The Failed Interview and Professional Betrayal

This podcast is supported by American Beverage. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know facts are the first ingredient. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing clear information about the ingredients in their beverages at good toknowfacts d. org d For over one hundred forty ingredients, you can find common uses, alternative names, and safety assessments from food safety authorities around the world Good tonowfacts. org is meant to be a first stop to learn more about your favorite beverages. No spin, no judgment, just facts. Visit good tonowfacts d. org From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. And this is the Daily on Sunday. Today we've got a little something different for you because our colleagues over at Sial Productions have a new series out that we're excited to share It's called the lastast twwelve weeeks And it follows a team of death penalty lawyers in their last minute scramble to try to stop their client's execution in Texas. And what's kind of incredible about it is that the team at Sereial managed to convince a team of death penalty lawyers to let them follow them around in the middle of an actual case They put microphones in the room as the lawyers tried to argue their case to witnesses to the media, to a victim's mother. And these are the kinds of behind the scenes conversations you rarely get to hear and they are riveting So we're sharing the first episode of the five part series, a collaboration with the Marshall Project and hosted by reporter Maurice Chama You can find all episodes by searching for the last twelve weeks wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the show In the fall of twenty twenty four, a criminal defense lawyer got the kind of phone call that most lawyers can only dream about It concerned a client of his, a guy named David Wood onene of Texas's most notorious serial killers He was sitting on death row. months away from his execution G It was home and uh I would like to discusou as you somethinging up about Eward W What don what has happened in that case. The man on the phone, George Hall I thought something corrupt had gone down in David Wood's trial It had happened more than thirty years ago But for thirty years, he'd said nothing Mostly because he was afraid to For those thirty years, he'd been on parole. He worried if he aggravated the authorities, they might find some way to send him back to prison But now his parole had ended, and George Hall was ready to tell his story which she'd eventually put into a sworn declaration That story goes like this Back in the late eighties, George Hall and David Wood were locked up together at the Eastam Unit in Texas George Hall was in for murder David Wood was in for rape They weren't particularly close David Wood was quiet, didnn't talk much But when he did, George says, it was mainly to complain about how the police in his hometown of El Paso were harassing him, investigating him for a series of murders Bically what he said was El Paso was trying to pin it on him David Wood insisted he had nothing to do with those murders George thought maybe he didn't, maybe he did Either way, he didn't really care Eventually, George and David Wood were separated, moved to different facilities hundreds of miles apart One day, George says he's in the prison library Ready to go to lunch When two officers come in and tell him to pack his stuff I said, Where am I going? they wouldn't tell me So next thing I know, I'm on a bus ride down to El Paso A few hours later, George finds himself in a holding cell in the El Paso County jail. Two other guys join him in there. George recognizes them both. as guys who had seted with David Wood And one of them says to the group They have an opportunity They can all get money maybe, or less prison time. All they have to do is snitch on David Wood Soon enough, they're escorted out of the cell and into a car. And George says that's when the cops start rolling out the red carpet They give us the tour up scenic drive up the mountainside, look across the Rio Grande, look into O Mexico and this and that. Whatever, you know, I'm sitting there thinkin to myself We're not handcuffed well if we jump out and run. That's what are they gonna do then, you know He said Stite George says they're taken to a hamburger joint for lunch, and then ultimately to a police station The guys are offered coffee, snacks, cigarettes And then they're ushered into a room with detectives Of course they got files everywhere. They got David Woods's name pastard all over thing. They got arrows and lines going to this, this, dates roped down. Files are sitting there. They started handing us files. Look live? We got this on him. We got this on him. He did this. We know this, this, this, this. ain't going through all facts and stuff' this narrative driven shit and you're reading what they got. And then after that they goes You know anything? Well, I don't know a goddamn thing. all they had to do is ask me to prison unit. I was madattering shit about it. As for the other two guys They go back talking to each other, but it's in real low tones And they basically don't want even talk to me about nothing. So I knew to myself right then and there They don going say whatever they want them to say They're going to tell the police that David would confess to multiple murders But George is sure these guys don't actually know anything about David Wood You would have heard about it already Plus, he knows they're