Days before the execution, the defense team scrambles to respond to an unexpected ruling, while the lead lawyer makes what may be his final visit to David Wood on death row. Everyone waits to find out Wood’s fate.

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To justify sentencing David Wood to death, prosecutors argued that he was a convicted rapist turned serial killer. And yet, Wood has insisted all along that isn’t true. We head to death row to hear him tell us why. But not before a victim of his earlier crimes has her say about the kind of person she believes he is.

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In the final weeks before the execution date, the defense team has to decide just how far it’s willing to push people to save David Wood’s life. The team’s deliberations lead to a key witness on his deathbed … and the mother of one of the Desert Killer’s victims.

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The way the state constructed the case, there’s no one big shiny piece of evidence for the defense to knock down. Instead, there are a million little threads to pull at. With less than two months until the execution, the lawyers comb through the evidence one last time, and a new witness offers unexpected revelations.

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In 1992, David Wood became El Paso’s most notorious convicted serial killer. He has been on death row ever since. More than 30 years later, his lawyers have just a few months  to argue his innocence and stop his execution.

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In 1992, David Wood was convicted of murdering young women and girls and burying them in the desert outside El Paso. He has been on death row ever since. “The Last 12 Weeks” takes you behind the scenes as a capital defense team races against the clock to stop an execution 30 years in the making.

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Allen will almost certainly be released in a few years. What should M.’s family do with a guy who refuses to own up to his own crime? Can he be re-integrated into the family? Should he be?

While M. has grown increasingly compassionate toward Allen, they learn their family has been moving in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, Priscilla has been trying to make a life without Allen. But Allen’s mom has other plans.

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Allen finally agrees to talk … and talk and talk, for 35 hours of interviews. M. wants to understand Allen on his own terms, to try and figure out how this scion of bohemian intellectuals ended up hiring someone to kill his ex. It’s hard for M. to believe everything Allen says, but over the course of their conversations, M. comes to feel for their cousin. And they think they understand what drove him to go so far.

Our newest podcast, “The Idiot” is out now. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

To get full access to this and other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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M. attends Allen’s trial in San Francisco. The FBI’s star witness, an agent who went by “David," plays his undercover recordings of Allen. They reveal how Allen’s scheme to deport Priscilla turned into a murder-for-hire plot. 

Allen is his own star witness, but his attempts to defend himself fall flat in court. M. begins to wonder why they loved seeing Allen humiliated on the stand.

Our newest podcast, “The Idiot” is out now. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

To get full access to this and other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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M. seeks out Allen’s ex-wife, Priscilla, who tells her side of the story. It begins with a whirlwind romance but quickly turns to chart Allen’s betrayal: taking her son from Russia and stranding Priscilla and her daughter in Moscow. What follows is Priscilla’s two-year odyssey, a journey that includes surviving a brutal attack and shocking arrests in Zimbabwe, only to reach the U.S. and have Allen take the boy again.

Our newest podcast, “The Idiot” is out now. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

To get full access to this and other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at [email protected] 

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