October 19, 2022 • 62 mins
Chapter 6 of 9
Jeremy Scott’s ex-girlfriend reveals some incriminating information about his life in the late-1980s, leading Gilbert and Kelsey to investigate Jeremy’s potential links to another crime in a neighboring county. Leo Schofield is granted an evidentiary hearing to determine whether he should receive a new trial. Jeremy is called to testify at the hearing, and he and Leo come face-to-face for the first time beneath the Polk County courthouse.
For photos, images, and the full transcript of this episode visit: bit.ly/BVS1E6
To read and sign the petition from the Innocence Project of Florida visit bit.ly/BringLeoHome
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO TAKE PART IN OUR LISTENER SURVEY. YOUR FEEDBACK WILL HELP INFORM HOW WE MAKE PODCASTS IN THE FUTURE. AND YOUR COMPLETE AND CANDID ANSWERS WILL HELP US CONTINUE TO BRING YOU UNPARALLELED ACCESS AND INSIGHT INTO THE HEART OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA. SO PLEASE GO TO LAVAFORGOOD.COM/SURVEY
AND PARTICIPATE TODAY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.
Bone Valley is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Would you think of Jeremy when you first moment? Well,
at first, Maam, I thought he was cute. He was cute,
he was dangerous. This is Jamie Nellums. She was Jeremy
Scott's girlfriend in nineteen eighty seven and nineteen eighty eight.
(00:35):
They were both seventeen years old when they met at
a teen dance club in Lakeland, Florida. This was right
after Jeremy was acquitted in the Jule Johnson murder, and
then he and Jamie stayed together until his arrest in
the murder of Donald Moorehead. Sixteen years into Jeremy's murder sentence,
a detective from the Polk County Sheriff's Office contacted Jamie.
(00:59):
Jeremy's finger prince had been matched to the ones found
in Michelle Scofield's Mazda, but the investigation didn't last long.
Assistant State Attorney John Aguero, the same man who prosecuted
and convicted both Leo and Jeremy, quickly shuts down the
investigation into Jeremy Scott. Ten months after Jamie's first questioned.
(01:22):
Criminal defense attorney Richard Bartman interviews her in late two
thousand and five. Bartman is representing Leo Scofield alongside his
other attorney, Scott Cupp. They're trying to finish the investigation
into Jeremy Scott that the state barely started. So you
remember speaking to this detective. What was the reason he
(01:42):
said he was there? He did that he needed to
come talk to me regarding Jeremy Scott, anything else that
he told you that he was there. He wanted me
to take him to pass Jeremy Hernount that I knew of.
He had asked me where we had never gone to
be alone, and I told him about the place over
(02:02):
off off thirty three by Ipour. He wanted me to
take him there, to show him where that was that
and I did that. Jamie says that ten months earlier,
she led the state's detective to a place along State
Road thirty three in North Lakeland. Now she's telling Richard
Bartman what it was like when Jeremy first took her there.
(02:25):
It was around two am in the spring of nineteen
eighty seven. Jamie was driving and Jeremy was in the
passenger seat directing her. He told me where to drive.
I had just started driving and barely knew how to
get around my house, let alone how to get anywhere else.
So he told me where to turn and did he
(02:50):
have any trouble finding now? He didn't task him out
that you couldn't find him, that you knew what that.
Jeremy tells her when to slow down, to turn off
at the cut, to pull onto the dirt path back
behind the tree line. There's palmetto bushes and garbage on
(03:12):
the ground. No one else is back there. There's no
street lights, no houses in sight, and no cars on
the road either. Jeremy and Jamie are alone. He had
this saying about being outside. You'd like to be outside.
(03:33):
You'd like to be outside. When when we went, Jamie
and Jeremy get out of the car and walk further
from the main road into the dark. When you got there,
what was your freshman area? First time? You want? Then
in dirty and cold, you know, dark. I remember being
(03:55):
nervous because there was nobody around. I didn't like it.
Teenagers would come to the spot along State Road thirty
three to drink beer, smoke weed and make out, but
Jamie had been warned to stay away after police began
discovering dead girls in the water behind the palmetto bushes.
(04:19):
One of those girls Michelle's Schofield was found floating face
down just a few months earlier in this very same drainage.
Canal do you, my man? I to my fields steps
(04:55):
in this val I see relation. I reachdaspration to the
(05:19):
world on the Star to Star Bone Valley, chapter six.
(05:55):
Know that I know. We talked to Leo's lawyer, Richard Bartman,
more than fifteen years after he interviewed Jamie Nellams, and
I remember a chilling up my spine when he described
what this guy had done to her and the level
of fear in this woman when we've interviewed her. I can't.
(06:19):
I've never forgotten that. Jamie tells Bartman that the violence
began just weeks into her relationship with Jeremy Scott. There's punching, choking,
and worse. She tells Bartman that Jeremy hit her pretty
much every time she saw him. He hit me with
cross bat with a bout before. He hit me with
(06:41):
one of my babes before, and he was a babema
that one. Jamie had gone to Disney World with her
sisters against Jeremy's wishes. When she returned, he walked her outside,
picked up a baseball bat, and swung at her face
(07:02):
and that was the blow from the baseball bat left
her jaw broken and her face disfigured. Her injuries and
her story left a big impression on Richard Bartman. He
still thinks about it today. And you saw her face
(07:22):
and what Scott did do it. And this was years
later because she didn't have the money to get her
injuries fixed, so he had beaten her to such an
extent that her jaw was deformed. Jamie was convinced that
Jeremy was going to kill her, but instead Jeremy directed
his violence at someone else. On Halloween Night in nineteen
(07:46):
eighty eight, Jeremy murdered Donald moorehead. He's arrested the following
day and locked up without bail. Jamie is finally free
from Jeremy. I think we talked to her for about
two three hours about his way of life, about how
well he knew Lakeland, about well he knew this area
(08:08):
where the body was found, About his level of violence,
About the way he beat up gay people, About the
way he beat her. If she would look at him wrong,
he beat the shit out of her. The slightest provocation,
he would get violent. So I could easily picture him
killing Michelle over whatever. I mean, it didn't have to
be rational, And of course I remember driving home from
(08:30):
that thinking Jesus Christ, this is the guy. It matches
in so many ways. Richard Bartman and Scott Cupp keep
gathering information about Jeremy's connection to Michelle Scofield's murder. They're
making the case that Leo deserves a new trial. Not
(08:53):
only do they have fingerprints that link Jeremy Scott to
the vehicle Michelle was driving the night she went missing,
Now they have testimony that Jeremy used to take his
girlfriend Jamie to the same place where Michelle's body was found.
Richard Bartman could hardly believe what Jamie had told him.
(09:13):
But when Kelsey and I listened to this interview, almost
fifteen years after it had been recorded, something else caught
our attention. Did he ever Okay, yeah, I kind of
thought about it in a long time, and I'm sorry
to stir it up. I really do apologize, but I
don't mean anything personal, but it's questions I gotta ask, um,
(09:37):
did he ever? Did he ever tell you anything Jeremy
now during the course of your relationship about the crimes
he did to criminal act or any sort of criminal activity.
He told me he had killed a tax cab driver.
He was sixteen seventeen at time, and that he had
gotten away with it. Nat was just a couple months
(10:01):
before he got arrested for the Moorehead sang, what Kelsey
and I run down the list of murders that Jeremy's
linked to. We know that Jeremy bragged about killing Julee
Johnson after he was acquitted of her murder. Jule was
(10:22):
found shot dead in a trailer behind her house. Jeremy's
fingerprints were lifted from her eyeglasses and coin wrappers at
the scene. Jule Johnson is murder number one, and Jeremy
was convicted in the nineteen eighty eight murder of Donald Moorehead.
He smashed him over the head with a grape juice
(10:43):
bottle and strangled him with a telephone cord. Jeremy was
forensically tied to that crime scene and he admitted to
that killing as well. Donald Moorehead is murder number two,
and Jeremy's fingerprints were found in Michelle Scofield's car. Her
body was discovered in the same canal where Jeremy used
(11:06):
to take Jamie to have sex with her. Michelle Scofield
is murder number three. But now Jamie mentions that Jeremy
had spontaneously confessed to another murder, the killing of a
taxicab driver. Is this murder number four? We don't have
(11:29):
a lot to go on, but we start digging. We
know that if Jeremy killed a taxicab driver, it would
most likely be in that two year period between December
nineteen eighty six, when he's released after his acquittal of
the Jule Johnson murder, and Halloween of nineteen eighty eight,
when he's locked up for killing Donald Moorehead. That matches
(11:50):
what Jamie told Bartman. Jeremy would have been sixteen or
seventeen at the time. We searched through databases for unsolved
homicides and larda. We combed through newspaper archives for stories
about cab drivers killed in central Florida between nineteen eighty
six and nineteen eighty eight, and then one murder catches
(12:12):
our attention. In the spring of nineteen eighty seven, right
near the Polk County line, a twenty five year old
taxicab driver named Joseph Laverre was shot dead just outside
a little community called Intercession City. A suspect named dan
Odie was arrested and brought to trial twice, but the
(12:35):
second trial ended with the defendant's acquittal. No one else
is ever charged in the death of Joseph Laverre, so
this is an unsolved murder. From his records, we know
that Jeremy was not in jail at that time. It
happened just six weeks after Michelle's Scofield was killed, so
(12:58):
we dig a little deeper. We start piecing together the
crime from newspaper coverage, and this is what we learn.
It's late at night, April tenth, nineteen eighty seven. Laverre
is driving a taxi for the Yellow Cab Company and
he's close to finishing his shift when he gets a
call from his dispatcher directing him to pick up a
(13:20):
passenger at a kmart in Kissimmee. Lavert picks up the
passenger around ten forty five pm, but about an hour later,
the cab driver's body is spotted just off the shoulder
of Old Tampa Highway. It seems that whoever killed Joseph
laver stole the taxi, turned off the highway, crossed the
(13:41):
railroad tracks and sped onto a quiet residential street in
Intercession City. He must have been driving fast, because he
quickly lost control of the vehicle, side swiping a parked
car and crashing into a power pole that knocked out
the electricity in the neighborhood. Residence ran outside to see
(14:02):
what happened and caught a glimpse of the suspect as
he fled the scene. The witnesses told police they'd seen
a white man around five foot ten of a thin
or medium build running from the cab. He was wearing
jeans and a flannel shirt, had brown hair, and screamed
it's gonna blow before he disappeared into the woods. Inside
(14:26):
the taxi, deputies found a black baseball cap sitting in
the back seat. We were able to get our hands
on a photo of this cap. There's a design on
the front of it, a skull wearing a cowboy hat
with a big Confederate flag in the background. And then
there's this other part of Bartman's interview with Jamie, I
(14:48):
replay it over and over again. Jamie says that when
she first met Jeremy, there was something about his appearance
that stood out to her. Well for Bettie guided when
that thought was weird, he guided, he bleached hair brown.
