Filing the Final Habeas Corpus Application

There are forty two days left before the execution. and Maurice and I' split up again I'm heading out to Stain. Louis to meet Greg's co counsel Jeremy It's very bleak and rainy and we're setting off on a little road trip. take take a 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 phone. Eddie Barton is on Jeremy's list because back in nineteen eighty nine 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 Barten, and please forgive me This was not the kind of thing that would to 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 features similar to that of his wife According to court records, the FBI decided to alert the El Paso pololice 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 have passed in Spartan's original confession And by now, he 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 grizzly murders that he once confessed to more than three decades ago there by 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've developed 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 the 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 Hbeas unit in Dallas, is not generally out in the field like this anymore whichich tells you a little something about how much of an all hands on deck situation we've entered into As you pull over at a gas station about ten minutes away, Jeremy takes out a pad of paper and starts going over notes Yeah, I 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. somethingomething 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 leaded ins to that. at least that at least not that I can think of. And here. the only other thing Jeremy really knows about Iddie Barten isn't particularly promising either And that's the other crime Barton confessed to in Las Vegas The reason why I was speaking to the police is because he had acccording to him put a hitout on his wife and paid a business associate forty thousand dollars or something like that to kill her To be specific, according to the court records Barten had gone to the Vegas pololice because he actually changed his mind about the hit on his wife and wanted to put a stop to it On, it appears he couldn't contact the business associate he paid the forty thousand dollars to and started to suspect that maybe the business associate wanted him dead Perhaps on account of Bartin implicating him in a murder for Hire plot That's obviously not a fucking soft lead in either Jeremy continues to ponder his approach as we head back on the road We drive p the address he has for Barton's nursing home. It's a series of connected grrave trailers in front of honestly the satisfying 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 No Do we have a sense of which door 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 the door and we walk in Yeah, someone who looks like they work there if Eddie Barton is around. He's in the dayroom, having lunch, she says, points him out We head to the dayroom and there's about thirty residents in there, all eating and watching a TV show Jeremy siddles up to Barton and introduces himself says he's here to ask him questions about some bodies found in the desert in El Paso in nineteen eighty seven. He says this at what I would consider a professionally discrete volume it doesn't matter Everyone in the room is now staring at us Maybe because Barton who was in his sixties 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 twenty minutes Parton gives me the oK to record, and Jeremy dives in copy of NF playver Do you mind if I just show that to you a second?. That's from the FBI That's what it says, so I hope so And So there's some stuff. there's a couple of there's a couple of pages 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 scling, looking like he's trying to take the information in Who said all that stuff? Who made that statement? is the this is just the recap of their conversation with you. So from the jump Burnn'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 paid forty thousand dollars to kill a lot. What is this is the crazy stuff here forty thousand dollars. I ain't never seen forty thousand dollars. E should cash machs to kill his wife. Bard toor Sabver he wanted I supposedly said this. You know what they say. 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 That's wrong. I wasn't even therearriry I name the lawyer It's possible that this represented the 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 have now fully entered Cohen Brothers territory Other residents sccooop by as we talk, rubber necking as they slowly push their walkers past us At some point, apparently fully on alert 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 minagers that he still wants to talk to Jeremy about David Wood This guy's going to die at the thirteenth. They're trying to tie some loose ends or What what I might be able to help I don't want nobody that's wrong I hope the guy, if we didn't do it, gets off Somehow in all of this, Barton seems to have missed the 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 row by confessing to the murderers 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 though. He might not have understood the specifics, but he certainly seemed to understand what was at stake, that a man's life was on the line he could help in some way, shouldouldn'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. An almost impossible amount of pressure to find something, anything that'll 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 will mean putting themselves right in the middle of some messy human dramas, with complicated stakes all their own. And the Lwords will have to figure out just how far they're willing to push people to save David Wood's life om Cerial Productions, the Marshall Project, and the New York Times, I'm Alvin Mellith, and I'm Maurice Tama. This is the last twelve weeks. 