True Crime Vault: The Perfect Liar
01:30:45 Share

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust, or is it a real POS? You need Shopify for retail. From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify POS has everything you need to sell in person. Go to shopify.com slash system, all lowercase, to take your retail business to the next level today. That's shopify.com slash system.

This is Jepper Roberts with 2020. For more than four decades, 2020 has brought you an incredible variety of compelling stories. Well, now we're going to bring you back to some of the most heart-stopping ones from the 2020 True Crime Vault. And we're going to give you updates on what happened to the people involved. Thanks for listening. Coming up...

The police department, they have no idea. Young girl, brutally murdered. And more than three decades later, another life is on the line. A man who swears he's innocent is on death row. Did you know, were you aware that Shelley Bojo was murdered? No. You guys got the wrong guy. And the clock is ticking. Longer days. James Daly's death warrant could be signed by the Florida governor at any minute. Change my way.

And his lawyers are working desperately to prove his innocence and keep him alive. There was no evidence at all. The evidence that they had was the word of a fraud. They said James Daly had said she wouldn't die, she wouldn't die, she wouldn't shut up. Do we believe that? No.

Attorneys say he's on death row because of this man, an infamous jailhouse snitch who claims James Daly confessed to him. So not only are you taking the word of a con man, you're taking the word of a child molester. And yet you put him on the stand. Were you scared of him? Very. I was terrified. He says that you are the reason that he's on death row. He said the reason he's on death row is because you lied.

I'm John Quinones. It starts out as a night of drinking and ends with murder. The body of a 14-year-old girl is found dead in the waters of Florida. Ultimately, two men are held responsible for the brutal crime. But which one is really the killer?

That question is one of many that continues to haunt this case. Who is the man that claimed to have heard a confession? Did authorities put the wrong person behind bars? And for those who believe that man is innocent, will they be able to save him in time? As we first reported in 2020, the memory of a life lost and the search for answers has endured. And for one family, confronting what happened would lead them back to

to the very place where it all began. I've never been here because I'm so scared of it. So it was over here. This is where she went to heaven. And the reason I came down is because I feel like everybody's sitting in purgatory waiting for this to get justice. I believe that. And that's why I brought holy water down to put in the water.

Are you guys going to be offended if I get on my knees? Not at all. Okay, because this is how I feel about it. I hope she feels free now. How could somebody kill a little girl and just leave them in the water? What drives somebody to do that? The devil. An evil, evil person. She put up a fight to end all fights. Fighting them off of her as hard as she could.

She had over 30 stab wounds, many, many defensive wounds. Her hands were up like this, probably saying, stop, stop, stop. He's coming in with a knife, and it goes right through. It was just her, and she fought back. That's why she was stabbed so many times. She was trying to live. And you just think about that girl all alone. I think about this a lot, what...

What was she feeling? How scared was she? She was screaming. She was probably wanting her dad. She was probably wanting to go home. She was probably thinking, this cannot be happening to me. They didn't stop until it was over. It didn't stop. They didn't care.

She was dragged into the water and she was held down until she drowned. She was in the water all night long by herself, dead. Indian Rock Beach, it's a very small little community right on the intercoastal waterways, not heavily populated, sleepy town. Lovely area, I might say, lovely area. It was everything that you would think Florida should be.

We had the palm trees, we had the sun, beautiful weather all year round. And the beaches were phenomenal, white sandy beaches. A lot of tourists and a lot of transplants. People just looking for a change in life. Running away from something or running to something, I mean, that's Florida. Well, a bridge tender actually discovered the body in the water. There's a bridge tender house on the bridge that

And there's a bridge tender that sits up there all the time to open the drawbridge when boats want to pass through the intercoastal waterway. So what happened was the bridge tender reported to duty, and he got up to the top of the bridge. He looked over the side of the bridge and saw something in the water. Down by the shoreline.

But he wasn't quite sure what it was. He went down and investigated, and sure enough, it was a body. He was so upset because it was a young body. She was found floating naked.

It's just a secluded area, a beachy area where I guess people go parking and that kind of thing, you know, like a lover's lane kind of thing. It's right near the bridge and there's nothing else there. And that's how it was discovered. Then he called the police. Police department, they have no idea. Young girl, brutally murdered.

I've covered a lot of murder, and generally police and prosecutors are really happy to talk about the cases they've solved. But not this one. But one of the few people who is willing to talk with us about this case is a former prosecutor named Robert Heyman. This murder happens. How big of a deal was it here in Pinellas County? You know, in my career, I handled dozens of first-degree murders. I mean, this was probably...

really without a doubt, the most brutal one that I had seen and handled personally. A murder these days is kind of commonplace. I mean, it doesn't get a lot of attention. But back then, murders weren't all that common in Pinellas County. It received a lot of publicity and a lot of interest, both from the press and the public.

That type of viciousness, that type of brutality would keep any detective, any prosecutor up at night. She had no ID, so they didn't know who this girl was. Here are some of the newspaper clippings. It says, police are still seeking identity of murdered woman. Another one from the Tampa Bay Times. The murdered woman floating nude in the intercoastal waterway Monday morning still has not been identified.

She was in her late teens or early 20s. Five foot seven, weighed about 120 pounds and had brown hair and green eyes. She was wearing a small silver ring. Small silver ring with a turquoise stone. Turquoise stone in the shape of an eagle. In the shape of an eagle.

This case begins with a mystery. Who is this young woman in the water? That is soon going to be solved. But the next question is, who did it? Now, some people say we still don't have the right answer to that. Even now, 35 years later, and at this moment, another life is on the line.

A body is discovered underneath a bridge in Pinellas County, Florida. As police try to identify the young woman, the story of how she got there and who committed the crime is, for some, a mystery that three decades later is still being unraveled. ♪♪

They had no idea who this body belonged to. It could have been anybody. It could have come from anywhere. There are few clues as to who she is or who killed her. Now, a medical examiner does determine the time of death somewhere between 1.30 and 3.30 a.m. early that morning. It takes nearly 48 hours, but the

But the victim is eventually identified. The naked girl stabbed, strangled, and drowned in the intercoastal waterway finally has a name. Her name is Shelly Boggio. She's just 14 years old. She was identified by a turquoise ring and a scar on her belly. And I just remember thinking, this is like the last ring that she will have. She will never have that special ring from a boyfriend or...

you know, a wedding band. - And my mother called me and said that I had to get home right away, that there had been a murder in the family. And I just remember shaking. I was just shaking. - The Boggio family is your average Midwestern family. Frank Boggio and Sherry Boggio, they were both beauticians in Battle Creek. - And they divorced. The husband brings the three daughters down to Florida.