Jamie thought this was odd because Jeremy never maintained that color. Naturally,
(15:12):
his hair was brown, and when the dark roots grew
back in, Jamie said, he never bleached it again. She
and Jeremy met just before his eighteenth birthday, about a
week after Joseph Lavere was killed. It's a small thing,
but it could match up with what we know about
Laverre's murder. It would make sense that the suspect, knowing
(15:35):
he'd been seen, might try to change his appearance. And
there's another clue. In Richard Bartman's interview with Jamie, she
mentions that Jeremy wasn't particularly close with anyone at that time,
except maybe his younger brother. That brother has a pretty
distinct name. So we were able to track down Royal
Dean Scott to accept this call and all future calls
(16:00):
PRIs one. No phone calls our subject to monitoring and recording.
You have thirty eight dollars twenty four since sorry, Royal. Yeah,
he was locked up in the Russell County Jail in Alabama,
awaiting transfer to state prison on an obstruction of justice charge.
(16:24):
I sent Royal Dean a letter, told him I opened
a phone account with the jail and gave him my number.
I got no problem with answens, but any that you
got to ask some of all of the adults incriminated
Jeremy on some him that's gonna hurt him. I got
a problem with that. I start chatting with Royal Dean
pretty frequently over a period of a few weeks. He
(16:44):
calls when he can and sometimes leaves voicemail messages. We
talk about what Jeremy was like as a kid and
their family life, but I'm also trying to find out
more about Jeremy's possible links to the murder of Joseph Laver.
Did you guys leave that Intercession City at some point? Oh? Yeah,
that's where me and my wife met. Okay, that's a city.
(17:09):
Is where well Man and Jeremy pretty much to grow up. Really,
I mean, did you ever hear anything, Because one of
the other things that Jeremy confessed to Jamie about was
um robbing a cab driver on the way home from
consuming towards Intercession City. Did you ever hear anything about that? Yes?
(17:29):
I heard about What is that? What happened? M h Wow,
I'd heard about the cab driver man rob but I didn't.
I couldn't tell you. Yes A Jeremy. Yeah, he doesn't
seem to want to go into this with me. Still,
(17:51):
Royal Dean keeps calling. We talk about his legal troubles,
and I keep asking about Jeremy, hoping he shares more
about their time an Intercession city. And finally he let
something slip. I remember him saying something about robbin the
cans Over. I remember my brother telling me about jumping
(18:11):
out of a car, I mean about taking that out
of money. And that's something about a gun. Do you
ever remember him with blonde hair? Yeah, that would be
about right soon. Is he trying to change his identity
or something? I think so. I remember the blonde hair,
and I remember the cans a Over being robbed, and
(18:31):
I remember him saying something about it, and then he
had to leave for the while. Yeah. See, I never
got any details. I just know that my brother disappeared
after that. For a while. After this conversation, Royal Dean
disappeared too. The phone call stopped coming when he was
transferred to a state prison outside of Montgomery. Hi, I'm
(19:00):
Jason flom CEO. And founder of Lava for Good podcasts,
home to Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, the War on Drugs,
and many other great podcasts. Today, we're asking you, our listeners,
to take part in a survey. Your feedback is going
to help inform how we make podcasts in the future.
Your complete and candid answers will help us continue to
bring you more insightful and inspiring stories about important topics
(19:23):
that impact us all. So please go to Lava for
Good dot com slash survey and participate today. Thank you
for your support. Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together.
Stand Together is a philanthropic community that partners with America's
boldest changemakers to tackle the root causes of our country's
(19:43):
biggest problems, including the broken criminal justice system. Christina Dent
is one of many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to
end the War on drugs, the underlying cause of many
problems such as over incarceration and the criminalization of a
fiction in communities across the country. As a foster mom,
(20:04):
Christina came into contact with the War on drugs when
she saw how it was ripping apart the family she
worked with. She witnessed how kids were affected and how
mothers wanted something better for their families but didn't have
the tools to get there themselves. Christina Dentz started a
nonprofit called End It for Good because she knew there
(20:25):
was a better solution to help these families. She's working
to end the War on drugs in Mississippi and build
consensus around the state to help families struggling with substance
abuse problems find a different path forward than the one
they've been given. Stand Together has many more stories like
this one, as it partners with thousands of change makers
(20:46):
who were driving solutions in education, healthcare, poverty, and the
criminal justice system. To learn more about the War on drugs,
listen to the War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Kelsey and I go
(21:10):
down to the Osciola County Clerk's office to look at
the case files and trial transcripts from the murder of
Joseph Laver. I wanted to find out what was collected
from the cab to see if there was any DNA
evidence or fingerprints that could be run. One of the
great things about doing research in Florida is the state
Sunshine Law that requires that all state, county, and municipal
(21:34):
records be made available to the public. But we don't
get off to a very promising start. After asking for
the file, we wait for about an hour and then
they send down not one, not two, but three clerks
to talk to us. Hello, I'm Gilbert King. How are you.
(21:55):
I'm good, How are you? You're welcome, Nice to meet you,
Nice to meet you. Um so um, you're interested in
the Daniel file, right, Um, Donna is mispronouncing his name.
But Daniel Odie was the man who was tried twice
(22:16):
and was eventually acquitted of killing the cab driver Joseph Laver.
It doesn't have the arrest affidavit. It's a partial file,
so um, what what's in here? You are entitled to view?
I don't know. If Donna shows me a slim file,
it can't have more than one hundred pages in it.
(22:39):
Usually the clerk's office will turn over boxes of files
with transcripts, police reports, and depositions thousands of pages. Again,
this is all supposed to be public record, and I'm
entitled to view all of it easiest or preferable. I
just want to look at it first and see what's
in there because we're looking there's these were two trials too. Homicide.
(23:01):
Usually there's like transcripts notation about where physical evidence might be.
Since he was found not guilty, the physical evidence would
no longer be available. And is it disposed or is
it just not available to the public. This is infuriating
me and I'm trying not to show it. If dan
Odie really didn't kill Joseph laverare that means the murderer
(23:23):
might still be out there. I can't understand why this
isn't available and why the clerk won't tell me where
I can find the information I'm looking for. He can't
be tried again, right, But I'm saying, we think we
know who did the crime, Okay, So it would be
lovely to just have some records to look at trial transcripts,
see what physical evidence did exist. Maybe there was a
(23:44):
hat we know of in the newspaper accounts. That's all
we know. But maybe there's some DNA or some hair
fibers that might match the guy we think did it.
But well, we'll go through all this and look through
it and just see if we can find any clues
as to where the stuff might be. So that goes
back to you, guys, somebody has to sit with him. Yes,
so the two options that you have. We're told someone
will need to observe us if we're going to view
(24:05):
the files in the courthouse. This has never happened to
me at a clerk's office before. We decide to get
copies made so we can go through them without someone
looking over our shoulder. But something's really bothering me about
this case. It feels like it's been flagged. Why do
they send down three clerks to tell us we're only
entitled to view a partial file. They're not showing me
(24:28):
these files because dan Odie was found not guilty. It
doesn't make any sense to me. Kelsey and I sit
and wait for the copies to be made. Desterias, right now,
who are a fucking war path? Right? We're gonna We're
gonna go. We're gonna go into the Sheriff's department. Then
(24:49):
we're gonna in the stand attorney's office. Never heard of
fucking something like this in Florida. The trial transfer filers
every fucking single trial. I never looked at the transfer stas.
Later that same day, we drive to the Ossiola County
Sheriff's office. We tell them that we might have some
(25:09):
important information on an old cold case in their jurisdiction.
They send two young detectives down to us, but they
won't let us record our meeting. The detectives are friendly
and they listen to what we have to say, but
they don't seem to know anything about this case. Okay,
we just left the Ossiola County Sheriff's office. It's raining
(25:31):
out now, and the two detectives in there told us
that who are very interested. They told us that they
were going to look through the files to see if
they can find some physical evidence. I think that's good
to reach a detective. Press one to schedule an appointment
(25:52):
to Reggie. The detectives say they'll get back to us,
but never do. I keep calling for updates with no luck.
After the tone, please record your message. When you finished recording,
hang up or press the pound key for more options. Oh,
good morning, Detective Miller. This is Gilbert King. We met
(26:14):
with you a couple weeks ago about that cab driver
killing back in nineteen eighty seven and Detective Cortez and
I just wanted to follow up with you because I
had a file of information on that particular case. I know,
we didn't really leave you with anything. But since we're
having no luck accessing the files or getting any info
from law enforcement, Kelsey and I try to find the
(26:35):
defendant in the case, the nineteen year old kid who
stood trial twice for this murder, dan Odie. So we
did find an address for dan Odie that looked pretty solid.
It looked like he'd been at that address for quite
some time. It was all the way out in East
Polk County, which we talk about parts of Lakeland being ruled,
(26:59):
but it doesn't it doesn't compare to East Pole County.
You know. We got out there, but it was just
this long straight road and I know we were there
for miles, driving on this road for miles and we
didn't pass another car. There was no houses, no structures,
you know. Our cell service was in and out. We
(27:19):
got to the street dan Odie lives on and we
saw it was a dirt road. It wasn't like a
very well maintained dirt road. So we drove down the road.
We found his address and we saw that there were
dogs in the yard, big dogs, and there was a
(27:40):
flagpole with a Confederate flag on it. So it just
it seemed a little like, hey, maybe we should give
this guy a heads up before we like go through
his gate and like have to approach these dogs and
like knock on his door. It just it didn't it
didn't feel super safe. So we win and we like
(28:00):
found a place to sit in the car. We started
calling the phone numbers. You have reached the voicemail box
of eight six three. That's the first one. I let's
see hello. Please leave a message after the joon. No
(28:25):
answers their phone anymore. I know, Hello, Hello, is this
mister dan Ott. Mister, my name is Gilbert King, and
I am working on a criminal justice report. I was
also pronouncing his name wrong. It's Odi dan Odi first.
So I don't know if you're around, but we would
(28:46):
just love to talk to you for a few minutes
if you're available, all right, could I stop buying just
see you in about ten minutes or so here, Oh okay,
all right, I'll call you right when I get in
front of the gate, then, sir, thank you very much.
(29:13):
Fucking believe this. All right, we're gonna get out in
the fucking porn rain, but we're gonna have a fucking interview.
All right, Let's just go over some comlesstions here quick,
you so much. We tried we found your address. We
had like nine numbers down. But um, I actually when
(29:40):
I started reading about your case, I couldn't believe it.
You went through Oh yeah twice, they tried you twice. Yeah,
I know. Like my first impression when we first saw
Dan was I was just a little scared. I was like,
did we do we have the right idea about this?
Are we sure this guy didn't do it? Because he's
(30:04):
a big guy. He's six four, pretty like built too,
He's like, you know, hefty, like football player type of build.
