Episode 3: The Mother & The Informant

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Download the athletic app and see that. 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-counseled Jeremy. It's very bleak and rainy, and we're setting off on a little road trip. They 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. He came up in the fall. Eddie Barton is on Jeremy's list because back in 1989, Barton confessed to killing young women and bearing 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 they 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 "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 of past since Barton's original confession, and by now he denied everything. Said he didn't even remember confessing at all,

given that it was really strong out on dope and booze at the time. So Jeremy's dream scenario is a seeping jog Barton's memory, and get him to come clean on a series of grizzly 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'd develop 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 a 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 Capitol, Habius 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. Yeah, it's good with a few things down.

Usually, Jeremy tells me he instructs the other lawyers on a staff to look for light topics that start a conversation. Something easy and soft to leave 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 leadance to that. At least not that I can think of, and here. The only other thing Jeremy really knows about Eddie Barton isn't particularly promising either, and that's the other crime Barton confessed to in Las Vegas. The reason why he's speaking to the police is because he, according to him, but to 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, too. And started to suspect that maybe the business associate wanted him dead. Perhaps on account of Barton implicating him in a murder for a higher plot.

That's obviously not a fucking softly den either. 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? Nope. We have a sense of where about to get wet, muddy, and probably have a very awkward conversation with the nurse. Jeremy picks a door and we walk in. He asks someone who looks like they work there if

We head to the day room and there's about 30 residents in there, all eating and watching a TV show. Jeremy settled 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 and what I would consider a professionally discrete volume. When it doesn't matter, everyone in the room is now staring at us. Maybe because Barton, who is in the 60s, squat, and tattooed and also apparently a little

heart of hearing, repeat the 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 OK to record and Jeremy dives in. I've got a copy of an FGIR report,

“do you mind if I just show that to you a second? That's what it says, so I hope so.”

So there's some stuff. There's a couple of pages here. Jeremy Hans Barton, a summary of what Barton told the FBI. Barton's alleged hit on his wife, his confession to killing women and burying them at a desert. Barton takes the pages and reads. He's scallowing, looking like he's trying to take the information in. Who said all that stuff? Who did that statement? So this is the, this is just the recap of their

conversation with you. So 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. Payed $40,000. To kill.

What is this? It's crazy stuff here. $40,000. I ain't never seen $40,000.

He should cash my shoes to the kill. His wife Barton told the shabby he wanted. And I suppose they said this. You know what they said?

“That's what they say. I mean, it's just what's in the report. I mean, I'm not sure how seriously they took it.”

I don't remember claiming killed people. I don't remember. That's wrong. I wouldn't even narrow it. I need a lawyer. It's possible that this represents a high point of the interview with Eddie Barton. Because as we continue talking, the employees at this care facility start wondering if maybe their visitation protocols are a little too loose.

Someone comes over. They say to observe. But I peek over and see them on their phones,

Googling all the desert killer stories. I've Googled in the past myself. We've now fully entered Cohen Brothers territory. Other residents scoop by as we talk, rubber necking as they slowly push their walkers past us. At some point, apparently fully

“unalert now. Someone on staff tells us they've called the Sheriff's office. They tell Barton”

they want to protect his privacy. This kind of pisses Barton off, who does not appreciate being infantilized. He explicitly told us he didn't commit these murders. But he tells his mind that he still wants to talk to Jeremy about David Wood. Hey, guys, when the 1913 to try and tie some loose ends or what I might be able to help, I don't want my death wrong.

I hope the guy who didn't do it gets off. Somehow in all of this, Barton seems to have missed a central thrust of Jeremy's reason for being here. Jeremy could clarify. Could explain that there's really only one way Eddie Barton could help David Wood get off death throw, by confessing to the murders himself. But I can tell by Jeremy's expression, he knows this isn't going to happen.

