Maurice Chamas

But by the time anyone in El Paso got around to talking to Eddie Barton, David Wood's trial for the murders was already ramping up.

Three years had passed since Barton's original confession, and by now he'd denied everything.

Said he didn't even remember confessing at all, given that he was really strung out on dope and booze at the time.

So Jeremy's dream scenario is to see if he can jog Barton's memory and get him to come clean on a series of grisly murders that he once confessed to more than three decades ago, thereby saving David Wood from an impending execution.

Jeremy knows they've already dug into other alternate suspects who went nowhere.

And he knows some of the other claims they've developed for their petition are more promising.

But Jeremy's also aware that someone else confessing to the desert murders would be huge for his client.

A long shot that might be worth the trouble.

Jeremy has tracked Eddie Barton to an assisted living facility a little more than an hour west of St.

Louis.

It's worth noting that Jeremy, who is the boss of the Capital Habeas Unit in Dallas, is not generally out in the field like this anymore.

Which tells you a little something about how much of an all-hands-on-deck situation we've entered into.

As we pull over at a gas station about 10 minutes away, Jeremy takes out a pad of paper and starts going over notes.

Usually, Jeremy tells me, he instructs the other lawyers on his staff to look for light topics to start a conversation.

Something easy and soft to lead with.

But he's really struggling with this one.

How exactly is he going to lightly accuse someone of being a serial killer?

The only other thing Jeremy really knows about I.D.

Barton isn't particularly promising either.

And that's the other crime Barton confessed to in Las Vegas.