not above lying. George returns to prison Not long after, he writes to an El Paso prosecutor about quote, improprieties that I am aware of He says he knows the informants are fabricating their stories The prosecutor never writes back, but the letter does make its way into David Wood's case file Eventually, David Wood does go on trial for the murders. George is never called to testify But the two other guys become the star witnesses for the prosecution The jury convicts David Wood, and he's sentenced to death. Court documents show that after the trial, one of the informants received thirteen thousand dollars in reward money. The other got his own capital murder charge dropped. I identified more than a dozen officers, detectives, and supervisors who were involved in David Wood's case I wanted to ask them about George Hall Some were dead, one had dementia, one hung up on me, and others never responded. But the one detective who did speak to me extensively about the case called George's whole story, quote, prereposterous It's pretty well documented in court records and a media account. that George and the other two men were brought in together and interviewed by the El Paso police The detector said he couldn't imagine his colleagues taking prisoners out for a joy ride and showing them case materials in order to get them to snitch For more than thirty years after David Wood's trial, George kept tabs on the case. Googled it from time to time In two thousand nine, he read that David Wood's execution was called off There'd been a question about his intellectual capacity y twenty twenty four, George saw that David Wood was again scheduled for execution This time, George figured it would actually happen And this time, he was finally off parole So if he was going to speak up, It was now or never I don't know if it's going to make a difference wh they gets executed or not. That's not the question That's not what I got to live with What I have to live with is Can I live with myself Knowing that I know two people fabricated testimony to get a guy executed And I don't say anything about it Not long after George Hall called David Wood's lawyer, David Wood's lawyer emailed me asking me to write about the case I wasn't surprised. I'm a journalist at a nonprofit called the Marshall Project, where we cover the criminal justice system I'm the death penalty guy on staff As gloomy as that sounds But I was surprised by who was asking Greg Worchu. I know Greg Wordchuck is a big deal in capital defense work He's been defending people on death row for decades. and even stopped one execution by winning at the Supreme Court I'd asked him for an interview years ago for a book I was writing on the death penalty. He said no He rarely spoke to reporters And now here he was in my inbox His email was polite and panicky Davidood's execution date was only seventeen weeks away. He wanted me to write about the case and all the problems he saw with it I was pretty skeptical. I did the hard hitting research of reading the Wikipedia page about David Wood and woof Six women and girls, one as young as fourteen killed and buried in the desert outside of El Paso David Wood even got one of those spooky serial killer nicknames, The desesert Killer Greg wrote to me that David Wood was innocent that he didn't commit any of these murders And sure, I did find George Hall's story compelling. But even if those informants were lying at the trial, that doesn't mean David Wood didn't do it Plus, in order to do the story Greg was pitching I'd have to reinvestigate it from scratch. All six murders in a matter of weeks That sounded impossible But I was curious about what Greg was up to. hisis overall project trying to sow enough doubt at the last minute in order to save his client's life I'd seen executions get stayed for procedural claims about execution methods or a defendant's mental fitness But this wasn't just a claim about an unfair trial. Greg was saying David Wood didn't do it at all And now somehow he's supposed to prove that in a few months In death penalty circles, many smart and knowledgeable people are critical of Greg's line of work Prosecutors, judges, victim family members They say that Cital defense lawyers like Greg are just ideologically opposed to the death penalty Zealot' even who will do anything and everything to stop or delay an execution And their work wastes time and money, harms the justice system And worst of all, denies victims' families the closure they deserve. All of that could be true. O Greg could have just four months to stop the state from killing an innocent man So I told Greg. I'm not going to do the big feature story on David Wood you're imagining But what if I follow you around Be there with a microphone as you strategize with your team for witnesses and try to persuade people of David Wood's innocence with the clock ticking Greg had a million reasons to say no I'm still kind of shocked. that he said yes From Serial Productions, the Marshall Project and the New York Times, this is the last twelve weeks I'm Murie Schmer This podcast is supported by American Beverage. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know facts are the first ingredient. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing clear information about the ingredients in their beverages at goodtnowfacts dot org dot For over one hundred forty ingredients, you can find common uses, alternative names, and safety assessments from food safety authorities around the world Goodtnowfacts dot org is meant to be a first stop to learn more about your favorite beverages. No spin, no judgment, just facts. Visit good tonowfacts dot org dot This podcast is supported by Simon and Schuster. What's really happening inside Donald Trump's White House? Fromrize winning reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, comes regime Change, the explosive inside account of the most consequential presidency of our time Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access, this gripping new book takes you behind closed doors, into the Oval Office, and inside the decisions reshaping America and the world, the power, the conflict, the consequences. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, wherever books are sold Capital raising is being redefined in real time from macro disruptions and shifting investor expectations to AI driven demand and the rise of private credit when headlines can tilt markets overnight How can companies stay on course? strrategic alternatives, the RBC Capital Markets podcast explores how corporates and investors are navigating new pathways to raise capital, create value and drive growth When conditions change, alternatives matter Listen to strategic alternatives, available wherever you get your podcasts leadading up to his execution date David Wood's lawyers didn't just contact me. They tried some of the other usual suspects, who often bring attention to death row cases The Innocence Project, Kim Kardashian, among others None of it worked And it's not hard to see why You can ask me Is there any doubt in your mind This is the man. that committed this heinous crimes against these little girls. None So ever None None This is Detective John Gurero, formerly of the El Paso Police Department, now retired Johnny if you talk to him for five minutes I'm going to let him lay out the basics of David Wood's case This was one of the biggest cases of his career, so it's a story he likes telling. It starts in the late summer of nineteen eighty seven call came in Two county employees said they'd been working out in the desert, northeast of the city, when they saw something pretty disturbing They saw something protruding out of the sand And one of them said Hey it looks like a damn it looks like a leg. and then so they went up there and As they got closer, they went, Oh hell it is a leg, you know, sticking out. So they made the call and then And then here we go. it started from there It was the body of a woman named Rosa Maria Casio. She was twenty three or twenty four in from out of town to visit family They search the area in pretty quickly, about fifty feet away. They find a second body. Karen Baker. She's twenty from El Paso A mother of three young children So the police start looking into both of these deaths And then a month and a half later A can nine team finds a couple more bodies, not far from the first two. These belong to Desie Wheatley and Dawn Smith, both middle school aged girls. A few weeks later, a fifth body, Angelica Frasto, seventeen And then in the same area of desert, they find twenty three year old Ivy Williams So now Johnny has six victims in a matter of a few months At that point, you know, we're going like, holy crap, man, you know, And we have a fucking serial killer here somewhere, you know Deserts don't preserve much, so finding evidence in cases like these can be especially difficult Mostly police are finding skeletons out there But as Johnny investigates, clues start coming in from a surprising source Middle school kids They were all friends with one of the victims We started getting information from several people uh about this this white guy that was going around U in a bait truck and also in a motorcycle Passo is majority Hispanic, so this detail, a white guy stood out to Johnny. Kids say this guy was always around. Giving weeds to them and buying them beer and that kind of stuff Um And then also we were told that he was real focused on these young girls, you know, real young girls, fifteen, sixteen year old little girls Don't remember who it was, but Somebody gave us this nickname Skeeter In old tapes from this investigation, you hear this name come up a lot Peter. Did you ever hear any of the kids mention A guy by the name of Skeeter. offered him some marijuana or something like that? You knew him by a nickname? byy Seter. How long had you known him? And then we started asking people about this guy Seter, Seter, Scoeter. A Ser or a scooter? A Ser. That was that guy in the truck. That was a guy in the truck Somebody said, Well, Skeeter is a guy that just got out of prison. Skeeter is who. And his name is David Wood, I guess. No David Wood. U Of course we run his name The mechanics of how Skeeter and David Wood get linked are hazy In the recordings I listened to, most of the kids had no idea who Scoer was And the ones who say skeeter was David Wood. clear if they put that together themselves or if they were repeating the connection that the cops made In any case, when Johnny learns more about David Wood's criminal record, He discovers a wrap sheet that's long and egregious. Multiple sexual crimes against girls. One as young as twelve. and the timeline tracks. David Wood had been released from prison less than a month before the first of these victims disappeared So, you know, I mean, right away, the antennas go up, you know, the red lights start blinking and what have you, you know By this point, David Wood is Johnny's prime suspect A nickname in a history of crimes, no matter how unsettling aren't enough to put him away