Man Convicted In Serial Killer Case Granted Execution Stay | EUROtoday

In the late Eighties, the our bodies of six lacking ladies and younger girls had been discovered buried in shallow graves within the desert of El Paso, Texas. Most of the our bodies had been too decomposed to find out a reason behind loss of life, however there have been indicators that among the victims had been sexually assaulted. As the loss of life rely rose, the El Paso Police Department confronted rising stress to seek out and arrest the so-called “Desert Killer.”

“There are girls being killed out there. The public wants to know what we are doing,” the deputy chief of police informed the El Paso Herald-Post in November 1987. “The department is feeling an impact never felt before because of the notoriety of the case, the serial killer aspect.”

It wasn’t lengthy till the police zeroed in on David Wood, a person with a historical past of sexual assault convictions. The proof towards Wood was purely circumstantial, the state would later admit. Prosecutors centered their case round testimony from jailhouse informants who had incentives to lie, and on acrylic fibers from a vacuum cleaner bag in Wood’s condominium that had been just like fibers discovered on one of many sufferer’s our bodies.

Despite the inconclusiveness of the proof, in 1992, Wood was convicted of capital homicide and sentenced to loss of life.

Wood has steadfastly maintained his innocence. “I’ve been trying for 30 years to tell people I didn’t do this,” he lately informed The Texas Observer.

For a long time, Wood has been unable to get aid in courtroom — till now, simply two days earlier than he was to die by deadly injection within the Texas loss of life chamber. Earlier this month, Wood’s longtime lawyer filed a virtually 400-page petition laying out the case for his innocence and asking a decide to halt the execution.

On Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Wood a uncommon keep of execution to permit time to assessment a few of his claims.

Wood was born in 1957 in San Angelo, Texas. He failed a number of grades and finally dropped out of college when he was 17. He was arrested two years later for indecency with a toddler. He pleaded responsible and spent two and a half years in jail. Shortly after he was launched, he pleaded responsible to raping an grownup lady and a 13-year-old lady. After about seven years in jail, he was launched on parole in January 1987, shortly earlier than police would discover the primary physique within the desert.

Two weeks after Wood’s launch, a girl was blindfolded and sexually assaulted in El Paso. The sufferer by no means noticed her attacker, however the mom of the lady Wood had beforehand pleaded responsible to assaulting referred to as Crime Stoppers and mentioned that the girl’s assailant matched Wood’s “modus operandi.”

The assault sufferer spoke with the lady, contacted the police, and recognized Wood’s voice in an audio lineup as the person who had attacked her.

In October 1987, Wood was arrested on expenses of sexually assaulting a second lady. Prosecutors introduced they meant to introduce the assault of the primary lady as proof of a sample of conduct if the lab outcomes from the primary lady’s rape equipment implicated Wood. But the rape equipment excluded Wood, and prosecutors declined to boost that case on the second lady’s trial.

The second lady, who struggled with heroin dependancy and had earlier convictions associated to medication and intercourse work, gave inconsistent accounts about her assault, in line with courtroom information. Richard Jewkes, assistant district lawyer on the time, mentioned in a latest declaration that he felt the chances of convicting Wood of the assault had been a “coin flip” as a result of the proof was “pretty slim.” But the district lawyer’s workplace felt stress to safe a conviction towards Wood, Jewkes wrote, as a result of “a decision was made to take him off the streets.”

Wood was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in jail. Early on in his sentence, he shared a cell with a person named Randy Wells and lived a couple of cells down from two males named George Hall and James Sweeney. Wood confided within the different three males about feeling harassed by the El Paso police, who had been attempting to construct their case towards Wood within the desert killings.

Sweeney, a jailhouse lawyer, agreed to assist Wood file a civil lawsuit accusing El Paso officers of harassment and consulted with Hall, his cellmate who labored within the regulation library. The case was in the end dismissed, however within the technique of submitting the go well with, Wood gave Sweeney greater than 100 newspaper articles in regards to the killings, in line with Wood’s petition.

The 4 males had been finally cut up up by transfers and releases. But in 1990, Hall was abruptly despatched to the El Paso County jail, because the Marshall Project beforehand reported. Soon, Sweeney and Wells confirmed up, too. Sweeney was nonetheless finishing his sentence, however Wells had been launched and rearrested on a homicide cost.

Wells mentioned that after he discovered he was going through a life sentence, he informed his lawyer he knew one thing in regards to the our bodies buried within the desert, Hall wrote in a declaration final 12 months.

According to Hall, Wells concocted a narrative about Wood, his former cellmate, being the killer, primarily based on info he had gleaned from listening to Wood work on his civil go well with with Sweeney. Wells additionally inspired the police to talk with Hall and Sweeney, Hall wrote.