And then on top of that, he was wearing a
baseball cap with a Confederate flag on it. You know,
of course, the Confederate flag hat was a key piece
(30:25):
of evidence in this case. I mean, obviously not the
hat that Tan was wearing, but there was a baseball
cap left in the taxi cab that they think belonged
to the you know, the murderer who fled the scene.
So there was definitely a moment where I think Gilbert
(30:47):
and I were probably thinking the same thing, like, oh, jeeves,
did this guy actually do it? Do we have this wrong?
He invites us in and we all take a seat
on his couch facing a TV. There's also a big
aquarium next to us. You can hear its water pump
in the background. We asked Dan about what happened when
(31:08):
he was arrested for killing the cab driver Joseph laver Well.
When when they arrested me, I was in the truck and,
like I told him in court, I found her bind weed.
I was honest with him. I had met in behind.
(31:29):
Dan tells us that after he's pulled over in his truck,
police officers tell him to get down. There's a picture
of him in the Orlando Sentinel, handcuffed, shirtless and splayed
out on the ground with a rifle toting deputy standing
over him. And when they arrested me, that's what I thought.
They was throwing down on me for as weed. And
(31:50):
when they had me on the ground and I said,
why are you arresting me for? He said, first with
great murder, I like to pass out. What are you
kidding me? I just I couldn't get my breath. I
was like, what. Dan didn't understand why police have been
looking for him. He wasn't really a troublemaker, and at
the time of his arrest. All we could find on
(32:12):
his record were minor traffic in fractions. After he was
booked into jail, they fingerprinted him, drew his blood, and
plucked hairs from his scalp all for comparison with the
physical evidence recovered from the taxicab, and none of it
matched Dan. On the night of the murder, Dan was
(32:33):
at a party with about a dozen other people. They
all vouched for Dan that he was with them all night.
No way he left and killed someone with his alibi,
witnesses and all the physical evidence that did not connect
him to the murder of Joseph Lavere. Guards at the
jail were telling Dan that he had nothing to worry about.
(32:53):
He'd be going home soon. But I was my team
scared to dance. You know, I'm fixed fry for something
I didn't do it. I was scared. I ain't gonna
I'm scared. Dan's father didn't want his son to be
represented by a public defender. Yeah, my daddy had a
junkyard and he sold had a crusher to come out there,
(33:18):
and so all the cards he had jumped him just
to get me a lawyer. Because my daddy says, son,
don't worry. He said, I know I didn't raise you
this way. He said, this is bullshit, and he said
I spend every dollar I got. He says, you're not
going down for this. Dan's dad was able to raise
enough money to hire a private attorney. You'll never guess
(33:40):
who they hired. Jack Adv't said this is one of
the most framed jobs he'd ever seen in his life.
Jack Edmund the same lawyer who later represented Leo Schofield
at trial, the guy in the western cut suit with
the tiny waist and the life savers. But I never
thought much of Jack because I always tried to call
(34:02):
him in jail. I was scared, and he'd say, everything's
all right, sign don't worry about and hang up. So
I called my mama, said, Mom, you got fired this lawyer.
I'm gonna die. You don't seems like Edmund had a
habit of dodging his clients until just before trial. But
the prosecution was certainly investigating their case. But it still
(34:23):
puzzles me as to why Dan. I don't understand it.
I don't even Dan didn't even live in Intercession City.
While Dan sat in jail, people close to him started
getting knocks on their doors. One of them was Tanya Dean,
who was dating Dan's cousin. She remembers the night the
(34:46):
cab driver was murdered. I remember the power going out,
and I think I was near the area, but I
didn't see anything. I just heard about it after the fact,
and then a detective came to the house. When detectives
knock on her door, she's fifteen and pregnant with her
second baby. I can one hundred percent recall walking out
(35:12):
with my child on my hip and the detective saying,
we know you've seen him, And I says seen who?
What do you mean? I didn't see anything. You've seen
Daniel Odie. You've seen Dan? Do it? No, I didn't.
You're gonna tell us that you've seen Daniel Odie or
(35:35):
that baby on your hip and in the one in
your stomach is going to be gone. Remember that one
hundred percent. I will never forget that day. His name
was Buddy Shepherd. I will never have I just got chills.
I'll never forget that. Deputy Buddy Shepherd was a detective
with the Osciola County Sheriff's Office and he was the
(35:57):
lead investigator on the Lavere murder. I asked Hanya if
she's sure that Buddy Shepherd wasn't just warning her that
she was under oath and if she committed perjury there
could be consequences that would affect her children. Absolutely not,
That is not the no, absolutely not. It was a
(36:18):
direct threat. And I was told to say that I
seen him. I remember, because I was a miner. I
had to have a parent present because I had to
go down and make a recorded statement. And I remember
telling my dad, Dad, they're making me lie. They're telling
me what I have to say, or they're going to
(36:40):
take my babies. He said, Sissy, they can't do that.
They can't take your children because you tell the truth.
All you have to do is what I've taught you
is tell the truth. So I went down to give
a statement and the detective kept on saying, so tell us,
(37:06):
tell us it was Dan, wasn't it. Remember it was Dan?
And he would point to my stomach and I said, no,
it wasn't. I didn't see anything. I didn't see nothing.
And he turned off the recorder and he slammed his
fist down and he says, you're gonna tell us it
was Dan. Do you remember what I told you, you're
(37:28):
gonna tell us it was Dan, and this is Buddy
Shepherd again, Yes it was. I was terrified. I was terrified.
Tanya says she doesn't give in to Buddy Shepherd's threats.
But it turns out there were other young mothers in
town who claimed that Shepherd tried to get them to lie.
(37:50):
One of them was Debbie Murphy. Well, Debbie Murphy was
their main witness. That's the only thing they had against me,
and she was pointing me out. She said she's seen
me over six hundred yards away at two o'clock in
the morning, run on across the railroad tracks. At trial,
the state's witnesses point to Dan Odie as the man
(38:12):
they saw get out of the taxicab. But what's odd
is that in the witness's initial statements to police, they
had described the suspect as being somewhere between five foot
eight and six feet tall and weighing around one hundred
and sixty pounds. That is not Dan Odie. At the time,
(38:33):
Dan was six foot four and weighed two hundred and
thirty five pounds, which is the average size of a
tight end in the National Football League. He's kind of hard,
to miss Dan. Odie's friends are all testifying under oath
that Dan was with them all night. The jury has
(38:55):
to decide which witnesses are lying, and they can't do it.
Failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial is declared.
But just two months later, the state tries Dan Odie again,
and everybody kind of didn't want to pursue it, except
for Buddy Shepherd. Old Buddy Shepherd, he wasn't letting it go.
(39:17):
He was just he was bounding and determined to frame me.
He wasn't gonna let it go. Debbie Murphy takes the
stand again in the second trial, but in the middle
of her testimony, the trial grinds to a halt. She
came clean on the second trial. She broke down star crying,
and they stopped and said what's wrong. She said, I
can't do this no more. She said, damn those I've
(39:40):
never seen him that night. I know Dan from school.
I never seen Dan on the rail tracks that night.
She said, I haven't seen Dan since we got out
of school. And she told him, you know, look, I
was paid to say this. I was threatened with my
kids if I didn't say this against Daniel Odie and
I was like, Wow, finally come true. You know, at least,
(40:03):
oh man, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. After the trial,
Dan says Debbie apologized for lying about seeing him on
the railroad tracks that night. I told her, I understand,
you know, I'm just glad you finally came forward because
I was fixing go electric chair for something I know
(40:24):
I didn't do, but she finally came forward told the truth.
There was a quick investigation into the claims that Buddy
Shephard was threatening young mothers in Intercession City. Despite the allegations,
he was cleared. On October twentieth, nineteen eighty seven. Dan
(40:45):
Is acquitted of the murder of cab driver Joseph Laver.
It was a great feeling because my mom had had
three stroke fries in there, and when when I was
accusing of it no more, she broke down and cried
and felt you could just see weight lifts it off
(41:07):
over because I was her baby, you know, of all
my brothers, I was her baby, and she she knowed
I didn't do it, but she she really thought she
had never seen it again like this. And when they
said not guilty, just everybody jumped up, but Dan Odie
had spent six months in jail, and he sat through
two trials facing the death penalty, and despite being found
(41:30):
not guilty, he still doesn't feel like his name has
been cleared. But it's just it's still to this day.
I mean, I don't think about it. I know what's
right and what's wrong, and I know I didn't do
it and all this. But when you meet people from
back then, as you see him somewhere on the street today,
(41:53):
and they kind of look at you like, oh yeah, hey,
and you know they're thinking, did you do it or
did you not? But I just stayers away without a
shadow of a doubt that I could show everybody that
I did not do this. I want to see that
physical evidence. Oh my god, I would. I would love
(42:15):
for y'all to do the DNA and find out who
really did it. I would just really like for those
who did it. When we first walked in to talk
to Dan, we weren't sure what to expect, But listening
to Dan tell his story and talk about his innocence,
(42:37):
it's hard not to think about Leo. They both want
us to keep investigating their cases from thirty five years ago.
They want so badly to get to the truth, to
have their names cleared so they can get on with
their lives. The state insists that they had the right
man and dan Odie, but that the jury just saw
(42:58):
it differently, so after his acquittal they don't investigate any further.
But if the state is wrong, that means that the
murderer of Joseph Laverre may still be out there somewhere.
I just can't stop thinking this has to be Jeremy.
(43:31):
It's twenty ten, twenty three years after Michelle Scofield was killed.
More than five years have passed since the unidentified fingerprints
in the Mazda were matched to Jeremy Scott, and finally
Leo's granted an evidentiary hearing, which he hopes will lead
to a new trial. His lawyers prepare to present the
(43:55):
new evidence, the fingerprints and Jamie Nilam's testimony about Jeremy's
violence and how he brought her to the same spot
where Michelle's body was found. All of the things we
found out about him made him the killer. This is
Richard Bartman, Leo's attorney, and it's certainly it thisserrated any
(44:19):
possibility that Leo did this. If this case went to
travel with all that evidence. It would have been mountains
a doubt about Leo being the killer, and it would
have created all sorts of very clear pictures in my
mind that not only wasn't it Leo, but we knew
who did this. It was Jeremy Scott. Both Jeremy and
(44:42):
Leo are brought from their respective prisons to the Polk
County Jail to attend the hearing. This is the first
time that Jeremy and Leo will be in the same
room together. Leo's wife, Chrissie, has been waiting for this
day in court for a long time. In our mine,
in my mind, there was absolutely no way to lose this.
(45:04):
It's a no brainer. You've got physical evidence now that
was not in the case before. So an anticipation of
the hearing, I bought him two suits, Adam taylored. They
were packed. We were ready to go. The hearing begins
on May fifth, twenty ten. Jeremy Scott is called to
(45:28):
testify and he's questioned by C. J. Bennefield, an assistant
state attorney. Jeremy Lynn Scott, We'll ask you, did you
ever know a person I named Michelle Scofield? No, sir,
I'm gonna ask you, did you kill Michelle Scofield? No, sir, didn't.