for six murders. But then Johnny gets his first big break So this patrol officer calls in and says, Hey, look, I don't know if it's related or not, but this girl I'm used a binnacular. She's a hooker. She she works downtown. She's a heroin addict But she's telling people that she was taken out to the desert in Northeast Dl Pas when this guy was going to rape her And u She was able to escape Um And a chocolate picked her up. Her name was Judith Kelling. She died in twenty fourteen, but Johnny interviewed her back when it happened. Is it detective John Gerreo, Pisoner or You take the Junkerer officer Ben a Yeller Today's date is Monday, november sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Judith Kelling is in her mid twenties at the time She tells Johnny that she out by a circle K convenience store and was trying to hitchhike to a friend's house when a white guy picked her up in his truck. Instead of taking her where she wanted to go, he has to make a stop. She was annoyed, but also not in a hurry She says he parked outside an apartment and went in. Five ten minutes came back out. and when he came back out, I noticed he had a rope in his pocket hanging out, but I didn't think nothing at the time. And when he got back in truck, he said, he asked me if I want to do some coke with him The guy told Judith Kelling the cocaine was stashed by the side of the road. But then he drove out to a pretty remote spot in the desert and stopped the truck. She describes how the guy grabbed a rolled up blanket and a shovel out of the truck bed And he took the shovel and he started digging. and he came back, he got the blanket. and he told me he took me he made me get out the truck. I didn't want I told him, just take me back. He kept calling me a bitch. He goes, Don't turn around bitch. And I was getting panicked, hed scared becausecause I thought he was going try something with me. Then at that point I knew Kelling says the guy tied her up, threw her down on the blanket and raped her Also, he kept ordering her to say that she was fourteen years old Then the guy heard some voices nearby Kelling says he got spooked and sped off in his truck, leaving her tied up in the middle of nowhere. After the interview, Judith identifies David Wood in a photo lineup and takes police to where she was raped Johnny says it's around fifty yards from where the murder victims were found Within a few weeks, the police arrest David Wood for Kelling's rape David Wood denies ever having raped Judith Kelling But he's convicted and sent to prison. Meanwhile, Johnny continues trying to prove that David Wood is also the desert killer It ends up taking him and the prosecutors more than four years Their main piece of physical evidence is a collection of orange fibers, threads posossibly from a blanket The police find some near one of the victim's bodies in the desert. They find similar ones in a vacuum cleaner at David Wood's apartment The other big thing that helps Johnny Testimony from those two men who had been in prison with David Wood. When Wood is finally put on trial for the murders, they both swear under oath, that David Wood confess to them that he was the desert killer Nearly five years after the rape conviction, a jury finds David Wood guilty of murder He's sentenced to death So yeah This is the case that Greg Worchuck is trying to fight a hideous case in which the jury needed less than ninety minutes to hand down a death sentence A case that over the course of three decades, numerous appeals courts have found no reason to question But Greg is adamant that the cops, the prosecutors, the jury, the judges, they all got it wrong. He My producer, Evan Melleth and I meet Greg for the first time in mid december twenty twenty four at the El Paso County Courthouse. Greg looks a little like a younger Dick Van Dyke, if you know that reference, which Greg wouldood tall and wiry, white hair, trim beard. Greg is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he just flew in from There's a nervous energy wafting off them. I mean, should I start from the top or C we just start with what's important to you right now? Yeah what's important to me right now is I'm hoping to see The incoming district attorney of El Paso who was elected in November. Greg took on David Wood as a client back in two thousand nine. The first time Wood was scheduled to be executed Greg managed to get a stay back then. no small feed in Texas. But eventually another execution date got set So now he's got exactly eighty seven days to stop it If you ask Greg, he could rattle off a bunch of holes he sees in the case, including that story from George Hall about the jailhouse informants. But an even bigger issue, he tells me has to do with DNA After he took the case, he asked the courts to allow the retesting of a few pieces of evidence with newer technology A piece of a victim's clothing turned up male DNA. And it was not David Wood's DNA Since then, Greg has been on a mission to get more evidence tested. There are more than a hundred other pieces of evidence But the state of Texas has repeatedly said no. So that's what Greg is focused on today plan is to meet with James Montoya, the incoming DA and convince them to support more DNA testing And that's not all There's this other thing. I won't bore you with the details of why this happened, but just know that years ago, the El Paso DA handed this whole case off to the Texas attttorney general A very pro death penalty Republican So what Greg really wants is for Montoya, a Democrat, to ask