The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution to David Wood, who was scheduled to be put to death on Thursday, March 13, 2025. Wood has spent more than 32 years on death row for crimes he maintains he did not commit – the murders of six women in El Paso in the summer of 1987. Texas has refused his repeated requests for additional DNA testing on more than 100 items recovered from the crime scenes. In 2011, DNA testing definitively excluded Wood as the contributor of male DNA found on a bloodstain on one of the victim’s clothing.
Wood raised eight issues in his application to the Court, including that he is actually innocent and that the State obtained its conviction by presenting false testimony and suppressing exculpatory evidence. The stay will remain in place until further order of the Court.
The Court’s order can be found here.