(45:53):
Are you aware that a fingerprint of yours was found
in her vehicle? Yes, sir, I am. When Jeremy Scott
is called to testify, he denies killing Michelle, but the
assistant state attorney doesn't really seem committed to getting a
consistent story out of him. Tell me about your activities
back then. My activities, listen. I wouldn't. I wouldn't in
(46:18):
stealing cars or tires. My name was breaking car stereo
system and speakers. That was my thing. How did you
get transportation to do these activities? Jamie's car? Jamie wasn't
aware of it. Do you know about when you met Jamie?
(46:41):
April seventeen, nineteen eighty seven. How do you remember that date? Okay?
My birthday is on a twenty nine at April. He's
saying that he used his girlfriend, Jamie's car to steal
stereo equipment from abandoned vehicles, But Jamie and Jeremy didn't
(47:04):
even meet until about six weeks after Michelle Scofield was killed.
The State lets these inconsistencies go unchallenged. The state says
they trust Jeremy's story about why his fingerprints were found
in the car because State Attorney John Aguero believes him.
John Aguero, the prosecutor with the electric chair to high clip,
(47:27):
is called as a witness to talk about his meeting
with Jeremy. So I had mister Scott brought back from
whatever correctional institute he was in to my office. Jeremy
was brought to a Guero's office in two thousand and
five to talk about the prints. The two men spoke
(47:48):
behind closed doors. There were no other witnesses and no
tape recordings. All we have to go on is Aguero's word.
I told him that his fingerprint was found in a car,
that I had put mister Scofield in prison for the
rest of his life for killing his wife, and if
(48:08):
he didn't do it, I had to know it. Therefore
I would give him immunity. That it was more important
for me to know the truth than it was than
anything else. John Aguero was saying that in this one
on one meeting when he questioned Jeremy about his fingerprints,
(48:31):
he offered Jeremy immunity. Essentially confessed to killing Michelle Scofield,
and you won't be charged with the crime. Mister Scott,
as I said, was cooperative. I think he fully understood immunity,
fully understood that it was important to me that if
(48:54):
he did this murder, it would I couldn't prosecute him,
but I could let leo'sco field out of jail. I've
asked lawyers and legal experts about the kind of full
immunity Aguero claims he offered Jeremy in this closed door meeting,
and I've been told it just doesn't happen like this,
or it isn't supposed to. And it makes no sense
(49:17):
to me why Aguero would do that, because if Jeremy
admitted under full immunity that he killed Michelle, Leo would
be released from prison and no one would ever be
charged with Michelle's murder. And on top of how little
sense it makes, I can't find any documentation of this
alleged immunity offer. Leo's lawyers say they made repeated requests
(49:41):
for proof of it too, and the State's response is
telling they don't turn over any documentation. They just argue
about the number of requests Leo's lawyers made, so no
proof of immunity is ever produced. What was his explanation
is to the thing of being in the vehicle. Mister
(50:02):
Scott indicated that at the time he was a thief.
Aguero says he looked Jeremy in the eye and asked
him if he killed Michelle Scofield. Jeremy said he didn't,
that he's just a car stereo thief, and Aguero believes him.
This is the same prosecutor who tried to send Jeremy
(50:23):
Scott to the electric chair for killing Donald Moorehead, arguing
to the court that Jeremy was a cold blooded criminal
who couldn't be trusted. After getting information and the investigation
was complete, did you do anything with it? Well, I
did not go any further. I made notes in my
(50:44):
file concerning my investigation and I closed the investigation at
any time that you notify they believe Jeremy his reasons
for being in the car was credible. How do you
believed that is credible? Now everyone is left waiting and
(51:07):
wondering if the Polk County judge presiding over this hearing
will also believe Jeremy Scott. Judge Keith Spodo's ruling is
released just six weeks after the hearing. Spoto writes given
(51:28):
mister Scott's past history and modus operandi, there is every
reason to believe that he simply stumbled upon the car
after her murder, and after her body had been hidden,
stole stereo equipment from her car, thereby leaving his fingerprints
in the vehicle. In other words, Judge Spoto considers Jeremy's
(51:50):
past history and rules that Jeremy Scott is simply a
car stereo thief, that he's telling the truth. As far
as thet is concerned. It's almost as if it was
inconceivable to Judge Spoto that a known murderer who was
tried twice for homicide by this same office might also
(52:12):
steal from his victim afterwards, just like Jeremy did after
killing Jule Johnson when he stole her coins, and just
like Jeremy did after killing Donald Moorehead when he stole
his car. Judge Spoto denies Leo's motion for a new trial.
(52:36):
I'm stunned as I read this opinion, but maybe I
shouldn't be, given that so many of the judges in
Polk County come from the State Attorney's office. For example,
Judge Spoto, who presided over Leo's Hearing worked as a
prosecutor in the Tenth Circuit alongside John Aguero for nearly
a decade. My god, I've been I have been about
(53:00):
virtually everything without from the beginning, which I thought was
going to happen. So I feel bad about that personally
misread everything. Scott Cupp thought at one point that the
discovery of Jeremy's fingerprints in Michelle's car would spring Leo
(53:21):
out of prison in just ninety days. But once again
his intuition that Leo would be given a new trial
is wrong. It's the greatest personal and professional regret of
my life that Leo's skullfield is still in prison. Richard Bartman,
Leo's other lawyer. No one really wanted to admit they
(53:42):
were wrong. No one really took the kind of close
look we were urging them to take. People got hooked
on these mythological remembrances of evidence that didn't exist, mythological
remembrances of evidence. That's right. Judge Spoto couldn't resist writing
about Leo Senior's premonition. It's included in his summary of
(54:04):
the state's evidence, which Spoto says is quote strong and
sufficient for a jury to convict Leo Schofield, How is
that evidence of guilt? It's not. It's just some anomaly.
It's just something that comes up. Doesn't mean they can
mean a million things. Guy's histrionic. Guys are nut It's
(54:28):
not evidence of guilt. It's not evidence of anything. That's
the urban legend stuff. It just has its own you know,
the snowball going down. How many can't stop it. Meanwhile,
the physical evidence that cup Embarkment do present about Jeremy's
connection to Michelle's murder, It's dismissed by the judge as
(54:52):
a happy coincidence, as if it was just bad luck
for Jeremy that his fingerprints turned up in the car
of a young woman who'd been found dead in a
dark place where he was known to hang out. For
the life of me, don't understand how a trial judge
or appellate court could have looked at what we came
up with and said nothing to see here. This disappointment
(55:15):
hits no one harder than Leo, and by the time
he learned of the judge's decision, he was still reeling
from an encounter that happened right before he entered the courtroom.
I'm gonna tell you this, man, I should probably filter it.
I'm not going to filter it. I'm gonna let you
filter what you wanna felt this. And if I'm wrong
(55:37):
for this and you tell me I'm wrong and Soviet
I've been wronged for a long time, I've been wronged,
I would have been justified in my mind to be wrong.
It's the morning before the first day of the evidentiary hearing.
Leo and Jeremy are both brought to the jail across
(55:58):
from the courthouse for the hearing. They're supposed to be
separated from each other since they're now involved in the
same case. So Leah was grouped with other defendants who
are doing court that day, and so they have they
had all the guys handcuffed two by two. There's thirty
three of us, so I'm the odd man out, so
(56:20):
I'm not handcuffed to anybody. And so there's a tunnel
that goes on the road between the jail and the
courthouse that they bring the inmates through. It's a long tunnel.
It's only one door in, one door on the other
side out, and there's no doors on the inside. It's
just a concrete, unfinished concrete tunnel on the road. They're
(56:43):
led through the door and start walking through the tunnel.
They march down and stop in front of the door
that leads to the courthouse. There's an officer there and
he starts banging on the door, waiting for someone on
the other side to let them in. Meanwhile, all the
way back at the end of the tunnel, here comes
(57:05):
Jeremy come on another van. He was by himself. Leo
has seen Jeremy's mugshots before. It's a face that's seared
into Leo's mind. I can see him way back there,
walking up, and I can see him walking up, and
I had enough time to stand there thinking in my
heartstots racing, and I know these people are not going
(57:26):
to just walk the murder of my wife right up
in front of me and this tunnel right here after
all that I'm gone through, and I just made a
decision in my mind. If they watch him up and
put him alongside of me, that's God's will. I'm gonna
end it right here in this hallway. And so I'm
my Drona's pumping, his pumping, his pumping, and watched him
(57:47):
up and I'm getting ready and I'm gonna I'm just
gonna wrap these handcuffs around his neck and I'm gonna
take him down, and they're not gonna be able to
beat me off of him until twenty something years of
frustration and comes out and I get from Michelle and
it's done. Now you can go ahead and put me
in prison. Now I belong there. You know what I mean?
You know, and I'm not a murderer. That's who they
(58:08):
made me. I mean, I've had to fight for my
life in here when I first came in twenty two
years old, young and white in the prison system. No
dad's coming, no police coming, nobody cares. You can. You
have to do this or be raped or something stupid
like that. So you know where your lines are. I
(58:28):
know where my lines are, and you cannot cross that
line without certain things happening. If you're gonna watch the
murderer of my wife and put him upside, that's a
line you cannot cross. Just so happened. They got him
maybe ten feet away from me, and this got up
and the top stairs turns around and sees him, and
he knows and he yells stop stop, back him up,
(58:53):
back him. They yank him back. Wow. I mean, I
just how this massive release of of you know, because
that was that was pretty scary. In the basement of
the courthouse, Leo says he waits in a holding cell
with the other defendants. Because of Jeremy's violent behavior, He's
(59:17):
kept in an isolation cell right by the elevator. The
jail is short staffed, there aren't any correction officers down there,
and Leo's name is called over the loudspeaker. Let's go
field approach the elevator. And so I'm thinking, when I
got to walk right by a cell. You now, he
doesn't know me from Adam, but he knows who I
(59:39):
am by name. And this is when I knew because
I really wasn't sure. I mean, I don't know. You know,
what's the what's the percentage on it being a coincidence
that this non murderer is forensically linked to my wife's
car and he didn't have anything to do with it,
and after everything we know about him, And my thought is,
(01:00:00):
if you are accusing me of doing something that I
know I did not do, I'm gonna be at them
bars when I see you walk by. I might not
do anything stupid, but I'm gonna have something to say,
I'm gonna say something. You've got the wrong guy or
something anything. I'm gonna say something. Here's your opportunity. So
I walk up there and I go to the bars
(01:00:22):
to a cell and I stand there and I look
at him. He's sitting there, profile to the front of
the cell and he won't look at me. And I'm
standing there waiting for him to look at I need
him to look at me. And he couldn't look at me.
He couldn't even face me. And I told him, know
that I know, Jeremy, know that I know. And he
(01:00:42):
never says anything to me. I knew in that moment,
I was looking at the murder of my wife. I
knew it. Bone Valley is a production of Lava for
(01:01:08):
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Our
executive producers are Jason Flaum and Kevin Wurdis. Karak Kornhaber
is our senior producer. Brit Spangler is our sound designer.