for the case back then ask the courts to halt the execution and then test the DNA Three huge asks That's Greg's plan But maybe it's not accurate to call this a plan There's no meeting scheduled In fact, it sounds like Montoya might not even know who Greg is I left him the longest text message I've ever sent to anyone about David Wood's case asking for an opportunity to speak with him while I was in El Paso U D didnn't hear back from him. That was about two weeks ago I left him a voicemail message this morning, told him I' in El Paso, I flew in from Madison, Wisconsin,' to be here for a few days and I hope that he will Speak with me for just a few minutes about David Wood's case The DA's office is on the second floor of the courthouse, so we take the elevator up to a waiting area. There's a flat screen TV playing the show Cake Wars Grag announces himself to a receptionist and we sit. Greg has invited us here, but he's not completely sold yet on'm being followed around with microphones Or maybe not sold enough to let us tape him ambushing the next district attttorney of El Paso So I'm just gonna to tell you what happens next We wait for about ten minutes, and then a figure sweeps by, a sort of boyish young man in a suit, trailed by an aide And Greg leaps from his chair and I realize This is Montoya. the mood turns cringy very fast Montoya apparently does know who Greg is after all and says pretty quickly Sorry, but we're not going to get involved They don't have the bandwidth. That's the word he uses Greg says, couldouldn't we just talk for five minutes Montoya says he has another meeting. Greg says he came all the way from Wisconsin And Montoya gets blunt, says, I'm telling you, it's not happening So Grag changes tack, talking faster now, diving right for the bullet points There's DNA from someone else. The execution date is just a few months away They're talking over each other now, like they're performing monologues from two different plays I'm staring at my hands, fiddling with my wedding ring. And I look over at my producer Alvin, and he's doing the exact same thing Greg asks if he can come back in a few weeks, and Montoya says, sure, but his answer will still be no Greg says he'll come back anyway. This all takes less than two minutes, but it's like the awkwardness ripped a ho in the spaceetime continuum. It might as well have been a week. We take the elevator back down, go outside, and turn the recorder back on for a debrief That was Um Very discouraging, very disappointing. I had higher hopes that He would be willing to get involved. I wish he could give me ten or fifteen minutes and that I could go through the case in a very calm and logical manner I mean, I do understand he's taking over an office that's been in a lot of chaos over the last few years and they also have u a huge case coming up probablyrobably the biggest case in Stavid Woods, and this's the Walmart shooting which is The Walmart shooting where twenty three people were killed So yeah Maybe the newly elected DA has enough to do and wouldn't want to mess with the long awaited execution of El Paso's most notorious serial killer But there are only eighty seven days left for Greg to find some way to get Montoya on his side I ask him if considering how that interaction just went, he had any realistic hope that Montoya would ever talk to him. So I'm an optimist. I'm not a naive optimist, but I do hold out hope that Lucy will not pull away the football when I run up to kick it this time Charlie Brown's my hero Charlie Brown, who keeps trying no matter what Greg tells Alvin and me he sees wisdom in that approach in death row cases like this. The second you let yourself get discouraged and give up, you're doomed. If you're not ready to kick the football with all you've got, when the one time Lucy doesn't pull it away and you get cynical about the legal system and its ability to uh deliver justice then When the planets align you're not going to be ready. I actually was surprised that he said I could come back after january first to talk with him again. You did follow that up by saying you're going to get the same answer. getting rid of you if Iy. That was my take. Well, maybe so, but I'm going to come back after january first. Charlie Brown. That's right. That's right. The next morning, Alvin and I meet Greg in the lobby of a very beige hotel near the airport. Joining us is another lawyer who got in last night, Jeremy Shepppers. Greg, how are you How feel like? My knee feels like fucking shit from running the marathon, but other than that, not You ran the marathon? Yeah, I ran the Dallas Marathon Sunday. Work is not punishing enough, so I have to crank out a marathon on my off time on the weekends. Jeremy, if you can't tell already, is pretty much a photo negative of Greg. They both grew up in Michigan, but that's where the similarities stop Jeremy is sarcastic, where Greg is earnest, a millennial in flannel and jeans, where Greg opts for the jacket and tie Jeremy is essentially Greg's co captain on this case He works at a federal public deffender office, where he runs a Cital habeas unit chew for short Chs often get involved in the final run up to an execution Bringing a whole team of lawyers and investigators on board Today's plan is to try to get the local press interested in their mission to test the DNA thinks if there are news stories about the problems in David Wood's case, maybe that will push Montoya to meet with him Should we all get in the same car? So we head to KVIA, El Paso's ABC station, and it's there talking to the nightly news anchor that the lawyers get their first glimmer of good news gave me That's after the break This podcast is supported by American Beverage. