Convicted Serial Killer Wood Maintains Innocence

by ABC-7 Reporter Darren Hunt

EL PASO, Texas — Days before hewas scheduled to die by lethal injection, David LeonardWood’s attorneysfiled a last-minute appeal based on the grounds that Wood is mentally retarded. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution on Wednesday.

The court said Wood is entitled to a hearing to pursue claims he’s mentally impaired and ineligible for execution under U.S. Supreme Court guidelines.

Wood has never admitted to the crimes hewas scheduled to die for. Wood maintains he had nothing to do with the murder and burying of six girls and young women in the Northeast El Paso desert during the summer of 1987.

“I have fought this case…I have been to the brink of anger I’ve never known before,” Wood told former ABC-7 anchor Gary Warner in a death row interview nine years ago.

“If I get executed, there’s certain people on the police force in El Paso that got away with this. They know I didn’t do it. There’s no doubt!”

Watch video of the interview for yourself here.

Wood claims his defense team failed him and that he was an easy scapegoat when police had no other suspects, although circumstantial evidence linked him to all of the victims.

“Don’t listen to me, because I’m a guy sitting on death row. If i tell you I’m innocent, you’re going to think I’m a liar. Read my case and everything they didn’t show you,” Wood said.

Quijano was part of Wood’s defense team during his 1992 trial in Dallas.

“The guy is gonna die…I don’t blame him at all for saying the defense didn’t do a good job or whatever…He’s grasping at any straw he can…I think Norbert Garney and myself did our very best for him.”

Wood attended Parkland High School back in the 1970s, but he dropped out in the 9th grade. He tried to join the Army, but with an IQ of 68, he was unable to get in.

Quijano remembers Wood was an extremely difficult client. And instead of the jury listening to what he felt was a solid defense, the trial came down to one crucial moment as the prosecution laid out evidence that Wood was a predator.

“He got up in front of the jury and everything and said, I’m not going to listen to any more of this (expletive),” Quijano said.

Wood had to be taken out of the courtroom.

“That kind of conduct did not help during the trial,” Quijano said.

Former El Paso homicide detective John Guerrero said there is still a great deal about the case that no one knows, but addressing Wood’s claim that he didn’t kill anyone, he said, “I do know one thing…I know that David Leonard Wood killed those little girls.”

But Wood maintained his innocence back in 2000.He lost an appeal in 2007.

“You’re telling me the day you are executed, an innocent man is going to die?” Warner asked.

“There is no doubt…Yes, yes!” Wood said.