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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thank you. Hi, this is Andy. I've been a New York Times subscriber for years and years, and I'm trying to get my teenagers interested in reading it. If they were to have their own logins and we could share articles, I think that would help get them interested. It would also then allow us to discuss over the dinner table or wherever. Thank you very much. Andy, we heard you.
It's why we created the New York Times Family Subscription.
One subscription, up to four separate logins for anyone in your life. Find out more at nytimes.com slash family.
There are 42 days left before the execution, and Maurice and I have split up again. I'm heading out to St. Louis to meet Greg's co-counsel, Jeremy. It's very bleak and rainy, and we're setting off on a little road trip to go look for yet another alternate suspect.
What we are going to do is we are going to interview, hopefully at least, a man named Eddie Barton.
Eddie Barton is on Jeremy's list because back in 1989, Barton confessed to killing young women and burying them in the desert in El Paso. He actually confessed to the murders while also confessing to another completely unrelated crime. All this confessing happened to FBI agents in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately for Barton, and please forgive me, this was not the kind of thing that would just stay in Vegas. In their interview with Barton, the FBI recorded details about why he chose the desert to bury his victims. Barton claimed he picked victims who were, quote, small, petite, young, with features similar to that of his wife.
According to court records, the FBI decided to alert the El Paso Police Department. 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.
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Chapter 2: What challenges does the defense team face before the execution date?
Yeah, scribbled a few things down.
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?
There's not soft lead-ins to that. At least not that I can think of.
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.
The reason why he was speaking to the police is because he had, according to him, put a hit out on his wife and paid a business associate $40,000 or something like that to kill her.
Well, to be specific, according to the court records, Barton had gone to the Vegas police because he actually changed his mind about the hit on his wife and wanted to put a stop to it.
Only, it appears he couldn't contact the business associate he paid the $40,000 to and started to suspect that maybe the business associate wanted him dead, perhaps on account of Barton implicating him in a murder-for-hire plot.
That's obviously not a fucking soft lead-in either.
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Chapter 3: Who is Eddie Barton and why is he significant to the case?
Jeremy continues to ponder his approach as we head back on the road. We drive past the address he has for Barton's nursing home. It's a series of connected gray trailers in front of honestly the saddest looking pond I've ever seen.
I don't know what the fuck this is in the front yard, but... The destination is on your right. Interesting.
Do we have a sense of which door?
Chapter 4: What confessions did Eddie Barton make regarding the murders?
Nope.
We have a sense that we're about to get wet, muddy, and probably have a very awkward conversation with a nurse.
Jeremy picks a door and we walk in. He asks someone who looks like they work there if Eddie Barton is around. He's in the day room, having lunch, she says, points him out. We head to the day room and there's about 30 residents in there, all eating and watching a TV show. Jeremy sidles up to Barton and introduces himself.
Says he's here to ask some questions about some bodies found in the desert in El Paso in 1987. He says this at what I would consider a professionally discreet volume. When it doesn't matter, everyone in the room is now staring at us. Maybe because Barton, who is in his 60s, squat, and tattooed, and also apparently a little hard of hearing, repeats Jeremy's words at a much higher volume.
Bodies in the desert? He says he'll talk, but he wants to finish his lunch first. We go down a corridor and wait by some couches. After about 20 minutes, Barton gives me the okay to record, and Jeremy dives in.
I've got a copy of an FBI report. Do you mind if I just show that to you a second? It's from the FBI? That's what it says, so I hope so. So there's some stuff. There's a couple of pages here.
Jeremy hands Barton a summary of what Barton told the FBI. Barton's alleged hit on his wife, his confession to killing women and burying them in the desert. Barton takes the pages and reads. He's scowling, looking like he's trying to take the information in.
Who said all that stuff? Who gave that statement? So this is just the recap of their conversation with you.
From the jump, Barton's obviously confused, almost a little disoriented. But it seems like he's making a real effort to focus. He makes his way through the report slowly, his eyes getting wider and wider as he reads.
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