It is striking how quickly Barton wanted to help throw. He might not have understood the specifics, but he certainly seemed to understand what was at stake. That a man's life was online. If he could help in some way, shouldn't he? The lawyers on David Wood's defense team are living with a magnified version of this urgency all the time now. The feeling that anything they do or decide not to do could lead to their client's execution. And almost impossible amount of pressure to find something,

anything that will improve their odds. With six weeks left before the execution date, the lawyers now have very little time to work with. Exhausting every avenue for their client, holding putting themselves right in the middle of some messy human dramas, with complicated stakes all their own. And the lawyers will have to figure out just how far they're willing to push people to save David Wood's life. From serial productions, the Marshall Project and the New York

Times, I'm Alvin Mellif, and I'm Maurice Trauma. This is the last 12 weeks.

Nicotine can boost brain function. GLP ones are a miracle drug. I'm Danny Blum, and the health reporter at the New York Times. We're bombarded pretty much constantly with claims about how to live better and feel better, and it's really hard to separate a fact from fiction.

“That's what really differentiates my reporting and the times is that I am scouring the science,”

I am speaking with leading experts, I am making sure that everything I write is rigorously research reported, and that I can back it up. And when the science isn't clear, sometimes that is the story that we don't know the answers yet. And that's a level of nuance and depth you're not going to get just floating around the internet. That's what you get when you subscribe to the New York Times. If you already subscribe, thanks. If you'd like to go to mytimes.com/subscribe.

The lawyers have determined that they've got about three more weeks they can spend knocking on doors before it's time to write up their final legal filings. So now they have to decide, once and for all, what to do about Randy Wells. Randy Wells was one of the two GL house informants who were imprisoned 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' surface”

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 GL house 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 imprisoned for theft.

Served as time, got released, and then 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 inmates 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 ask a mouse." 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 help feel guilty and finally confess to lying at David Wood's trial.

But for the past few months, the lawyers have been struggling to get the same room with him. Randy Wells is in a 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 you turn them away again."

Naomi gets the sign to keep on top of this. Over the course of the lawyers, weekly Zoom meetings, she updates everyone on her efforts with Tracy. So, I just texted her and I said, "I hoped that the past couple of weeks had been kinder to her and Randy, and that he was feeling better." She has her red receipts on, so I know that she read it, but she hasn't responded. "I've turned those off people if you haven't done that."

So, I got a little bit worried, and I googled his name. I don't think he has passed away, but she's been super responsive before, so I'm a little bit worried, so think I might just text her on Thursday. Naomi sends the text, "The Weeknd comes and goes. No response. She tries calling. It goes to voicemail." Hi, Tracy. This is Naomi Fenwick with the federal public defender's office. We met about three weeks ago in Rising Star. We're just getting closer and closer to his

execution date. It goes on like this for weeks, until Tracy finally responds and explains why she goes to Naomi. Randy Wells is in the hospital, and it's not looking good. He's gone through multiple rounds of chemo, but the cancer has spread. He's mostly bedridden, breathing with an oxygen tank.

“The lawyers and the rest of the team now have a choice to make. Do they wait until Wells is back home?”

What if he never comes home? Or do they ambush him? The hospital? It's a question of human

decency. But what I hear mostly is about strategy. Naomi, I've run this idea by you before, and you were, I think, mortified as a word I'm looking for. Go to the hospital, seeing when visitation hours are and talking to him without Tracy being the guard dog. Yeah, the duck's facility

Yeah, that's right. So the downside is if we do that and Tracy finds out, she may never give us

permission. If Randy gets out and is in a state where he might be willing to talk to us. Yes. So do I ask her what hospital he's in? Because we have, we don't know. Just tell you we want to send flowers. That's a great idea. She outputs and can't,

“flowers and candy. They're joking mostly. I mean, I think in the short term, I would not be”

banging down the hospital door. But I do think we do get to a point where like, that's where he is. It's just where he is. It could be such a game changer for the case. If Randy, if we get a statement from Randy Wells, backtracking on his trial testimony, our chances of a stay in success go

up. Monumentally higher than they currently are. And so if at the end of the day, he's in the hospital,

he's in the hospital. Obviously, that's not ideal. It's not how we want to do it. But you know, like I said, if we're still here in like two weeks, and the option is don't talk to him or awkwardly and offensively, you know, knock on this hospital door. I mean, to me, it's door two at that point. I think it's worth mentioning here that all of the lawyers on this call have had clients who are executed. Clients who they couldn't save. Greg, Jeremy, Naomi,

“they've all had to sit in front of someone and tell them where I would have options.”

