{"id":10712,"date":"2026-07-19T17:12:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=10712"},"modified":"2026-07-19T17:12:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:12:31","slug":"this-career-criminal-sent-innocent-men-to-death-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=10712","title":{"rendered":"This career criminal sent innocent men to death row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F07%2Fnewspress-collage-whtu62mr3-1784218445468.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261784204144\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Paul Skalnik had a strange gift for being in jail when accused murderers suddenly felt the urge to spill their secrets.<\/p>\n<p>Skalnik was a petty con artist with a grimly reliable routine, writes Pamela Colloff in her riveting new book, \u201c<a data-aps-asc-tag=\"nypost-20\" data-aps-asin=\"0593230868\" data-wrapped-template=\"https:\/\/r.nypostlink.com?btn_ref=org-19984c113c692001&amp;btn_url\" href=\"https:\/\/r.nypostlink.com?btn_ref=org-19984c113c692001&amp;btn_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCatch-Devil-Murder-Deception-Injustice%2Fdp%2F0593230868%3Ftag%3Dnypost-20%26asc_refurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2026%2F07%2F19%2Flifestyle%2Fthis-career-criminal-sent-innocent-men-to-death-row%2F%26asc_source%3Dweb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast<\/a>.\u201d \u201cWhenever his luck ran out and he ended up in jail,\u201d Colloff writes, \u201cmen confessed their crimes to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 1981, Skalnik was sitting in the Pinellas County Jail on a grand-theft charge, staring down a possible five-year prison sentence, when he placed a collect call to the state attorney\u2019s office in Clearwater, Florida, and told them he had information on three different men awaiting trial for murder. All three, he said, had made full or partial confessions to him.<\/p>\n<p>By 1984, he had already testified against or provided information on at least 27 defendants in the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/26\/us-news\/inside-o-j-simpsons-daughter-sydneys-no-frills-life-in-dodgy-florida-neighborhood\/\">Pinellas County Jail<\/a>, helping send four men to death row. Prosecutors didn\u2019t seem troubled that a man with a long record of deception was extracting confessions at a rate that would\u2019ve impressed the most seasoned homicide detective.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Paul Skalnik testified in 37 cases over the course of his career in crime.  <span class=\"credit\">Pinellas County Sheriff&#8217;s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Skalnik was a small-time hustler with big-time stamina. He\u2019d been married nine times, wrote bad checks, stole from women and widows, impersonated lawyers, and reinvented himself in different cities whenever the previous version became inconvenient. He claimed to be a Southwest Airlines executive, a Stetson law student, a Marine, and a Boston attorney named Avery Harrison.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>In jail, he found the role that paid best. He became a professional witness.<\/p>\n<p>His first major turn as an informant came in Houston in 1978, after he landed in the Harris County Jail on bad-check charges. He spotted Thomas Hirschi, one of three activists charged with inciting a riot at a Cinco de Mayo celebration in Moody Park, in Houston\u2019s Near Northside, and called an old friend in the district attorney\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got something to tell you,\u201d Skalnik said. \u201cSomething that will interest you.\u201d Soon he was out of jail for the day, sitting in the DA\u2019s office, reading from a small spiral notebook about conversations he claimed to have had with Hirschi.<\/p>\n<p>By the early 1980s, he\u2019d taken the act to Florida. In the Pinellas County Jail, he worked in the law library, where frightened defendants kept their legal paperwork and a confident man with jailhouse jargon could pass himself off as helpful. He read the local papers, studied case details, and then called prosecutors and reported that inmates had confessed. The reward was recorded in the state attorney\u2019s files with an exclamation point: \u201cProbation was discussed!\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The Moody Park riots were among the worst Houston ever experienced. They began after army veteran Jos\u00e9 Campos Torres was killed by Houston Police Department Officers.  <span class=\"credit\">Houston Chronicle via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That was the basic bargain. Prosecutors got a witness who could turn messy cases into cleaner stories. Skalnik got leniency and repeated chances to resume his career as a criminal. Colloff calls him \u201cthe state\u2019s closer, the witness whose words moved jurors to choose death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the stand, Skalnik played the penitent sinner with a badge-shaped heart. \u201cI still do have law enforcement inside of me,\u201d he told jurors. When asked whether he had received anything for testifying, he replied, \u201cNo, ma\u2019am. I was probably treated worse than if I hadn\u2019t testified.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Behind the scenes, prosecutors and investigators lobbied for him, wrote letters for him, and helped keep him in the county jail where he could remain close to defendants awaiting trial.