him to sign it late. (Spokesman-Review archives)
By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

From 1975: A Wallace jury convicted Thomas E. Creech, 25, of two counts of first degree murder – yet his involvement in 42 other murders remained an open question.

Creech claimed on the stand he had killed 42 people as a contract killer for a motorcycle gang or in satanic cult rituals.

A jury in Wallace, Idaho, convicted Thomas E. Creech, 25, of two counts of first degree murder, the Associated Press reported in an article that ran in The Spokesman-Review on Oct. 23, 1975. Creech had denied he killed the victims, but said on the stand that he killed 42 other people. Creech remains on death row for killing a prison inmate in 1981. (Spokesman-Review archives)
A jury in Wallace, Idaho, convicted Thomas E. Creech, 25, of two counts of first degree murder, the Associated Press reported in an article that ran in The Spokesman-Review on Oct. 23, 1975. Creech had denied he killed the victims, but said on the stand that he killed 42 other people. Creech remains on death row for killing a prison inmate in 1981. (Spokesman-Review archives)

Yet he also claimed he did not commit the two murders for which he was on trial. The two victims, both house painters, were found dead alongside a highway in central Idaho. Creech’s girlfriend, then 17, said she witnessed Creech commit the murders, but Creech claimed someone else shot them.

From 1925: Residents of the Cliff Park neighborhood on the South Hill were staunchly opposed to a proposed “obnoxious building.”

The obnoxious building? A small grocery and candy store, on Bernard Street just off 14th Avenue.

The opponents branded their opposition as a zoning issue.

“This is a glaring example of the laxity of city laws,” said one nearby resident. “… It is time for Spokane – a rapidly growing city – to adopt a city planning and zoning law which would settle these questions for all time. … Surely no store should be allowed in the heart of a purely residential section, especially over the protest of the great majority of home owners.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1915: An estimated 25,000 supporters in a women’s suffrage march on New York’s Fifth Ave were led by Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters.