Pamela Colloff’s story “False Witness” may begin like a piece of true crime journalism, but it doesn’t focus on criminal capers and colorful characters solely for the sake of entertainment. Instead, it uses those well-worn elements to transcend the genre. Published by ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine, “False Witness” won the Texas Observer’s MOLLY Investigative Journalism Prize this year, and for good reason. While the story features an unforgettable character involved in a devastating criminal odyssey, it’s also a trenchant look at the criminal justice system’s policies that allow grifters, like Colloff’s main character, to destroy commonly held ideas of justice and public safety. Colloff spoke with the Observer earlier this year at the virtual MOLLY gala about the reporting and writing that went into her story, and how one man’s turn as a repeat jailhouse informant sent dozens of people to jail and death row.
Texas Observer: How did the research for “False Witness” unfold?
Pamela Colloff: “False Witness” was the most document-based story I’ve ever written. Just to give you a sense of things: Paul Skalnik was arrested more than 30 times over the course of 40 years in numerous different states, and he also played a role in over 40 criminal cases during that time. So just being able to talk about one of those cases authoritatively—which means tracking down a trial transcript from decades ago, and the people involved—is a lot of legwork. I was very fortunate that I was able to build on a record that had been compiled, over decades, by attorneys who were litigating the death penalty cases Skalnik testified in.