Frank moved three girls and himself to Pinellas County, ironically for quote-unquote a better life. Shelly was very kind, very sweet. She was actually very soft-spoken. Shelly could also make everybody in her room laugh, and that was a problem in school sometimes. Shelly was a 14-year-old clearly going on 30 in many ways.

Now this is the most beautiful time of year in Florida, and as Sunday turns to night on May 5th, 1985, Shelley Boggio has no way of knowing that this is going to be her last Florida sunset. She's about to come across two men, Jack Piercy and his friend, who you're about to meet. His name is James Daly, and back then he was known as Jim, or Jimmy D. Let me take your shot here.

Okay, just move your row anyway. Thanks for coming to see me. Sure. It's a long walk down that hallway, huh? About a quarter of a mile. I meet James Daly nearly 35 years later on Florida's death row. He's there for the murder of Shelley Boggio. Did you get many visitors? Mary Kay, my ex-wife.

She tries to make it up every week. Daly's in pretty good shape for his age. He turned 74 in 2020. And if he is executed, he would be the oldest man the state of Florida has ever executed. When I first met James Daly, he was remorseful about sort of the way he was living his life back then. The way he explained to me was maybe I shouldn't have ever been hanging around guys like Jack Piercy. Maybe I shouldn't have ever even been in Florida.

But I didn't kill that girl. Any day now, Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, could sign James Daley's death warrant. Now, after about 35 years behind bars, he's had a lot of time to consider where his life went wrong because once upon a time, it was looking pretty good for James Daley.

Before death row, before winding up in Florida in 1985, James Daly was a family man, married with two children. Jim and I met in Manhattan, Kansas in 1962. It was the summer before our junior year in high school. We dated for four years before we got married. And then James Daly goes to war. He went to Vietnam three times. Oh, it was horrible.

I got there right after Tet started in 1968. After every rocket attack, I'd have to go out and look for body parts. I just wasn't made for that. It affected me horribly. I could tell when he'd come back from Vietnam that he was changing. But Daly's divorced, and at this point, James Daly is 38 years old. He's down, he's out. He does not have a job, but he is drinking and drinking a lot.

In 1985, Mr. Daly is what I call a drifter. And he met Jack Piercy randomly, I believe at a bar, and the two of them just kind of hit it off. So you were drinking buddies? Yeah. And we got to know each other pretty well, I thought. Boy, was I mistaken. And we ended up, in the end, coming to Florida. Yeah.

Piercy and Daly are now living in a two-bedroom rented house in St. Petersburg, Florida, along with Piercy's pregnant girlfriend, whose name is Gail Bailey, and a friend from back in Kansas whose name is Oza Dwayne Shaw. He's crashing on the couch. It's now Sunday, May 5th, 1985, and Jack Piercy, James Daly, and Jack's friend, Oza Shaw, are driving around St. Petersburg, Florida, drinking and partying when they run into Stacey and Shelly Boggio.

Jack saw Shelly and her sister Stacy and this other girl on the side of the road. And they picked them up. This wasn't just a random pickup. The Bosho twins knew James Daly and Jack Piercy. And even though the girls were only 14 years old, they'd hung out and partied with these guys before. They were not strangers. We drove back to our place and smoked some dope and drank some beer and

This interview is with respect to case number 85-44387, which is a homicide case. In our reporting, we've come across some of the recordings and interviews that the police, in their initial investigation of the crime, did with some of the last people who saw Shelley Boggio alive that night.

One of these police interviews is Jack Piercy's then girlfriend, pregnant girlfriend, Gail Bailey. They finally came home.

They brought with them Shelly, her sister, and another blonde. They got drunk. They smoked marijuana. They spent time together. They were 14. They wanted to be grown-ups. Now here's a detail you just can't make up. One of those girls tells detectives that they're watching an Alfred Hitchcock murder mystery on TV that night. And then they decide to go back out.

Me and Shelly and the girls and Jack and Jim, we dropped the sister and the other blonde off at some apartment. 14-year-old Shelly Bojo, she's just in 7th grade, is on her own with the grown-ups, and the party moves to a nightclub, Jerry's Rock and Roll. Wow, spring break is here again. Our favorite time of year at Jerry's. Four of us went to Jerry's, and we were sitting there,

Three drinks, peace. This night is not going to end well. What are you thinking? I could see this is going to go downhill really, really fast, and something bad is going to happen. She... Yeah. Yeah.

Summer is here and safety and security at home can give you the peace of mind you need to get out there and fully enjoy those summer months. So it's the perfect time to give a fresh look at SimpliSafe home security. Trusted by experts, SimpliSafe has been named in U.S. News & World Report's Best Home Security Systems for five years running and ranked Best Customer Service in Home Security by Newsweek.

SimpliSafe offers advanced home security and 24-7 monitoring that's accessible to all with low upfront costs and monitoring plans for less than a dollar a day. With 24-7 live guard protection, SimpliSafe's agents can act on an alarm within five seconds of receiving the alarm signal, deterring intruders and dispatching police. Because in a crisis, every moment counts.

SimpliSafe does not lock you into a long-term contract, so you can cancel at any time penalty-free. Try SimpliSafe risk-free with a 60-day satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Get an exclusive 20% off any new SimpliSafe system when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash abc. That's simplisafe.com slash abc. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

It's the night of May 5th, 1985.

After a night of drinking and smoking, 14-year-old Shelly Boggia is at a nightclub with two older men, Jack Piercy and James Daly. So both of these guys are paying attention to Shelly, but Shelly is only interested in Jack Piercy.

James Daly says that he remembers the DJ might have even been playing the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, Give Me Three Steps. I asked Shelly if she wanted to dance. She said no. But Daly says that when a slow song came on, Shelly was out on the dance floor with Jack Piercy.

Then we all went back home and this was about midnight.

Now, remember, the medical examiner would later determine that Shelley was murdered sometime between 1.30 and 3.30 a.m. So what's important to keep track of here is who is with Shelley as the night unfolds. It's just after midnight, and the group goes back to the house, and here's who's there. It's Shelley, James Daly, Jack Piercy, Jack Piercy's girlfriend who's pregnant, Gail. And right around this time, Jack Piercy says...

He's going to take Shelly home. Gail went into the bathroom and Jack and Shelly were leaving. Now, there's another guest at this party and he's an important player. His name is Oza Dwayne Shaw. He's Jack Pierce's buddy from back in Kansas. And when Jack says he's leaving to take Shelly home, Oza Shaw asks him for a ride to the payphone. Ask them to do the ride at the payphone because I need to call my girlfriend.

No one knows this yet, but Shelley has just hours left to live. And she's just gotten into the car with Jack Piercy and Oza Dwayne Shaw. This is critical. Daly says he and Gail stayed back in the house. Daly says, and this is really important, when Jack and Shelley left with Shaw, he went to his bedroom. Daly insists he did not go with them. I went in my bedroom and went to sleep.