They've all had to watch what that does to a human being, taking in the news that soon they'll be killed. I know from stories I've done in the past that the execution of a client is a shattering event for habeas lawyers. One lawyer said that the finality of it is enough to give you vertigo. To watch a person who you've built a relationship with, sometimes over years, be reduced to a few file boxes you put into storage at the office. The day's after an execution of the most acute,

sleep comes in 18 hour chunks, but even after you get back to work and try to keep up with your other cases, a dark cloud lingers, burnout is pretty common, alcoholism and divorce, too. All this to say, these lawyers are operating under a tremendous pressure. It's not just their client's lives that are at stake. It's their own emotional states, too. But actually, this kind of thing doesn't come up much when we're following the lawyers around. When I asked Greg about it,

he said that when he's on a case, he tries to push all of that away. He can't think about it without succumbing to paralysis. But obviously, it's there. It's got to be. So as the lawyers talk about the propriety of barging into Randy Wells' hospital room, to get him to say that he lied on the stand while he lies there on his own deathbed with his wife and his family around him, as he dies from lung cancer. Well, this might be the closest I've come to actually seeing the

pressure and action. The things the lawyers are willing to do to avoid an execution and everything that follows. These lawyers feel that every option must be on the table, even if it means a sort of gross and distasteful scene that it takes his hospital. But it doesn't come to that. Naomi hears from Tracy. Randy Wells has been released. He's back at home, but now he's on hospice. Doctors give him less than six months. The lawyers agree they're past the point of text

and appointments. Naomi drives out to rising star. Tracy lets Naomi in and is surprisingly kind about it all. She introduces Naomi to Randy, but he's gone and barely conscious. He can't make eye contact, much less answer questions about testimony he gave decades ago. Naomi instead talks with Tracy, about a grief over her husband's illness, about her belief that despite all the wrong Randy Wells did in his life, he was still a man who she loved. Naomi sits with her for a while,

and then leaves empty handed. The lawyers don't dwell on whether they should have acted sooner, whether they should have just burst into Randy Wells's hospital room and lived at the consequences,

and they'll never know what they might have gotten if they did. Because the day after Naomi's visit,

Randy Wells dies. We'll be back after the break. Hey, let's know it's just not from the athletic. If you're into games and sports, pay attention.

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You could argue that the number one public advocate for David Wood's execution is a woman named Marsha Fulton. In 1987, Marsha's younger daughter Desiree, who she called Desi, was an energetic

15-year-old who, on the last day of eighth grade, never came home. Her body was the fourth one found

in the desert. Since then, Marsha has consistently organized and pressed for David Wood's execution. She's all over news reports, questioning why he's still alive. So I found it kind of shocking when the defense team told me they wanted to reach out to Marsha and see if they could get her to switch sides. That sounded like the biggest long shot yet. I wanted to get to Marsha first before the lawyers. Yes, to hear about the case against David Wood from her perspective. But also, I wanted

to know what this was all like for her. Following the lawyers around, it was easy to get a sense

“of how much they wanted to save their client to stop the execution. I found myself wanting to know”

what's it like to be on the other side of that mission through all these years of delay. Marsha is used to hearing from reporters. So when Alvin and I call, she immediately gives us her address. We drive up to her house in a gated mobile home park on the outskirts of El Paso. Easy to find because she really likes lawnnoms. There are dozens of these little guys lined up guarding her house. For an interview with a woman who lives alone, the proceedings were actually

pretty crowded. Marsha volunteers to rehabilitate wildlife in her home with a local animal rescue. She is one of those dry erase boards in her living room, laying out witch animals or in which parts of her home. Right now, I have the pageant and the squirrel will have a hamster, but I just found out he's running around the house somewhere. She is. She got out of the cage. I have no idea how she did get. All of these animals are in addition

to Marsha's dog, a six-year-old cock-up who mix named Muppet, who Marsha tells us is more of a hugger than a humper. Although, when Muppet takes a liking to Alvin's lag at one point, that seems to be a distinction without a difference. So, I'll be hit. All this to say, Marsha's home is warm, inviting, casual, as is Marsha. Initially, Alvin and I were a little hesitant

about how to approach her. Our first instinct was to do it delicately. That seemed appropriate

for an interview with a grieving mother. We're pretty soon I realized that Marsha chased at that kind of thing. I was sitting in the bank the other day and a woman said across to him and she goes, "You're Mrs. Week, they aren't you." Yeah, I said, "For so sorry for your look, thank you." You know, I had two days day I have people still coming up and telling me that, "This has been 37 years." It's not the Marsha doesn't feel the loss, of course. She does,

