This man was a convicted offender. Why was he ever allowed around children again? Why would anyone think he was rehabilitated? But many people did.
And unfortunately, that wasn’t the only danger at play. This man was capable of some of the worst evil imaginable—evil that took an entire family down in flames. The Creato family lived in Medford, Oregon, led by parents Jordan Adam Creato and Tashasa Paige Creato. Tasha was born on January 8th, 1981, in Bakersfield, California, to parents Gwendolyn Page Crowson and Willie Johnson.
She was 30 years old at the time of our story. Jordan Cato’s family, however, had abandoned him long before our story took place. Jordan was born in 1960 and was 21 years older than his wife. Tasha and her mother shared a close bond.
Gwendolyn recalled how her daughter would often call her late at night to talk and crack jokes. Gwendolyn would also sing songs with her grandchildren while on the phone. Jordan and Tasha had four children. They welcomed their first, Elijah, on February 24th, 2004, followed by Isaac, born just over a year later on February 27th, 2005.
The third youngest, Andrew, was born on May 12th, 2006, and finally, Aurora was born on January 13th, 2009. Aurora was their only daughter, and all three boys carried their father’s first name as their middle name. All four children were reported to have special needs, and Tasha herself struggled with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. Elijah, who was seven at the time of our story, was known by his teachers as having an innate ability to craft and construct sophisticated toys.
He would give toys he created to other students, and he also enjoyed making art projects for his siblings. Six-year-old Isaac was also creative and artistic. He was above his grade level in reading and writing and had an obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine. Five-year-old Andrew, the youngest boy, was still in Head Start.
He was more focused on toys and enjoyed superhero action figures like Iron Man and Spider-Man. He also enjoyed playing with Hot Wheels cars. Two-year-old Aurora, the youngest and still very much the baby of the family, was in Early Head Start. She was said to have loved Barbie dolls.
Twelve-year-old Madison Grey, who had babysat for the Creato family, said of the children, “They were all very loving. The boys were hyper, but they listened to me really good. ” She said of their parents, “Tabby was really nice. I got a good vibe off her.
Dad was kind of creepy. ”
Tasha had met Jordan at a community college in Bakersfield, California, after she had gotten out of the Navy. She married him despite knowing he had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in December of 1989 for the assault of his ex-wife’s three daughters in Sacramento County. Jordan had been arrested and pled guilty in August of 1990 to eight counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14.
Jordan had also gone back to jail at one point for 91 days for failing to register as an offender, which he was required to do by law no matter where he lived. Jordan’s reputation was permanently stained, and for very good reason. It was no secret to the public that he committed such heinous acts against young children. Offenders on the registry are usually quite easy to look up.
Despite knowing this, Tasha still chose to be with him. According to those that knew her, Tasha wasn’t threatened by what Jordan had done in his past. Tasha’s brother, Jesse Adams, also felt that Jordan had served his time in prison and, by doing so, in his words, had “paid his debt to society” for his actions. Jordan moved his new family to the state of Oregon to get away from his ex-wife’s family, as well as anyone else who knew why he’d been in prison.
They first settled in Central Point, but they were soon evicted from their home after Jordan lost his job at a local factory. They then moved to Medford, where Tasha enrolled at another community college to continue her education, and Jordan worked out of their home fixing cars. The family settled into a house located at 1027 West 10th Street. But the Creato household wasn’t a healthy one.
According to their neighbors, Jordan and Tasha seemed to have frequent arguments, but nothing physical or aggressive. Child Protective Services had also been called to their address in the past, but the reasons why were not publicly known. Some neighbors reported hearing a loud fight on Sunday, July 17th, 2011. It was no secret that Tasha had intended to divorce Jordan.
She had expressed her intentions to do so to her family and friends frequently. That evening, Tasha stayed out all night, and Jordan reported her missing early Monday morning. According to Medford Police Chief Tim George, officers located her later that morning at a local Minit Mart. Surveillance video showed Tasha standing at the cash register at 7:46 a.
m. According to store clerk Lori Gray, she was talking calmly on her cell phone when she came into the store. She bought three fruit-flavored cigar wrappers for 89 cents each and then sat at a table. Tasha was dressed in a black cap, black sweatshirt, black pants, and white running shoes.
She appeared to be texting on her phone. Then she looked outside and smiled broadly before walking out to join the police officers who had been looking for her. They gave her a ride home, and according to the officers, she didn’t appear frightened or nervous before they left her home with Jordan at 9:23 a. m.
