The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 1
Serial
This episode follows journalist Maurice Shema as he documents the final months of David Wood's death row countdown in Texas. Defense attorne
Key takeaways
- George Hall claims that jailhouse informants were incentivized with money and reduced sentences to testify against David Wood.
- Defense lawyer Greg Warchuk is pushing for the retesting of over 100 pieces of evidence, including DNA found on a victim's clothing.
Main topics
- Death Penalty Appeals
- Criminal Justice Corruption
Notable quotes
I don't know if it's going to make a difference whether he gets executed or not. That's not the question.
Conclusion
A gripping look at the intersection of legal zeal, political transitio
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:00) I'm John Caramonica, a critic at The New York Times. And I'm Joe Cascarelli, a culture reporter at The Times. Together we host PopCast, a weekly pop culture chat show where we speak to the biggest musicians, actors, internet celebrities, and more. We've had Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, and Anne Hathaway. We've also hosted live performances with Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu. Plus, we end every conversation with a snack. Catch new episodes of PopCast every week on YouTube. And anywhere you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (0:31) In the fall of 2024, a criminal defense lawyer got the kind of phone call that most lawyers can only dream about. It concerned a client of his, a guy named David Wood, one of Texas' most notorious serial killers. He was sitting on death row, months away from his execution. Speaker 8 (1:04) The man Speaker 2 (1:05) on the phone, George Hall, thought something corrupt had gone down in David Woods' trial. It had happened more than 30 years ago, but for 30 years he'd said nothing, mostly because he was afraid to. For those 30 years, he'd been on parole. He worried if he aggravated the authorities, they might find some way to send him back to prison. But now his parole had ended, and George Hall was ready to tell his story, which he'd eventually put into a sworn declaration. That story goes like this. Back in the late 80s, George Hall and David Wood were locked up together at the Easton unit in Texas. George Hall was in for murder. David Wood was in for rape. They weren't particularly close. David Wood was quiet, didn't talk much. But when he did, George says, it was mainly to complain about how the police in his hometown of El Paso were harassing him, investigating him for a series of murders. Speaker 1 (1:57) Basically, what Speaker 2 (1:58) he said was El Paso was trying to Speaker 1 (2:00) pin it Speaker 2 (2:00) on him. David Wood insisted he had nothing to do with those murders. George thought, maybe he didn't, maybe he did. Either way, he didn't really care. Eventually, George and David Wood were separated, moved to different facilities hundreds of miles apart. One day, George says he's in the prison library, ready to go to lunch, when two officers come in and tell him to pack his stuff. Speaker 1 (2:22) I said, well, where am I going? They wouldn't tell me. So, next thing I know, I'm on a bus ride down to El Paso. Speaker 2 (2:30) A few hours later, George finds himself in a holding cell in the El Paso County Jail. Two other guys join him in there. George recognizes them both as guys who had celled with David Wood. And one of them says to the group, they have an opportunity. They can all get money, maybe, or less prison time. All they have to do is snitch on David Wood. Soon enough, they're escorted out of the cell and into a car. And George says that's when the cops start rolling out the red carpet. Speaker 1 (2:58) They give us the tour up Scenic Drive, up the mountainside, look across the Rio Grande, look into old Mexico and this and that. Speaker 1 (3:16) But he Speaker 2 (3:17) sits tight. George says they're taken to a hamburger joint for lunch and then, ultimately, to a police station. The guys are offered coffee, snacks, cigarettes, and then they're ushered into a room with detectives. Speaker 1 (3:37) lines going to this, this, dates wrote down, files are sitting there. They've started handing us files. Look at this. We got this on him. We got this on him. He did this. We know this, this, this, this. And going through all facts and stuff, this narrative-driven shit, and you're reading what they got. And then after that, they go, you know anything? Speaker 1 (4:02) Well, I don't know a goddamn thing. All they had to do was ask me at the prison unit. I was madder than shit about it. As for the other two guys. They go back. They're talking to each other, but it's in real low tone. And they basically don't even want to talk to me about nothing. So I knew to myself right then and there, they're going to say whatever they want them to say. Speaker 2 (4:27) They're going to tell the police that David Wood confessed to multiple murders. But George is sure these guys don't actually know anything about David Wood. He would have heard about it already. Plus, he knows they're not above lying. George returns to prison. Not long after, he writes to an El Paso prosecutor about, quote, improprieties that I am aware of. He says he knows the informants are fabricating their stories. The prosecutor never writes back, but the letter does make its way into David Wood's case file. Speaker 2 (4:58) Eventually, David Wood does go on trial for the murders. George is never called to testify. But the two other guys become the star witnesses for the prosecution. The