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know facts are the first ingredient. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing clear information about the ingredients in their beverages at good tonowfacts. org For over one hundred forty ingredients, you can find common uses, alternative names, and safety assessments from food safety authorities around the world Goodtnowfacts dot org is meant to be a first stop to learn more about your favorite beverages. No spin, no judgment, just facts. Visit goodonowfacts dot org dot This podcast is supported by Simon and Schuster. What's really happening inside Donald Trump's White House? From prize winning reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, comes regime Change, the explosive inside account of the most consequential presidency of our time Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access, this gripping new book takes you behind closed doors, into the Oval Office, and inside the decisions reshaping America and the world, the power, the conflict, the consequences. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, wherever books are sold Capital raising is being redefined in real time from macro disruptions and shifting investor expectations to AI driven demand and the rise of private credit When headlines can tilt markets overnight How can companies stay on course? Strategic alternatives, the RBC Capital Markets podcast explores how corporates and investors are navigating new pathways to raise capital, create value, and drive growth When conditions change, alternatives matter Listen to strategic alternatives, available wherever you get your podcast We get to KVIA in the early afternoon The place is decorated for Christmas, garland and tinsel everywhere The nightly news anchor here is named Stephanie Vae, and she greets us with a big camera ready smile and walks us into a conference room. conf Stephanie already knows David Wood's case pretty well A few years ago, she covered the desesert murders on her podcast called Borderland Crimes Greg heard it and was not a fan He thought it made his client sound stone cold guilty Greg asked for this meeting anyway, so he must think he can sway Stephanie to at least consider his side Greg wants Stephanie to do a story where she interviews Montoya and asks him pointed questions like Why won't he take on the case And why hasn't DNA been tested Greg himself doesn't want to go on camera He doesn't want to risk personally antagonizing Montoya But Stephanie seems skeptical I can't even suppose to like think for him, but just as a person, I would think, the last thing that the district attorney would want to do is not only have to restructure an office. It's been in turmoil for the last Four years but also reopen one of the oldest death penalty cases in El Paso, right But I do feel like if you were to apply that pressure In other words, if Greg were to go on camera and ask the tough questions himself. You raising the question allows me to then turn and ask that question. And so I just feel like if you're the one raising the questions, it would sound better coming from your mouth and mine.ure Greg seems open to this idea, onlyly there's a wrinkle Stephanie tells us she's leaving the Nightly newews Roughly two weeks from now, she'll no longer be at KVIA Sure, the new anchor could maybe take the story, but there's no guarantee As they talk about timing, Greg suddenly veers into trying to sell Stephanie on what he sees as the problems in the case. So George Call was in prison with David Greg whips out the Manila envelope with George Hall's signed decclaration inside. He starts quoting from it A lot of it is pretty dry Details about George Hall's interactions of the authorities, the terms of his parole. the Capital murder trial and haul and swing. I realize this is a version of the pitch he might have given Montoya if he'd gotten a meeting yesterday It's just a torrent of raw information. It's exhausting. It's There's a lot There's a lot wrong with this case I think the fact that DNA has not been tested and that it's pretty clear that they were using jailhouse witnesses to corroborate a story is is a little it makes me a little uneasy But I guess I was actually talking about this case with a colleague of mine in another news operation. and he was saying, well, what do you say to the fact that there were no more No more deaths. That's not true is what you say Well, I mean, obviously, there were deaths. I mean, everywhere, but doing bodies buried in the desert. And in fact, during the Cap of murder trial, the police discovered a body buried in the desert. and they had an in chambers discussion about whether or not This is an important point. Greg is saying, I know people believe this about the case, that David Wood must have done it because after he was arrested, the police didn't find any more bodies in the desert But it's not true They actually did find at least one body, while David Wood was on trial As I'm listening, I realize this is what Greg's up against Double barrel problem People think they know it happened, but they're missing crucial information And while Greg himself has mastered that information He spent less time figuring out how to distill it into a good story. About a half hour into their conversation, Stephanie seems ready to wrap this whole thing up