The Last 12 Weeks

What It Covers

Serial Productions' five-part series follows capital defense lawyer Greg Warchuk and his team through the final 87 days before Texas executes David Wood, convicted in the 1990s for six desert murders, as they pursue DNA testing and a jailhouse informant's recantation to argue Wood is innocent.

Key Questions Answered

• •Jailhouse informant credibility: When building a wrongful conviction case, locate witnesses who were present during prosecution witness recruitment. George Hall, imprisoned with David Wood in the late 1980s, watched two fellow inmates agree to fabricate confessions in exchange for $13,000 cash and a dropped capital murder charge — documented in court records Hall wrote about to prosecutors at the time.
• •DNA evidence as a legal lever: A single untested piece of victim clothing yielded male DNA that did not match David Wood. Greg Warchuk used this result to demand testing of over 100 additional evidence items. Courts repeatedly denied the request, making DNA access the central legal battleground with 87 days remaining before execution.
• •Local DA jurisdiction strategy: When a state attorney general controls a death penalty case, defense teams should target incoming local district attorneys, particularly newly elected ones from opposing parties. Warchuk flew from Wisconsin to El Paso specifically to persuade incoming Democratic DA James Montoya to reclaim jurisdiction and request a court-ordered execution halt.
• •Media strategy limitations in death penalty cases: Defense teams routinely contact high-profile advocates including The Innocence Project and celebrities to generate public pressure before executions. In Wood's case, none of these outreach efforts produced results. Local television coverage proved more tactically useful, as a single news anchor briefly opened a direct channel to the DA's office.
• •Conflict of interest in media sourcing: When a journalist agrees to advocate for a legal team's story, verify their institutional independence. The KVIA anchor who offered to broker a DA meeting subsequently accepted employment with DA Montoya's office, rendering her interview with Warchuk unusable and her earlier outreach on his behalf potentially compromised.