David Leonard Wood, who is facing a death sentence in connection with a 1987 serial killing in Northeast El Paso, won a potentially significant victory Friday when a judge granted his request to perform DNA testing on evidence from the case.

Judge Dick Alcalá, a retired jurist appointed to oversee Wood’s appeal at the trial court level, noted that he was making the decision even though Texas’ highest criminal appellate court had previously rejected defense requests for such testing.

“Despite the fact that the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2024, May of 2024, decided essentially against you because of the delay in the proceedings – which I don’t disagree with them a bit – we have, despite that, the Court of Appeals, in in their latest order, ordered a remand for the court to review all issues. That wasn’t very instructive,” Alcalá said in a hearing conducted by Zoom.

“I’m going to grant the motion for DNA forensic testing,” the judge said.

Defense and prosecution lawyers said little during the hearing and didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from El Paso Matters. 

Wood, now 69, has been on death row since shortly after his capital murder conviction in 1992 in the deaths of six girls and young women whose remains were found buried in the Northeast El Paso desert over several months in 1987. Only 12 of the 166 people on Texas death row have been there longer than Wood.

David Leonard Wood was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of six girls and young women. Top row, from left: Desiree Wheatley, 15; Karen Baker, 20; and Angelica Frausto, 17. Bottom from left: Dawn Marie Smith, 14; Rosa Maria Casio, 24; Ivy Susana Williams, 23. (Photos courtesy El Paso Times)

DNA testing was not in widespread use when Wood was originally tried. At Wood’s request, three pieces of evidence underwent DNA testing in 2011. One test on the clothing of a victim excluded Wood as a contributor of the DNA, but other tests were inconclusive.

Later in 2011, the trial judge at the time, Peter Peca, ruled that the new DNA testing didn’t establish that the 1992 jury would have reached a different verdict if they had the evidence at the time.

Wood filed several requests for additional DNA testing over the years, but all were rejected. In 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Wood failed to prove that he wasn’t seeking the DNA testing just to delay his execution.

Two days before Wood was scheduled to be put to death in March 2025, the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the execution and sent the case back to the trial court for further analysis. The court provided no reasons for its decision and little direction to the trial judge, something that Alcalá has noted several times, including in Friday’s hearing.

Alcalá told defense and prosecution lawyers to draft a motion specifying the material for testing by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The judge estimated that previous evidence showed that about 90 pieces of evidence may have biological material that could be tested.

It’s not clear how long the testing may take.