jury convicts David Wood, and he's sentenced to death. Court documents show that after the trial, one of the informants received $13,000 in reward money. The other got his own capital murder charge dropped. Speaker 2 (5:28) I identified more than a dozen officers, detectives, and supervisors who were involved in David Wood's case. I wanted to ask them about George Hall. Some were dead, one had dementia, one hung up on me, and others never responded. But the one detective who did speak to me extensively about the case called George's whole story, quote, preposterous. It's pretty well documented in court records and a media account that George and the other two men were brought in together and interviewed by the El Paso police. But the detective said he couldn't imagine his colleagues taking prisoners out for a joyride and showing them case materials in order to get them to snitch. Speaker 2 (6:09) For more than 30 years after David Wood's trial, George kept tabs on the case, Googled it from time to time. In 2009, he read that David Wood's execution was called off. There'd been a question about his intellectual capacity. But by 2024, George saw that David Wood was again scheduled for execution. This time, George figured it would actually happen. And this time, he was finally off parole. So if he was going to speak up, it Speaker 1 (6:35) was now or never. I don't know if it's going to make a difference whether he gets executed or not. That's not the question. That's not what I got to live with. What I have to live with is, can I live with myself knowing that I know two people fabricated testimony to get a guy executed? Speaker 1 (7:01) And I don't say anything about it. Speaker 2 (7:11) Not long after George Hall called David Wood's lawyer, David Wood's lawyer emailed me, asking me to write about the case. I wasn't surprised. I'm a journalist at a nonprofit called The Marshall Project, where we cover the criminal justice system. I'm the death penalty guy on staff, as gloomy as that sounds. But I was surprised by who was asking. Greg Warchuk. I know Greg Warchuk as a big deal in capital defense work. He's been defending people on death row for decades, and even stopped one execution by winning at the Supreme Court. I'd asked him for an interview years ago for a book I was writing on the death penalty. He said no. He rarely spoke to reporters. But now here he was in my inbox. His email was polite and panicky. David Wood's execution date was only 17 weeks away. He wanted me to write about the case and all the problems he saw with it. I was pretty skeptical. I did the hard-hitting research of reading the Wikipedia page about David Wood and, woof, six women and girls, one as young as 14, killed and buried in the desert outside of El Paso. David Wood even got one of those spooky serial killer nicknames, the Desert Killer. Speaker 2 (8:22) Greg wrote to me that David Wood was innocent, that he didn't commit any of these murders. And sure, I did find George Hall's story compelling. But even if those informants were lying at the trial, that doesn't mean David Wood didn't do it. Plus, in order to do the story Greg was pitching, I'd have to reinvestigate it from scratch. All six murders in a matter of weeks. That sounded impossible. But I was curious about what Greg was up to. His overall project. Trying to sow enough doubt at the last minute in order to save his client's life. I'd seen executions get stayed for procedural claims about execution methods or a defendant's mental fitness. But this wasn't just a claim about an unfair trial. Greg was saying David Wood didn't do it at all. And now, somehow, he's supposed to prove that in a few months. Speaker 2 (9:11) In death penalty circles, many smart and knowledgeable people are critical of Greg's line of work. Prosecutors, judges, victim family members, they say that capital defense lawyers like Greg are just ideologically opposed to the death penalty. Zealots, even, who will do anything and everything to stop or delay an execution. And their work wastes time and money, harms the justice system, and worst of all, denies victims' families the closure they deserve. All of that could be true. Or Greg could have just four months to stop the state from killing an innocent man. So I told Greg, I'm not going to do the big feature story on David Wood you're imagining. But what if I follow you around? Be there with a microphone as you strategize with your team, hunt for witnesses, and try to persuade people of David Wood's innocence with the clock ticking? Greg had a million reasons to say no. I'm still kind of shocked that he said yes. Speaker 2 (10:15) From Serial Productions, The Marshall Project, and The New York Times, this is The Last 12 Weeks. I'm Maurice Shema. Speaker 3 (10:48) I use a different starting word every day. And I love a one-pan recipe because I don't love washing pans. Speaker 3 (11:01) Celebrating 175 years of helping you understand the world and make the most of each day. Subscribe now for a special offer at Speaker 2 (11:09) nytimes.com slash subscribe. Speaker 2 (11:14) Leading up to his execution date, David Wood's lawyers didn't just contact me. They tried some of the other usual suspects who often bring attention to death row cases. The Innocence Project, Kim Kardashian, among others. None of it worked, and it's not hard to see why. You can ask me, Speaker 6 (11:32) is there any doubt in your mind that this is the man that committed these heinous crimes against these little girls? None. Speaker 6 (11:45) None. None. Speaker 2 (11:47) This is Detective John Guerrero, formerly of the El