By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times
EL PASO, Texas — Convicted serial killer David Leonard Wood has expanded his death penalty appeal to also having his 1992 capital murder verdict overturned.
Several records in his file that previously were unsealed show that he requested an expert review of DNA evidence from his trial, and for his investigators to interview witnesses and collect documents to prove that he is mentally retarded.
Wood will have a hearing Tuesday in the 171st District Court to determine his fate. He is expected to be present for the proceeding.
The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals granted Wood a stay of execution two years ago, a day before he was set to be executed by lethal injection.
Wood was accused of killing six girls and young women in 1987 in Northeast El Paso: Desiree Wheatley, Angelica Frausto, Ivy Susanna Williams, Karen Baker, Rosa Maria Casio and Dawn Smith. He was the first Texan to be tried under the state’s serial killer statute.
He was indicted for killing all six, and was convicted of the stabbing death of Williams. Wood, who was sentenced to death, denied killing anyone.
Police also suspected him in the disappearances of Marjorie Knox, Melissa Alaniz and Cheryl Vazquez, who are sill missing.
“I will be attending the hearing,” said Marcia Fulton, mother of Desiree Wheatley. Fulton had traveled from Florida to Huntsville, Texas, to witness Wood’s execution. The stay was issued after she had arrived.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 -- years after Wood was sentenced to death -- that the death penalty should not be applied to mentally retarded people because it violates the U.S. Constitution.
Lawyers specializing in death penalty cases filed an appeal for him, and the Texas court halted the execution to give Wood time to prepare his case.
Then Wood also challenged the 1992 guilty verdict on the basis that developments in DNA technology could exonerate him. The district court granted him the ability to appeal his case on both fronts.
“The court finds that reasonable grounds exist for seeking DNA testing,” according to one of the court rulings in his post-conviction appeal case.
His defense argues that “at the very least, a 51 percent chance exists that Mr. Wood would have been acquitted” and that new DNA testing could reveal the true killer.
Wood requested copies of his school, medical and employment records, copies of his previous mental health evaluations, and medical records of his mother, Betty Allen Wood.
He also asked for forensic DNA testing of items pertaining to several of the 1987 victims, Frausto, Casio and Smith, as well as documents related to Salvador Martinez and Edward Dean Barton.
Martinez, an acquaintance of Wood’s, did not pass a 1987 polygraph test about the disappearances and murders of young women in El Paso.
Barton, who resembled Wood, told the FBI in 1989 that he killed four women in the El Paso area between May and December 1987.
He also claimed that a woman he was romantically involved with had hired someone to kill him.
Detectives ruled out Martinez and Barton as suspects.
Court records also show that Judge Peter Peca, the original trial judge in Wood’s 1989 case, is no longer handling the appeal case.
Judge Robert Richardson of San Antonio was appointed in his place and will preside over Tuesday’s hearing.
Court records also show that Wood was able to obtain a Texas driver’s license before he went to prison; married while at the El Paso County Jail and handled his own divorce paperwork later when he was still in jail; and told authorities he received about two years’ worth of college credits from courses he enrolled in as an inmate.
Copyright 2011 El Paso Times