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889: There’s Something About Hail Mary
Brief
The episode frames its three main stories around the idea of the Hail Mary — desperate, last‑ditch gambles people take when conventional options have failed. The prologue follows Ora, a woman in her 20s whose multi‑year collapse into fatigue, brain fog and other neurologic symptoms led her through conflicting Lyme tests, long antibiotic regimens, alternative therapies and eventually to a physician‑administered intravenous treatment made from an inexpensive, over‑the‑counter product. Ora’s symptoms remitted after four IVs; Ira Glass reports that infectious‑disease experts could not explain the recovery and cautioned that the treatment is unproven and potentially toxic. Ora and her sister Aviva articulate the emotional calculus: the treatment was terrifying and possibly reckless, but for someone trapped in chronic debilitation it felt like an unavoidable Hail Mary.
Act One is an excerpt from Serial’s new series The Last 12 Weeks (Maurice Chammah) and chronicles defense attorney Greg Wiercioch’s frantic efforts to stop the execution of David Wood, convicted for six murders in the El Paso desert in 1987. The episode lays out the contested evidence — eyewitness IDs including sex worker Judith Kelling’s identification, orange fibers found in a victim that matched vacuum debris, and jailhouse informants — and the emergent claims of misconduct: George Hall’s sworn declaration alleging police cultivated false testimony, Ramona Dismukes’ Whataburger meeting where she says she and her mother staked out a different suspect (Michael Plyler, nicknamed “Skeeter”) and that Kelling had once blamed Plyler. Prosecutors and Detective John Guerrero reject charges of coercion; Greg’s defense tactics are simultaneously portrayed as both necessary (finding buried leads in 12,000 pages) and as part of a pattern critics call dilatory.
Act Two (reporting by Miki Meek and Aisha Wallace Palomares) moves to Otay Mesa Detention Center, where a weekly vigil of about 150 people has turned into an improvised communications system: shouting A‑numbers, using parabolic dishes, and retrieving bottles and notes tossed over double fences. A note read on the show detailed a detainee’s conditions (at OMDC since April 15, 2025; 290 days without fresh fruit; overcrowding; denied phone calls), and organizers used collected A‑numbers to load commissary and phone funds. CoreCivic denied the allegations; detainees reported retaliatory cutbacks after the reporting. Across the episode the producers string together moral and procedural questions about risk, evidence, institutional power and what people will do when they feel all other options are closed off.
Why it matters
Prologue: Ora (interviewed by Ira Glass) spent five years with debilitating multisystem symptoms (blurry vision, crushing fatigue, brain fog, pressure headaches) and — after negative then non‑FDA Lyme tests and failed antibiotic courses — received four IV infusions of a cheap, widely available drug her doctor claimed could cure her; Ora recovered but three Lyme experts and researchers Ira spoke with said they could not explain her recovery and warn a proper clinical trial is needed (Ira Glass).
Key details
- Act One (excerpted from Serial's The Last 12 Weeks, reported by Maurice Chammah): defense lawyer Greg Wiercioch had 17 weeks (at one point 50 days) before the scheduled execution of David Wood to hunt for new evidence; the original 1987 case against Wood included six desert victims (two middle‑school aged), one physical trace of orange fibers from a vacuum bag, and a pivotal ID/rape allegation from sex worker Judith Kelling (Detective John Guerrero defended the investigation).
- George Hall, a former inmate, filed a sworn declaration claiming that two jailhouse witnesses were cultivated by police and rewarded (one informant later received $13,000; the other had a capital murder charge dropped), a claim Guerrero called “preposterous,” illustrating a deep dispute over alleged police coercion and disclosure failures (George Hall; John Guerrero).
- Greg's last‑minute strategy unearthed new leads: Ramona Dismukes told lawyers she’d been spying on suspect David Wood and claimed she’d been told by Judith Kelling that a different man, Michael Plyler (nicknamed 'Skeeter'), was involved; Plyler denies the nickname and did not respond to follow‑ups (Ramona Dismukes; Greg Wiercioch; Maurice Chammah).
- Act Two (Bottle Episode): At Otay Mesa Detention Center outside San Diego, weekly vigils of ~150 people communicated with detainees by shouting A‑numbers, using parabolic listening dishes, and retrieving notes/objects (lotion bottles, deodorant, an AA battery) thrown over two high barbed‑wire fences; one retrieved note said a detainee had been at OMDC since April 15, 2025 and had gone 290 days without fresh fruit (Aisha Wallace Palomares; organizers Jeane Wong and Otay Mesa Detention Collective).
- Organizers say the note reflects overcrowding, poor food, limited medical care and denied phone access; CoreCivic (facility operator) denies the allegations, while detainees reported retaliatory actions after the reporting (reduced showers, colder temperatures, curtailed yard time); national context: ICE custody deaths have more than doubled since President Trump returned to office, with over 50 deaths cited (organizers; CoreCivic; This American Life reporting).