So sure enough, Jack, Piercy and Shelly have now stopped at that payphone so Oza can make his call. Oza Dwayne Shaw, when he's on the payphone to his girlfriend back in Kansas, he says that in the car, Jack and Shelly get impatient and honk the horn at him. Oza Dwayne Shaw is at that payphone talking to his girlfriend, Betty, who confirms that she heard that car horn. In the background, I could hear a horn.

We have the telephone records to confirm this call was placed. We know it was placed at 1.15 a.m. Why is this so important? Because the most reliable witness in this case is the clock. The clock and what the clock suggests about who was with Shelly when she died and who was not with her.

Oza Dwayne Shaw is one of the last people to see Shelley Boggio alive. And who does he say she's with? Not James Daly. Jack Piercy. Just Jack.

Oza Dwayne Shaw tells detectives that it's hours later when Jack Piercy returns to the house alone. Mr. Piercy doesn't return to the house, according to Oza Shaw, until at least 4 a.m. And if Shelly died sometime between 1.30 and 3.30 a.m., then Mr. Daly couldn't have been there. He couldn't have been there, his lawyers say, because he was back at the house.

Oza Shaw has been consistent from day one that the only people that went to that payphone were Oza Shaw, Jack Piercy, and Shelley Boggio, and that James Daly stayed back at the house. Period. Jack came back and woke me up and said, "I've got a couple of joints. Let's go smoke them and grab a six-pack of beer out of the fridge." So I got up. He said he needed to talk to me about something.

Jumping out of bed in the middle of the night to go drink beer and smoke pot with your friend may sound odd to you and me, but Daly says this was the life they were leading. They were up at all hours. They didn't have steady jobs. No responsibilities. So we drove out to Bell Air Causeway, and Jack said, the reason I got to talk to you is Gail wants you to leave. She wants to turn the bedroom into a nursery. And I told him that's no problem. I said, I'm ready to move on anyway.

But now here comes the moment that spells the first sign of trouble for James Daly, and it seems incriminating. After that early morning trip he took with Jack Piercy, he arrives back at the house, and his pants are wet. Wet pants and a murder where the victim was found drowned in the water. It's damning, unless there is an innocent explanation.

We were throwing the frisbee around and it went out in the lagoon. Well, the lagoon's only about two feet deep. So I waited out there and got it. And my pants were wet. I've never denied ever that my pants were wet. I'm smart enough that if I was going to make up a story, I'd make up a better story than that. But that's the truth. That's exactly what happened. The next morning, the bridge tender finds Shelly's body mutilated.

And she's naked and she's dead. As police swarm the crime scene just five miles away at Jack Piercy's house, it's a busy morning. Everybody there says that Jack has suddenly decided to take a road trip. I think people found it strange, though, that the very next day you headed down to Miami with Jack. We got up the next morning, Jack says, I want to go to Miami. I wanted to see Miami. I have never seen Miami.

You know, you see it on TV. What was that show with Don Johnson? - Vice, Miami Vice. - Miami Vice, yeah. You know, you see all the colors and everything, and I just wanted to see it. - I'm a prosecutor and I'm looking at that. That looks like evidence of guilt. It looks like flight. Let me get out of the crime scene area.

as soon as possible. I mean, we're not talking about a week later or two weeks later. We're talking about the very next day. -Oza Shaw and James Daly share a hotel room. They both check in using their real name, and then Jack Piercy checks in under an alias. According to Oza Shaw, Jack Piercy's demeanor was different. He appeared nervous and agitated. He was acting very peculiar.

But for all his interest in Miami Vice, James Daly doesn't do much sightseeing. Just 24 hours later, he's gone. Jack drove me to the bus station. I bought my ticket, got on a bus. I didn't think anything about it, you know. I was ready to move on. James Daly got his stuff and went out to California. Jack Piercy drove to Kansas by way of Colorado, and that's where he was ultimately picked up.

Mr. Piercy was arrested first, and he at that time gave statements, made admissions, and for the most part was putting the onus on James Daly as the main actor in this crime. The first few stories were basically they were looking for two men who had been seen with this girl.

at one of the bars. - Identifying Shelly Bojo leads detectives to her twin sister, Stacy, who tells them the last time she saw Shelly alive, she was with Jack Piercy and James Daly. - That's how the investigation really started, who she was with, who these guys were. So then the sheriff's office mounted a search for these guys.

Florida detectives know that James Daly and Jack Piercy are from Kansas, so they ask police there to keep an eye out. And sure enough, two weeks after the murder, one of them, Jack Piercy, shows up in his hometown and is arrested. The detectives in Kansas were very familiar with him. They knew him. They knew him by name.

One of the Olathe, Kansas detectives you see questioning Jack Piercy is Joe Pruitt. He's retired now, but we reached out to him by phone. We knew him in Olathe. It's what we call a frequent flyer. He'd been arrested numerous times.

Mr. Piercy had been arrested for batteries, assaults. I believe there was a terroristic threat against his girlfriend at the time. He had been arrested by me at the request of the sheriff's department for a sexual assault that they were investigating. That charge was later dismissed. Jack Piercy had been involved in a prior murder in Missouri. He had actually been solicited to commit a murder.

Five years before Shelly Bozio's murder, Jack Piercy was hired to kill an elderly doctor. He was ready to do it with a hunting knife, but he backed out and someone else committed the murder. He had a pretty lengthy criminal history, at least as far as charges. Made him comfortable, gave him the opportunity to smoke.

And then he started talking and we started asking questions. You better be shooting straight because when they catch you in a line, Jack, you're gonna get banged.

Jack Piercy in the interrogation room, just two weeks after the murder, seems so relaxed. He's blowing smoke rings. He's fiddling with his pocket knife. And you have to wonder what's going through his mind. Mr. Piercy didn't seem surprised to me. He didn't seem confused about what was going on. He didn't seem in shock at all. He just seemed to be in control and laid back and not too worried about what the detectives were asking him.

I really can't comment on Mr. Piercy other than, you know, his social gyro was off the gimbals, let me tell you. He was a different cat. He starts pointing the finger at James Daly. Jack Piercy took every opportunity to throw Mr. Daly under the bus.

Piercy says he's in the car. He's drunk, passed out, but he's awake to hear screaming. And he sees Jimmy Daly coming back. His pants are wet. When he heard some commotion, Piercy got out. And he knows at that point what happened. And he knew that Jimmy Daly had stabbed this girl. He tried to put it all on Daly. You know, he was in the vehicle when it occurred. I don't buy it. He told me. He did it.

