FLORENCE, AZ—James “Jimbo” Creasey, 38, a death-row inmate at Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence, said Monday that he “feels pretty lousy” about wasting his most recent stay of execution, granted April 12.
“It kinda sucks,” said Creasey, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murders of three Arizona State sorority girls. “When the word came down that my execution had been postponed, it seemed like I had so much time. But then, the next thing you know, two months have gone by, and you’ve only got a few days to live.”
U.S. District Judge David Oliver granted Creasey his stay on a legal technicality five days prior to the inmate’s scheduled execution date. Creasey said he neglected his unofficial plan to “pick up around his cell” and began sleeping 14 hours each day.
“I guess I could still make the most of my remaining days,” Creasey said. “I could enter the prison checkers tournament, but I’ll be dead before the semifinals.”
Creasey said he had also intended to mail a 10-page letter to his common-law wife Doris and finish the James Clavell novel Shogun.
“It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed these months,” Creasey said. “It’s just, the time goes so fast. You end up staring at some rat running along the wall, thinking about how that rat is like you—you get lost in your thoughts, and then the next thing you know, the whole weekend is shot.”
Continued Creasey: “If I get another stay, which I probably won’t, I’m going to try to finish that skull tattoo on my arm—something I was planning on doing when I got stay number two.”
Creasey said he most regrets not having played more poker.
“After Stony Mike [Jawarski] died in the infirmary, I meant to hang out in the common areas more,” Creasey said. “But it just didn’t happen.”
Creasey, who has spent most of his adult life in prison for crimes ranging from assault with a deadly weapon to murder, said he frequently failed to realize his goals outside of prison, as well.
“I’d follow a college girl for a few hours intending to work out all the angles and really do it right,” Creasey said. “But then I’d get impatient and barge into her place knives-a-blazing, like ’dorm security cameras who?’ Talk about not thinking things through—and why the hell did I leave my semen all over the crime scene and get all hopped up on meth beforehand? Man, if I only had a time machine…”
Barring another stay, Creasey will be executed by lethal injection on July 23.
