Episode 2: The Whataburger Declaration

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Last 12 Weeks

Episode 2: The Whataburger Declaration
Serial Productions & The New York Times | June 18, 2026

Overview of Episode Theme

This episode, hosted by Maurice Chammah and Alvin Melathe, dives deep into the frantic, last-ditch efforts by David Wood’s defense team as they scramble for new evidence before his scheduled execution. The episode revolves around the desperate search for alternate suspects, the pitfalls and eccentricities of tunnel vision within law enforcement, and the sometimes bizarre, always high-stakes work of capital defense. A surprising break comes when a witness, Ramona Desmukes, shares revelations in a Texas Whataburger that could send shockwaves through the case against Wood—a moment that becomes the episode’s focal point.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: The Elusiveness of "New" Evidence

• The case against David Wood is largely circumstantial (00:28), lacking direct physical evidence. Lead attorney Greg Werchuck and his team are looking for anything—no matter how tenuous—that might cast sufficient doubt to halt an execution.
  • "There's no one big, shiny piece of evidence for the defense to knock down. Instead, they have a million little threads they can pull at." — Maurice (01:38)

2. Michelle Bradley’s Radical Theory (05:23–14:14)

• New lead from Michelle Bradley, who suspects her deceased father (James Patrick Bradley, convicted of killing his wife/stepmother) as the true perpetrator.
• Defense team debates worthiness of the lead. Greg is skeptical; Naomi Fenwick urges pursuing it for potential DNA comparison and as further evidence of alternate suspects.
  • Naomi (07:21): "At the very least, it adds to the list of folks...whose DNA they could test against the DNA they know is male and is unidentified and is not David Wood."
• Naomi and producer Alvin visit Michelle, who is distraught and offers mostly hearsay. The only direct recollection: seeing a woman (later identified as possible victim Ivy Williams) in her father’s house (10:52–12:31).
• They also interview Michelle's estranged sister, Misty Metz, who outright rejects the theory that their father was connected to the murders (23:38–25:29).
  • Misty (24:24): "My dad did something terrible. He murdered my stepmother. That’s indisputable. But I don't think he had anything to do with...Woods. I really don't."

3. The Tunnel Vision Theory & Alternate Suspects (14:22–20:54)

• Greg’s critical theory: the police zeroed in on David Wood to the exclusion of other viable suspects under immense public and internal pressure.
• Examples:
  • Salvador Martinez (known to victims and failed polygraph) never had his DNA compared to crime scene evidence (15:45–16:45).
  • David Wood’s truck couldn’t have been used for some killings—it was in a salvage yard during relevant periods.
• Greg also explores whether the fibers used as key evidence could have been planted, or, more boldly, accuses police of tampering given the unsecured crime scene (17:25–19:53).

4. The Plyler ("Skeeter") Lead & Deadline Tactics (20:12–22:39)

• New potential suspect: Michael Plyler, whose name had been buried in thousands of pages of files. His nickname "Skeeter" surfaces as possibly misattributed to Wood.
• Discussion of why last-minute filings are common in capital defense—defense lawyers are incentivized to bring fresh claims right before execution to force judicial review (20:38–22:39).

5. The Whataburger Declaration: Ramona Desmukes Steps Forward (29:43–44:35)

• Ramona Desmukes (aka Mona), Cheryl Vasquez’s best friend, recounts her own amateur investigation in the 1980s (33:33–36:28).
  • Sets bait at a Circle K; is approached by David Wood, who thinks she’s Cheryl and gives her a quarter to call home, showing no criminal intent (35:14–35:32).
  • Ramona forms a strange rapport with Wood but, along with her mother, finds no incriminating evidence and becomes convinced of his innocence.
  • Claims police tried to pressure her into making a false statement implicating Wood (37:16–37:58).
    • Ramona (37:42): "We need you to tell us that David Wood tried to take you... Well, that's not the truth. They said, 'You know, you look just like all the other girls that are gone. This could be you.'"
• Ramona claims Judith Kelling—key prosecution witness and rape accuser—privately confided her court testimony was fabricated in exchange for a deal, naming Mike Plyler (not Wood) as her actual rapist (40:44–42:20).
  • Ramona (42:11): "They made a deal with me to get me out of jail, and all I gotta do is testify against this guy. ...I was like, well, were you even raped? She’s like, yeah, but not by him. ...She said, Mike Plyler."

6. Debate over Kelling’s Reliability & Cop Credibility (40:20–44:05)

• Kelling's fluctuating accounts and possible informant status raise doubts about her original testimony that underpinned the state’s case.
• Greg sees Ramona’s account as a significant (if not bombshell) addition highlighting tunnel vision and suppression of alternate suspects.

7. Plyler’s Response (44:35–46:30)

• The team tracks down Michael Plyler, who denies all claims, refuses to engage further, and denies using the nickname "Skeeter".

