Alvin Melleth

So now they have to decide, once and for all, what to do about Randy Wells.

Randy Wells was one of the two jailhouse informants who were in prison with David Wood.

These informants testified at trial that David Wood admitted to them that he was the desert killer, that he bragged about it, really.

Their testimony was crucial in sealing David Wood's fate.

Incidentally, these informants surfaced not long after a prosecutor grumbled about not having enough evidence against David Wood.

He mentioned in a memo how great it would be to find some jailhouse informants.

One of the informants is dead now, so the lawyers can't ask him if he was lying at the trial.

But Randy Wells is still alive.

When Randy Wells first met David Wood, he had a long record and was in prison for theft, served his time, got released, and then pretty quickly got arrested on a capital murder charge.

That's when he told police, oh yeah, David Wood told me he's the desert serial killer.

Then, after he testified against David Wood, his murder charge was dropped.

A prosecutor who dealt with Randy Wells in a different case once wrote, quote, If this inmate spent just one-tenth of his time in a positive manner, rather than trying to figure out how to steal or beat someone out of something, he could sell ice boxes to Eskimos.

This seems to be the consensus among the defense team, that Randy Wells is a slippery character, mostly in it for himself.

But the lawyers are hoping an impending execution changes things, that he'll feel guilty and finally confess to lying at David Woods' trial.

But for the past few months, the lawyers have been struggling to get in the same room with him.

Randy Wells is in his 60s now, living in a tiny Texas town called Rising Star and married to a woman named Tracy.

The lawyers made a trip out there, and Tracy answered the door.

She revealed that her husband was just diagnosed with lung cancer, so not a good time.

She said, you can come back tomorrow, which they did, but she turned them away again.

Naomi gets assigned to keep on top of this.