The same day, just an hour after Tasha returned home, neighbor Calvin Kennedy called 911 after he could see what appeared to be smoke coming from the Creato home. Calvin had pounded on the door trying to get a response from the family but got no answer. When officials arrived, smoke was now pouring out from the residence. Dozens of firefighters, police, and ambulance crews had arrived on the scene to help put out the blaze and rescue the family.
Firefighters had to forcefully break into the home because the door had been dead bolted shut. The living room couch was placed against the front door, and the back sliding glass doors were locked from the inside with a wooden dowel. Police said that the fire, which was considered to be arson, had been started in several locations around the house. The first victim was evacuated from the home 16 minutes after the 911 call was placed, and the last, a few minutes later, at 9:43 a.
m. First responders worked in a feverish attempt to resuscitate the family in their front yard. The lawn resembled a war zone made into an emergency triage unit as rescue personnel searched for pulses, removed their bloody clothing, and performed CPR. First responders discovered stab wounds on Tasha and all of the three little boys.
They were able to get a pulse on two of the children at the scene, but they were later pronounced dead at the hospital. Tasha and her four children were gone. Jordan was the only member of the family that survived. He was taken to the hospital unconscious from smoke inhalation.
Police quickly zeroed in on the father as the sole perpetrator and made plans to arrest him as soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital. One firefighter told investigators that when they located Jordan, he was holding a bloody kitchen knife. The entire family was found in the master bedroom when the firefighters entered the building to pull them out. The master bedroom was where one of the four fires had been set.
At autopsy, authorities uncovered chilling evidence. Jordan had given the four children large doses of melatonin before the violence took place. Aurora, the youngest of the children, had four times the recommended dose in her system. Giving the children melatonin to lull them to sleep pointed to premeditation.
He wanted them docile before he carried out his plan. As previously mentioned, Jordan had stabbed three of the four children. Aurora was the only member of the family that was spared. Tasha, Isaac, and Andrew died from sharp force injuries.
Elijah and Aurora died from effects of the fire. Tasha had been stabbed twice in the neck, twice in the face, and 10 times in the abdomen. That many wounds denotes a crime of passion and a complete loss of self-control. There were no defensive wounds found on Tasha’s body to show that she had fought Jordan during the attack.
It’s likely that the first wound was a fatal one. According to investigators, after Jordan stabbed his wife and children, he carried each of them into the master bedroom. He put two of the children on the bed and the other two on a mattress on the floor next to their mother. Jordan then got to work on setting the fires.
It’s reported that Jordan left the knife he used on his family on a bed in the kids’ room. Evidence led police to believe that after Jordan had annihilated his family, he doused himself and the interior walls of the house with cooking oil, specifically olive oil, which he mistakenly believed would act as an accelerant. Jordan had also turned on the stove and oven. Once the fires were burning, Jordan acquired a new knife in an attempt to remove himself from this Earth, but firefighters were able to keep him alive after finding him and pulling him from the burning building.
He spent three weeks in the hospital, unconscious from smoke inhalation, and remained guarded by police. He was sedated and listed in stable condition. Jordan was immediately arrested upon his discharge from the hospital. He appeared to have been put in a “turtle suit” during his initial court appearances, but the Jackson County Jail would not comment on whether or not he was on watch due to being a danger to himself.
It would be safe to assume that he definitely was being monitored for safety, considering what his attempts were at the crime scene. Jordan’s indictment listed 24 counts of aggravated murder. Twenty of them were based on the fact that there were multiple victims, and four were due to the fact that his children were all under the age of 14. He was also indicted on four counts of felony murder related to four counts of arson, as well as four counts of manslaughter.
Aggravated murder carries a potential sentence of life in prison without parole or capital punishment. Jordan and his defense attorney, Jeff Groulx, put in a motion to postpone the trial until the following summer. They also submitted a motion to suppress evidence in the case, but the nature of the evidence they sought to suppress was unclear. Jordan had told authorities that when his wife came home that morning, she told him she had woken up in another man’s bed and believed that she had been drugged.
He claimed he went into the backyard to fix a car and later felt that something was not right. When he went into the house, he saw the fire and claimed he saw his wife standing over the children with a knife. Jordan told police he attacked Tasha for what she had done to the children. He said, “She was a broken woman.
I had no right to take her life, but I did not kill my babies. When they needed me the most, I wasn’t there. I knew she was not well, but I never thought she would hurt the babies. ”
This defense is surprisingly not as uncommon as you think.