I'm pretty damn sure it is. Well, I didn't watch him do it, but yeah, I'm pretty damn sure he did. Did you hear, yeah? I told you I thought I heard him arguing or something, but I just, you know, I was half conscious or whatever, you know. Why are you trying to... I've been hearing it all day. I'm not trying to cover for him. I wouldn't be sitting here saying what I'm saying if I was trying to cover for him. But if I didn't see him do something, if I had seen somebody doing something like that, I would have done something. You know, that's why. Why do you think Jimmy killed him? I don't know. Did he rape her?

How many times did he stab her? Well,

It's always good to be the first person in the door at the police station and certainly at the prosecutor's office. You're going to get a better deal.

You're going to be able to sort of set the stage as to what happened. Why would Piercy name Daly? Maybe he's thinking, let me blame it on him and they'll never be able to prove it against him. And they certainly won't be able to have a stronger case against me if I point the finger the other way. November 6th, 1985, six months to the day after the murder, James Daly's arrested in California.

I wonder, did James Daly do it? I think that's the first thing in my mind. Where's the evidence that really puts him at the scene? Then a new witness comes along with a devastating story. He stabbed her. He continued to stab her. She wouldn't die. It was, I think, the quote, powerful stuff if it's believed. But will the jury buy it? ♪♪

This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required.

Go to your happy place for a happy price. Go to your happy price, Priceline.

As authorities in Florida investigate the murder of 14-year-old Shelly Boggio, two men have emerged as prime suspects, Jack Piercy and James Daly.

Just two weeks after the crime, Jack is found in Kansas, where he's arrested and questioned by local police. He tells detectives he had nothing to do with Shelly's death and points the finger at James. But as the story shifts to the West Coast, another key figure will emerge, and his testimony will seal the fate of one of these men.

Six months after the murder of Shelly Boggio, James Daly is arrested far away in Monterey, California. James Daly says that after leaving Florida, he had first gone to Arizona, where he met a guy who offered him a job in California. He was looking for somebody to go to California with him to help him remodel his restaurant.

And I'd done a lot of cabinet work and stuff, so I said, "Hey, I'm looking for a job." And he said, "Well, you willing to go to California?" And I said, "Heck yeah." But detectives in Florida track him down in California, some 2,800 miles away. When you were first arrested and you felt those cuffs binding your wrists,

What was that like? I just said, man, you guys got the wrong guy. Can you see how it seems suspicious that so shortly after the murder, first you go to Miami and then you go clear across the country to California? Yeah, but if I was going to hide, don't you think I'd use a different name? I'm not hiding from anybody. I didn't know I was supposed to be hiding anybody. They had to extradite him back to Florida.

James Daly and Jack Piercy, who'd been arrested months earlier, are now both locked up in the Pinellas County Jail to await trial. In the end, Jack Piercy fails to convince prosecutors that he's an innocent bystander and that James Daly is the sole killer of Shelley Boggio.

They are both indicted. Piercy is tried first. Jack Piercy went to trial in November of 1986, right before Thanksgiving. Our defense of Mr. Piercy was the other guy did it. Piercy was along for the ride and Daley was the guy that did everything. But that defense strategy does not work and Piercy is convicted.

The jury convicts Piercy quickly, but then takes mercy on him, recommending life in prison instead of a death sentence. The following summer, it's James Daly's turn to stand trial. He didn't have a history of violence against women. He didn't have a motive. There was no eyewitnesses placing him at the scene. There was just no evidence.

The state's theory was that Jack, Jim Daly, and Shelly left, and that they drove around, then they went to the water side. And that was when they, they, excuse me, it was at that point where evidently I guess they felt they had enough of Shelly, and they stabbed her. She was put underwater, she was drowned, dead.

The jury never heard James Daly's explanation for having those wet pants that he'd been playing frisbee and chased the disc into the water. James Daly never took the witness stand. He sat there looking like a lawyer for the entire week and said nothing. No emotion, no outburst of, I didn't do that. I don't know. My attorney at the trial said that he didn't want me to testify because he couldn't believe that we played frisbee.

Your attorney advised you not to testify. Yeah, I wanted to testify. I wanted to get up and tell what really happened. I think he should have taken a stand. I would have loved to hear what he had to say. As prosecutors wrap up their case, among their last witnesses are a trio of jailhouse informants. Now, we've all seen this movie before, right? Dramatic testimony from a jailhouse witness claiming he heard a confession. Jailhouse snitches, they've been used since the beginning of time.

Detectives can place a defendant in the same jail cell with a snitch. It's legal. It's fine. They become friends, and people really do talk. In Daley's case, two snitches testify he made incriminating statements. But then the third inmate takes the stand, and he's a showstopper. His name is Paul Skalnik, and James Daley's lawyers say his testimony sealed Daley's fate.

Skelnick testifies that Daly confessed to him in jail. He says that Daly told him he stabbed Shelley, that she was staring up at him, and she was screaming, and she would not die. He stabbed her. He continued to stab her. She wouldn't die, was, I think, the quote. What was your reaction when you heard Skelnick on the stand testifying against you? Well, other than disbelief, other than trying to tell my attorney that never happened, it was just sickening.

You never confessed to him, you say? Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Never said a word to him in my life, and I had to sit there in the courtroom and listen to him just...

say I confessed all these horrible things to him and I never said anything to him. That was actually the only information that we ever got that supposedly came from James Daly because he never took the witness stand. So everything, if we were to believe what the snitches were saying, that was the only way we could hear James Daly's voice.

So it was very interesting listening to the snitches. Powerful stuff, if it's believed. And the jury obviously decided to believe it. James Daly is convicted and he's sentenced to die in the electric chair. You could hear kind of cheering in the back. I don't know how anybody could cheer at a death sentence. Did you murder Shelley Bojo? No, I did not. I had nothing to do with her death whatsoever. Have I felt guilt from it?

Absolutely. Why would you feel guilty if you didn't do anything? I wish I could have done something to stop it. I didn't know Piercy's record. I thought he was taking her home. James Daly's word against Paul Skalnik. Who to believe? I wouldn't believe him as far as I could throw him.

Turns out there was something the jury didn't know about that jailhouse snitch, Paul Skalnik. I'm pretty familiar with Paul Skalnik. I asked him how many times he'd actually been listed as a witness by the state, and he told me 28 times. We thought it would help to know more about Skalnik, maybe even talk to him. I just left the prison here, the Florida State Prison, interviewing Jim Daly. He said the reason he's on death row is because you lied. You lied.

We believe one of the key factors in Mr. Daly getting the death penalty was the testimony of Paul Skalnik. I say to you, there could be no conviction without Paul Skalnik. What was your reaction when they did decide to put you to death? Well, I went out and sat down on a bench and there was a mental health guy there. And I just started crying. And he says, what's the matter? And I said, well, I was just sentenced to death for a crime I didn't commit.

