INDIAN ROCKS BEACH, Fla. – Author Pamela Colloff’s new book challenges the conviction of death row prisoner James Dailey, arguing Pinellas County prosecutors relied on an unreliable jailhouse informant for crucial murder evidence.
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Pinellas County murder case
What we know:
Shelly Boggio, 14, was beaten and stabbed to death along Indian Rocks Beach on May 5, 1985.
Pictured: Shelly Boggio.
Jack Pearcy picked Boggio up in his car that night and later received a life sentence after admitting to the killing. Dailey was initially with them and was seen leaving the area with wet pants, but he has spent nearly four decades on death row.
Jailhouse informant testimony
The backstory:
ProPublica reporter Pamela Colloff spent eight years investigating jailhouse informant Paul Skalnik, who claimed Dailey confessed to him in jail. Skalnik’s ex-wife, Suzanne Bordeau, described him as a con man who constantly made up stories before she divorced him following a run-in with St. Petersburg police.
Booking images of Paul Skalnik.
“People thought he was like this, Mr. Wonderful,” Bordeau said, “[but] he would make up all these stories. You never knew what was really true or what wasn’t true.”
Colloff described Skalnik as “one of the most notorious and one of most notorious unreliable jailhouse snitches in American history” and noted prosecutors used him in at least 40 cases.
Pictured: ProPublica reporter Pamela Colloff.
“There has never been a full accounting of the cases he testified in,” Colloff said, “of who’s still sitting in prison and how he tainted those convictions.”
Impact on victims
Dig deeper:
Colloff maintains that Dailey was sleeping at home when Boggio died and that Pearcy alone killed the teen.
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“Jack Piercy killed Shelly Boggio,” Colloff said. “It’s that simple.”
Pictured: Jack Piercy.
Boggio’s family continues to express confidence in Dailey’s guilt while enduring decades of legal proceedings.
“It needs to come to an end,” her sister Kalli Boggio said in court in 2020. “We’re tired of hurting, we’re tired of going through this time after time again.”
Colloff acknowledged the ongoing heartbreak for the family while highlighting broader systemic fallout.
Pictured: James Dailey.
“This process has prolonged their pain and deprived them of justice,” Colloff said. “It’s also created more victims, countless more victims because Skelnick was let out on the streets after he gave this type of testimony.”
Prosecutor response details
What’s next:
The Pinellas County State Attorney’s Office could not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the book.
In 2019 statements to Colloff, the office stated Skalnik was never an official agent and received no leniency in exchange for testimony. Skalnik died in 2020.
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About the Author