If you remember the coverage of the Ronnie O’Neal case, this defense from a family annihilator—to say that their romantic partner was the one that killed the kids and they finished the romantic partner off—is surprisingly not uncommon. Like Jordan, Ronnie had the same defense at trial. District Attorney Beth Heckert, however, described Jordan’s behavior as “selfish, controlling, and jealous” and said that he had killed his entire family and tried to remove himself from this Earth rather than let his wife leave him behind for another man. Judge Mahia believed that Jordan was delusional and that the evidence extensively showed that Jordan had killed his entire family in a fit of jealous rage after learning his wife had spent the night with another man and that he had set fire to the house.
He said, “Maybe you can’t admit to yourself that you killed them, but that is clearly what happened. You dishonor the memory of how good a father you were and dishonor the memory of your children by your insistence that she killed them. ”
Jordan could not or would not accept the shame of murdering his own children, so he blamed Tasha to paint her as the unstable one and absolve himself of his guilt. Fortunately, Jordan survived and would be forced to continue living with the knowledge of what he had done for the rest of his life.
Jordan eventually entered what’s known as an Alford plea to four counts of aggravated murder and one of arson. That means that while he does not admit guilt, he acknowledged that there was enough evidence to convict him. The Alford plea saved the Oregon court system the hassle and the hefty cost of a lengthy trial. In return, prosecutors did not pursue capital punishment and recommended life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Willie Johnson, Tasha’s biological father, who now goes by the name Marzik Zadd, was hit particularly hard by the events of the tragedy. Marzik never got to meet his youngest daughter in person. He claimed that he had an affair with her mother, but he didn’t even know he had a daughter for a long time. He said that he wasn’t listed on her birth certificate, but the family resemblance was clear.
Tasha’s mother eventually acknowledged his paternity. Early attempts to meet his newly discovered daughter in person had failed many times. Six months before the tragedy, Marzik had reconnected with Tasha on Facebook. They had begun talking on the phone regularly and were working towards establishing a connection.
The night before the murders, the conversation between them was about the overdue family reunion. According to Marzik, “Tasha was my baby. We were planning for me to come out for a visit. We were going to have a barbecue.
The whole family was getting happy. ” But father and daughter never got to reconnect because of what Jordan had done. He did, however, have some happy memories to hold on to. He lovingly recalled, “The sweetest word I ever heard in my life came from Aurora’s mouth.
She called me Grandpa. ”
Dressed in a black suit at Jordan’s sentencing, Marzik said he himself was a victim of family violence several times over, which included the murders of his own two sisters. He added that Jordan was not solely to blame. He also blamed the California prison system where Jordan did time for the assault of his first wife’s daughters.
The grieving father claimed that they too had a hand in what Jordan had become, saying, “Jordan wasn’t released from prison. Jordan was unleashed on society. ”
Marzik had a lot to say about the justice system and how it frequently fails to effectively rehabilitate inmates before they are released. Marzik had personal experience dealing with the justice system himself.
He had spent several years in prison following a shooting in his California home in 1990. Marzik claimed he was trying to get his stepson’s friend out of his house by scaring him with a shotgun. The friend was a gang member who brought drugs into his home. There was a struggle, and the gun went off.
Marzik’s conviction was overturned several years later by an appeals court, ruling that his case had to be retried or his sentence commuted to voluntary manslaughter. This offense carried a 10-year maximum sentence, which was less than the number of years he had already spent in prison. While Marzik’s appeal was working its way through the system, he had the opportunity to speak with his fellow inmates about what brought them to prison and how to turn the violence around to lead healthier lives. He said, “I’ve seen all sides.
I’ve sat with murderers on death row. They’ve told me things they never told their attorneys or their psychiatrists because I was in the same fix as them. ” Marzik was released from prison on July 18th, 2002. Sadly, the 10th anniversary of his release happened to fall on the one-year anniversary of the Creato killings.
He said, “I’m just sick of all kinds of family violence. Anything I can do to stop family violence, I am ready, willing, and able to try. ”
Tasha’s family did not want Jordan sentenced to death. According to Marzik, “The death penalty won’t do nothing but reward him.
” Tasha’s family wants Jordan to accept responsibility for what he has done and spend the remainder of his life atoning for his sins and potentially saving others from this pain. While Jordan shamefully averted his gaze, Marzik said he hoped his son-in-law would do something positive in prison to make up for as many crimes, adding, “Yes, I would like to see Jordan locked up for life, but I would like to see what he can become. ”
Marzik urged everyone to do what they could to end family violence, stating, “You may be the next victim, and I don’t want you to feel what I’m feeling. Selfishness is what got him where he is.
You’re responsible for the sins you do. He needs to see beyond the misery he is facing. He needs to purify his soul and make something positive come out of this. He may be able to get his sin lifted and get to Paradise.