8. Legal and Ethical Quandaries

• Discussion: the ethics and pitfalls of introducing vaguely sourced, single-witness evidence into life-and-death legal filings (27:09).
• Reality of the death penalty: the process motivates legal teams to "knock on every door, one more time," resulting in both promising and dubious claims surfacing at the eleventh hour.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the burden of capital defense:
  • "Every hour the lawyers spend running down one lead that's a dead end is an hour they could spend on another. At the same time, they have no idea which lead could finally pay off and maybe even save David Wood's life." — Maurice (06:43)
• Naomi’s ambivalence, breaking the fourth wall:
  • Naomi (08:59): "I already know I am going to regret all of this deeply. And I’m going to wake up at 2am replaying everything I’ve told you and telling myself it was a terrible idea."
• On law enforcement tactic allegations:
  • Ramona (37:58): "They wanted me to write a statement. They told me, out there in the desert, we need you to tell us that David Wood tried to take you... Well, that's not the truth. They said, 'You know, you look just like all the other girls that are gone. This could be you.'"
  • Detective Guerrero’s blunt response, when contacted: "She's full of shit...I was never accused of any wrongdoing or coercion by anyone I talked to or any case I worked." (39:20)
• Defense skepticism of prosecution’s evidence:
  • "Option B, Greg can say, sure, the fibers match because you guys planted them there." — Maurice (19:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:28 — Weak case, lack of direct evidence, circumstantial thread
• 05:23 — Michelle Bradley’s theory; Brady disclosure
• 07:21 — Naomi’s optimism for alternate suspect DNA angle
• 10:52–12:31 — Michelle’s direct memory of seeing a possible victim
• 14:22–16:45 — Other viable suspects overlooked (Salvador Martinez)
• 17:25–19:53 — The fiber evidence and allegations of crime scene tampering
• 20:12–20:54 — Michael Plyler ("Skeeter") theory and late-stage defense tactics
• 23:38–25:29 — Misty Metz rebuts Michelle’s story
• 33:33–36:28 — Ramona describes the amateur sting, interactions with Wood, and police pressure
• 37:16–37:58 — Police try to coerce a false statement from Ramona
• 40:44–42:20 — Ramona’s alleged conversation with Judith Kelling
• 43:10–43:31 — The “Skeeter” nickname mystery
• 44:35–46:30 — Attempt to confront Michael Plyler; denial and refusal
• Entire Whataburger scene: 31:33–44:35

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Summary and Takeaways

This episode underscores the chaotic rigor and emotional tension that pervades the final weeks of a capital case. The defense team, racing against the clock, sifts through thin leads—sometimes grasping at straws, other times stumbling upon provocative, if not outright wild, new testimony. The “Whataburger Declaration” serves as both a metaphor for the unpredictable, happenstance nature of new evidence in old cases and a literal scene of potential breakthrough, as Ramona’s claims—however suspect—are folded into last-ditch legal filings.

The episode also spotlights the human element: the doubts, defenses, and self-interrogations of lawyers and journalists alike; the pain and divisions within victims’ and suspects’ families; and the unrelenting specter of state-sanctioned death that drives everyone, sometimes, to acts of desperation or hope.

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Coming Next:
Greg prepares to confront his toughest audience yet—the mother of one of the Desert Killer’s victims.

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Transcript

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Equal housing lender. At David wood's original trial in 1992, the lead prosecutor acknowledged there was almost no direct proof tying wood to the desert murders. In fact, she said it multiple times, like she was trying to get in front of it. Called it, quote, purely a circumstantial evidence case. This is exactly what David wood's legal team is now trying to exploit. The lack of direct evidence, Especially for a serial killer case involving six murders. The only physical evidence against David wood are the fibers found at his apartment and on one of the victims. Then there's the rest of it. The jailhouse informants who claim wood confessed to them a rape that resembled the murders. David wood's prior criminal history and witnesses. People who saw him or someone who looked like him. With the victims, Some of these witnesses were pretty fuzzy on details or had credibility issues. You might think the overall weakness of the case would be good for David wood's lawyers, make it easier to prove his innocence. But the problem is the way the state constructed the case. There's no one big, shiny piece of evidence for the defense to knock down. Instead, they have a million little threads they can pull at seemingly endless rabbit trails to run down. For the last 15 years, Greg Werchuck, the lead attorney on the case, has been working pretty much solo. And for much of that time, he's been focused on the DNA. When a few items were tested in 2010, they turned up a match to an unknown male, not David wood. So Greg's been litigating back and forth for more than a decade to test more items from the crime scenes. He got a final no just a few months before we started following him around. But now Greg has a team and a dwindling number of days to do every little thing he's put off. Comb through the records one last time, look for remaining witnesses he and his team need. The kind of bombshell the courts just can't ignore. And 58 days before the execution, they just may have one. From serial productions, the marshall project, and the new york times. This is the last 12 weeks. Maurice I'm Maurice Shamah.

[C]

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[B]

I'm David Sanger. I cover the White House and National Security at the New York Times. And I try to explain what decisions made in Washington mean for you wherever you live. This is why the Times sends me to the Oval Office when the President is making a major decision or has me ride along on Air Force One on critical trips. And I talk to foreign leaders, exploring why they're so often at odds with the United States. We live in a world of misinformation and disinformation. It's never been more important to have reliable sources of on the ground reporting. If you want firsthand reporting on how U.S. policy affects the world, consider subscribing to the New York Times. On a Tuesday afternoon, Alvin and I get texts from Greg and his co counsel Jeremy, with links to an emergency zoom meeting. Well, we can just start going. I forwarded you guys the email with the information we got from the ag. Pretty interesting stuff. In a few weeks, the lawyers will send the courts a giant legal filing with all their best arguments for why they think David Wood is innocent. This kind of filing has a bunch of rules. Chief among them. They can't just rehash a bunch of old claims from previous appeals. They need new arguments. Jeremy's gathered everyone together for just this reason. Something new has come in. A grisly story from a woman in El Paso named Michelle Bradley.

[A]

The information is pretty interesting.

