How a Con Man’s Wild Testimony Sent Men to Death Row

December 6, 2019

Things Paul Skalnik has pretended to be: A top executive at Southwest Airlines. A fighter pilot. A college football star. A Homeland Security agent. Things he actually is: a grifter and con artist who may be one of the most prolific jailhouse informants in American history. In this week’s cover story, Pamela Colloff reports on a man whose dubious testimony has sent dozens of people to jail — and may now even lead to an execution.

OUR COVER STORY:

Feature

How This Con Man’s Wild Testimony Sent Dozens to Jail, and 4 to Death Row

Paul Skalnik is a grifter and criminal. Now a man may be executed because of his dubious testimony. Why did prosecutors rely on him as an informant?

By Pamela Colloff

How Chinese Sci-Fi Conquered America

The translator Ken Liu has done more than anyone to bridge the gap between Chinese science fiction and American readers.

By Alexandra Alter

Photo illustration by Cristiana Couceiro

Screenland

How Watching ‘Jeopardy!’ Together Helped Me Say Goodbye to My Father

Every night, as my father was dying, we made the show a ritual. Then Alex Trebek announced that he was sick, too.

By Sam Anderson

Kirby Lee Vaughn

At War

America’s Dark History of Killing Its Own Troops With Cluster Munitions

The weapons are notorious for their effects on civilians. But five years of reporting and hundreds of interviews have revealed they’ve also killed and wounded scores of Americans.

By John Ismay

via Parsons Sun

At War

These Cluster Bombs Started Killing Civilians Before They Left U.S. Soil

In 1989, a BLU-97 cluster-munition bomblet exploded in a Kansas factory, killing two workers. Their fates were soon shared by American service members in the Persian Gulf War.

By John Ismay

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