There was no evidence at all. The evidence that they had was the word of a fraud and a con man, this guy Paul Skalnin. Daly insists that it was impossible for him to be in the position to give Skalnin a confession, physically impossible. ♪

James Daly says that just weeks before his trial, he was moved into the same wing of the Pinellas County Jail as Paul Skelnick. So right before Mr. Daly's trial in May, Paul Skelnick is in an isolated cell because he's having to be protected because other inmates know he's a snitch. We were on G-Wing. He was in a single cell. I was in a pod of about 16 guys.

And according to Paul Skelnick, as he's walking down the hallway, Daly shouts at him through this double layer of bars, oh, hey, let me talk to you. And so according to Skelnick, they talk, and Mr. Daly says, you know, he killed her, and I held her under, and she just wouldn't die. She kept screaming and looking at me.

So basically you would have to have shouted. I would have had yelled by confession to him. This case even drew the ire of renowned columnist and crime novelist Carl Hyasson. He's just going to call somebody over passing by his cell and say, hey, let me tell you a story about this homicide. I'm going to pass by and say, oh, yeah, you know, I killed her. Why a jury would accept that? I don't know. As a journalist, someone has written a lot about death row cases and a lot about homicides.

No, it doesn't make any sense. Particularly if you know Skalnik is a snitch. Everybody in jail knew he was the world's biggest snitch. I mean, even the officers in the county jail told us not to talk to him, you know? If you talk to him, he's going to go to court against you.

Prosecutors assured the jury, and Skelnick swore to this, he wasn't promised anything, and there was no deal in return for his blockbuster testimony, even though he was facing up to 20 years for grand theft if convicted. He said, I'm not getting any benefit out of this. After Mr. Daly's trial, Paul Skelnick is released on his own recognizance, which means he doesn't have to put up bail. He was released five days after James Daly got the death sentence.

They let him walk out. They insist that there's no correlation, but there's no other explanation for it. I mean, you'd have to be an idiot not to figure that out. It happens too many times when you use jailhouse snitches. They say, "Have you made any deal with the state attorney?" "Oh, no, sir, I have not." And then the case is over, and quietly cases are dismissed or he's let out of jail.

During trial, jurors were told that Skalnik had been a police officer and were assured he was, quote, honest and reliable. But the most important information about Skalnik that was not shared were some of the darkest parts of his past. I knew Paul Skalnik for about the last 60 years, I guess, because he was on my little league team. I think he could have been anything he wanted to be.

because he was a really intelligent guy. Paul Skalnik was born in 1949, adopted, raised in League City, Texas. He started out on the right track, it seemed. Yearbook photos show him in the student council. He did the Key Club. He was even voted president of the Future Business Leaders of America. After high school, went to the New Mexico Military Institute for a short stint. Then went on to become a police officer.

He was a police officer for about five minutes in Austin, Texas. And sometime after that, his life took a drastic turn. He was charged with theft. It was a bunch of hot checks. Officer Skalnik was allowed to resign from the force, and he slips into a new career. See this ad from back in 1973? Paul Skalnik has a trusty insurance agent. And he does this while he secretly pursues a life of grifting and crime.

By the age of 30, Skalnik had already been divorced twice, and his third wife was Penny Rogers. Now, according to Penny's daughter, Skalnik was a master manipulator who at first swept Penny right off her feet. I thought my mother had found the most wonderful guy. He told me I was his princess and that I could call him dad, but I never did.

I was 15 years old. It was in 1977 when Paul Skalnik came into our lives. He had met my mother at the funeral home where she worked. I believe somebody in his family had passed away, extended family. He just swept her off her feet. He told her that he was CEO of Southwest Airlines. He would get dressed in a three-piece suit, all his gold and diamonds.

We would always go to the Cowboys games. We'd stay at the hotel, the suites, have a good time. We had cheesecake, there was champagne. Come checkout time though, he carried a big old thing of credit cards. They wouldn't take his card, he wrote a check.

But he got me. He was always stealing the robes and the towels. He would bring her home roses. He gave her the big $649 microwave. And a couple months later, they got married. He claimed to be working for the CIA, an informant for the FBI. And it was just these grandiose ideas of who he was. And none of it was true. He got to be very abusive.

He would lock my brother up in a room, beat him. My mom, he would beat her. He was sort of touching me inappropriately. I was like, what did I do? What did I do to make him do that? Unfortunately, Skalink was just getting started. Once in Florida, this guy had more cruel acts up his sleeve.

When he got in trouble, the first thing he did was start snitching, and he became a valuable informant. He testified in 35 cases for the Pinellas County State Attorney's Office, which is an exorbitantly high number, in my opinion. But the most important question is why. Why does he seem to be their go-to witness? And was he getting something in return?

By the early 80s, Paul Skalnik had left behind four wives and a trail of victims in Florida and Texas. But at this point, his crimes are catching up with him. And he lands in the Pinellas County Jail in Florida, where he begins a new role as a jailhouse snitch. ♪

He claims that a fellow and made a guy by the name of Kenneth Gardner has confessed to him for the murder of a hardware store owner in Clearwater, Florida. Skalnik was claiming at that time that Mr. Gardner had made a statement to him to the effect of, I killed him, but no one will be able to prove it. Gardner is convicted and Skalnik is later paroled after serving only half of a five-year sentence for grand theft. But Skalnik can't stay out of jail.

And he also can't get murderers to stop confessing to him. Prosecutors used him an awful lot. I had a case in the mid-80s, and it was a triple homicide. Three gentlemen were murdered execution style. And Skalnik was a witness in that case. And I remember taking his deposition and asking how many times have you testified before? He said 28.

Was Skalnik benefiting from his testimony? Well, in one case, a handwritten note found in the state's attorney's file says that if Skalnik's assistance in previous cases is substantial, quote, the state will be seeking to mitigate...

and, quote, that probation was discussed. Now, this is not to say that Skalnik gave up his own criminal career. It seemed that whenever Skalnik got out of jail, he found a new victim, and more than once, it was a young girl.

We lived in a cul-de-sac. All the families had kids. And we'd go outside in the evening after school and ride our bikes together and play at each other's houses and always going to the beach. How old were you when you met Paul Skalnik? I think I was just turned 12. Do you remember how you met him?