[B]

So she says that she thinks her father, James Patrick Bradley, is responsible for the murders here. Her father was convicted in 1995 of chopping up Michelle Bradley's stepmother and James Bradley's wife at the time, dismembering her body and tossing it around in El Paso, New Mexico. I guess it was like. Michelle has a pretty radical theory. She's not so sure David Wood actually killed all those women. She thinks someone else was involved, her own father. So Michelle called the Attorney General's office, the prosecutors in this case, that office handed over her information to the defense because they're legally required to. It's called a Brady Disclosure. As Jeremy lays this all out, I'm thinking, oh, my God. But I look over at Greg on his little zoom screen and he's giving nothing. His face is totally blank.

[D]

I mean, you know, again, I don't want to pour water over alternative suspect, but the information we have right now, it's not very. It's not very compelling to me. I mean, you know, when we first got the message, you get your hopes up, but it's. My daughter thinks dad may have committed these crimes he didn't confess to her. It's pretty tenuous.

[B]

Anyway, part of Greg's reaction can be chalked up to the source of the information. Sure, the AG's office has to hand over leads, but Greg has been at this long enough to be skeptical of anything that comes from that office. And these are tough calls. Every hour the lawyers spend running down one lead that's a dead end. It's an hour they could spend on another. At the same time, they have no idea which lead could finally pay off and maybe even save David Wood's life. As Greg is talking, I notice another lawyer from Jeremy's office, Naomi Fenwick, is pursing her lips, almost wincing. She lets Greg finish before jumping in.

[E]

Well, I'm going to strike the hopeful note and say that I think it's potentially really important. At the very least, you know, it adds to the list of folks who they. Whose DNA they could test against. The DNA they know is male and is unidentified and is not David Wood. And I think it's helpful in continuing to paint this picture that they're refusing to investigate or explore other options.

[D]

I don't want to be distracted too much because I. I'm not saying people can come out of the woodwork on a high profile case like this, that they just. It can be distracting. Anyway, I'm just. I'm not being unhopeful. I'm just saying let's not lose focus.

[B]

Are you supposed to be the eternal spring of optimism, Greg? I am, I am.

[D]

But I'm saying let's not, you know, let's not start heading down too many rabbit trails. And this might be the ages very strategy is to send us off on a wild goose chase.

[B]

The lawyers talk some more and ultimately decide the lead is worth checking out. We meet up with them in El Paso. Naomi is the one assigned to pay a visit to Michelle Bradley. And Alvin goes with her. I'll let him take it from here.

[F]

One important thing I learned about Naomi pretty quickly as we're driving around El Paso. Is that she has, let's call it some ambivalence about me tagging along with her.

[E]

I already know I am going to regret all of this deeply. And I'm going to wake up at 2am replaying everything I've told you and telling myself it was a terrible idea.

[F]

Naomi, from what I've noticed in Zoom Calls at least, is sharp, with a teasing sense of humor. Bit of a shit talker. But on this car ride, she's also cautious, even a little cagey. It's not that Naomi is against press interest in her client's case. She knows it can be useful. It's more that me being here observing her at work, observing her.

[E]

I don't know. It's really jarring. I'm not a trial lawyer, right? I don't stand up in court and put on a show.

[F]

I think some of the cagediness has to do with a mission today. Michelle Bradley's dad died in prison more than a decade ago. So Naomi needs Michelle to give her some more detail. Flesh out her theory about her dad. The hope is that Michelle will say something that Naomi can then corroborate with other people. Nudge this whole thing out of the realm of theory and grounded in some facts. The lawyers call it developing a claim. The plan to develop this claim, I am somewhat surprised to find out, is to knock on Michelle's door without any advance warning. No phone call, nothing. This, I learn, is standard operating procedure with habeas lawyers and investigators. They prefer to take their chances in person rather than entertaining the risk of getting a no over the phone. Under ideal circumstances, Naomi would be taking great pains to carefully choreograph her approach to build a quick intimacy with Michelle. Get her comfortable and talking. But my presence in all this and sticking Naomi's partner dance and turning into more of a flash mob situation. We spend a good deal of time rehearsing how. I'm not gonna get in her way.

[E]

If we do find her, what are we doing? Remind me.

[F]

You're gonna go up and say who you are. And then I'm gonna say who I am.

[C]

Okay.

[F]

And give her the option of telling me to fuck off, I think. When we finally knock on Michelle Bradley's door, she looks completely out of sorts. She's in a T shirt and shorts, pacing around her living room. Her large fluffy dog is mirroring her panting. And Naomi introduces herself and Michelle asks why Naomi didn't call or text first. Michelle is on the verge of tears, saying she didn't even have a chance to brush her teeth or take a shower yet. She seems like she's just about ready to kick us out, but suddenly thinks better of it. She says she may as well get this all over with. She says I can stay, but she doesn't want to be recorded. Over the next half hour or so, Michelle describes her father, James Bradley, as an extremely abusive man who spent a lifetime terrorizing her, her sister, and their mother before moving on to her stepmother, who he killed, chopped into pieces and buried around El Paso in New Mexico. The details are rawhurt to stomach. Michelle gets through it in fits and starts between crying jags and long sips of water. When Michelle eventually tells us about why she's suspicious of her dad, a lot of it is hearsay, stuff she's heard through relatives over the years. But there is one thing she says she witnessed directly. Michelle told us that one day in 1987, she walked into her dad's house and saw a woman she didn't know relaxing on the couch, looking very comfortable. Years later, she thought she recognized a woman's face on the news. It looked like one of the Desert Killer's victims, Ivy Williams. We leave the apartment and sit in the rental car. Naomi calls her boss, Jeremy.

[E]

Hey, Jeremy. How are you?

[B]

I'm good.

[A]

How are you?

[C]

What's up?