While the three of them sat within the El Paso jail, Wells requested if Hall or Sweeney might give him particular details about the case, however each declined. Eventually, the three of them had been positioned in a automotive with no shackles or handcuffs, opposite to common follow. The cops gave the three males “the red carpet treatment,” Hall informed HuffPost. They went to a hamburger joint and, as soon as on the police station, got espresso, snacks, cigarettes and cellphone entry.

“David Wood is our suspect,” the detectives informed them, in line with Hall. “It’d be best if you tell us something because we can’t let this guy walk,” the detectives mentioned, mentioning there was reward cash accessible.

According to Hall, the detectives handed the boys the case information in regards to the murders and requested if Wood had ever mentioned something in regards to the killings. Wells and Sweeney every mentioned that Wood had confessed to the killings described within the information, Hall mentioned.

“They’re just fabricating everything,” Hall informed HuffPost. “I was really upset.”

The lead detective from Wood’s case, who has since retired, informed The Marshall Project that the thought anybody gave the informants case information to assessment was “preposterous” and “insane.”

When Hall declined to corroborate their principle of the case, the detectives informed him, “We can help you, if you can help us,” Hall wrote, including that they mentioned they may have the ability to “do something” about his parole.

“I said I wasn’t going to lie about David Wood,” Hall wrote.

Hall was finally returned to jail. Months later, he was authorized for parole, however shortly earlier than he anticipated to go house, somebody submitted a letter to the parole board protesting his launch, and he was required to serve the ultimate years of his sentence. He suspects it was retaliation for refusing to implicate Wood.

In March 1991, Hall wrote a letter to Assistant District Attorney Debra Morgan stating he wouldn’t testify for the state towards Wood. “If the State subpoenas me for the trial, I will have no choice but to be a witness for the defense!” Hall wrote in neat cursive in a letter affixed as an exhibit to Wood’s latest petition.

Wells and Sweeney testified at trial that Wood had confessed to the killings and described how he would lure girls into his truck by providing them medication. Some of their testimony was inconsistent with the info of the case. For instance, Wells testified that Wood had mentioned he all the time used his pickup truck in the course of the murders — however his truck was broken and sat in an auto salvage yard for a couple of month in the course of the time that three of the victims disappeared.

Wells’ homicide cost was dismissed after he testified towards Wood. Sweeney sought $25,000 in reward cash and finally obtained $13,000 after suing the town. Both males have since died.

The solely piece of forensic proof the state offered at trial had been orange acrylic fibers discovered on and close to the physique of one of many victims. After Wood moved out of his condominium, police obtained a vacuum cleaner bag from the storage and located comparable fibers inside. A chemist with the Texas Department of Public Safety testified that the fibers from the crime scene “matched” these from the bag, citing their dimension, form, coloration, polymer composition and dye composition.

Wood’s post-conviction authorized group later employed hint proof knowledgeable Christopher Palenik, who wrote in a report that the testimony at trial describing a “match” was “problematic and misleading.”

Although Wood was accused of killing six girls and ladies — Karen Baker, Rosa Maria Casio, Ivy Williams, Desiree Wheatley, Angelica Frausto, and Dawn Smith — the jury directions solely required members to seek out that Wood had killed Williams and a number of of the opposite 5 victims. He was convicted and sentenced to loss of life in 1992.

Since then, Wood has maintained his innocence and fought his case in courtroom. In 2010, at his request, a courtroom ordered DNA testing on three gadgets that had been examined earlier than his trial however got here again inconclusive. Testing of a bloodstain on a chunk of clothes worn by one of many victims contained a partial male DNA profile that excluded Wood because the contributor. Wood requested testing of greater than 100 further items of proof and for the state to analyze another suspect, however the state efficiently fought additional testing.

Hall was launched from jail in 1994 and went on to serve 30 years on parole. He believes within the loss of life penalty, however he additionally thinks Wood was unfairly convicted. He adopted Wood’s case through the years, and in 2009, when Texas first set Wood’s execution date, Hall got here near calling Wood’s authorized group and sharing what he knew about Wells and Sweeney.

But he believed that if he spoke up whereas nonetheless on parole, he would find yourself again in jail.

Last 12 months, when Hall was lastly “off paper,” he tracked down Wood’s lawyer and left a voicemail. He mentioned he had details about fabricated testimony and invited Wood’s legal professionals to return go to him to debate. In October, Hall wrote an in depth seven-page declaration, describing why he believed Wells’ and Sweeney’s testimony was false.

“Every person’s gotta meet their maker, and I don’t wanna meet mine thinking I should’ve said something,” Hall mentioned in a cellphone interview.

“That’s no different than me killing David Wood.”