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 jailhouse informants who were in prison 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 surfaced 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 jailhouse 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 in prison for theft sererved his time, got released And then pretty 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 But then, after he testified against David Wood, his murder charge was dropped The prosecutor who dealt with Randy Wells in a different case once wrote, quote If this inmate 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 Eskimos This seems to be the consensus among the defense team that Randy Wells is a slippery character, mostly in it for himself The lawyers are hoping an impending execution changes things that he'll feel guilty and finally confess to lying at Davver Wood's trial But for the past few months, the lawyers have been struggling to get in the same room with them Braandy Welles is in his sixties now liivving 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 she turned them away again Naomi gets assigned 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 read receipts on, so I know that she read it, but she hasn't responded. Gott to turn 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 I think I might just talk to her on Thursday Naomi sends the text, the wekeen comes and goes. No response She tries calling 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 Um, we're just 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 ghosted Naomi Randy Wells is in the hospital and it's not looking good She's gone through multiple rounds of chemo, but the cancer has spread He's mostly bedridd 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 them at the hospital It's a question of human decency. Whatard I hear mostly is about strategy Now u Naomi, I've run this idea by you before and you were I think mortified is the word I'm looking for. uh going to the hospital, seeing when visitation hours are and talking to him without Tracy being the guard dog. You know, that does facilitate styling it as a dying declaration if it's being taken from him while he's in the hospital so Yeahah, that's right So the downside is if we do that and Tracy finds out she may never give us permission if they 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 her we want to send flowers. That's a great idea. Chocolate, 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. could be such a game changer for the case. Like if Randy if we get a statement from Randy Wells. tracking on his trial testimony, Our chances of stay and 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 you know, the hospital so 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 his hospital door I mean too 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 We're out of 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 Verttigo 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 days after an execution of the most acute Sleep comes in eighteen 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 tremendous pressure It's not just their clients' 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 You can't think about it without succumbing to paralysis But obviously it's there It's gotta be So as the lawyers talk about the propriety of barging into Randy Wells's 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 This might be the closest I've come to actually seeing the pressure in 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 evenven if it means a sort of gross and distasteful scene at a Texas hospital 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 gaunt and barely conscious. He can't make eye contact, much less answer questions about testimony he gave decades ago Naomi instead talks with Tracy B better 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 with 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. You could argue that the number one public advocate for David Wood's execution is a woman named Marha Fulton In nineteen eighty seven, Marsha's younger daughter, Desare, who she called Desi, was an energetic fifteen 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, Marscia 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 Marcia 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 Marscia is used to hearing from reporters So when Alvin and I call, she immediately gives us her address We drive up to our house in a gated mobile home park on the outskirts of El Paso. Easy to find because she really likes lawn gnomes. 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 eraseboards in her living room, laying out which animals are in which parts of her home And said right now you have Right now I have the pigeon and the squirrel. Well, I 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 that. All of these animals are in addition to Marscia's dog, a six year old cockapoo mix named Muppet who Marcia tells us is more of a hugger than a humper Although, when Muppet takes a liking to Alvin's leg at one point, that seems to be a distinction without a difference. So well behaved. All this to say Marcia's home is warm, inviting Casual, as is Marcia. 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 But pretty soon I realized that Marscia chased at that kind of thing. I was sitting in the bank the other day and a woman sat across to and she goes You're ms. Waitony, aren't you Yeah. I said, We're so sorry for your los. Thank you. You know, too this day I have people still coming up and telling me that This has been thirty seven years It's not that Marcia doesn't feel the loss, of course She does, acutely. Deszy's murder defines her even if that's sometimes hard to put into words. When it's your spouse, you're either a widow or widow If you don't have parents, you're an orphan When the parent losose the child, there's no name for that. No name for that. And it's like, You are lost. Marscia'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 Wood We get down to brass tacks. Back in nineteen eighty seven, Marcia Fulton, who was Marcia Wheatley at the time, was divorced and raising her two teenage daughters in El Paso Desy was the younger one. A real spitfire, according to Marcia Her middle school friends would later describe her as the life of the party and a bit of a risk taker chatting up strangers, occasionally even hitchhiking. On the last day of eighth grade, doeses he stay out to celebrate When Marcia got home from our workhift, 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, Mike 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 what if she doesn't come home And he says, Well, well figure that out when the time comes And I says, O, 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, no, Mrs. Wheatley,'s not going to come to that famamous last words Anyway, it took them months to find the body Desi's remains were found in a shallow grave in a patch of desert covered in brush and trash Marsha 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. Tw weeks