[Defense attorneys] first major break came in 2011, when a DNA test revealed another man’s blood on one of the victims’ clothing. The lawyers asked to test more items, but a series of state and federal judges refused, on the grounds that Wood was trying to “unreasonably delay the execution of his sentence.”
But a new break came last fall, in the form of a voicemail. In a molasses drawl, a former prisoner named George Hall invited Wood’s lawyers to his home in rural Missouri. He told them that in 1990, El Paso police had asked him for help as they built their case against Wood.
“We can help you, if you can help us,” he remembered them saying. He took that as an invitation to falsely claim Wood had confessed to him when they were incarcerated together, in exchange for reward money or early release from prison. He refused to lie, he said, but two other men from their cell block became the star witnesses at Wood’s death penalty trial.
Wood’s lawyers are including these claims in a new petition to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which they hope will halt the execution. “These men fabricated their story at the trial,” said Wood’s lawyer Greg Wiercioch.
Related story about a different case, “Supreme Court to consider death row plea for DNA testing” (archived).