The Case That Made Texas the Death Penalty Capital In an excerpt from his new book, ‘Let the Lord Sort Them,’ Marshall Project staff writer Maurice Chammah explains where a 1970s legal team fighting the death penalty went wrong. Jerry Jurek was convicted of killing 10-year-old Wendy Adams in 1973. His case went to the Supreme Court as one of several testing new death penalty laws around the country. Pictured here in 1979, left, and 2015, right. Left, Bruce Jackson; right, Maurice Chammah Looking Back at the stories about, and excerpts from, the history of criminal justice.
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The town of Cuero, halfway between San Antonio and the Gulf Coast, was small enough that a child’s disappearance would be noticed quickly. In August 1973, a little after dusk, the grandmother of 10-year-old Wendy Adams arrived to pick her up at the pool in the town park. Her clothes were still in a locker. “The child was obedient,” her grandmother later recalled, “a