Speaker
Maurice Chammas
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
David Wood was convicted of killing 6 women and girls, one as young as 14, whose bodies were found buried in the desert outside El Paso.
David Wood has been on death row since his conviction in the early 1990s, with multiple execution dates set and stayed over three decades.
When reporter Maurice Chammas first meets lawyer Greg Werchuk in mid-December 2024, there are exactly 87 days left before David Wood's scheduled execution.
Court documents show that after David Wood's trial, one of the jailhouse informants who testified against him received $13,000 in reward money.
The second jailhouse informant who testified that David Wood confessed to the murders had his own capital murder charge dropped after the trial.
The jury in David Wood's murder trial needed less than 90 minutes to deliver a death sentence, indicating how overwhelming the evidence appeared to them.
After retesting a piece of a victim's clothing with newer technology, DNA belonging to an unknown male — not David Wood — was discovered.
The state of Texas has repeatedly refused to allow DNA testing of more than 100 additional pieces of evidence from David Wood's case.
After losing three weeks of work and failing to secure a meeting with the DA, the legal team has only 67 days left to stop David Wood's execution.
Judith Kelling, who escaped an attack by David Wood, was raped approximately 50 yards from where the murder victims' bodies were found in the desert.
David Wood had been released from prison less than one month before the first of the six desert murder victims disappeared.
Jailhouse witness George Hall stayed silent about informants fabricating testimony for 30 years because he feared aggravating authorities while on parole.
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%
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