after Desy's remains were found, Marha held a funeral the funeral I was s there and, you know, got up after it was over and had it casket that Desi was in. And I said, donon't worry, sweetie, I'll find out who did this and he's gonna to pay And that was my promise to her Marha has been determined to keep her promise to Dzzie She hounded El Paso PD to solve the desert murders At first, police treated the victims as runaways, unconnected to each other Detective Johnny Gurero told us that it was Marsha who pushed them to see the connections It was Mcia who told them to interview kids at Desy'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 Marsarcia bouts 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 Marshall wanted the death penalty But the El Paso DA's office was struggling to get him on all sex murders. One day, Marscia says she got a call from the district attorney of El Paso himself, a guy named Steve Simmons He asked Marsha to come to his office. I said, OkayK, I went in, mayaybe I'm thinking he's got some information, some news, something ang Steve Simmons kept saying, look Why don't we go after him just for Desi? Because we've got evidence on him for that Remember the orange fibers police found at David Wood's apartment They'd found similar looking fibers near Desi's body too It was the only physical evidence that tied David Wood to any of the crime scenes, and it linked him directly to Marsha'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 I get back in my car and I'm driving home and I get halfway home and man I start getting mad. Beuse I knew that we would not get death penalty for one murder 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 Piod. I could be a real bit where I wantna 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 a time, she ran the El Paso chapter of a national group called Parents of Murdered Children. This was the heyday of the Victims rightights 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 Marsha Because ever since David Wood was convicted, Marscia has planned to be there when he's put to death Marscia admits she was naive back then She thought the execution would happen a year after David wouldood got his death sentence, mayaybe a year and a half. Instead, she waited. She waited as David Wood lost appeal after appeal Five years go by, ten years After seventeen years, an execution is finally scheduled It's two thousand nine 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 Worchuck, 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, Marsha waits There's something almost methodical about her patience Every once in a while I get a little frustrated and I go, Nope, nope because my thought is You know, My daughter Okay, but it's not going to take me I refuse I mean, I know some people would curl up in a corner or not wantna I went no corner In the course of her long wait, Marshall lost others Her husband died, and then her older daughter died too Even for someone like Marscia, someone who does not wear her grief loudly, there are limits I mean, I don't carry it with me But it's there. I know it's there. I'm not trying to kid myself But yeah, I promised her 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 watch as Greg and Naomi prep their own approach with her. Habbeas 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 Marsha's power in this case The way she became the 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 U fromom what I've seen of Naomi, she's very u empathetic I'm not saying I'm not, but I think Naomi is u Amy's covering her face with a notebook Over lunch, there was more talk about empathy and trauma, a lot of direction about using soft tones and centering Marsha's loss even as they tried to gently redirect who she blamed for it All to say, I think the lawyers were outlining an entirely reasonable approach for a woman not named Marha Fulton Not the reason I would tell them that. Ethhically, we wouldn't share any meaningful information about Marscia with the defense team Marsha suspected that the lawyers might try and talk to her at some point 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 Marsha's many lawn gnomes and bab squirrel she was nursing back to health. Telling the lawyers what we learned about Marscia, and what we made of her. anything that might help them with their pitch That was all clearly outside of our job description And so I kept up my poker face while 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 bullitzers for stuff like this, but I gotta say, I was a picture of neutrality when I got into Nayomi's rental car. and realized they had absolutely no idea where Marsarcia lived So the address we have that is coming up I wasn't gonna to help them with that either. What do you do? we could ask generally The address And if Elvin blinks once, that's the correct address. If he blinks twice, it's not the correct address. They drive across town twenty minutes to one wrong address, and then turn around and drive thirty minutes to another. Yeah. You could just tell us, are we getting warmer Oh Okaykay 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. If maybe my journalistic ethics were about to get me forcibly ejected from the backseat of a moving vehicle It was an old dayank there Doid you see that? Yeah. I don't know through excessive number, I did see one About an hour and a half after embarking on the twenty minute drive from the hotel to Marcia's house, when the lawyers finally found her. And in general, Marcia is totally unfazed, like she's been waiting for them to arrive. She ushers us into the same seats in the living room that Maurice and I set out less than twenty four hours ago and starts the proceedings What can I help you with today O 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 or soven thirty seven years. Ha't been involved in the case that long but ye Go ahead No, So my office, the federal public defender's office was appointed just a few months ago in that case. The lawyers started making their pitch to her All the things they think might be most likely to get Marcia to rethink her certainty about David Wood's guilt They talk about the unknown DNA found on a piece of victim's 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 at Desy's crime scene and at David Wood's apartment We think there's a strong possibility that the police took fibers and spread them out where Dessse's body was found. fact that Marcia isn't offended by the lawyer's theories, or