PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Shelly Boggio's murder is known as one of the most violent crimes in Pinellas County history. Court documents say Boggio was beaten, choked, stabbed 31 times and held underwater until she drowned.
Two men were convicted of her murder -- Jack Pearcy and James Dailey. But, only Dailey is sitting on Florida's death row.
Now, after more than three decades, Jack Pearcy has admitted to acting alone when he killed Boggio. Advocates are working to exonerate James Daily before it's too late. His stay of execution expires on Dec. 30th.
Attorneys with the Innocence Project are seeking a clemency hearing to present Dailey's case of innocence.
Not only has Pearcy admitted in a signed affidavit that Dailey was not present when Shelly Boggio was killed, but key testimony used during his 1987 trial might now be considered bogus and false.
According to the Innocence Project, Dailey was convicted largely on testimony from known inmate informant, Paul Skalnik, a serial jailhouse "snitch," child sex offender and con man.
"The key evidence that they used to come up with that conviction was Paul Skalnik, period," Josh Dubin, one of Dailey's attorneys said.
Dubin believes detectives went fishing for inmates that would say Dailey confessed.
"He (Skalnik) was known throughout the jail as someone who was trying to make deals for himself to get himself out of trouble," Dubin said.
Law enforcement never found any physical, forensic or eyewitness evidence connecting Dailey to Boggio's murder.
Skalnik testified, as they stood at the bars of Dailey’s cell, that Dailey came clean, confiding that he had stabbed the girl and then thrown the knife away. What Dailey said “was so hard to comprehend and to accept,” he told the jury earnestly. “I had seen this gentleman walking in the hallways, laughing and kidding with other inmates. And all of a sudden, to see a man’s eyes, and to describe how he can stab a young girl — and she was screaming and staring at him and would not die. ...”
Five days after Dailey was convicted and sentenced to death, Skalnik was released from jail.
The New York Times Magazine says:
Buried deep in thousands of pages of court records spread across two states lies evidence to suggest that Skalnik was one of the most prolific, and most effective, jailhouse informants in American history. “I have placed 34 individuals in prison, including four on death row,” he boasted in a 1984 letter to Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida.
According to the Innocence Project, 21 percent of 123 death row exonerations involved jailhouse informants.
Advocates believe jailhouse informants are people in prison who are incentivized to testify against a defendant in exchange for a benefit, which can include receiving leniency in their own case.
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