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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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At David Wood's original trial in 1992, the lead prosecutor acknowledged there was almost no direct proof tying Wood to the desert murders. In fact, she said it multiple times, like she was trying to get in front of it, called it, quote, purely a circumstantial evidence case.
This is exactly what David Wood's legal team is now trying to exploit, the lack of direct evidence, especially for a serial killer case involving six murders. The only physical evidence against David Wood are the fibers found at his apartment and on one of the victims.
Then there's the rest of it, the jailhouse informants who claim Wood confessed to them, a rape that resembled the murders, David Wood's prior criminal history, and witnesses, people who saw him or someone who looked like him with the victims. Some of these witnesses were pretty fuzzy on details or had credibility issues.
You might think the overall weakness of the case would be good for David Wood's lawyers, make it easier to prove his innocence. But the problem is, the way the state constructed the case, there's no one big, shiny piece of evidence for the defense to knock down. Instead, they have a million little threads they can pull at, seemingly endless rabbit trails to run down.
For the last 15 years, Greg Warchuk, the lead attorney on the case, has been working pretty much solo. And for much of that time, he's been focused on the DNA. When a few items were tested in 2010, they turned up a match to an unknown male, not David Wood. So Greg's been litigating back and forth for more than a decade to test more items from the crime scenes.
He got a final no just a few months before we started following him around. But now, Greg has a team and a dwindling number of days to do every little thing he's put off. Comb through the records one last time, look for remaining witnesses. He and his team need the kind of bombshell the courts just can't ignore. And 58 days before the execution, they just may have one.
From Serial Productions, The Marshall Project, and The New York Times, this is The Last 12 Weeks. I'm Maurice Shema.
I gave my brother a New York Times subscription. She sent me a year-long subscription so I have access to all the games. We'll do Wordle, Mini, Spelling Bee. It has given us a personal connection. We exchange articles. And so having read the same article, we can discuss it. The coverage, the options, it's not just news. Such a diversified desk.
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Chapter 2: What is the main evidence against David Wood in the murder case?
I was really excited to give him a New York Times cooking subscription so that we could share recipes. And we even just shared a recipe the other day. The New York Times contributes to our quality time together. You have all of that information at your fingertips. It enriches our relationship, broadening our horizons. It was such a cool and thoughtful gift. We're reading the same stuff.
We're making the same food. We're on the same page. Connect even more with someone you care about. Learn more about giving a New York Times subscription as a gift at nytimes.com slash gift.
On a Tuesday afternoon, Alvin and I get texts from Greg and his co-counsel Jeremy with links to an emergency Zoom meeting.
Well, we can just start going. I forwarded you guys the email with the information we got from the AG. Pretty interesting stuff.
In a few weeks, the lawyers will send the courts a giant legal filing with all their best arguments for why they think David Wood is innocent. This kind of filing has a bunch of rules. Chief among them, they can't just rehash a bunch of old claims from previous appeals.
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Chapter 3: How did the defense team react to the lack of direct evidence?
They need new arguments. Jeremy's gathered everyone together for just this reason. Something new has come in. A grisly story from a woman in El Paso named Michelle Bradley.
The information is pretty interesting. So she says that she thinks her father, James Patrick Bradley, is responsible for the murders here. Her father was convicted in 1995 of chopping up Michelle Bradley's stepmother and James Bradley's wife at the time, dismembering her body and tossing it around in El Paso, New Mexico.
Michelle has a pretty radical theory. She's not so sure David Wood actually killed all those women. She thinks someone else was involved, her own father. So Michelle called the Attorney General's office, the prosecutors in this case. That office handed over her information to the defense because they're legally required to. It's called a Brady disclosure.
As Jeremy lays this all out, I'm thinking, oh my God. But I look over at Greg on his little Zoom screen, and he's giving nothing. His face is totally blank.
I mean, you know, again, I don't want to pour water over an alternative suspect, but the information we have right now, it's not very compelling to me. I mean, you know, when we first got the message, you get your hopes up, but the daughter thinks dad may have committed these crimes. He didn't confess to her. It's pretty tenuous. Anyway. Okay.
Part of Greg's reaction can be chalked up to the source of the information. Sure, the AG's office has to hand over leads, but Greg has been at this long enough to be skeptical of anything that comes from that office. And these are tough calls. Every hour the lawyers spend running down one lead that's a dead end, it's an hour they could spend on another.