“acutely. Does he's murdered defines her, even if that's sometimes hard to put into words?”

When it's your spouse or either a widow or a widow, if you don't have parents, you're an orphan, but when the parent lose the child, there's no name for that. No name for that, and it's like, "You are lost." Marsha's grief is enormous, but it's not sentimental. She doesn't shy away from the hard stuff. She's too much of a brass tax type of person for that. So here we are to talk about the murder of her daughter and the execution of David Poyd. We get down to brass tax. Back in 1987,

Marsha Fulton, who was marshal Wheatley at the time, was divorced and raising her two teenage daughters in El Paso. Desi was the younger one, a real spit fire according to Marsha. Her middle school friends would later describe her as the life of the party, and a bit of a risk-taker, chatting up strangers, and occasionally even hitchhiking. On the last day of eighth grade, Desi stayed after celebrate. When Marsha got home from her work shift, it was after midnight,

and Desi hadn't come home. So she drove around looking for her, and when she couldn't find her, she called the police. And they were going like, "Look, we're up to here now with teenagers. It's last day of school, we're getting all these calls." So they sent somebody over, but then he called it in as a runaway. And she says, "Well, we're just going to wait and see what happens." And I says, "Well, what if she doesn't come home?" And he says, "Well, we'll figure that out

when the time comes." And I says, "Well, when you find her body?" I don't know why I said that,

because I had, you know, that was just my first thought out of my head. And he goes, "No,

Anyway, it took him months to find the body.

“Desi's remains were found in a shallow grave, in a patch of desert covered in brush and trash.”

Marcia knew it was her daughter in part because police found her t-shirt, where other eighth graders had signed their names on the last day of school. Two weeks after Desi's remains were found, Marcia held a funeral. At the funeral, I was set there and, you know, got up after it was over and padded the casket that Desi was in. And I said, "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll find out who did this and he's going to pay."

And that was my promise to her. Marcia has been determined to keep her promise to Desi. She hounded El Paso PD to solve the desert murders. At first, police treated the victims as runaways, unconnected to each other. But Detective Johnny Guerrero told us that it was Marcia who pushed them to see the connections. It was Marcia who told them to interview kids at Desi's middle school,

which eventually led them to David Wood.

I tell Marcia that it's possible that if not for her, this case would never have been solved.

Marcia bathed this idea away. She says she was just persistent. In any case, she did turn out to be crucial in key decisions about David Wood's punishment. Marcia wanted the death penalty. But the El Paso DA's office was struggling to get him on all six murders. One day, Marcia says she got a call from the District Attorney of El Paso himself, a guy named Steve Simmons.

He asked Marcia to come to his office. I said, "Okay, so I'm going to and maybe I'm thinking he's got some information to new something." And Steve Simmons kept saying, "Look, why don't we go after him just for Desi? Because we've got evidence on him for them."

“Remember the Orange Fiber's police found at David Wood's apartment?”

They'd found similar looking fibers near Desi's body, too. It was the only physical evidence the Thai David Wood to any of the crime scenes, and it linked him directly to Marcia's daughter. He says, "We've got something to get him for her murder." So he says, "Well, look, think about it, and we'll go after him, and we'll get him for Desi."

So I get back in my car, and I'm driving home, and I get halfway home, and man, I start getting mad. Because I knew that we would not get death penalty for one murder. But six, and I called him back when I got home, and I said, "No." I said, "You know, and I know, whoever killed Desi killed those other five girls." I said, "Do your job."

Period. I could be a real bitch, but I want to be.

“But I had rights. That's what I figured I had a right to do what I wanted to do.”