I remember he showed up out of the blue, an acquaintance of our neighbors who were my mom and dad's best friends. Had a very magnetic personality, so kind of drew you in. Did it seem abnormal that a 32-year-old good-looking, wealthy-looking man would want to spend so much time with a 12-year-old? I knew it wasn't right. Can you tell me about that July day when you all went to go fishing?

made plans with the neighbors to go to a friend of our neighbor's house. They had a pond and we were all going to go fishing, have a picnic, and he was invited. I think initially I got out of the car with everybody and we went in. He stayed in the car and then he summons me back out to the car and I went back out. I know this is obviously very hard for you, but can you tell me what happened then? It was dark. His windows were tinted. I remember the car was dark.

and he pulled me in and started kissing me on the mouth like an adult would kiss another adult. He grabbed my hand and put it in his pants. He begins sexually assaulting her. Keep in mind that Karen Parker is just a 7th grader at this time, 12 years old, and she's sitting with Skalnik in this car. I couldn't believe it was happening. I felt...

Like, where's all the adults? And I felt like I didn't really have a choice to do what he wanted me to do. The evidence was pretty strong, pretty graphic. Skalnik was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct on a child, and he faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Now, Karen Parker passed a polygraph. There were witnesses who say they saw this. And in a strange bit of irony, Skalnik allegedly told someone in jail that he did this. Still, the charge was dropped.

He was given a grand theft conviction. I don't know how you get from molesting a child to grand theft. That's quite a leap in plea bargaining, but he pulled it off. Skalnik's plea deal kept him out of prison, leaving him in the Pinellas County Jail, where he would be useful to authorities. When he got in trouble, the first thing he did was start snitching, and he became a valuable informant in Pinellas County. He was always there, and he was always conveniently in the right spot to hear an unsolicited confession from someone who barely knew him.

He testified in 35 cases for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which is an exorbitantly high number, in my opinion. Suddenly, Skalnik became known as the state attorney's go-to witness. And he wasn't just a witness for the state's attorney's office, but there was one Pinellas County detective, John Halliday, who thought so highly of Paul Skalnik that he actually went to bat for him with a parole board.

Detective Halliday writes to the parole board in 1984 and says, Paul Skalnik has essentially benefited the state. He's helped with information on dozens of inmates, put several people behind bars and on death row, and asks the parole board to give him parole, basically, that he deserves to be out on the streets for his service. Sure enough, his letter works. They let him out. ♪♪

coziness of using the same informant over and over and over again and helping him get off and re-offend. That is...

improper practice. Stephen Thompson, a spokesperson for the Sixth Circuit Prosecutor's Office, did respond to our request for an interview or comment, writing, we don't typically comment on any cases. And he wrote, the judge's decisions in court speak for themselves. We reached out to Detective Halliday, but he declined an interview with 20-20.

Paul Skalnik is out on parole, but not for very long, because just two years later, he's back in the Pinellas County Jail, just in time to help Detective Halliday and the state attorney's office win yet another conviction. This one, James Daly's. Even though prosecutors said that Paul Skalnik was not getting rewarded for his testimony in the James Daly case,

This document that we have obtained shows that he was released from prison five days after Daly was sentenced to death. And I quote, "due to his cooperation in the first degree murder trial where he was a witness." Skalnik spends the next several years in a revolving door of the system, committing crimes, getting caught, and quickly released.

but he's about to meet his match. Two women who take him down. - Transcription is rolling now. - I don't know what made me so special.

Hi all, Kate Gibson here of The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson. This week we talked to Whoopi Goldberg about lots of things. But one of the things we talked to her about is how as a science fiction and graphic novel fan, she never saw herself on those screens or on those pages growing up. I mean, I didn't realize that part of me until I watched Star Trek. And I saw it because I love sci-fi.

And for some reason, it never occurred to me that I was missing until I was present. You're not going to want to miss this episode of The Bookcase from ABC News.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Are you driving your car or doing laundry right now? Podcasts go best when they're bundled with another activity, like Progressive Home and Auto Policies. They're best when bundled too. Having these two policies together makes insurance easier and could help you save. Customers who save by switching their home and car insurance to Progressive save over $775 on average.

Quote a home and car bundle today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $779 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states.

For years, Paul Skelnick has been landing in and out of jail. He's made a name for himself as an informant, testifying in more than 30 cases for the state of Florida. But even though he's helped prosecutors, Skelnick continues to break the law. And as he heads to another state, one brave woman will tell the story of how she tried to finally end his life of crime. Okay, close.

Paul Skalnik, five days after James Daly is sentenced to death. Guy's facing 20 years in jail. Tata, they let him walk out of jail and he was to get bond and went to Texas and sexually molested a teenager. The horrible things he did still live in my nightmares.

1991, my parents had divorced and I was a typical teenage girl, worried about the boy I liked, what everybody was wearing. I was normal. How did your mom first meet Paul Skalnik? They were in high school together and I am not certain how they were reintroduced, but he came in like a knight in shining armor and swept her right off her feet. There was roses. He made her feel beautiful.

And for a woman who has been through divorce before, I can tell you that that's very wonderful to experience. He presented himself as being an independently wealthy man that was formerly CIA agent. What kind of ring does he propose to your mom with? It was a seven-carat, pear-shaped diamond ring. Huge.

It was not a real diamond. It was a CZ. Cubic zirconia. So your mom thought it was a real diamond. She did. Now, Misty has a visceral, immediate dislike for Paul Skalnik. And she says he didn't seem to like her either. I felt like something's not right here. And he knew that. And he accuses her of stealing that big fake diamond ring. And things get worse for Misty after that.

That was how he started separating me out from everybody else. I'm getting in trouble more often. I'm having to do extra chores around the house. I'm spending a lot of time in my bedroom, not able to go out. He's forcing you to stay in your bedroom. Yes, all day. And then my life changed. He came upstairs. He said, I think I have a way that we can work this out. And he asked me to meet him down in the spa afterwards.

And was it in the spa where he touched you? Yeah. Oh, he touched me in more places, in the spa, in the house, in my room. This went on for a month, and I couldn't tell anybody, or I didn't feel like I could because who was going to believe me? I felt trapped. I wanted to stop. So eventually you did find a way out. I did. I told my mother, and my mother in that moment became my hero.

because she immediately sprung into action. She called the cops and they came over and I interviewed with them and they took him away.

I was an assistant criminal district attorney. This was a sexual assault of a child. He had really groomed this little girl. Of course, he denied it. And he had an alias. That was a red flag. His alias was Jason Paul Bourne, B-O-U-R-N-E. You know, special agent from the Bourne Identity Series. We were going to trial, but at the last minute, he pled.

He pled no contest, and he was sentenced to 10 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Skelnick was ultimately punished for what he did to Misty, which may have surprised him. Remember, Paul Skelnick had been charged with the sexual assault of 12-year-old Karen Parker. Those charges were dropped. So just imagine how Karen Parker must have felt when she heard about Misty. It broke my heart.

I felt bad for her. I felt like that could have been avoided. He had committed so many crimes and he had abused so many people, but you and the crime he committed against, he was the one that he actually served a full sentence for. Yes, I was the one that was able to get him to stay behind bars. Skownik pleaded guilty, did his time and got out. But James Daly has never seen a single day of freedom since Paul Skownik's testimony helped put him in prison.