Roxandra Guidi is our editor. Fact checking by Maximo Anderson.
Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our theme song,
(01:01:33):
The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed by Leebob
and the truth. It was written by Leo Schofield and
Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hardy Correctional Institution. Bone Valley is
written and produced by me Gilbert King. You can follow
the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
(01:01:53):
To see photos and documents from our investigation and exclusive
behind the scenes content, visit Lava Forgood dot com slash
Bone Valley
Would you think of Jeremy when you first moment? Well,
at first, Maam, I thought he was cute. He was cute,
he was dangerous. This is Jamie Nellums. She was Jeremy
Scott's girlfriend in nineteen eighty seven and nineteen eighty eight.
(00:35):
They were both seventeen years old when they met at
a teen dance club in Lakeland, Florida. This was right
after Jeremy was acquitted in the Jule Johnson murder, and
then he and Jamie stayed together until his arrest in
the murder of Donald Moorehead. Sixteen years into Jeremy's murder sentence,
a detective from the Polk County Sheriff's Office contacted Jamie.
(00:59):
Jeremy's finger prince had been matched to the ones found
in Michelle Scofield's Mazda, but the investigation didn't last long.
Assistant State Attorney John Aguero, the same man who prosecuted
and convicted both Leo and Jeremy, quickly shuts down the
investigation into Jeremy Scott. Ten months after Jamie's first questioned.
(01:22):
Criminal defense attorney Richard Bartman interviews her in late two
thousand and five. Bartman is representing Leo Scofield alongside his
other attorney, Scott Cupp. They're trying to finish the investigation
into Jeremy Scott that the state barely started. So you
remember speaking to this detective. What was the reason he
(01:42):
said he was there? He did that he needed to
come talk to me regarding Jeremy Scott, anything else that
he told you that he was there. He wanted me
to take him to pass Jeremy Hernount that I knew of.
He had asked me where we had never gone to
be alone, and I told him about the place over
(02:02):
off off thirty three by Ipour. He wanted me to
take him there, to show him where that was that
and I did that. Jamie says that ten months earlier,
she led the state's detective to a place along State
Road thirty three in North Lakeland. Now she's telling Richard
Bartman what it was like when Jeremy first took her there.
(02:25):
It was around two am in the spring of nineteen
eighty seven. Jamie was driving and Jeremy was in the
passenger seat directing her. He told me where to drive.
I had just started driving and barely knew how to
get around my house, let alone how to get anywhere else.
So he told me where to turn and did he
(02:50):
have any trouble finding now? He didn't task him out
that you couldn't find him, that you knew what that.
Jeremy tells her when to slow down, to turn off
at the cut, to pull onto the dirt path back
behind the tree line. There's palmetto bushes and garbage on
(03:12):
the ground. No one else is back there. There's no
street lights, no houses in sight, and no cars on
the road either. Jeremy and Jamie are alone. He had
this saying about being outside. You'd like to be outside.
(03:33):
You'd like to be outside. When when we went, Jamie
and Jeremy get out of the car and walk further
from the main road into the dark. When you got there,
what was your freshman area? First time? You want? Then
in dirty and cold, you know, dark. I remember being
(03:55):
nervous because there was nobody around. I didn't like it.
Teenagers would come to the spot along State Road thirty
three to drink beer, smoke weed and make out, but
Jamie had been warned to stay away after police began
discovering dead girls in the water behind the palmetto bushes.
(04:19):
One of those girls Michelle's Schofield was found floating face
down just a few months earlier in this very same drainage.
Canal do you, my man? I to my fields steps
(04:55):
in this val I see relation. I reachdaspration to the
(05:19):
world on the Star to Star Bone Valley, chapter six.
(05:55):
Know that I know. We talked to Leo's lawyer, Richard Bartman,
more than fifteen years after he interviewed Jamie Nellams, and
I remember a chilling up my spine when he described
what this guy had done to her and the level
of fear in this woman when we've interviewed her. I can't.
(06:19):
I've never forgotten that. Jamie tells Bartman that the violence
began just weeks into her relationship with Jeremy Scott. There's punching, choking,
and worse. She tells Bartman that Jeremy hit her pretty
much every time she saw him. He hit me with
cross bat with a bout before. He hit me with
(06:41):
one of my babes before, and he was a babema
that one. Jamie had gone to Disney World with her
sisters against Jeremy's wishes. When she returned, he walked her outside,
picked up a baseball bat, and swung at her face
(07:02):
and that was the blow from the baseball bat left
her jaw broken and her face disfigured. Her injuries and
her story left a big impression on Richard Bartman. He
still thinks about it today. And you saw her face
(07:22):
and what Scott did do it. And this was years
later because she didn't have the money to get her
injuries fixed, so he had beaten her to such an
extent that her jaw was deformed. Jamie was convinced that
Jeremy was going to kill her, but instead Jeremy directed
his violence at someone else. On Halloween Night in nineteen
(07:46):
eighty eight, Jeremy murdered Donald moorehead. He's arrested the following
day and locked up without bail. Jamie is finally free
from Jeremy. I think we talked to her for about
two three hours about his way of life, about how
well he knew Lakeland, about well he knew this area
(08:08):
where the body was found, About his level of violence,
About the way he beat up gay people, About the
way he beat her. If she would look at him wrong,
he beat the shit out of her. The slightest provocation,
he would get violent. So I could easily picture him
killing Michelle over whatever. I mean, it didn't have to
be rational, And of course I remember driving home from
(08:30):
that thinking Jesus Christ, this is the guy. It matches
in so many ways. Richard Bartman and Scott Cupp keep
gathering information about Jeremy's connection to Michelle Scofield's murder. They're
making the case that Leo deserves a new trial. Not
(08:53):
only do they have fingerprints that link Jeremy Scott to
the vehicle Michelle was driving the night she went missing,
Now they have testimony that Jeremy used to take his
girlfriend Jamie to the same place where Michelle's body was found.
Richard Bartman could hardly believe what Jamie had told him.
(09:13):
But when Kelsey and I listened to this interview, almost
fifteen years after it had been recorded, something else caught
our attention. Did he ever Okay, yeah, I kind of
thought about it in a long time, and I'm sorry
to stir it up. I really do apologize, but I
don't mean anything personal, but it's questions I gotta ask, um,
(09:37):
did he ever? Did he ever tell you anything Jeremy
now during the course of your relationship about the crimes
he did to criminal act or any sort of criminal activity.
He told me he had killed a tax cab driver.
He was sixteen seventeen at time, and that he had
gotten away with it. Nat was just a couple months
(10:01):
before he got arrested for the Moorehead sang, what Kelsey
and I run down the list of murders that Jeremy's
linked to. We know that Jeremy bragged about killing Julee
Johnson after he was acquitted of her murder. Jule was
(10:22):
found shot dead in a trailer behind her house. Jeremy's
fingerprints were lifted from her eyeglasses and coin wrappers at
the scene. Jule Johnson is murder number one, and Jeremy
was convicted in the nineteen eighty eight murder of Donald Moorehead.
He smashed him over the head with a grape juice
(10:43):
bottle and strangled him with a telephone cord. Jeremy was
forensically tied to that crime scene and he admitted to
that killing as well. Donald Moorehead is murder number two,
and Jeremy's fingerprints were found in Michelle Scofield's car. Her
body was discovered in the same canal where Jeremy used
(11:06):
to take Jamie to have sex with her. Michelle Scofield
is murder number three. But now Jamie mentions that Jeremy
had spontaneously confessed to another murder, the killing of a
taxicab driver. Is this murder number four? We don't have
(11:29):
a lot to go on, but we start digging. We
know that if Jeremy killed a taxicab driver, it would
most likely be in that two year period between December
nineteen eighty six, when he's released after his acquittal of
the Jule Johnson murder, and Halloween of nineteen eighty eight,
when he's locked up for killing Donald Moorehead. That matches
(11:50):
what Jamie told Bartman. Jeremy would have been sixteen or
seventeen at the time. We searched through databases for unsolved
homicides and larda. We combed through newspaper archives for stories
about cab drivers killed in central Florida between nineteen eighty
six and nineteen eighty eight, and then one murder catches
(12:12):
our attention. In the spring of nineteen eighty seven, right
near the Polk County line, a twenty five year old
taxicab driver named Joseph Laverre was shot dead just outside
a little community called Intercession City. A suspect named dan
Odie was arrested and brought to trial twice, but the
(12:35):
second trial ended with the defendant's acquittal. No one else
is ever charged in the death of Joseph Laverre, so
this is an unsolved murder. From his records, we know
that Jeremy was not in jail at that time. It
happened just six weeks after Michelle's Scofield was killed, so
(12:58):
we dig a little deeper. We start piecing together the
crime from newspaper coverage, and this is what we learn.
It's late at night, April tenth, nineteen eighty seven. Laverre
is driving a taxi for the Yellow Cab Company and
he's close to finishing his shift when he gets a
call from his dispatcher directing him to pick up a
(13:20):
passenger at a kmart in Kissimmee. Lavert picks up the
passenger around ten forty five pm, but about an hour later,
the cab driver's body is spotted just off the shoulder
of Old Tampa Highway. It seems that whoever killed Joseph
laver stole the taxi, turned off the highway, crossed the
(13:41):
railroad tracks and sped onto a quiet residential street in
Intercession City. He must have been driving fast, because he
quickly lost control of the vehicle, side swiping a parked
car and crashing into a power pole that knocked out
the electricity in the neighborhood. Residence ran outside to see
(14:02):
what happened and caught a glimpse of the suspect as
he fled the scene. The witnesses told police they'd seen
a white man around five foot ten of a thin
or medium build running from the cab. He was wearing
jeans and a flannel shirt, had brown hair, and screamed
it's gonna blow before he disappeared into the woods. Inside
(14:26):
the taxi, deputies found a black baseball cap sitting in
the back seat. We were able to get our hands
on a photo of this cap. There's a design on
the front of it, a skull wearing a cowboy hat
with a big Confederate flag in the background. And then
there's this other part of Bartman's interview with Jamie, I
(14:48):
replay it over and over again. Jamie says that when
she first met Jeremy, there was something about his appearance
that stood out to her. Well for Bettie guided when
that thought was weird, he guided, he bleached hair brown.
Jamie thought this was odd because Jeremy never maintained that color. Naturally,
(15:12):
his hair was brown, and when the dark roots grew
back in, Jamie said, he never bleached it again. She
and Jeremy met just before his eighteenth birthday, about a
week after Joseph Lavere was killed. It's a small thing,
but it could match up with what we know about
Laverre's murder. It would make sense that the suspect, knowing
(15:35):
he'd been seen, might try to change his appearance. And
there's another clue. In Richard Bartman's interview with Jamie, she
mentions that Jeremy wasn't particularly close with anyone at that time,
except maybe his younger brother. That brother has a pretty
distinct name. So we were able to track down Royal
Dean Scott to accept this call and all future calls
(16:00):
PRIs one. No phone calls our subject to monitoring and recording.