[E]

So Alvin is here with me, recording.

[A]

Hey, Alvin.

[E]

Hi.

[F]

You couldn't see that, but I mean, full body side at that.

[E]

I just wanted to update you. So we spoke to Michelle and she was really distressed.

[F]

Naomi gives Jeremy the rundown of what Michelle said and they run through their options together. They don't have to have someone corroborate Michelle's story. That's not necessary for their legal filing. But it would definitely be stronger if they did. Their problem is they don't have many people to choose from. Some people are dead, like Michelle's dad. Others, like an aunt who lives out in Washington, would require a special trip, which they have to weigh against the other things on their to do list. Michelle did mention an older sister to us, though, who also lives in El Paso. Michelle told us they mostly aren't on speaking terms at this point, but she suggested it might be worth asking her sister what she remembers. Given that menu of options, Jeremy suggests we give the estranged sister a visit. Naomi doesn't skip a beat, Starts looking for an address on her phone. I can't figure out if they're digging into this because they see something tenuous but worth pursuing or because they're desperate and they have unlimited miles on the rental car. Did Michelle say something in there that tripped some lawyer wire? I couldn't see. I checked with Naomi, hoping she'll let me in on her thinking. What of what she said was seemed useful to you?

[E]

Ask me in a couple hours.

[B]

While Alvin is off with Naomi, I'm spending the day with Greg. If there's one overarching story that Greg has been telling himself and anyone who will listen about this case, it's that the cops had tunnel vision. They took every piece of evidence and either massaged it to make it fit David Wood or discarded it if it didn't. This was a hard case to solve, Greg's theory goes, and there was a ton of pressure to solve it. Some cops were calling it the biggest case in the history of the police department, and victim families were demonstrating in public. So Greg thinks the police took shortcuts and zeroed in on David Wood because it was convenient and they were desperate. And over the years, he has found some evidence of that tunnel vision. For one, there were other suspects the police could have spent more time investigating. Greg has the list from the original police file. There were 36 names on this list. Arguably the most important one, though, was a guy named Salvador Martinez. He was a friend of David woods, who also admitted to police that he knew some of the victims. According to court documents, one woman claimed to the lawyers that Martinez once put her in a headlock and said, quote, do you know how easy it would be for me to snap your neck in two right now? She later told the police that they should be investigating him rather than David Wood. The police did give Martinez a polygraph test about the Desert murders, which I know, unreliable, but he failed it. Police went ahead and collected his saliva and blood, but for reasons that aren't totally clear, they never tested whether his DNA appeared at any of the crime scenes. Both Greg's team and I have talked to Martinez. I tried to reach him for months and finally just went to his house. He wouldn't let me record him, but he denied having anything to do with the murders. When I followed up later about the allegation that he'd Threatened to snap a woman's neck. I got an email from his wife. She said he couldn't talk to us anymore because of his dementia. But the story, quote, does not sound like anything Sal would do. So, alternate suspects. That's one part of Greg's tunnel vision theory. And then there's David Wood's pickup truck. A key piece of the state's narrative was that he used this truck to take the victims out to the desert. But Greg has since figured out that the truck was in a wreck and sitting in a salvage yard for all of August 1987, which is when three of the victims disappeared. Plus, El Paso police were actually surveilling David Wood for part of that August, and they didn't see any evidence of him killing anyone. Greg's tunnel vision theory even extends to the physical evidence in the case. That evidence is now in the El Paso County Courthouse. So that's our first stop.

[D]

Oh, so you brought all these photos. Right.

[B]

I see a clerk ushers us through a side door into the bowels of the building to a low lit room, very law and order. A giant table is covered in white butcher paper with 30 year old evidence from the trial. Greg throws his tie over his shoulder so it doesn't get in the way and starts picking up these little canisters and bags.

[D]

So it's got the vacuum bag and then the plastic evidence bag that it came in, I assume.

[E]

Right.

[C]

So the vacuum bag's there, and then

[E]

you could see the particles here.

[B]

From where I'm standing across the table, it looks like these bags are just full of dust. But when I lean in and squint, I can see what Greg sees. Tiny orange fibers like from a blanket or a rug. These fibers were key to the state's case. The police found them in a vacuum cleaner in David Wood's apartment and also on a victim's T shirt. At the trial, an expert witness testified that the two sets of fibers were identical. Greg has consulted his own experts who have told him this testimony was junk science. They say there's no way to prove that the fibers match because they're synthetic. Greg has two options for what to put in the legal filing. Option A, he can use the junk science argument. But I can imagine a judge might find this unsatisfying. I find it unsatisfying because, sure, the fibers may or may not match, but why were there orange fibers with the victim at all? That's suspicious, right? This brings me to option B, which is a much bolder option. Greg can say, sure, the fibers Match because you guys planted them there. He can accuse the cops of taking the fibers from David Wood's apartment and placing them at the crime scene. Far fetched. Maybe. But Greg points out that the crime scene was left unsecured for nine days. And also the police found a lot of fibers in big clumps. Even the prosecution's own expert witness said that was a little strange. This theory is juicier, but also riskier. The legal filing is going to go to judges who are predisposed to think Greg might be full of it and take all of his other arguments less seriously. On the way out of the courthouse, Greg says he wants to grab one more thing from a clerk. He asked for any and all criminal records related to a guy named Michael Plyler. This is a new name to me. It wasn't on the El Paso PD's list of 36 suspects, but the other night, Greg came across Plyler's name in old state records along with a picture of a truck which looked a lot like David Wood's truck. So Greg wondered, could this all be a case of mistaken identity? He wants to look through Plyler's criminal files to see if there's anything in there that might tie him to the case beyond the truck. Like if he went by the nickname

[D]

Skeeter, because Skeeter is this nickname that keeps popping up throughout the case as David Wood. But David Wood's never used that as a nickname, so it seems a bit odd that that would be a name he would be giving to people.