Yeah, yeah sure. Sorry because the four o'clock producer is asking me to help her with something. Do you have to be on air in a second or two? I probably need to go in about fifteen minut. Okay, all right. As everybody starts packing up Greg seems to suddenly remember his real goal He wants to talk to Montoya directly And a question just pops out of his mouth Can you get to meet it with him Probably could.Qait a second. Are you serious? You must talk to Greg Worschop and Jeremy Shepard. Yes, I can definitely I can try and get a meeting with you and him. I could probably try and do that. I've been working in this town a long time. Yeah. I can try. I can't promise anything. That's wonderful. Yeah, I'll do what I can.. I'll talk to him. We're pulling at any string we can. So here was my question. Could Stephanie really get Greg a meeting with Montoya or was that just her polite way of getting rid of them When we meet up with Greg and Jeremy in the hotel lobby the next morning, it looks like they already have an answer. Okay, so the background is that Stephanie Valle spoke with James Montoya last night. And she was going to send him the podcast, the Borderlands podcast. M not be the most helpful did David W is guilty podcast take take. let's listen to this. But in any event, she did talk to him and texted me that he seemed Well let me just read the text here He seemed open to listening. I'm not saying I changed his mind, but he will at least listen to an argument. They're both buzzing, still in shock that Stephanie did this for them Getting Mantoya on board would be huge It would mean halting the execution was just weeks to go There would be time to finally test the DNA. Greg wants to text Montoya immediately Jeremy says, Maybe don't text yet. Give M Toya some space. Maybe send him something to read But Greg wants to strike while the iron is hot. In these little disagreements, Greg, the long timer, gets the final say. So he begins typing, hunts and pecs with one finger When Greg said we could follow his team around, I didn't anticipate just how much time we'd spend watching them scrunched around an iPhone If you squinted, it kind of looked like Alvin and I were documenting two buddies trying to get a second date It was surreal to think that someone's execution might depend on this ' going to be the highlight of the podcast says Mr. Montora, after I met with Stephanie Vaya yesterday, she told me that she reached out to you to discuss David Wood's case Would you be willing to meet with me and my co couounsel Jeremy Shepppers later today or tomorrow before noon We only need five ten minutes of your time Okay. All right Pendy off it goirs. the group. I might be something else Montoyia does not text back The lawyers leave El Paso As the year ends, Stephanie's last day at KVIA is coming up The holidays are approaching which means realistically, Greg and Jeremy are going to lose precious days of work before the execution Greg wants to keep pushing ahead and decides he might as well do the interview. Stephanie sets it up and they tape in an interview over Zoom two days after Christmas. A week later, Alvin and I join a weekly video call with the whole defense team, around ten people There's some chit chat about the holidays, and then Greg jumps in with the first agenda item can probably give everybody an update on Stephanie Valle in the interview So Uh, I gave this u Zoom interview Greg reports that the interview seemed to go, you know, okay, pretty well But then Stephanie sent him a text just an hour ago or so saying that the file was corrupted. that she was doing on her computer she was Apparently, the video recording of their interview got messed up somehow. She was going to ask the IT department to look at her computer, but now, quote, they're saying since it's my last week, they have to wipe it and take it back anyway as part of the offboarding process She adds, quote I'm sorry I couldn't help. Greg writes back Oh my goodness, I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do He offers to redo the interview There might not be enough time to get it on TV, but maybe she could talk about it on her podcast. And she said at this point, I can't redo it because I'm in professional limbo And I'll let you know I assess Greg's reaction to all of this as twenty percent disappointment and eighty percent befuddlement Jeremy, on the other hand, is one hundred percent not buying it. Did you Greg, did you ask Stephanie if her dog ate her homework tooit while she was busy making shit up about why she couldn't air this This feels like one of those zones where the eternal optimist is going to agree with her and the ternal pessimist thinks this is complete and total fucking bullshit. oldld feet about. It did strike me as a bit odd. I will admit to that, Jeremy. and maybe Maybe she got a better offer than her own podcast after she did this interview. You know, she's not leaving for another week. think they'd be able to Fix your computer in the meantime before wiping it Yeah I wonder if the local ABC station might have more than one laptop computer fail. could be wrong about their computer outlay, but I mean I think kind of like piecing it all together. She probably has some job offer And she thinks she can't run a story on David Wood right now A few days later, Stephanie says goodbye to the Nightly News And then the other shoe finally drops in the form of an Instagram post Hi everyone. A lot of you have asked me what I'll be doing now that I'm no longer anchoring KVIA's evening newscast