At the same time, they have no idea which lead could finally pay off and maybe even save David Wood's life. As Greg is talking, I notice another lawyer from Jeremy's office, Naomi Fenwick, is pursing her lips, almost wincing. She lets Greg finish before jumping in.
Well, I'm going to strike the hopeful note and say that I think it's... Potentially really important. At the very least, you know, it adds to the list of folks whose DNA they could test against the DNA they know is male and is unidentified and is not David Wood. And I think it's helpful in continuing to paint this picture that they're refusing to investigate or explore other options.
I don't want to be distracted too much because I'm not saying people can't come out of the woodwork on a high profile case like this that they just, it can be distracting. Anyway, I'm just, I'm not being unhopeful. I'm just saying let's not lose focus. You're supposed to be the eternal spring of optimism, Greg. I am. I am. But I'm saying let's not start heading down too many rabbit trails.
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Chapter 4: What unexpected revelations did a new witness provide?
But I personally think the real issue here isn't the lawyers and their individual conduct. It's the death penalty itself, a punishment that takes all of the tension that's inherent in a criminal case and ratchets it up. It's an invitation for a certain amount of distrust on all sides.
While Maurice finishes up at the courthouse, Naomi and I are off looking for Michelle Bradley's sister, Misty Metz. Naomi is hoping Misty will corroborate the Brady disclosure, Michelle's claim that her father was involved in the desert killings. We're driving for a bit when Naomi looks down and sees a text on her phone. Her brows immediately furrow.
What happened? She told her sister we're coming.
Back. Michelle reached out to Misty. Bad news for Naomi. Her element of surprise is now gone. But we're pretty close to the address at this point, so Naomi parks, breathes it out for a minute, and pushes forward. We walk up to the door and Naomi rings the doorbell. I hear barking before I see anyone.
I've already fixed my face into a defeat grimace when a slightly confused woman opens the door and welcomes us in. Misty shows us into her living room and introduces us to her very friendly dog, named Brady of all things, and lets me start rolling.
So I don't know, did Michelle tell you that we were... Me and my sister don't talk, but I just got a message from her telling me that you might be contacting me. So I didn't know it was going to be today. That's why I'm kind of a little caught off guard. But that's fine.
Sorry for showing up unannounced on your doorstep. Did your sister tell you a little bit about why we're reaching out? Um...
Only that she believes that my dad had something to do with the murders that David Woods is accused of. Despite being a little caught off guard, Misty is surprisingly open to talking. Almost immediately, though, she throws cold water on her sister's theories.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of Michelle Bradley's claims about her father?
My dad did something terrible. He murdered my stepmother. He did. That's undisputable. But I don't think he had anything to do with this situation with Woods. I really don't. I, um, I don't. Misty tells us she understands her sister's feelings about their dad. She shares some of them. She grew up in the same house and experienced all his abuse, too. But that's where the corroboration ends.
She has no idea if her sister really saw one of the victims on their dad's couch in 1987. But she doesn't buy Michelle's theory. For what it's worth, Misty remembers her mom and dad were together at the time, so it's unlikely to her that another woman would just be lounging around the house like that.
We talk for a little bit longer, but after a while, it's pretty clear Misty has said just about all she knows.
I don't have any other questions. I don't know if you have any questions for me.
I think this is a figment of my sister's imagination. I'm sorry. You know, I wish I could give David Wood something to, you know, feel hopeful about, but I really don't think this is it. It was hard to walk out of that conversation feeling like there was anything left to this lead. It was like witnessing a balloon deflating in real time.
I can't totally get a read on how Naomi felt about it, though. Her expression is pretty Sphinx-like sitting next to me in the car, so I sneak in a temperature check. Can I ask really quickly, just while we're still here? Yes. Did hearing any of that change the way you heard Michelle's conversation?
In terms of facts, Misty did not say anything different to the extent that she confirmed that her father was a very violent and abusive man. So it's a difference of... Not opinion, but it's a difference of, like, belief as to whether their father was involved or not, which neither knows to be factually correct or incorrect.
It, you know, they've both said their father was a terrible person and a very violent person.
I was not surprised by Naomi doing her job here, spinning me a little bit, trying to make the best possible case for her client, which is basically, two women confirmed their father was an abusive murderer who happened to be in El Paso at the time of the desert killer. But it did strike me that Naomi could leave out the part where Misty throws cold water on her sister's story.
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Chapter 6: How does the defense plan to handle new evidence and witness statements?
