Missouri’s status as one of the most active death penalty states is about to change for one simple reason: The state is running out of inmates to execute.

For nearly an hour, Thomas Eugene Creech lay strapped to a table in an Idaho execution chamber as medical team members poked and prodded at his arms and legs, hands and feet, trying to find a vein through which they could end his life.

Idaho halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech on Wednesday after medical team members repeatedly failed to find a vein where they could establish an intravenous line to carry out the lethal injection.

For nearly 50 years, Idaho’s prison staffers have been serving Thomas Eugene Creech three meals a day, checking on him during rounds and taking him to medical appointments.

A U.S. appeals court panel has declined to delay Idaho’s scheduled execution next week of one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates.