A Texas man known as the "Desert Serial Killer" is set to be executed by lethal injection on March 13, despite his prolonged insistence that he is innocent and multiple appeals.
David Leonard Wood, 67, was convicted in a string of disappearances and murders of young women in 1987. The crimes were tied to Wood after he was convicted of a rape around the same time and "bragged to a cell mate that he was the 'Desert Killer,'" prosecutors stated in a court filing.
Police and prosecutors indicted Wood for six murders: Angelica Frausto, 17; Dawn Smith, 14; Desiree Wheatley, 15; Ivy Susanna Williams, 23; Rosa Maria Casio, 24; and Karen Baker, 20, the El Paso Times reported. They suspected Wood in the disappearances of Cheryl Vazquez, 19; Melissa Alaniz, 14; and Margie Knox, 14, of Chaparral. Those individuals disappeared in the Northeast El Paso area in 1987, but were never found.
Wood had a substantial criminal history before the "Desert Serial Killer" case. Among his convictions was the 1980 rape of a 12-year-old girl. Wood received 20 years, but served seven years in the case and was paroled, the El Paso Times reported.
Before the 1980 rape, Wood had served time for a 1976 case in which he pleaded guilty to indecency with a child. He was 19 when he went to prison for that case in 1977, the newspaper reported.
Among the evidence against Wood in the 1987 serial killings were the testimony of two inmates. Randy Wells testified that Wood told him how he would "lure each girl into his pickup truck with an offer of drugs, drive out to the desert, tie her to his truck, and dig a grave," prosecutors stated. Another inmate, James Carl Sweeney, Jr., said that Wood kept showing him clippings of the killings and told him he did it.
According to the court filing, another witness was a rape victim of Wood's from 1987 that occurred when the disappearances and murders were occurring. Wood had offered the woman a ride and she noticed a piece of rope hanging out of his pocket. He drove out to the desert - near where some of the bodies would be eventually found eventually - tied her up, and began assaulting her. The attack stopped because he heard voices.
Wood allegedly got her back in the truck and drove to another location where the process started again, but again they were interrupted. This time Wood loaded up his truck with his belongings and left the woman naked in the desert. Before he left he said to her, "Always remember, I'm free," the filing states.
Wood's legal team had filed numerous appeals in the case to stop the execution, including asserting that Wood is mentally disabled and, therefore, should not be executed, the El Paso Times reported. Wood lost that appeal in 2014.
In court filings, prosecutors maintained that Wood was not mentally disabled, asserting that numerous IQ tests had established his intelligence range at being between 70 and 80. Prosecutors also asserted that Wood's IQ test scores were likely driven down by "malingering" on Wood's part.
In an interview with the El Paso Times while in prison for the rape, but before he was convicted of murder, Wood maintained that his criminal history made him an easy target for police and prosecutors.
"I'm the first to admit that what you see here is very damning, and it really sets me up, and that's what leads the police to believe I'm the guy," Wood told the newspaper. "If they have no evidence, no suspects, no leads, hell, they're going to go for the underdog. I'm the underdog. There's nothing that ties me in. No clothes. No hair. No fingerprints. No tire tracks. No nothing. How can they tie you to something you didn't do?"
However, prosecutors have said that five of the victims were seen accepting a ride from a man on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle or a beige truck, descriptions that match vehicles owned by Wood. Also, a forensic chemist testified that orange fibers found on the clothing of one of the victims matched orange fibers taken from a vacuum cleaner bag Wood and his girlfriend had left in their old apartment.
Originally published on Lawyer Herald
