Speaker
George Hall
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Greg Werchuk lives by the Charlie Brown principle: you have to keep running up to kick the football because the one time Lucy doesn't pull it away, you have to be ready. In capital defense work, cynicism is a death sentence for your client.
With just 87 days before David Wood's execution, reporter Maurice Chammas convinces death penalty lawyer Greg Werchuk to let him follow the team with a live microphone. The result is an unprecedented look inside the last-minute scramble to save a death row inmate's life.
George Hall spent 30 years on parole, staying silent about what he knew: two informants fabricated their testimony to get David Wood convicted and sentenced to death. The moment his parole ended, he called David Wood's lawyer.
Greg Werchuk sees a sliver of hope in every setback. His co-counsel Jeremy Shepers sees when someone is clearly being played. Their dynamic — earnest professor versus sardonic public defender — is what makes this legal team tick.
Greg Werchuk's plan to use local media to pressure the DA falls apart in spectacular fashion: the anchor who promised to help has secretly been offered a job by the DA himself. Three weeks of strategy, gone. Sixty-seven days left.
Judith Kelling survived an attack by a man who drove her to the desert, tied her up, and raped her while ordering her to say she was 14. She later identified David Wood in a photo lineup. The site of her attack was 50 yards from where the murder victims were found.
Greg Werchuk camps outside the incoming El Paso DA's office with no appointment. When Montoya sweeps by, what follows is an excruciating two-minute exchange that ends with a blunt 'It's not happening.' The awkwardness, Chammas says, felt like it lasted a week.
Six bodies found in the El Paso desert, all within months of each other. The only lead: middle school kids talking about a white guy called 'Skeeter' who had just gotten out of prison. That trail leads directly to David Wood.
The two star witnesses who testified David Wood confessed to murder didn't walk away empty-handed. One collected $13,000 in reward money; the other had his own capital murder charge dropped. These are the testimonies that put a man on death row.
When Greg Werchuk had a piece of a victim's clothing retested with modern DNA technology, it came back with male DNA — and it wasn't David Wood's. Texas has refused to test more than 100 other pieces of evidence.
The news anchor who promised to get the lawyers a meeting with the DA, and who mysteriously lost the only recording of their interview, quietly announced she was joining the DA's office the week after leaving TV. The lawyers never got their meeting.
Maurice Chammas, the death penalty reporter at The Marshall Project, was skeptical when Greg Werchuk first pitched him on David Wood's case. But he didn't want to write the usual story — he wanted to document the impossible process of trying to stop a death sentence in real time.
Analysis
What they talk about
- True Crime 100%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
