On May 13, 1981, 23-year-old inmate David Dale Jensen was killed inside the Idaho State Penitentiary in Ada County. Jensen was serving a sentence for car theft and was partially disabled from a prior head injury that required a plastic plate in his skull. He died the same day after being struck repeatedly with a sock filled with batteries by fellow prisoner Thomas Eugene Creech following a dispute between them.

Creech, already serving life sentences for multiple murders, was charged with first-degree murder in Jensen’s death. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death in 1982; that sentence was imposed in addition to his existing life terms. Over the years legal challenges have centered on sentencing rather than the facts of the killing.

Did anyone in the prison or outside know Jensen’s routines or the nature of his dispute with Creech prior to May 13, 1981?