[B]

This depends on believing David Wood about the nickname, which Greg does. But either way, this Plyler deep dive seems to me like a real long shot. And it reminds me of a criticism I've heard a lot, mostly from prosecutors and judges. They say lawyers like Greg have years to do this stuff, but they wait until the last minute so they can maximize the drama. I ask him about this. So these are files that you've had for a long time, and you're just.

[C]

Now they'll give you the.

[B]

I. I guess I wondered if this name had emerged.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

In something you just got.

[D]

No. Yeah. But it's. I've had it for a long time in the sense that it's buried in 12,000 pages of record.

[B]

He says it's buried in 12,000 pages of records. His point being that, yes, he's technically had Michael Plyler's name for years, but he's been working solo for much of that time, so he's had to pick and choose what to focus on. But it's also true that Greg is incentivized to stretch this out as much as possible to show up at court with new information right before the execution. That way, the judges will be so overwhelmed, they'll have to hit the pause button and Greg's client gets to live another day. In fact, Greg's already been accused pretty harshly of delaying David Wood's execution in all kinds of ways. Last year, a judge summarizing the last 15 years of this case accused David's defense of a, quote, pattern of piecemeal litigation and delay over those years. Greg has filed motions to replace prosecutors to claim a judge had a conflict of interest to test this or that bit of evidence. He lost all these arguments, but the judge's point was this guy just throws spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and he does it one noodle at a time. Other lawyers get accused of the same things. There's a perception on the part of prosecutors and also lots of judges that lawyers like Greg are such extreme anti death penalty zealots that they're willing to bend the rules, if not outright break them. To be clear, there's no evidence here that Greg broke any rules and he would deny bending them. But I personally think the real issue here isn't the lawyers and their individual conduct. It's the death penalty itself. A punishment that takes all of the tension that's inherent in a criminal case and ratchets it up. It's an invitation for a certain amount of distrust on all sides.

[F]

While Maurice finishes up at the courthouse, Naomi and I are off looking for Michelle Bradley's sister, Misty Metz. Naomi is hoping Misty will corroborate the Brady disclosure. Michelle has claimed that her father was involved in the desert killings. We're driving for a bit when Naomi looks down and sees a text on her phone. Her brows immediately furrow. What happened?

[E]

She told her sister we're coming

[C]

back.

[F]

Michelle reached out to Misty. Bad news for Naomi. Her element of surprise is now gone, but we're pretty close to the address at this point, so Naomi Parks breathes it out for a minute and pushes forward. We walk up to the door and Naomi rings the doorbell. I hear barking before I see anyone. I've already fixed my face into a defeat grimace when a slightly confused woman opens the door and welcomes us in. Misty shows us into her living room and introduces us to our very friendly dog named Brady, of all things and lets me start rolling.

[E]

So, I don't know, did Michelle tell you that we, me and my sister

[C]

don't talk, but I just Got a message from her telling me that you might be contacting me, so I didn't know it was going to be today. That's why I'm going to. A little caught off guard, but that's fine.

[E]

Yeah. Sorry for showing up unannounced on your doorstep. Did your sister tell you a little bit about why we're reaching out? Only that she believes that my dad had something to do with the murders

[C]

that David woods is accused of and

[F]

that despite being a little caught off guard, Misty is surprisingly open to talking. Almost immediately, though, she throws cold water on her sister's theories.

[C]

My dad did something terrible. He murdered my stepmother. He did. That's indisputable. But I don't think he had anything to do with this situation with Woods. I really don't. I don't.

[F]

Misty tells us she understands her sister's feelings about their dad. She shares some of them. She grew up in the same house and experienced all his abuse, too. But that's where the corroboration ends. She has no idea if her sister really saw one of the victims on their Dad's couch in 1987, but she doesn't buy Michelle's theory. For what it's worth, Misty remembers her mom and dad were together at the time, so it's unlikely to her that another woman would just be lounging around the house like that. We talk for a little bit longer, but after a while, it's pretty clear Misty has said just about all she knows.

[E]

I don't have any other questions. I don't know if you have any questions for me.

[C]

I think this is a figment of my sister's imagination.

[E]

I'm sorry.

[C]

You know, I wish I could give David Wood something to, you know, feel hopeful about, but I really don't think this is.

[F]

Was hard to walk out of that conversation feeling like there was anything left to this lead. It was like witnessing a balloon deflating in real time. I can't totally get a read on how Naomi felt about it, though. Her expression is pretty sphinx, like, sitting next to me in the car. So I sneak in a temperature check. Can I ask really quickly, just while we're still here?

[E]

Yes.

[F]

Did hearing any of that change the way you heard Michelle's conversation.

[E]

In terms of facts? Misty did not say anything different to the extent that she confirmed that her father was a very violent and abusive man. So it's a difference of not opinion, but it's a difference of, like, belief as to whether their father was involved or not, which neither knows to be factually. Correct or incorrect. You know, they've both said their father was a terrible person and a very violent person.

[F]

I was not surprised by Naomi doing her job here, spinning me a little bit, trying to make the best possible case for her client, which is basically two women confirmed their father was an abusive murderer who happened to be in El Paso at the time of the Desert Killer. But it did strike me that Naomi could leave out the part where Misty throws cold water on her sister's story. In fact, it seems like she's incentivized to leave it out. If more digging wasn't going to help, and it really didn't seem like it would at this point, then it was probably better to leave the whole thing kind of thin and single sourced. It was a little surreal to me to imagine this going into a legal filing. But eventually I will read the lawyer's final draft and there It'll be, page 197, all dressed up and respectable in its severe font and 1 inch margins. It will include lots of Michelle's claims, like the story about seeing Ivy Williams on the sofa, but it will not include any trace of the messy relationship between two estranged sisters. No hint of their radically different versions of the past. It wasn't Naomi's job to present all of this context, but it did make me wonder about a process where you could leave this much of it out. Naomi and I head off for Misty's. It's been a long day of driving around El Paso and to me at least, it doesn't feel like we've got much to show for it. There's a punchy, lightly defeated air in the car, Naomi's head in the direction of her hotel. But then our phones light up. Greg apparently struck gold with one of his own door knocks. Someone unexpected opened up and had real information to share. That's after the break.

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Greg and I finish up at the courthouse around lunchtime. Before we head back to the hotel, he proposes we swing by someone's house first, a woman he's been trying to talk to for some time now. Ramona Desmukes. Her importance as a witness is kind of questionable. She was best friends with a girl who disappeared back in 1987. A lot of people in El Paso assumed David Wood was responsible, but police never found evidence and he wasn't convicted of it. It's the kind of witness I could imagine skipping, but Greg decides it's worth a try. We pull off the highway and drive up to this small house where a guy with a Mohawk is hauling stuff out to a dumpster. Greg hops out of the car and talks to him. He comes back looking defeated, but as we're pulling away, I see a woman in the rearview mirror.

[D]

Here, let me see. Hi, how are you?

[B]

Greg leads the woman towards the car and I roll down my window. What's your name? I'm sorry.

[A]

I'm Ramona Desmut.

[B]

Everyone is half interrupting each other. Ramona tells us the Mohawk guy is actually her husband. She moved out of state and is just back to do renovations. She seems excited to talk to Greg but says the house is too much of a mess to invite him in. She suggests another spot.

[A]

I mean, there's like a. Like a Whataburger up the street, right around the corner, and I can go.

[D]

Your husband said you might have, like, files and records still.

[A]

I still have all of the old articles. I have everything.

[D]

All right.

[A]

See you in a bit.

[B]

Naomi and Alvin, meet us at the Whataburger. As the only native Texan in this group, I feel obligated to say Whataburger is a state institution, but it is not a great place to do an interview. There's loud music, soda fountains and fryers going, people coming in and out. Ramona blazes in, big, expressive face. Her hair is wild and curly, some of the layers dyed cherry red. She slaps down this giant binder, very dusty, that says Mona's Articles. She also goes by Mona in cursive letters, next to what looks like a cigarette burn. It's full of old newspaper clippings that leave flakes on the table. Apparently, all those years Greg was developing his theories of what really happened in 1987, Ramona was nursing her own. El Paso is a pretty big city, but Ramona talks about it like a small town. David Wood, the police, the victims, their parents. Everybody knows everybody, as if somehow they all went to high school together. Even this Whataburger is relevant in a way. Ramona tells us she got involved in this case because of her best friend, Cheryl Vasquez. When they were still teenagers, Cheryl married Ramona's brother, which made them best friends and sisters in law. And Cheryl, she worked right here at this Water Burger.

[A]

This is where she worked when she went missing. She was working here. And she never even got her last check from this place because she was gone.

[B]

But Cheryl was 19 when she disappeared. The same summer as all the desert killer victims. When bodies started turning up in the desert. Ramona was worried that Cheryl was going to be one of them. She felt the cops weren't looking hard enough for her friend, so she enlisted her mom. And they decided to figure out what happened to Cheryl themselves. They knew Cheryl was last seen at this one Circle K convenience store, and so they came up with, frankly, a totally bonkers plan.

[A]

We started hanging out at that Circle K. My mom was literally tricking me. She was like, go sit on that wall and somebody's going to come and try to kidnap you, and I'll call the cops and we'll get them and we'll know who it was. And I'm like, sounds like a Real

[D]

character from what I.

[A]

She was feisty until the moment she died. She had me sitting on that wall in little shorts, 17 years old, waiting to get me kidnapped. I'm like, thanks, Mom.

[B]

But by way of explanation, Ramona says that her mom was, quote German. The lawyers don't ask her to explain more. But as strange as the plan was, there was some logic to it. Ramona and Cheryl were about the same age, and according to Ramona, looked so alike that they got mistaken for sisters. Ramona's mom thought she could use her daughter's looks to lure out the desert killer. Ramona says that she and her mom did this Circle K routine over a few days with no luck. Then one afternoon, she was sitting on a wall outside the store in her shorts when she saw a truck approach. Word around town was that the desert killer drove a beige or a brown truck.

[A]

One day, this brown truck came rolling in and went to the store and came out and looked over at me and was like, oh, shit. Threw a quarter at me. Go home. Huh? Go home. Your family's looking for you. They said, I stole you. The cops are asking me questions. You need to take your ass home. And I'm like, who are you talking to?

[B]

This was how Ramona first met David Wood. At this point, the cops were starting to zero in on him for the disappearances, including Cheryl's, and he knew it. He mistakenly thought Ramona was Cheryl because, again, they looked alike. So that part of the plan actually worked. Ramona says he tossed a quarter at her, as in, you're the girl the cops think I abducted. Please use this quarter to call home on the payphone. Tell everyone you're safe. Ramona goes on to tell us about the surprising relationship that developed between her, her mom, and David Wood. Something between a friendship and a covert op. David Wood himself remembers spending time with the two of them, but what he didn't know is that they were also spying on him. Ramona says her mom started inviting David Wood to their house.