Meanwhile, Marcia kept advocating, not just for her rights, but for the rights of all crime victims and their families. For its time, she ran the El Paso chapter of a national group called Parents of Murdered Children. This was the heyday of the victims' rights movement, which fought for family members to get on the stand at trials and give victim impact statements, and even to witness executions. That last part is important to Marcia. Because Everston's David Wood was convicted,

Marcia has planned to be there when he's put to death. Marcia admits she was naive back then. She thought the execution would happen a year after David Wood got his death sentence, maybe a year and a half. Instead, she waited. She waited as David Wood lost a peel after a

peel, five years go by, ten years. After 17 years, an execution is finally scheduled.

It's 2009. Marcia flies out to witness it, only to get a call the night before, saying it was called off. Apparently there's this new lawyer, Greg Warchuk, arguing David Wood has an intellectual disability. Marcia finds this absurd, and the courts ultimately reject this appeal, but it takes them five years to rule on it. Just enough time for a whole new round of litigation about DNA testing that takes another decade. All the while, Marcia waits. There's something almost methodical

about her patience. Every once in a while, I get a little frustrated, not go, nope, nope, because my thought is, you know, he took my daughter, okay, but he's not going to take me. I refuse. I mean, I know some people would curl up in a corner and not want to get up. I went no corner. In the course of her long wait, Marcia lost others. Her husband died and then her older daughter died too. Even for someone like Marcia,

someone who just not wear her grief loudly, their limits. I mean, I don't carry it with me,

I would find out who did it. He will pay for it, and I'm going to make sure he does. Are you taking the lead or am I taking the lead? It might be better if you take the lead, and I can pipe in as needed. The day after Maurice and I interviewed Marcia, we watched his Greg and Naomi prep their own

approach with her. habeas lawyers don't always approach victims family members. Naomi, for example,

seven years on the job had never done it before. But the lawyers were uniquely aware of Marcia's power in this case. The way she became a public face of the prosecution. It would be a big coup for them to recruit her to their side. But it seems like Naomi and Greg are starting with some of the same off-target assumptions that we had. Is there a particular reason why you'd rather her take the lead? From what I've seen of Naomi, she's very empathetic. I'm not saying I'm not,

“but I think Naomi is... Naomi's covering her face with a new book. Over lunch, there was more talk about”

empathy and trauma. A lot of direction about using soft tones and centering Marcia's loss,

even as they tried to, gently, redirect to sheep-laden for it. All the say,

I think the lawyers were outlining an entirely reasonable approach for a woman not named Marcia Fulton. Not that Maurice and I would tell them that. Ethically, we wouldn't share any meaningful information about Marcia with the defense team. Marcia suspected that the lawyers might try and talk to her at some point. And if that did happen, she said it'd be okay for us to tack along and record. With the defense team, we shared some little details. About Marcia's many lawnnoms and the baby

squirrel, she was nursing back the health. But tell them the lawyers what we learned about Marcia, and we made of her. Anything that might help them with their pitch, that was all clearly outside of our job description. So I kept up my poker face on the lawyers detailed their plan, which, like all of their interviews, involved no warning or calling ahead. And I know they probably don't give up Pulitzer's stuff like this. But I gotta say, I was a picture of

neutrality when I got into Naomi's rental car and realized they had absolutely no idea where Marcia lived. So the address we have that's coming up, it's leading kind of to nowhere.

“I wasn't going to help them with that either. What do you want to do?”

We could ask generally the address and if Alvin blinks once, that's correct address, if he blinks twice, it's not the correct address. They drive across town 20 minutes to one wrong address and then turn around and drive 30 minutes to another. Yeah, you could just tell us, are we getting warmer? Okay. I think it was about an hour into this car ride. When I started to wonder if maybe I'd taken this all a little too far. It may be my journalistic ethics. We're about to get me

forcibly ejected from the backseat of a moving vehicle. It was a normal day there. Did you see that? Yeah. I don't know. It's an expensive number. I did see one. About an hour and a half after embarking on the 20 minute drive from the hotel to Marcia's house,

the lawyers finally found her. And in general, Marcia is totally unfazed,

like she's been waiting for them to arrive. She actually has us in the same seats in the living room that Marisa and I sat at less than 24 hours ago and starts a proceedings.

