Idaho Warden Collected Drugs for Execution from an Undisclosed Supplier on a Rural Road
An NBC News investigation has revealed how Idaho obtained pentobarbital for executions through discreet handovers outside its maximum-security prison, while the manufacturers of the drug were warning the state not to use their products in capital punishment.
According to court documents in the cases of two men on Idaho’s death row, Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto, the then-warden of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, Tim Richardson, twice met two people delivering vials of pentobarbital. The first handover took place just outside the prison gates. The second, four months later in February 2024, took place at a rural road intersection about a mile away. In a deposition, Richardson said he moved the second exchange off site so as not to draw attention to it.
Lawyers for the Idaho Department of Correction instructed Richardson not to answer questions about who supplied the drugs, whether the same people made each delivery, or what vehicles they used. A 2022 Idaho law shields the identities of the state’s execution team and its drug suppliers.
Court exhibits show that Hikma and Sagent, the two companies that manufacture injectable pentobarbital, both wrote to Idaho officials demanding that their medicines not be used in executions. Hikma told NBC News it has sent such letters to Idaho and other states every year for eight years, and that invoice information allowed it to confirm the drugs Idaho bought were not its products. The prison’s current warden has nonetheless described the state’s supply as coming from an FDA-approved manufacturer.
The price also raises questions. Idaho paid $50,000 for one six-vial batch, which a pharmacy expert retained by Creech’s legal team said was more than three times the wholesale cost and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the supplier. In total, the state spent $200,000 on three purchases of pentobarbital, all of which expired unused after Creech’s failed execution in February 2024, when prison staff could not establish an IV line after 42 minutes.