My heart breaks for James Daly because he very well could be innocent and he's looking at death because of what Paul Skalnik said. If Paul Skalnik were sitting here across from you, what would you say to him? I wouldn't say anything to him. He wouldn't hear. He's just so self-absorbed, so narcissistic, such a big con man, and he's a child rapist.

As we were leaving the prison right after the interview with Daly and right outside the prison gates, I get on a phone call with someone I've been wanting to talk to.

So right now we are calling Paul Skolnick, who is in a nursing home in Texas. And we have a reporter there with him who is going to put him on the phone. My name is Kat Cosley. I'm a local television news anchor and reporter in the Houston area. And in January of 2020, I was actually hired by ABC News 2020 to go to Corsicana and visit Paul Skolnick. So I had the phone and Matt dialed in on the phone. So I have Matt now.

Are you here? I can't. Hey, Paul, how are you? How are you? I'm all right. Thanks for talking with us. There are lots of inmates all up and down Florida who say that they're in prison because of you. You put them there by testifying against them in court. Well, that's life. Do you regret anything you've done? Do you have any regrets? Not to my knowledge.

He's 100% correct. There's a time and a place to talk.

Yes, you sound so serious. Well, I am serious. This is a serious matter. I mean, there are people whose lives are on the line right now as we speak. Mine first. Your life is on the line first? I consider it that way, yeah. Well, there's a man on death row. I'm actually looking at the wing he's in, and I think he might say he's in line first. That's good. Do you want to see him be put to death? There are times and moments, yes.

The looks that he gave me when Matt was asking him questions, how could this guy ask me these things, you know? What does this guy think I am? Paul, just since we're still on the record, I wanted to ask you, why do you think you're so close to death? I mean, you sound okay. What leads you to think you're in such bad shape? Two strokes, possible heart attack. Yeah, that's enlightening, isn't it?

Yeah, that doesn't sound so good. No regrets from Paul Skalnik, but what about the prosecutors who put him on the stand? This is a guy who is a professional con man at this point, and you knew it, and you knew it. Absolutely. It has been more than three decades since a Battle Creek teenager was brutally murdered in Florida.

Now her killer may finally be executed. The new evidence in the case is sparking attorneys to fight for exoneration. It's terrible that we're willing to put someone to death based on the word of Paul Skelnick. When I interviewed James Daly on Death Row, he told me that he's been trying to prove that he didn't get a fair trial. He says that prosecutors improperly used a jailhouse snitch to convict him. Robert Heyman was one of those prosecutors.

So did you feel that Paul Skelnick was credible? Skelnick, you know, we vetted him. I mean, I know he's been under attack as a professional snitch, but yeah, we checked him out. This is a guy who is a professional con man at this point, and you knew it, and you knew it. Absolutely. You also knew that in 1982, he was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 14. So not only are you taking the word of a con man, you're taking the word of a child molester, a predator.

And this is the man who you used to put Daly behind bars for the rest of his life and possibly in the chair. Let's back it up. Yeah, we knew what his history was. We knew that he had a checkered past. Let's face it. Do you think that the jury would have found Skalnik to be credible if they knew that he was a sex offender? His criminal record was talked about at the trial. I'm not sure the sex offender part was brought up.

In fact, Robert Heyman and his co-counsel never did tell James Daly's jury what Paul Skalnik had allegedly done to 12-year-old Karen Parker. But the thought does seem to have crossed their minds because prosecutors' notes from the trial obtained by Daly's lawyers decades later seem to show, and I've seen it myself, that someone scribbled sex assault and then struck it out twice. This is your handwriting, right? Go ahead, you can take it.

You crossed out the word sex offender, electing not to talk about it. I'm not sure that's why I crossed it out. I have no idea. This is 30 some odd years old. Obviously, I knew about it. And yet you put him on the stand. Absolutely. You crossed out a bunch of his criminal history there.

Josh Dubin is an Innocence Project advisor and renowned advocate for the wrongfully convicted. Now, he may not look like a typical lawyer, but he's got a track record. In 2018, he battled in court, freeing an innocent man from Florida's death row. And now he's on James Daly's case with the same goal. I show him some of my interview with the former prosecutor. This is 30 some odd years old. Obviously, I knew about it.

Man, I got to catch my breath after that one. I got to tell you, that's way worse than I thought. When Paul Skalnik was cross-examined about his crimes during Daly's 1987 trial, he admitted to grand theft but denied ever being charged with violent offenses. Quote, grand theft counselor, not murder, not rape, no physical violence in my life, end quote.

I mean, the fact that the prosecutor didn't correct him, just admitted to you that he knew full well what he had been charged with and kept that from the jury is not only astounding, it's disgusting.

Do you know how many times this has been reviewed by courts, both in the state and the federal levels? And they seem to have been satisfied so far. You're saying that they're infallible. I'm saying that I am comfortable with two things that lawyers should be comfortable with. One, trial by an impartial jury. And that's what Daley got. Number two, appellate review to make sure that the trial was fair, that the jury was impartial, that the evidence was appropriate. So would you be satisfied if you saw Daley put to death? I think that's an appropriate sentence under the law of the state of Florida.

Good morning. You can be seated. All right, so argument on 1C and 2.

In a February 2020 hearing about whether Daley will be allowed to present more evidence that his conviction should be overturned, Daley's attorneys argue prosecutors allowed their witness, Paul Skalnik, to mislead James Daley's jury about the fact that Skalnik had been charged in a sex assault. It was a misrepresentation to that jury. At that time, he had an affirmative obligation to correct that false testimony.

State attorneys tell the judge that Skalnik had never been convicted of what Karen Parker says he did to her because the case had been dropped. Unfortunately, loon lascivious charges are always difficult to prove. They are difficult to take to trial. It is often a he said, she said type of case.

The state argues that trial attorneys would have been barred from questioning Skalnik about Karen Parker, whether they knew about it or not, because he'd not been convicted of the charge. He was dropped. My understanding of the rules of evidence is that I'm not allowed to impeach a witness with the fact that they were arrested on a charge that was subsequently dismissed. I don't know if...

James Daly is guilty or not. But I do believe that if any of his sentencing is based on the testimony of Paul Skalnik, that should be wiped away and start over. Because he's just a perfect liar. He's a perfect liar. Yes. There was more evidence against Paul Skalnik in that child sexual assault case than there was against James Daly in the murder of Shelley Baggio.

