Edward Thomas Arnold was 34 and working as a house painter when he and a fellow painter, 40-year-old John Wayne Bradford, were killed after picking up two hitchhikers near Donnelly, Idaho. On November 4, 1974, Arnold and Bradford stopped to give a ride to Thomas Eugene Creech and Carol Spaulding. Their bodies were found the next day in a barrow pit off Highway 55, each shot in the head; Arnold’s restored 1956 Buick Roadmaster, described as blood-spattered, was recovered at the scene.

Investigators focused on Creech and Spaulding, and Creech was arrested, tried, and convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of Arnold and Bradford. He was initially sentenced to death and later resentenced to life when automatic death sentences were struck down; a later murder of an inmate in 1981 led to another death sentence. Creech has admitted involvement in numerous other killings across several states.

If anyone knew Edward Arnold, his work as a traveling house painter, or remembers the Roadmaster in the Donnelly area in November 1974, please share what you know.