Some of the layers dyed cherry red. She slaps down this giant binder, very dusty, that says Mona's Articles, she also goes by Mona, in cursive letters next to what looks like a cigarette burn. It's full of old newspaper clippings that leave flakes on the table. Apparently, all those years Greg was developing his theories of what really happened in 1987, Ramona was nursing her own.
El Paso is a pretty big city, but Ramona talks about it like a small town. David Wood, the police, the victims, their parents, everybody knows everybody, as if somehow they all went to high school together. Even this Whataburger is relevant in a way. Ramona tells us she got involved in this case because of her best friend, Cheryl Vasquez.
When they were still teenagers, Cheryl married Ramona's brother, which made them best friends and sisters-in-law.
And Cheryl... She worked right here at this Whataburger. This is where she worked. When she went missing, she was working here. And she never even got her last check from this place because she was gone.
But... Cheryl was 19 when she disappeared, the same summer as all the desert killer victims. When bodies started turning up in the desert, Ramona was worried that Cheryl was going to be one of them. She felt the cops weren't looking hard enough for her friend. So she enlisted her mom, and they decided to figure out what happened to Cheryl themselves.
They knew Cheryl was last seen at this one Circle K convenience store. And so they came up with, frankly, a totally bonkers plan.
We started hanging out at that Circle K. And my mom was literally tricking me. She was like, go sit on that wall, and somebody's going to come and try to kidnap you, and I'll call the cops, and we'll get them, and we'll know who it was. And I'm like... Your mom sounds like a real character from what I've... She was feisty until the moment she died.
She had me sitting on that wall in little shorts, 17 years old, waiting to get me kidnapped. I'm like, thanks, Mom.
By way of explanation, Ramona says that her mom was, quote, German. The lawyers don't ask her to explain more. But as strange as the plan was, there was some logic to it. Ramona and Cheryl were about the same age, and according to Ramona, looked so alike that they got mistaken for sisters. Ramona's mom thought she could use her daughter's looks to lure out the desert killer.
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Chapter 7: What challenges do the lawyers face in pursuing alternative suspects?
And they're like, you know, there's bodies out here and it'd be really easy for you to be out here. And they wanted me to write a statement. They told me out there in the desert, we need you to go back and write a statement. We need you to tell us that David Wood tried to take you. I said, but he didn't try to take me. He threw a quarter at me and told me to go home.
I said, well, that's not what we need you to say. I said, but that's not the truth. And they said, you know, you look just like all the other girls that are gone. This could be you. And I was like, are you threatening me? And they're like, well, no, we're just telling you that if you don't put him away, he might take you.
Ramona says the detectives who drove her out to the desert were Johnny Guerrero and his partner, Alfonso Marquez. She eventually put all of this in a sworn statement to the court. Ramona is not the first person to accuse these guys of abusing their power.
There's George Hall, the guy who called Greg with the whole story of the jailhouse informants and the red carpet treatment, and later laid out his claims in a sworn declaration. According to trial transcripts, at least one other witness claimed the police tried to add falsehoods to her statement.
In a different case from around this time, a suspect told a reporter that Detective Guerrero bullied him into a false confession. We asked Detective Guerrero about that interrogation, and he said he didn't remember it. He also denied ever taking Ramona out to the desert. Actually, what he said was, quote,
Moreover, he told us in his 15 years in homicide, quote, I was never accused of any wrongdoing or coercion by anyone I talked to or any case I worked, unquote. Detective Marquez, for his part, died a couple of years ago. But it is worth noting that he had a reputation for lying and using force. In a different case, he allegedly bullied a 16-year-old kid to make him confess to two murders.
The kid was later exonerated after serving nearly 20 years in prison. Watching the lawyers interview Ramona, watching them jot down notes at every twist and turn, I was struck by how absurd it was that this was where we found ourselves 50 days out from the execution. All of us huddled around a table in this Whataburger, the lawyers trying to piece together something useful from this zany story.
Ramona is entertaining, but since I'm not steeped in the case, it also seems like she mixes theories and stories and gossip and evidence so effortlessly, and it's such a rapid clip that it's a little hard to keep up, much less to accept it all at face value. I look over at Greg and Naomi to see how they're reacting, to get some clue about how seriously I should take all of this.
But they're more or less statues. Very stoic, these two lawyers on a Whataburger. All of which to say, I'm not sure how to assess some of the other claims Ramona makes. The most explosive ones concern a very important person in the case against David Wood, Judith Kelling.
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