You're about to see why appeals so rarely succeed. I'm going to find that you are, in fact, still time-barred and that Heyman's acknowledgement that he's the actual author of the notes doesn't open it up to additional discovery or an additional claim, so I'll deny the claim. But the judge also has good news for Daly, deciding to grant another hearing. So Judge Syracuse, um...

granted our request for an evidentiary hearing. This one to present testimony from an astonishing source, James Daly's old buddy, his co-defendant in this terrible crime, Jack Piercy. I take a ride with attorney Josh Dubin. You have a whole plan about going in there today. I mean, you're dressed in a t-shirt. You're very casual.

Dubin works for James Daly, but on this day, he's going to visit Daly's co-defendant and former friend, Jack Piercy, who is now serving a life sentence for Shelley's murder. I don't want him to look at me as just some lawyer in a suit. And he's got good reason to be hopeful, because three years earlier, in 2017, Piercy signed an affidavit saying that he alone murdered Shelley Boggio and that James Daly was innocent.

I went to see Jack Piercy in April of 2017 and he ultimately ended up signing an affidavit. Jack Piercy said in the very last line of the affidavit that I killed Shelly Baggio and Mr. Daly was not present when she was killed. Despite signing that 2017 affidavit, when it came time for Jack Piercy to testify in court, he said he lied in that affidavit. He refused to say that James Daly was innocent or much of anything else. He just...

He kept pleading the 5th. He said, I plead the 5th. Next question, I plead the 5th. Next question, I plead the 5th. Here's what I don't understand, Josh. The guy's already signed an affidavit, right? Saying that he did it. Why do you need anything else? Because the last time he signed an affidavit and he was called in court to avow or stand by the affidavit, he pled the 5th.

In late 2019, soon after joining the case, Dubin got Piercy to once again sign a statement saying that he alone murdered Shelley Boggio, essentially exonerating James Daly. The operative paragraph is, I murdered Shelley Boggio on my own. James Daly had nothing to do with it.

And so here we go again. Jack Piercy has again signed another confession, again clearing James Daly. But once again, it's not enough. He has to come into the courtroom. He has to testify under oath and be cross-examined by prosecutors. That's the only way this helps James Daly. You just spent, I don't know, an hour and ten minutes in there. What was it like? He's a bit of a tortured soul.

that is coming to terms with the fact that he needs to come clean about everything that he did, and I think that he's going to do that. Do you think that that will help exonerate you? If Jack comes in there and tells the truth. I mean, if we get the truth out of his mouth. James Daly is present and is here in custody. I've had him travel from death row for today's hearing. Good morning, Mr. Daly. Good morning.

I thought they had implemented the death penalty. I thought he was dead. I thought James Daly was dead. We had an evidentiary hearing in March of 2020. Okay, this is the second successive motion to vacate the judgment of conviction and sentence of death after the death warrant has been signed. We were hopeful that forcing Jack Piercy to look Mr. Daly in the eye, forcing Jack to look at

The person that he's partly responsible for keeping in prison wrongfully for 33 years would move him to tell the truth. If Jack Piercy were sitting here right across from you today, what would you say to him? I'd say do the right thing, Jack. Come on. It's been long enough. All right. Let's bring him in and take him to the podium.

Mr. Pearson. Good morning, sir. My name is Pat Syracuse. Welcome back to Pinellas County. I brought you here today to ask you, isn't today finally the day for you to tell the world your story from the witness stand as a witness? I can't help bring Shelly back or the pain her family's already suffered. I don't want to testify in front of them. He said he would never come into court and tell that story as long as his mother was still alive.

And of course, his mother was sitting right there. Even though Piercy says he's not going to testify, he's called to the witness stand. Why bother putting Piercy on the stand? Because you never know. This is James Daly's last chance to get the truth that can set him free. All he has to do is just repeat what he said in that affidavit. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Yes. All right, have a seat. Okay, well, we'll see what happens. You may inquire.

You and I met for the first time on December 18th, 2019 at the Sumter County Correctional Center, correct? He won't testify. He just stared at me. They tried to get him to testify. Is there anything else I can talk to you about here before I get your next answer? No, sir. I've done 35 years for a crime I didn't commit.

And I don't plan on testifying against somebody else to help the state kill them. And that would be all my testimony could basically do, so I have nothing else to say. Nothing I can do or say to change your mind? No, sir. All right, Mr. Piercy can go. Jack Piercy refused to testify, but someone else was eager to speak.

Hello, Adam. Callie Boggio is Shelley Boggio's younger half-sister. What would you like to tell me, miss? I would like to tell you that our family has been through enough. Please get this to an end. Throughout this whole thing, it's been the James Daly show, the Jack Piercy show. No, this is about Shelley Boggio and her life. Her life mattered, and it still matters, and it will always matter.

And I guarantee you and I promise you, I promise everybody, that me and my family will never stop until we seek justice and see that man go. What would you say to Shelly Bojo's family members who believe that the right person has been sentenced to death? Well, what could I say to them? I mean, how many times has the state lied to them? How many times has the state told them

for sure that I was the one. I mean, there would be nothing I could say to him. Mr. Daly, anything you want to tell me today? Anything? No, sir. I just thank you very much for your time.

Almost three months after Jack Piercy refuses to testify, the judge rules neither James Daly's conviction or death sentence will be vacated on the strength of the evidence. And then another blow. Paul Skownik, that jailhouse snitch whose testimony that Daly confessed to him in jail helped put Daly on death row again.

He'll never be able to recant his testimony. He died almost two months to the day after our phone call. At any time, the governor of Florida could sign a death warrant for James Daley. I'm not afraid to die. What I'm afraid of is spending the rest of my life in prison for a crime I didn't commit. Not being able to clear my name for my kids and my grandkids and my great-grandkids. I'm stubborn. I'm not giving up, no matter what. We're just going to keep fighting. That's all I know, is to keep fighting.

Andrea Boggio says she always dreaded Florida, but she finally forced herself to come. 35 years after her cousin Shelly's murder, her first visit to the crime scene and out to the cemetery, a show of support for the family. Poor Shelly. I'm done. I can't do it. I left her a letter. Would you mind telling me what you were trying to express to her?

That I will keep fighting and I love her. And I'll never give up trying to fight for her. Shelly Boggio was alive. She was loved. And she deserves some justice. This is Deborah Roberts. James Daly still remains incarcerated and is facing the death penalty. His execution has been delayed by the courts and no new date has been set.

You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday evenings at 9, you can watch all new broadcast episodes of 2020. See you then. ♪

Hi all, Kate Gibson here of The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson. This week we talked to Whoopi Goldberg about lots of things. But one of the things we talked to her about is how as a science fiction and graphic novel fan, she never saw herself on those screens or on those pages growing up. I mean, I didn't realize that part of me until I watched Star Trek. And I saw it because I love sci-fi.

And for some reason, it never occurred to me that I was missing until I was present. You're not going to want to miss this episode of The Bookcase from ABC News.