at least she doesn't show that on her face What I see more is genuine skepticism She brings up the things she's heard or seen over the years painted David Wood as guilty in her mind Did' the girl in El Pasos start disappearing right after he got out of prison Cven't they already tested hundreds of pieces of evidence? And what about one of Desy's girlfriends who testified that the last time she saw Desi She's getting into a truck just like the one David Wooddrove around So you know, these things I hear differentiffere people is what makes O my radar just go beep beep beep pee. You know, and the fact that the last time her girlfriend saw, she was getting in his truck and no one soon or 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, it I'm not trying to you know Go ahead, Dar Someone did take your daughter. Yes And you know, her friend saw her get in a pickup truck. What we do know now is that you know, they had 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 PD's investigation What was his name Well, his we didn't We can tell you his name's Michael Pler. Now I don't know if he's a suspect or not, but the police certainly thought he was because he had the exact same type of truck, a Nissan pickup truck and he kind of looked like David Wood, tall skinny guy, kind of longer hair.body potentially look like they have more than one suspect, that they wouldn't just single single one person. So I'm hoping that when they found the one person they couldn't dispute would be the one that they would Chge And I know some of it's circumstantial, but how much does circumstantial build up before it becomes real a defense case built on the idea that the El Paso Police Department had tunnel vision for David Wood that they singled him out as a suspect This would have seemed like the perfect opening for the lawyers But it's not something they push back on A lot of the things Mars brought up in this conversation flloors did have rebuttals 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 reached 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 particulars of Marsha 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 meet her where she actually was In the moment though, sitting in Marsha's living room It's hard to say if there was a perfect approach to this. Mara said more than once that she was one hundred percent sure they gotten 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 it's probably not thing to ask. is No, I don't think I'm going to ask it. I'm sorry. Well yeah, I want to ask why you feel compelled to help him or or whatever, you know, were 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 one hundred fifty items and only three have been tested And one of those three excluded him. then let's test the other hundred and forty seven 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 media. come and talk to you today. And let me ask you, what's your reaction to that 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 want to just put somebody to death just For the heck of it, you know No, that doesn't help me. I don't want a person. I want the person 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 witnessed too tiny seed of doubt. A little crack in Mart' certainty that wasn't there before. Though it's a little unclear what that's worth at the end of the day Back in two thousand nine, when David Wood was first scheduled for an execution, Marsha says the prosecutors reached out that she used money from the victims compensation fund for a flight and a hotel This time around, nobody from the prosecution even bothered to notify her only learned about the new execution date three weeks ago from a local reporter There was even a surreal moment in the interview when Marcia asked Naomi and Greg if they could help her navigate the bureaucracy to witness their client's execution reggardless of how central a role Marsha played in putting David Wood on death row It wasn't altogether clear how she fit into the picture now Noother 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 Marcia with a nagging feeling that maybe she'd be helping to send an innocent man to death even though she might be powerilous 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 should have done differently Drag and Naomi had to try. Because maybe if they didn't, they'd be the ones left with the nagging feeling that they stopp just short of doing everything in their power to save their clients life It's hard to feel good about that as an outcome either On february twenty first, just under three weeks from David Wood's execution date, its 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 in Txas is pretty daunting than six percent Greg is not embracing the virtues of brevity here. He's delivering a monster three hundred and seventy one pages with more than one hundred 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 Ramona's Mukes, who both say star witnesses at 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 estate is still big. It means David Wood gets to live, and then his 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 to 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 twelve weeks David Wood The last twelve weeks is written and reported by me, Maurice Shima, and Alvin Mellleh Alvin produced the series Jen Guera edited the series, along with Anita Batajo Julie Snyder is the exxecutive editor for Serial Productions A additional editing from Akiba Solomon Fact Checking and research by Ben Fhalon Music suupervision by Gen Guera and Phoebe Wang, with mixing by Phoebe Wang Additional Mixing by Catherine Anderson Tacking direction from Sean Cole Our associate producer is Mac Miller Additional P productduction by Anita Batajo 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 nYimes d. com slash serial newsletter. Original Music for this series by Adam Dorne, AK motion worker Matthias Bary and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonette. Additional music by Dan Powell and Marian Lazano Adam Dorne, AK emotion worker composed our theme song Video production by Sean Devany Our standards editor is Susan Wesling Legal review from Alamin Sumar and Jackson Bush The art for our show comes from Pablo Delcon. Sam Dolnik is deeputy Managing editor of the New York Times Special thanks to Michael Ona, Susan C. Beachy, Jillian Campbell, and Justina Garbachevsk Scalpone The last twelve weeks is a production of Serro Productions, The Marshall Project, and the New York Times.