“What can I help you with today? Or what do you need to? Well,”

what we were wanting to do is just kind of tell you what we've discovered over the last year or so. I haven't been involved in the case that long but yeah. Go ahead. No. So my office, the federal public defender's office was appointed just a few months ago in the case. The lawyers start making their pitch to her. All the things they think might be most likely to get Marcia to rethink her certainty about David Woods guilt. They talk about the

unknown DNA found on a piece of victims clothing and how the state wouldn't agree to more testing. They lay out the information they've gathered on Randy Wells. They even personalize a little bit. Go deep on the orange fibers found a Desi's crime scene and a David Woods apartment. We think there's a strong possibility that the police took fibers and spread them out where Desi's body was found and the fact that they didn't. Marcia isn't offended by the lawyers

theories. Or at least she doesn't show that on her face. When I see more is genuine skepticism. She brings up a thing she's heard or seen over the years that painted David Woods's guilty in

Haven't they already tested hundreds of pieces of evidence? And what about one of Desi's

“girlfriends? Who testified that the last time she saw Desi? She was getting into a truck that looked”

just like the one David Woods drove her out. So, you know, these things I hear from different people is what makes my radar just go beep, beep, beep, beep. You know, and the fact that the last time her girlfriend saw, she was getting in his truck and no one sooner after. So, those are things in my mind that just, I just can't let go and say, I don't think so. You know, I'm not trying to, you know, I know, go ahead dear.

Someone did take your daughter. Yes. And, you know, her friend saw her getting a pickup truck.

Well, we do know now is that, you know, they had the, the name of at least one other person

“who had a truck who matched the same description and who came up in the El Paso Petis investigation fee.”

What was his name? Well, his, we didn't, we could tell his name is Michael Plyler. Now, I don't know if he's a suspect or not, but the police certainly thought he was because he had these exact same type of truck and Nissan pickup truck and he kind of looked like David Wood tall skinny guy, kind of longer here. So, somebody that potentially looked like, they would have more than one suspect that they wouldn't just single that one person. So, I'm hoping that when they found the one person

they couldn't dispute would be the one that they would charge. And I know some of it's circumstantial, but how much the circumstantial buildup before it become real? For a defense case, it built on the idea that the El Paso Police Department had tunnel vision for David Wood that they single the matters of suspect. This would have seemed like the perfect opening for the lawyers. But it's not something they pushed back on. In fact, a lot of the things Martial brought up in this conversation.

The lawyers did have her bottles for them. They were sometimes complicated and hard to boil down, but I heard them deploy them before. So, it was interesting to watch them take a more passive approach here. They mostly just politely listened and only occasionally reach for a correction. And when they did, it was very, very gingerly. I totally got where the lawyers were coming from. I was literally there the day before. But the particular is Martia made the whole thing feel kind of

jarring. She seemed like she was ready to have it out. And the lawyers seemed too worried about offending her to mean her where she actually was. In the moment though, sitting in Martia's living room, it's hard to say if there was a perfect approach to this. Martia said more than once that she was 100% sure they got in the right guy. But we were also more than an hour in and everyone was still talking. So that was something. Well, we've shared a lot of information, but I wanted to ask if you

have any questions for us or anything you would like us to know about. I guess maybe my only question is probably not the proper thing to ask. Is... No, I don't think I'm going to ask it. I'm sorry. Well, yeah, I'm going to ask why you feel compelled to help him or whatever, you know, or to represent him. That always makes me wonder. Not about your intentions, but you know, what makes you, just like it makes me feel that I know he's guilty. What is it in you that makes him feel

he might not be? Well, a lot of the things that we've talked about today, I mean for me,

the DNA has always been extremely powerful evidence. And if you've got 150 items and only three

have been tested, and one of those three excluded him, then let's test the other 147 before we

“carry out this execution. And that's what's been frustrating for me personally, as I've been working”

on this case and learning more about it. And that's what's motivating me to come and talk to you today. And let me ask you what's your reaction to that? Well, I understand that from your view. I do because, yeah, again, from my view, I would be the same way. You want to make sure you don't