You have thirty eight dollars twenty four since sorry, Royal. Yeah,
he was locked up in the Russell County Jail in Alabama,
awaiting transfer to state prison on an obstruction of justice charge.
(16:24):
I sent Royal Dean a letter, told him I opened
a phone account with the jail and gave him my number.
I got no problem with answens, but any that you
got to ask some of all of the adults incriminated
Jeremy on some him that's gonna hurt him. I got
a problem with that. I start chatting with Royal Dean
pretty frequently over a period of a few weeks. He
(16:44):
calls when he can and sometimes leaves voicemail messages. We
talk about what Jeremy was like as a kid and
their family life, but I'm also trying to find out
more about Jeremy's possible links to the murder of Joseph Laver.
Did you guys leave that Intercession City at some point? Oh? Yeah,
that's where me and my wife met. Okay, that's a city.
(17:09):
Is where well Man and Jeremy pretty much to grow up. Really,
I mean, did you ever hear anything, Because one of
the other things that Jeremy confessed to Jamie about was
um robbing a cab driver on the way home from
consuming towards Intercession City. Did you ever hear anything about that? Yes?
(17:29):
I heard about What is that? What happened? M h Wow,
I'd heard about the cab driver man rob but I didn't.
I couldn't tell you. Yes A Jeremy. Yeah, he doesn't
seem to want to go into this with me. Still,
(17:51):
Royal Dean keeps calling. We talk about his legal troubles,
and I keep asking about Jeremy, hoping he shares more
about their time an Intercession city. And finally he let
something slip. I remember him saying something about robbin the
cans Over. I remember my brother telling me about jumping
(18:11):
out of a car, I mean about taking that out
of money. And that's something about a gun. Do you
ever remember him with blonde hair? Yeah, that would be
about right soon. Is he trying to change his identity
or something? I think so. I remember the blonde hair,
and I remember the cans a Over being robbed, and
(18:31):
I remember him saying something about it, and then he
had to leave for the while. Yeah. See, I never
got any details. I just know that my brother disappeared
after that. For a while. After this conversation, Royal Dean
disappeared too. The phone call stopped coming when he was
transferred to a state prison outside of Montgomery. Hi, I'm
(19:00):
Jason flom CEO. And founder of Lava for Good podcasts,
home to Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, the War on Drugs,
and many other great podcasts. Today, we're asking you, our listeners,
to take part in a survey. Your feedback is going
to help inform how we make podcasts in the future.
Your complete and candid answers will help us continue to
bring you more insightful and inspiring stories about important topics
(19:23):
that impact us all. So please go to Lava for
Good dot com slash survey and participate today. Thank you
for your support. Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together.
Stand Together is a philanthropic community that partners with America's
boldest changemakers to tackle the root causes of our country's
(19:43):
biggest problems, including the broken criminal justice system. Christina Dent
is one of many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to
end the War on drugs, the underlying cause of many
problems such as over incarceration and the criminalization of a
fiction in communities across the country. As a foster mom,
(20:04):
Christina came into contact with the War on drugs when
she saw how it was ripping apart the family she
worked with. She witnessed how kids were affected and how
mothers wanted something better for their families but didn't have
the tools to get there themselves. Christina Dentz started a
nonprofit called End It for Good because she knew there
(20:25):
was a better solution to help these families. She's working
to end the War on drugs in Mississippi and build
consensus around the state to help families struggling with substance
abuse problems find a different path forward than the one
they've been given. Stand Together has many more stories like
this one, as it partners with thousands of change makers
(20:46):
who were driving solutions in education, healthcare, poverty, and the
criminal justice system. To learn more about the War on drugs,
listen to the War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Kelsey and I go
(21:10):
down to the Osciola County Clerk's office to look at
the case files and trial transcripts from the murder of
Joseph Laver. I wanted to find out what was collected
from the cab to see if there was any DNA
evidence or fingerprints that could be run. One of the
great things about doing research in Florida is the state
Sunshine Law that requires that all state, county, and municipal
(21:34):
records be made available to the public. But we don't
get off to a very promising start. After asking for
the file, we wait for about an hour and then
they send down not one, not two, but three clerks
to talk to us. Hello, I'm Gilbert King. How are you.
(21:55):
I'm good, How are you? You're welcome, Nice to meet you,
Nice to meet you. Um so um, you're interested in
the Daniel file, right, Um, Donna is mispronouncing his name.
But Daniel Odie was the man who was tried twice
(22:16):
and was eventually acquitted of killing the cab driver Joseph Laver.
It doesn't have the arrest affidavit. It's a partial file,
so um, what what's in here? You are entitled to view?
I don't know. If Donna shows me a slim file,
it can't have more than one hundred pages in it.
(22:39):
Usually the clerk's office will turn over boxes of files
with transcripts, police reports, and depositions thousands of pages. Again,
this is all supposed to be public record, and I'm
entitled to view all of it easiest or preferable. I
just want to look at it first and see what's
in there because we're looking there's these were two trials too. Homicide.
(23:01):
Usually there's like transcripts notation about where physical evidence might be.
Since he was found not guilty, the physical evidence would
no longer be available. And is it disposed or is
it just not available to the public. This is infuriating
me and I'm trying not to show it. If dan
Odie really didn't kill Joseph laverare that means the murderer
(23:23):
might still be out there. I can't understand why this
isn't available and why the clerk won't tell me where
I can find the information I'm looking for. He can't
be tried again, right, But I'm saying, we think we
know who did the crime, Okay, So it would be
lovely to just have some records to look at trial transcripts,
see what physical evidence did exist. Maybe there was a
(23:44):
hat we know of in the newspaper accounts. That's all
we know. But maybe there's some DNA or some hair
fibers that might match the guy we think did it.
But well, we'll go through all this and look through
it and just see if we can find any clues
as to where the stuff might be. So that goes
back to you, guys, somebody has to sit with him. Yes,
so the two options that you have. We're told someone
will need to observe us if we're going to view
(24:05):
the files in the courthouse. This has never happened to
me at a clerk's office before. We decide to get
copies made so we can go through them without someone
looking over our shoulder. But something's really bothering me about
this case. It feels like it's been flagged. Why do
they send down three clerks to tell us we're only
entitled to view a partial file. They're not showing me
(24:28):
these files because dan Odie was found not guilty. It
doesn't make any sense to me. Kelsey and I sit
and wait for the copies to be made. Desterias, right now,
who are a fucking war path? Right? We're gonna We're
gonna go. We're gonna go into the Sheriff's department. Then
(24:49):
we're gonna in the stand attorney's office. Never heard of
fucking something like this in Florida. The trial transfer filers
every fucking single trial. I never looked at the transfer stas.
Later that same day, we drive to the Ossiola County
Sheriff's office. We tell them that we might have some
(25:09):
important information on an old cold case in their jurisdiction.
They send two young detectives down to us, but they
won't let us record our meeting. The detectives are friendly
and they listen to what we have to say, but
they don't seem to know anything about this case. Okay,
we just left the Ossiola County Sheriff's office. It's raining
(25:31):
out now, and the two detectives in there told us
that who are very interested. They told us that they
were going to look through the files to see if
they can find some physical evidence. I think that's good
to reach a detective. Press one to schedule an appointment
(25:52):
to Reggie. The detectives say they'll get back to us,
but never do. I keep calling for updates with no luck.
After the tone, please record your message. When you finished recording,
hang up or press the pound key for more options. Oh,
good morning, Detective Miller. This is Gilbert King. We met
(26:14):
with you a couple weeks ago about that cab driver
killing back in nineteen eighty seven and Detective Cortez and
I just wanted to follow up with you because I
had a file of information on that particular case. I know,
we didn't really leave you with anything. But since we're
having no luck accessing the files or getting any info
from law enforcement, Kelsey and I try to find the
(26:35):
defendant in the case, the nineteen year old kid who
stood trial twice for this murder, dan Odie. So we
did find an address for dan Odie that looked pretty solid.
It looked like he'd been at that address for quite
some time. It was all the way out in East
Polk County, which we talk about parts of Lakeland being ruled,
(26:59):
but it doesn't it doesn't compare to East Pole County.
You know. We got out there, but it was just
this long straight road and I know we were there
for miles, driving on this road for miles and we
didn't pass another car. There was no houses, no structures,
you know. Our cell service was in and out. We
(27:19):
got to the street dan Odie lives on and we
saw it was a dirt road. It wasn't like a
very well maintained dirt road. So we drove down the road.
We found his address and we saw that there were
dogs in the yard, big dogs, and there was a
(27:40):
flagpole with a Confederate flag on it. So it just
it seemed a little like, hey, maybe we should give
this guy a heads up before we like go through
his gate and like have to approach these dogs and
like knock on his door. It just it didn't it
didn't feel super safe. So we win and we like
(28:00):
found a place to sit in the car. We started
calling the phone numbers. You have reached the voicemail box
of eight six three. That's the first one. I let's
see hello. Please leave a message after the joon. No
(28:25):
answers their phone anymore. I know, Hello, Hello, is this
mister dan Ott. Mister, my name is Gilbert King, and
I am working on a criminal justice report. I was
also pronouncing his name wrong. It's Odi dan Odi first.
So I don't know if you're around, but we would
(28:46):
just love to talk to you for a few minutes
if you're available, all right, could I stop buying just
see you in about ten minutes or so here, Oh okay,
all right, I'll call you right when I get in
front of the gate, then, sir, thank you very much.
(29:13):
Fucking believe this. All right, we're gonna get out in
the fucking porn rain, but we're gonna have a fucking interview.
All right, Let's just go over some comlesstions here quick,
you so much. We tried we found your address. We
had like nine numbers down. But um, I actually when
(29:40):
I started reading about your case, I couldn't believe it.
You went through Oh yeah twice, they tried you twice. Yeah,
I know. Like my first impression when we first saw
Dan was I was just a little scared. I was like,
did we do we have the right idea about this?
Are we sure this guy didn't do it? Because he's
(30:04):
a big guy. He's six four, pretty like built too,
He's like, you know, hefty, like football player type of build.
And then on top of that, he was wearing a
baseball cap with a Confederate flag on it. You know,
of course, the Confederate flag hat was a key piece
(30:25):
of evidence in this case. I mean, obviously not the
hat that Tan was wearing, but there was a baseball
cap left in the taxi cab that they think belonged
to the you know, the murderer who fled the scene.
So there was definitely a moment where I think Gilbert
(30:47):
and I were probably thinking the same thing, like, oh, jeeves,
did this guy actually do it? Do we have this wrong?
He invites us in and we all take a seat
on his couch facing a TV. There's also a big
aquarium next to us. You can hear its water pump
in the background. We asked Dan about what happened when
(31:08):
he was arrested for killing the cab driver Joseph laver Well.