<\/p>\n<p>The case at the center of \u201cCatch the Devil\u201d is that of James Dailey, a Vietnam veteran from Kansas who served three tours and came home a man unrecognizable to his own family. His mother would later tell Colloff she\u2019d sent away \u201ctwo lovely young men to the Air Force and Marines,\u201d and \u201cthey came back, and they were different boys.\u201d By 1985, alcoholism had cost Dailey his marriage, his children, and any stable foothold in the world. He drifted to Pinellas County with Jack Pearcy, a violent drinking companion.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>James Dailey has spent almost 40 years on Florida\u2019s death row.  <span class=\"credit\">ZUMAPRESS.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On May 5, 1985, a fourteen-year-old girl named Shelly Boggio crossed paths with Pearcy and Dailey at a house in Seminole. By morning, her body was under a drawbridge at Indian Rocks Beach, stabbed thirty-one times, her hands cut from trying to shield herself, water in her lungs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During his polygraph session, Pearcy seemed to incriminate himself almost by accident. He grew so rattled that he said he might need to speak to a priest, then described a recurring nightmare in which the killer turned toward him and the face he saw was his own. But when it came time to give investigators a usable story, Pearcy blamed Dailey.<\/p>\n<p>Detective John Halliday went to the Pinellas County Jail and pulled men from Dailey\u2019s cellblock one by one. His notes recorded what each told him: \u201cNothing.\u201d \u201cKnows nothing.\u201d \u201cWish I could have helped you but it\u2019s a little outa my league.\u201d Then Skalnik got word to Halliday that Dailey had confessed to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Shelly Boggio was  <span class=\"credit\">ZUMAPRESS.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dailey told his lawyer, \u201cThis is a damn setup,\u201d and drew a diagram of the cellblock showing that any conversation between them would\u2019ve required him to shout across the floor in full view of guards and other inmates. The jury never saw the diagram.<\/p>\n<p>At trial, Skalnik testified that Dailey told him the girl \u201ckept staring at him, screaming, and would not die.\u201d It was the kind of line a jury remembers. The defense cross-examination, meanwhile, went nowhere. Colloff writes that it became so tangled and dull that it \u201cleft several jurors dozing in their seats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The jury deliberated for less than two hours and returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. The penalty-phase recommendation was death, also unanimous. Five days after the verdict, Skalnik walked out of jail.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cShelly isn\u2019t the only one who died that day,\u201d said the family of Shelly Boggio, explaining that the entire family was broken by the murder.   <span class=\"credit\">ZUMAPRESS.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Skalnik\u2019s parole officer, reviewing his conduct after a subsequent release, was less impressed than the prosecutors had been. \u201cThis man has been, is, and always will be a danger to society,\u201d she wrote in her official report, warning that he had \u201cperfected the role of con man\u201d and left behind victims who\u2019d \u201cnever be able to recoup the financial loss or psychological well-being that they have suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Skalnik kept reinventing himself until the routine finally wore thin. When Colloff first met him in a federal prison in Texas in 2018, he pulled out a soiled rag stained with dried blood and told her he was dying of cancer, then promised to reveal everything about his years as an informant. The promised confession never came. \u201cI refused to admit to myself, until it was much too late,\u201d Colloff writes, \u201cthat Skalnik had been stringing me along.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He died in a Texas nursing home on March 10, 2020, one day before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. His ashes went unclaimed.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cCatch the Devil\u201d is available now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dailey remains on Florida\u2019s death row after nearly four decades. He turned 80 on June 11. He paints landscapes from his cell with commissary art supplies, small scenes of forests, streams, and a cobalt-blue swimming hole from his Kansas childhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A prosecutor once defended the use of such witnesses as Skalnik with the old line: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to make a deal with a sinner to catch the devil.\u201d Colloff\u2019s book arrives at a harder conclusion. \u201cWhat made him so dangerous,\u201d she writes, \u201cwas not his intelligence or cunning, but rather how readily the institutions that were supposed to uphold the law and protect the most vulnerable had amplified his lies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Pinellas County, prosecutors thought they\u2019d found a sinner who could help them catch devils. What they really found was a con man who understood exactly what they wanted to hear.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Skalnik had a strange gift for being in jail when accused murderers suddenly felt the urge to spill their secrets. Skalnik was a petty con artist with a grimly reliable routine, writes Pamela Colloff in her riveting new book, \u201cCatch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/newspress-collage-whtu62mr3-1784218445468.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&1784204144&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}