[A]

He'd come over, she'd give him coffee, they'd hang out, they'd talk. My mom thought she was slick, and she was. My mom was like, you know, I'm gonna sit here and talk to him. You go search his truck, you know?

[B]

She says she stole David Wood's keys and rifled through his truck trying to find something incriminating, but she never did. She also saw him get nauseous around blood. She cut her hand in front of him once, which, while not exactly exonerating, didn't scream. Serial killer either. For Ramona and her mom, it all added up to one thing. David Wood could not be the Desert Killer. Ramona says her mom was eager to help clear his name.

[A]

My mom immediately called the detectives. He's the wrong guy. You got the wrong guy, cuz he didn't kidnap my daughter. And she looks just like. Like Cheryl. And he threw a quarter at her and told her to go home. And you know, my mom's German, very feisty, very loud. She's like, so they're like, oh, we want to come and talk to you.

[B]

The police came to the house and asked Ramona to come down to the station to give a statement to detectives. She was sketched out.

[A]

And I said, no, I'm not going to give you a statement. They said, well, we want to show you something. So they put me in the car and took me out to the desert. And they're like, you know, there's bodies out here and be really easy for you to be out here. And they wanted me to write a statement. They told me, out there in the desert, we need you to go back and write a statement. We need you to tell us that David Wood tried to take you. I said, but he didn't try to take me. He threw a quarter at me and told me to go home. Well, that's not what we need you to say. I said, but that's not the truth. They said, you know, you look just like all the other girls that are gone. This could be you. And I was like, are you threatening me? And they're like, well, no, we're just telling you that if you don't put him away, he might take you.

[B]

Ramona says the detectives who drove her out to the desert were Johnny Guerrero and his partner, Alfonso Marquez. She eventually put all of this in a sworn statement to the court. Ramona is not the first person to accuse these guys of abusing their power. There's George hall, the guy who called Greg with the whole story of the jailhouse informants and the red carpet treatment, and later laid out his claims in a sworn declaration. According to trial transcripts. At least one other witness claimed the police tried to add falsehoods to her statement. In a different case from around this time, a suspect told a reporter that Detective Guerrero bullied him into a false confession. We asked Detective Guerrero about that interrogation, and he said he didn't remember it. He also denied ever taking Ramona out to the desert. Actually, what he said was, she's full of shit. Moreover, he told us in his 15 years in homicide, quote, I was never accused of any wrongdoing or coercion by anyone I talked to or any case I worked. Detective Marquez, for his part, died a couple of years ago. But it is worth noting that he had a reputation for lying and using force. In a different case, he allegedly bullied a single 16 year old kid. To make him confess to two murders. The kid was later exonerated after serving nearly 20 years in prison. Watching the lawyers interview Ramona, watching them jot down notes at every twist and turn, I was struck by how absurd it was that this was where we found ourselves. 50 days out from the execution. All of us huddled around a table in the Swartberger, the lawyers trying to piece together something useful from the zany story. Ramona is entertaining, but since I'm not steeped in the case, it also seems like she mixes theories and stories and gossip and evidence so effortlessly. And it's such a rapid clip that it's a little hard to keep up, Much less to accept it all at face value. I look over at Greg and Naomi to see how they're reacting. To get some clue about how seriously I should take all of this. But they are more or less statues, very stoic, these two lawyers on a whataburger. All of which to say I'm not sure how to assess some of the other claims Ramona makes. The most explosive ones concern a very important person in the case against David Wood, Judith Kelling.

[A]

And when I heard her name, I'm like, is that prostitute that's saying David raped her?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Judith Kelling was the woman who claimed David Wood raped her out in the desert. She had been a crucial witness at his murder trial. And her account helped establish the desert killer's MO. Ramona says she was out one day looking for her sister in law. Who was still missing when she spotted Kelling and sidled up to her.

[A]

So I'm like playing it cool with her and I'm like, oh yeah, you know, I'm looking for my sister. And she's like, oh, the David Wood thing? She's like, yeah, you know, that's all bullshit. And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, he didn't do anything to me.

[D]

Really?

[A]

Really.

[D]

So she told you this in after David Wood's arrested in October of 1987.

[A]

He was already charged with her rape when he was charged with before he was.

[B]

You can tell in Greg's voice how much he would love to poke holes in Judith Kelling's credibility. It's something he's been trying to do for years. For example, he found one source who gave a sworn statement to the court that Judith Kelling had been a police informant and specifically that she'd been Detective Johnny Guerrero's informant when she reported her rape. Judith also spent long stretches in jail around this time on drug charges. On top of that, Greg has noticed that her story of what exactly happened in the desert kept changing, getting more and more aligned with other things the police believed about David Wood and the murders. Greg uses these points to make an argument in court filings. Desperate to solve the murders, desperate Detective Guerrero squeezed an equally desperate Judith Kelling to point the finger at David Wood. We asked Detective Guerrero about all of this, and he denies that Kelling was ever his informant. Judith Kelling died a decade ago, so Greg can't ask her about it. But here in this Whataburger, Ramona claims Kelling revealed much more to her about what really went down.

[A]

This is what she's telling me. They made a deal with me to get me out of jail, and all I got to do is testify against this guy. I was like, well, were you even raped? She's like, yeah, but not by him. I'm like, who? She said, mike Plyler.

[B]

I'm like, who's this guy, Mike Plyler?