” Despite everything, Marzik believed in forgiveness and redemption. “Jordan can be an excellent instrument in promoting programs that would help other inmates in prison not to come out and do the things he has come out and done. ”
Tasha’s brother, Jesse Adams, also looked to his faith to make sense of this tragedy and to find comfort in the idea that God had taken Tasha and her children to a better place. Jesse found in the Bible a means to forgive Jordan, such as Ephesians 4:31, which reads, “Let all bitterness, wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as Christ God has forgiven us.
”
At a news conference, Jesse shared that his family was in chaos trying to make sense of the loss, “but we’re working on the path to forgiving Jordan. ” Jesse acknowledged that Jordan and Tasha had struggled as a couple, stating, “We knew she wanted a divorce. We knew Tasha would work on her own time, her own pace. She obviously didn’t see anything coming or felt threatened.
At the end of the day, we have to trust in her decisions, the way she decided to handle things. ” Jesse added, “And if you guys are listening up there, we love you, Tasha, Elijah, Isaac, Andrew, and Aurora. May the rest of your days be in happiness with God. ”
When asked what his sister was like, Jesse said, “The first thing that comes to mind is she’s extraordinary and full of life.
She was wise beyond her years and a good mother, a good friend to all who knew her. No matter how bad the situation was, she always found the good in the midst of it. She was always willing to help anybody who was in need, and her kids were the driving force for the happiness in her life. She loved and cherished them like no other.
We are saddened, angry, and hurt, confused and stricken with grief over the loss of my sister and the kids. We have unanswered questions for Jordan, such as why, and what can make all this come together and happen. Although we are angry and hurt, we realize we all have to forgive him in order for us to begin to heal. In no way, no shape, no form do we agree with the actions that took place or condone them, but in order for us to heal, we must forgive.
”
Tasha’s uncle, Melvin Page, told reporters there was even more family history that was hauntingly similar to what had happened to his niece. Twenty-eight years ago, an aunt named Carmela Page was murdered. She was stabbed 22 times by her boyfriend in Denver, Colorado. The boyfriend tried to flee but was ultimately arrested.
It is no wonder that the family, especially Marzik, was invested in the prevention of family violence. The family thanked the Oregon Department of Justice, first responders, and community members. Their donations helped the family pay for funeral expenses and counseling. The Page Creato Memorial Fund was set up through Bank of America, with excess donations being donated to Dunn House Outreach, an organization that helps victims of family violence in Medford, Oregon.
The funeral was held on Saturday, July 30th, 2011, at St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Bakersfield, California. The caskets of Tasha Page Creato and her children were placed side by side. Hundreds of people paid their respects and condolences.
They were buried and laid to rest at their final resting place of Union Cemetery. A candlelight vigil was held in Medford’s Hawthorne Park. Flowers and stuffed animals were placed along the sidewalk in front of the Creato home before it was demolished in 2012. Among the mementos was a two-page letter which reads in part, “So though we now know your name is Tasha, to us you’ll always be the tall, beautiful Black lady with the gigantic smile.
Signed, Your West Medford Family. ”
On the one-year anniversary of the fire, several of Tasha’s family members shared memories of her and her children with News Channel KTVL10. “Tasha was so out of the box. Always laughter, she always had jokes.
” Tasha Creato’s family took a look back before the tragedy, remembering Tasha’s goofy personality. “They’d call you, you know, at 1:00 in the morning to tell you something funny. ” Also on their minds were her four children, who were taken too soon. “God received five angels a year ago today.
Just remembering the good things, the smiles, and the laughs. Those are the kind of things that you think about and you hold on to. ” But as the family tries to focus on the good times, they can’t forget that day. “Today so it is still sad, and we’re still struggling with the thoughts that they’re not here.
”
Tasha’s brother has spent the last year coping with the loss in his own way. Last year, Jesse Adams asked the community to forgive Jordan Creato for the crimes he suspected him of. “No way, no shape, no form do we agree with the actions that took place or condone it, but in order for us to heal, we must forgive. ” Now he’s taking his feelings and moving on.
He’s going to school to be a paramedic. He wanted to find a way that he could also maybe save some lives or give back and do so in their memory. Family members say Tasha and her children are in a better place. “We’re finding comfort that we know where they are at, and we will see them again one day.
” And one year later, they’re struggling to move forward, saying, “To Tasha, Elijah, Andrew, Isaac, and Aurora, will always be missed till we’re joined with them again one day. You know, there’s always going to be that voice, and you’re always going to miss them. “