When when they arrested me, I was in the truck and,
like I told him in court, I found her bind weed.
I was honest with him. I had met in behind.
(31:29):
Dan tells us that after he's pulled over in his truck,
police officers tell him to get down. There's a picture
of him in the Orlando Sentinel, handcuffed, shirtless and splayed
out on the ground with a rifle toting deputy standing
over him. And when they arrested me, that's what I thought.
They was throwing down on me for as weed. And
(31:50):
when they had me on the ground and I said,
why are you arresting me for? He said, first with
great murder, I like to pass out. What are you
kidding me? I just I couldn't get my breath. I
was like, what. Dan didn't understand why police have been
looking for him. He wasn't really a troublemaker, and at
the time of his arrest. All we could find on
(32:12):
his record were minor traffic in fractions. After he was
booked into jail, they fingerprinted him, drew his blood, and
plucked hairs from his scalp all for comparison with the
physical evidence recovered from the taxicab, and none of it
matched Dan. On the night of the murder, Dan was
(32:33):
at a party with about a dozen other people. They
all vouched for Dan that he was with them all night.
No way he left and killed someone with his alibi,
witnesses and all the physical evidence that did not connect
him to the murder of Joseph Lavere. Guards at the
jail were telling Dan that he had nothing to worry about.
(32:53):
He'd be going home soon. But I was my team
scared to dance. You know, I'm fixed fry for something
I didn't do it. I was scared. I ain't gonna
I'm scared. Dan's father didn't want his son to be
represented by a public defender. Yeah, my daddy had a
junkyard and he sold had a crusher to come out there,
(33:18):
and so all the cards he had jumped him just
to get me a lawyer. Because my daddy says, son,
don't worry. He said, I know I didn't raise you
this way. He said, this is bullshit, and he said
I spend every dollar I got. He says, you're not
going down for this. Dan's dad was able to raise
enough money to hire a private attorney. You'll never guess
(33:40):
who they hired. Jack Adv't said this is one of
the most framed jobs he'd ever seen in his life.
Jack Edmund the same lawyer who later represented Leo Schofield
at trial, the guy in the western cut suit with
the tiny waist and the life savers. But I never
thought much of Jack because I always tried to call
(34:02):
him in jail. I was scared, and he'd say, everything's
all right, sign don't worry about and hang up. So
I called my mama, said, Mom, you got fired this lawyer.
I'm gonna die. You don't seems like Edmund had a
habit of dodging his clients until just before trial. But
the prosecution was certainly investigating their case. But it still
(34:23):
puzzles me as to why Dan. I don't understand it.
I don't even Dan didn't even live in Intercession City.
While Dan sat in jail, people close to him started
getting knocks on their doors. One of them was Tanya Dean,
who was dating Dan's cousin. She remembers the night the
(34:46):
cab driver was murdered. I remember the power going out,
and I think I was near the area, but I
didn't see anything. I just heard about it after the fact,
and then a detective came to the house. When detectives
knock on her door, she's fifteen and pregnant with her
second baby. I can one hundred percent recall walking out
(35:12):
with my child on my hip and the detective saying,
we know you've seen him, And I says seen who?
What do you mean? I didn't see anything. You've seen
Daniel Odie. You've seen Dan? Do it? No, I didn't.
You're gonna tell us that you've seen Daniel Odie or
(35:35):
that baby on your hip and in the one in
your stomach is going to be gone. Remember that one
hundred percent. I will never forget that day. His name
was Buddy Shepherd. I will never have I just got chills.
I'll never forget that. Deputy Buddy Shepherd was a detective
with the Osciola County Sheriff's Office and he was the
(35:57):
lead investigator on the Lavere murder. I asked Hanya if
she's sure that Buddy Shepherd wasn't just warning her that
she was under oath and if she committed perjury there
could be consequences that would affect her children. Absolutely not,
That is not the no, absolutely not. It was a
(36:18):
direct threat. And I was told to say that I
seen him. I remember, because I was a miner. I
had to have a parent present because I had to
go down and make a recorded statement. And I remember
telling my dad, Dad, they're making me lie. They're telling
me what I have to say, or they're going to
(36:40):
take my babies. He said, Sissy, they can't do that.
They can't take your children because you tell the truth.
All you have to do is what I've taught you
is tell the truth. So I went down to give
a statement and the detective kept on saying, so tell us,
(37:06):
tell us it was Dan, wasn't it. Remember it was Dan?
And he would point to my stomach and I said, no,
it wasn't. I didn't see anything. I didn't see nothing.
And he turned off the recorder and he slammed his
fist down and he says, you're gonna tell us it
was Dan. Do you remember what I told you, you're
(37:28):
gonna tell us it was Dan, and this is Buddy
Shepherd again, Yes it was. I was terrified. I was terrified.
Tanya says she doesn't give in to Buddy Shepherd's threats.
But it turns out there were other young mothers in
town who claimed that Shepherd tried to get them to lie.
(37:50):
One of them was Debbie Murphy. Well, Debbie Murphy was
their main witness. That's the only thing they had against me,
and she was pointing me out. She said she's seen
me over six hundred yards away at two o'clock in
the morning, run on across the railroad tracks. At trial,
the state's witnesses point to Dan Odie as the man
(38:12):
they saw get out of the taxicab. But what's odd
is that in the witness's initial statements to police, they
had described the suspect as being somewhere between five foot
eight and six feet tall and weighing around one hundred
and sixty pounds. That is not Dan Odie. At the time,
(38:33):
Dan was six foot four and weighed two hundred and
thirty five pounds, which is the average size of a
tight end in the National Football League. He's kind of hard,
to miss Dan. Odie's friends are all testifying under oath
that Dan was with them all night. The jury has
(38:55):
to decide which witnesses are lying, and they can't do it.
Failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial is declared.
But just two months later, the state tries Dan Odie again,
and everybody kind of didn't want to pursue it, except
for Buddy Shepherd. Old Buddy Shepherd, he wasn't letting it go.
(39:17):
He was just he was bounding and determined to frame me.
He wasn't gonna let it go. Debbie Murphy takes the
stand again in the second trial, but in the middle
of her testimony, the trial grinds to a halt. She
came clean on the second trial. She broke down star crying,
and they stopped and said what's wrong. She said, I
can't do this no more. She said, damn those I've
(39:40):
never seen him that night. I know Dan from school.
I never seen Dan on the rail tracks that night.
She said, I haven't seen Dan since we got out
of school. And she told him, you know, look, I
was paid to say this. I was threatened with my
kids if I didn't say this against Daniel Odie and
I was like, Wow, finally come true. You know, at least,
(40:03):
oh man, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. After the trial,
Dan says Debbie apologized for lying about seeing him on
the railroad tracks that night. I told her, I understand,
you know, I'm just glad you finally came forward because
I was fixing go electric chair for something I know
(40:24):
I didn't do, but she finally came forward told the truth.
There was a quick investigation into the claims that Buddy
Shephard was threatening young mothers in Intercession City. Despite the allegations,
he was cleared. On October twentieth, nineteen eighty seven. Dan
(40:45):
Is acquitted of the murder of cab driver Joseph Laver.
It was a great feeling because my mom had had
three stroke fries in there, and when when I was
accusing of it no more, she broke down and cried
and felt you could just see weight lifts it off
(41:07):
over because I was her baby, you know, of all
my brothers, I was her baby, and she she knowed
I didn't do it, but she she really thought she
had never seen it again like this. And when they
said not guilty, just everybody jumped up, but Dan Odie
had spent six months in jail, and he sat through
two trials facing the death penalty, and despite being found
(41:30):
not guilty, he still doesn't feel like his name has
been cleared. But it's just it's still to this day.
I mean, I don't think about it. I know what's
right and what's wrong, and I know I didn't do
it and all this. But when you meet people from
back then, as you see him somewhere on the street today,
(41:53):
and they kind of look at you like, oh yeah, hey,
and you know they're thinking, did you do it or
did you not? But I just stayers away without a
shadow of a doubt that I could show everybody that
I did not do this. I want to see that
physical evidence. Oh my god, I would. I would love
(42:15):
for y'all to do the DNA and find out who
really did it. I would just really like for those
who did it. When we first walked in to talk
to Dan, we weren't sure what to expect, But listening
to Dan tell his story and talk about his innocence,
(42:37):
it's hard not to think about Leo. They both want
us to keep investigating their cases from thirty five years ago.
They want so badly to get to the truth, to
have their names cleared so they can get on with
their lives. The state insists that they had the right
man and dan Odie, but that the jury just saw
(42:58):
it differently, so after his acquittal they don't investigate any further.
But if the state is wrong, that means that the
murderer of Joseph Laverre may still be out there somewhere.
I just can't stop thinking this has to be Jeremy.
(43:31):
It's twenty ten, twenty three years after Michelle Scofield was killed.
More than five years have passed since the unidentified fingerprints
in the Mazda were matched to Jeremy Scott, and finally
Leo's granted an evidentiary hearing, which he hopes will lead
to a new trial. His lawyers prepare to present the
(43:55):
new evidence, the fingerprints and Jamie Nilam's testimony about Jeremy's
violence and how he brought her to the same spot
where Michelle's body was found. All of the things we
found out about him made him the killer. This is
Richard Bartman, Leo's attorney, and it's certainly it thisserrated any
(44:19):
possibility that Leo did this. If this case went to
travel with all that evidence. It would have been mountains
a doubt about Leo being the killer, and it would
have created all sorts of very clear pictures in my
mind that not only wasn't it Leo, but we knew
who did this. It was Jeremy Scott. Both Jeremy and
(44:42):
Leo are brought from their respective prisons to the Polk
County Jail to attend the hearing. This is the first
time that Jeremy and Leo will be in the same
room together. Leo's wife, Chrissie, has been waiting for this
day in court for a long time. In our mine,
in my mind, there was absolutely no way to lose this.
(45:04):
It's a no brainer. You've got physical evidence now that
was not in the case before. So an anticipation of
the hearing, I bought him two suits, Adam taylored. They
were packed. We were ready to go. The hearing begins
on May fifth, twenty ten. Jeremy Scott is called to
(45:28):
testify and he's questioned by C. J. Bennefield, an assistant
state attorney. Jeremy Lynn Scott, We'll ask you, did you
ever know a person I named Michelle Scofield? No, sir,
I'm gonna ask you, did you kill Michelle Scofield? No, sir, didn't.
(45:53):
Are you aware that a fingerprint of yours was found
in her vehicle? Yes, sir, I am. When Jeremy Scott
is called to testify, he denies killing Michelle, but the
assistant state attorney doesn't really seem committed to getting a
consistent story out of him. Tell me about your activities
back then. My activities, listen. I wouldn't. I wouldn't in
(46:18):
stealing cars or tires. My name was breaking car stereo
system and speakers. That was my thing. How did you
get transportation to do these activities? Jamie's car? Jamie wasn't
aware of it. Do you know about when you met Jamie?
