A Look Back At The Desert Killer’s Victims

by ABC-7 Reporter Darren Hunt

EL PASO, Texas — Convicted serial killer David Leonard Wood is set to die by lethal injection on Thursday. As the victim’s families prepare for that day, ABC-7 looks back on the six girls and young women killed.

John Guerrero was one of the lead homicide detectives in the Wood case.

“All of the victims had several traits in common. A lot of them didn’t like to go to school, they had dropped out. They were not bad kids, just rebellious kids,” Guerrero said.

During the trial, cellmates claimed Wood told them he lured the victims into his truck with the promise of drugs. Once in the desert he tied them up and dug a grave. He then tied them to a nearby tree and raped them, according to the cellmates’ testimony.

Guerrero said some of the victims may have been buried alive.

“The physical evidence at the scene indicated that to us. They were breathing, they had sand in their nostrils. They were discarded like this morning’s trash.”

Paul Strelzin was the principal at H.E. Charles Junior High when three of his current or former students disappeared that summer.

“There were concerns in the Irvin area, the Parkland area, the Andress area,” he said. Only one of them, Desiree Wheatley, would be found, buried in the Northeast El Paso desert along with five other victims.

“We had people from not only the Police Department but the Sheriff’s Office that came in and tried to explain to the young ladies, you don’t go out with anybody, you don’t accept a ride,” Strelzin said.

Police said students saw Wheatley accept a ride from Wood. During the investigation, Guerrero befriended Wheatley’s mother, Marcia Fulton, whose daughter went missing for more than two months.

“She said, ‘Did my daughter suffer?’ How can you say no, she didn’t suffer, when she was buried in the desert? Can you imagine what it must have been like for her — three days, five days, a month, two months, wondering where her daughter is?” Guerrero said.

Fulton plans to attend Wood’s execution and watch the man who killed her daughter 22 years ago die.

She had this to say after Wood was sentenced to death in 1992: “All that matters is I know he won’t be able to do it again…That’s what matters.”

As for Guerrero, who was there when the bodies were dug up, the memory of the victims and their families will stay with him forever.

ABC-7 checked with the State Attorney General’s Office Monday and found Wood has not filed any appeals. Wood still maintains he is innocent.

Click here formore about David Leonard Wood’s execution, includingvideo of Wood’s trialfrom ABC-7’s archive.