[C]

What?

[B]

The same guy Greg asked about at the courthouse a few hours ago. The one I thought was a long shot. I look over at Greg, and I can see he's just as surprised. He's barely able to contain himself, nodding so hard, it's like he's swaying. Ramona says that after she got Mike Plyler's name from Judith, she and her mom looked for the guy and, well, basically stalked him. They staked out his apartment, watched him come and go. They were blown away by the similarities between this man and David Wood. Similar builds, similar tattoos on top of the similar trucks. They also both drove red motorcycles. I can practically see the gears turning in Greg's mind. And as the Water Burger fills with the sound of someone making the world's loudest milkshake, he tosses out one more question.

[D]

Do you have any information about this nickname, Skeeter, that supposedly is.

[A]

That's Skeeter. My father is Skeeter.

[D]

Well, when you say that, how do you know that he's Skeeter?

[A]

That's what Judith called him.

[D]

Is that right?

[A]

That's what she called him. She called him Skeeter. So that's Skeeter.

[B]

Ramona says that she went to the cops back in 1987. And told them everything she learned about David Wood, about Judith Kelling, and about Michael Plyler. And she says the cops did nothing. They could have, for example, looked more into Plyler, gotten some DNA samples, polygraphed him. Instead, Ramona says they simply told her to stay away. Ramona's whole story is wild, obviously. And as we wrap up at the Whataburger, it's not clear to me how Greg is going to use it all, whether he's going to try to corroborate any of these details. And I'm not sure that's really possible. I can imagine what a prosecutor might say, for example, the Judith Kelling story, that it wasn't David Wood who raped her. Well, the state could point to trial testimony from Kelling's sister, who said Judith identified David Wood as the rapist right after it happened. Greg could go after the sister's credibility, but the question remains. Why would Judith Kelling make a grand revelation to Ramona, a teenager she just met? There's also a question about Ramona's motivations. I found an old news story that says she was banned from the El Paso County Jail. She had allegedly graffitied I love David Wood on the wall of a visiting booth. Ramona denies it and says people were just out to tarnish her reputation because she was questioning the police department's version of events. Still, not a great thing to have out there on the Internet. But what's most useful to Greg, I think, are all those moments when the cops appeared to have tunnel vision. For example, when Ramona says they tried to get her to falsely accuse David Wood. Or when she says they ignored the Plyler story. Especially if the state didn't tell Wood's lawyers about this stuff before his trial. I wouldn't call these bombshells, but I would call them good evidence. And you could argue that Greg only found it all because the execution date forced him to knock on every door one more time. I ended up calling Mike Plyler. A few weeks later, he confirmed that he did live in El Paso. During the time in question, his tone got a little sharp. When I asked if he went by the nickname Skeeter, he interrupted me and said, quote, that's false. When asked about raping anyone or being the desert killer, he said, I haven't done nothing. I don't have nothing to hide. After we hung up, I sent him Ramona's claims. He ghosted me. I do feel for him. This whole episode made me see just how easy it is for anyone to be accused of pretty egregious stuff in a legal filing in this case, rape, and being a suspect in a serial murder case. All because some stranger mentions your name in a whataburger. We felt we had to use Plyler's name, given how much it showed up in the lawyer's legal filing. But we also felt like this man deserves every possible opportunity to respond. So after I sent a ton of follow ups that went unanswered, Alvin and I decided we just had to try in person. Plyler lives in a mid sized city in the South. When we got to his house, there were a couple of warning signs about a pit bull and then we heard barking. I did see a dog through the window. Pretty cute actually. Plyler opened up just to tell us, quote, I'm not interested. I asked if I could give him a folder with Ramona's claims. He suggested I throw it in the garbage. I leaned over to put it on the doormat and by the time I stood back up, the door was closed. The whole thing lasted maybe 10 seconds. I haven't been able to reach him since. Greg will add Ramona's claims to what he'll file in court in a few weeks. But first he tells me he wants to bring what he's found to another audience. An audience that will, if it's possible, be even more skeptical than the judges. Even more likely to see it all is Smoke and Mirrors, the mother of one of the Desert Killer's victims. That's next time on the last 12 weeks. The last 12 weeks is written and reported by me, Maurice Shama and Alvin Melith. Alvin produced the series. Jen Guerra edited the series along with Anita Batijo. Julie Snyder is the executive editor for Serial Productions. Additional editing from Akiba Solomon. Fact checking and research by Ben Phelan. Music supervision by Jen Guerra and Phoebe Wang with mixing by Phoebe Wang. Additional mixing by Katherine Anderson. Tracking direction for from Sean Cole. Our associate producer is Mac Miller. Additional production by Anita Batijo. Additional reporting by Reyes Mata iii. There's a lot about the death penalty that we couldn't fit into this show. Stories from Capitol defense lawyers. A fascinating look at the data behind executions. You can find all of that in our newsletter. Sign up for it at nytimes.com serialnewsletter. Original music for this series by Adam Dorn, aka Motion Worker, Matias Bassi and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonette. Additional music by Dan Powell and Marianne Lozano. Adam Dorn, AKA Motion Worker composed our theme song. Video production by Sean Devaney. Our Standards editor is Susan Wessling. Legal Review from Alamin Sumar and Jackson Bush. The art for our show comes from Pablo Delkan. Sam Dolnick is deputy managing editor of the New York Times. Special thanks to Reem Akkad, Jill Castellano, Mara Corbett, Jelena Fong and Janelle pifer. The last 12 weeks is a production of Cereal Productions, the Marshall Project, and the New York.

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