I don't want A person. I want V person. Right. So, you know, I got that. After the interview,

“the lawyers parked nearby to debrief. They weren't exactly convinced that Marsha had a change of”

heart, but they detected what I thought I wouldn't as too. A tiny seat of doubt, a little crack and Marsha's certainty that wasn't there before. Though it's a little unclear what that's

worth at the end of the day. Back in 2009, when David Wood was first scheduled for an execution,

Marsha says the prosecutors reached out that she used money from the victim's compensation fund for a flight and a hotel. This time around, nobody from the prosecution even bothered to notify her. She only learned about the new execution date three weeks ago from a local reporter. There was even a surreal moment in the interview. When Marsha asked Naomi and Greg, if they could help her navigate the bureaucracy to witness their client's execution.

Regardless of how central role Marsha played in putting David Wood on death throw,

“it wasn't all together clear how she fit into the picture now.”

Under turning her to their side would have made much of a difference.

It was entirely possible that the lawyers put in all that time and effort just to leave Marsha with the nagging feeling that maybe she'd be helping to send an innocent man to death. Even though she might be powerless to do anything about it now. It's hard to feel good about that as an outcome. But I'm struggling to think of what the lawyers have done differently. Greg and Naomi had to try, because maybe if they didn't,

they'd be the ones left with the nagging feeling. But they stopped just short of doing everything in their power to save their client's life. It's hard to feel good about that as an outcome either. On February 21st, just under three weeks from David Wood's execution date,

“it's pencils down for the defense team. Time for them to show their work.”

They file what's called a subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus. This application will go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest court in the state for criminal cases. Nine judges, all Republican, all pretty unfriendly to death row claims. The success rate for these kinds of filings and Texas is pretty daunting, less than 6%. Greg is not embracing the virtues of brevity here. He's delivering

a monster, 371 pages, with more than 100 exhibits. You've heard all the strongest stuff, and so you know these pages contain no smoking guns, no confession from another suspect, no direct evidence of police corruption. Just lots and lots of small problems with the case. Coupled with big claims from people like George Hall and Ramonage's MOOCs, who both say star witnesses of the trial were lying, but also can't prove it.

This application is their best and probably last chance to convince the court to stay David Wood's execution. A stay is the best the lawyers can hope for here. For the court to say, hold up, there's something potentially wrong here. Let's send the case to a lower court to dig deeper. It's highly unlikely this court will simply declare David Wood innocent, but a stay is still big. It means David Wood gets to live, and then its team can spend months or even

years continuing to make the case for his innocence. The lawyers don't know when they'll get a decision, could be close to the wire, and could set off a bunch more frantic litigation in the final hours.

In the meantime, we just have to wait, and Alvin and I finally have time to meet the man this is all

about. Next time on the last 12 weeks, David Wood. The last 12 weeks is written and reported by me Maurice Schema and Alvin Melleth. Alvin produced the series. Gen Guera edited the series along with Anita Badajo. Julie Snyder is the executive editor for serial productions, additional editing from Akiva Solomon. Factsh checking and research by Ben Falen,

music supervision by Gen Guera and Phoebe Wang, with mixing by Phoebe Wang, additional mixing by Catherine Anderson, tracking direction from Sean Cole. Our associate producer is Mac Miller, additional production by Anita Badajo. There's a lot about the death penalty that we couldn't fit into this show. Stories from capital defense lawyers, a fascinating look at the data behind executions,

you can find all of that in our newsletter. Sign up for it at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter.

Matthias Bassie and John Evans of Stelwagon Simphinette, additional music by Dan Powell

“and Marian Lazzano. Adam Doran, aka MotionWorker, composed our theme song.”

Video production by Sean Devaney, our standards editor is Susan Westling,

legal review from Alimine Sumar and Jackson Bush. The art for our show comes from Pablo Delcon.

“Sam Dolnic is Deputy Managing Editor of the New York Times.”

Special thanks to Michael Ona, Susan CBT, Gillian Campbell, and Justina Garbachevska Skalpone.

The last 12 weeks is a production of Cero Productions, a Marshall Project, and the New York Times.