u/mauricechammah

Hi there: I spent a lot of the last couple of years reporting on the David Wood case (aka the "desert killings") for a podcast. The case will soon be going back into court, with witnesses claiming David Wood is innocent, and there have been various news stories in the last few years revealing, among other things:

-One blood spot on a piece of a victim's clothing matched a man who was not David Wood. There are dozens of pieces of crime scene evidence that hasn't been tested for DNA.

-One witness claims the police relied on problematic jailhouse informants to give false testimony.

-Some victim family members have questioned whether David Wood is exclusively the "desert killer," or whether he didn't act alone.

As a journalist who does not live in El Paso — I'm in Austin — I'm curious to know if his innocence claims have gotten any traction among the public, or whether most people still think he's guilty. Or else whether the case is frankly just not that well-known anymore, given it happened in 1987.

Here's the podcast if you're curious: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/06/16/introducing-the-last-12-weeks-podcast

Hey everyone,

In 1992, David Wood was convicted of murdering young women and girls and burying them in the desert outside El Paso, earning him the nickname the Desert Killer. More than 30 years later, his lawyers have one last chance to argue his innocence and stop his execution.

The series “The Last 12 Weeks,” produced in collaboration between Serial Productions and The Marshall Project, follows a team of capital defense attorneys as they try to save their client’s life.With an extraordinary level of access to a capital case in its final stretch, the reporter Maurice Chammah takes listeners into the room. You can listen to the five-episode series here for free, even if you’re not yet an NYT subscriber.

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5