(46:41):
April seventeen, nineteen eighty seven. How do you remember that date? Okay?
My birthday is on a twenty nine at April. He's
saying that he used his girlfriend, Jamie's car to steal
stereo equipment from abandoned vehicles, But Jamie and Jeremy didn't
(47:04):
even meet until about six weeks after Michelle Scofield was killed.
The State lets these inconsistencies go unchallenged. The state says
they trust Jeremy's story about why his fingerprints were found
in the car because State Attorney John Aguero believes him.
John Aguero, the prosecutor with the electric chair to high clip,
(47:27):
is called as a witness to talk about his meeting
with Jeremy. So I had mister Scott brought back from
whatever correctional institute he was in to my office. Jeremy
was brought to a Guero's office in two thousand and
five to talk about the prints. The two men spoke
(47:48):
behind closed doors. There were no other witnesses and no
tape recordings. All we have to go on is Aguero's word.
I told him that his fingerprint was found in a car,
that I had put mister Scofield in prison for the
rest of his life for killing his wife, and if
(48:08):
he didn't do it, I had to know it. Therefore
I would give him immunity. That it was more important
for me to know the truth than it was than
anything else. John Aguero was saying that in this one
on one meeting when he questioned Jeremy about his fingerprints,
(48:31):
he offered Jeremy immunity. Essentially confessed to killing Michelle Scofield,
and you won't be charged with the crime. Mister Scott,
as I said, was cooperative. I think he fully understood immunity,
fully understood that it was important to me that if
(48:54):
he did this murder, it would I couldn't prosecute him,
but I could let leo'sco field out of jail. I've
asked lawyers and legal experts about the kind of full
immunity Aguero claims he offered Jeremy in this closed door meeting,
and I've been told it just doesn't happen like this,
or it isn't supposed to. And it makes no sense
(49:17):
to me why Aguero would do that, because if Jeremy
admitted under full immunity that he killed Michelle, Leo would
be released from prison and no one would ever be
charged with Michelle's murder. And on top of how little
sense it makes, I can't find any documentation of this
alleged immunity offer. Leo's lawyers say they made repeated requests
(49:41):
for proof of it too, and the State's response is
telling they don't turn over any documentation. They just argue
about the number of requests Leo's lawyers made, so no
proof of immunity is ever produced. What was his explanation
is to the thing of being in the vehicle. Mister
(50:02):
Scott indicated that at the time he was a thief.
Aguero says he looked Jeremy in the eye and asked
him if he killed Michelle Scofield. Jeremy said he didn't,
that he's just a car stereo thief, and Aguero believes him.
This is the same prosecutor who tried to send Jeremy
(50:23):
Scott to the electric chair for killing Donald Moorehead, arguing
to the court that Jeremy was a cold blooded criminal
who couldn't be trusted. After getting information and the investigation
was complete, did you do anything with it? Well, I
did not go any further. I made notes in my
(50:44):
file concerning my investigation and I closed the investigation at
any time that you notify they believe Jeremy his reasons
for being in the car was credible. How do you
believed that is credible? Now everyone is left waiting and
(51:07):
wondering if the Polk County judge presiding over this hearing
will also believe Jeremy Scott. Judge Keith Spodo's ruling is
released just six weeks after the hearing. Spoto writes given
(51:28):
mister Scott's past history and modus operandi, there is every
reason to believe that he simply stumbled upon the car
after her murder, and after her body had been hidden,
stole stereo equipment from her car, thereby leaving his fingerprints
in the vehicle. In other words, Judge Spoto considers Jeremy's
(51:50):
past history and rules that Jeremy Scott is simply a
car stereo thief, that he's telling the truth. As far
as thet is concerned. It's almost as if it was
inconceivable to Judge Spoto that a known murderer who was
tried twice for homicide by this same office might also
(52:12):
steal from his victim afterwards, just like Jeremy did after
killing Jule Johnson when he stole her coins, and just
like Jeremy did after killing Donald Moorehead when he stole
his car. Judge Spoto denies Leo's motion for a new trial.
(52:36):
I'm stunned as I read this opinion, but maybe I
shouldn't be, given that so many of the judges in
Polk County come from the State Attorney's office. For example,
Judge Spoto, who presided over Leo's Hearing worked as a
prosecutor in the Tenth Circuit alongside John Aguero for nearly
a decade. My god, I've been I have been about
(53:00):
virtually everything without from the beginning, which I thought was
going to happen. So I feel bad about that personally
misread everything. Scott Cupp thought at one point that the
discovery of Jeremy's fingerprints in Michelle's car would spring Leo
(53:21):
out of prison in just ninety days. But once again
his intuition that Leo would be given a new trial
is wrong. It's the greatest personal and professional regret of
my life that Leo's skullfield is still in prison. Richard Bartman,
Leo's other lawyer. No one really wanted to admit they
(53:42):
were wrong. No one really took the kind of close
look we were urging them to take. People got hooked
on these mythological remembrances of evidence that didn't exist, mythological
remembrances of evidence. That's right. Judge Spoto couldn't resist writing
about Leo Senior's premonition. It's included in his summary of
(54:04):
the state's evidence, which Spoto says is quote strong and
sufficient for a jury to convict Leo Schofield, How is
that evidence of guilt? It's not. It's just some anomaly.
It's just something that comes up. Doesn't mean they can
mean a million things. Guy's histrionic. Guys are nut It's
(54:28):
not evidence of guilt. It's not evidence of anything. That's
the urban legend stuff. It just has its own you know,
the snowball going down. How many can't stop it. Meanwhile,
the physical evidence that cup Embarkment do present about Jeremy's
connection to Michelle's murder, It's dismissed by the judge as
(54:52):
a happy coincidence, as if it was just bad luck
for Jeremy that his fingerprints turned up in the car
of a young woman who'd been found dead in a
dark place where he was known to hang out. For
the life of me, don't understand how a trial judge
or appellate court could have looked at what we came
up with and said nothing to see here. This disappointment
(55:15):
hits no one harder than Leo, and by the time
he learned of the judge's decision, he was still reeling
from an encounter that happened right before he entered the courtroom.
I'm gonna tell you this, man, I should probably filter it.
I'm not going to filter it. I'm gonna let you
filter what you wanna felt this. And if I'm wrong
(55:37):
for this and you tell me I'm wrong and Soviet
I've been wronged for a long time, I've been wronged,
I would have been justified in my mind to be wrong.
It's the morning before the first day of the evidentiary hearing.
Leo and Jeremy are both brought to the jail across
(55:58):
from the courthouse for the hearing. They're supposed to be
separated from each other since they're now involved in the
same case. So Leah was grouped with other defendants who
are doing court that day, and so they have they
had all the guys handcuffed two by two. There's thirty
three of us, so I'm the odd man out, so
(56:20):
I'm not handcuffed to anybody. And so there's a tunnel
that goes on the road between the jail and the
courthouse that they bring the inmates through. It's a long tunnel.
It's only one door in, one door on the other
side out, and there's no doors on the inside. It's
just a concrete, unfinished concrete tunnel on the road. They're
(56:43):
led through the door and start walking through the tunnel.
They march down and stop in front of the door
that leads to the courthouse. There's an officer there and
he starts banging on the door, waiting for someone on
the other side to let them in. Meanwhile, all the
way back at the end of the tunnel, here comes
(57:05):
Jeremy come on another van. He was by himself. Leo
has seen Jeremy's mugshots before. It's a face that's seared
into Leo's mind. I can see him way back there,
walking up, and I can see him walking up, and
I had enough time to stand there thinking in my
heartstots racing, and I know these people are not going
(57:26):
to just walk the murder of my wife right up
in front of me and this tunnel right here after
all that I'm gone through, and I just made a
decision in my mind. If they watch him up and
put him alongside of me, that's God's will. I'm gonna
end it right here in this hallway. And so I'm
my Drona's pumping, his pumping, his pumping, and watched him
(57:47):
up and I'm getting ready and I'm gonna I'm just
gonna wrap these handcuffs around his neck and I'm gonna
take him down, and they're not gonna be able to
beat me off of him until twenty something years of
frustration and comes out and I get from Michelle and
it's done. Now you can go ahead and put me
in prison. Now I belong there. You know what I mean?
You know, and I'm not a murderer. That's who they
(58:08):
made me. I mean, I've had to fight for my
life in here when I first came in twenty two
years old, young and white in the prison system. No
dad's coming, no police coming, nobody cares. You can. You
have to do this or be raped or something stupid
like that. So you know where your lines are. I
(58:28):
know where my lines are, and you cannot cross that
line without certain things happening. If you're gonna watch the
murderer of my wife and put him upside, that's a
line you cannot cross. Just so happened. They got him
maybe ten feet away from me, and this got up
and the top stairs turns around and sees him, and
he knows and he yells stop stop, back him up,
(58:53):
back him. They yank him back. Wow. I mean, I
just how this massive release of of you know, because
that was that was pretty scary. In the basement of
the courthouse, Leo says he waits in a holding cell
with the other defendants. Because of Jeremy's violent behavior, He's
(59:17):
kept in an isolation cell right by the elevator. The
jail is short staffed, there aren't any correction officers down there,
and Leo's name is called over the loudspeaker. Let's go
field approach the elevator. And so I'm thinking, when I
got to walk right by a cell. You now, he
doesn't know me from Adam, but he knows who I
(59:39):
am by name. And this is when I knew because
I really wasn't sure. I mean, I don't know. You know,
what's the what's the percentage on it being a coincidence
that this non murderer is forensically linked to my wife's
car and he didn't have anything to do with it,
and after everything we know about him, And my thought is,
(01:00:00):
if you are accusing me of doing something that I
know I did not do, I'm gonna be at them
bars when I see you walk by. I might not
do anything stupid, but I'm gonna have something to say,
I'm gonna say something. You've got the wrong guy or
something anything. I'm gonna say something. Here's your opportunity. So
I walk up there and I go to the bars
(01:00:22):
to a cell and I stand there and I look
at him. He's sitting there, profile to the front of
the cell and he won't look at me. And I'm
standing there waiting for him to look at I need
him to look at me. And he couldn't look at me.
He couldn't even face me. And I told him, know
that I know, Jeremy, know that I know. And he
(01:00:42):
never says anything to me. I knew in that moment,
I was looking at the murder of my wife. I
knew it. Bone Valley is a production of Lava for
(01:01:08):
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Our
executive producers are Jason Flaum and Kevin Wurdis. Karak Kornhaber
is our senior producer. Brit Spangler is our sound designer.
Roxandra Guidi is our editor. Fact checking by Maximo Anderson.
Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our theme song,
(01:01:33):
The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed by Leebob
and the truth. It was written by Leo Schofield and
Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hardy Correctional Institution. Bone Valley is
written and produced by me Gilbert King. You can follow
the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
(01:01:53):
To see photos and documents from our investigation and exclusive
behind the scenes content, visit Lava Forgood dot com slash
Bone Valley
Host
Gilbert King
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com