Chapter 7 | I Lost It

Chapter 7 of 9

Leo Schofield grapples with a devastating legal decision, and the intensity of his feelings towards Jeremy Scott. But he soon learns that Jeremy has more to say. Leo is granted another hearing, and Jeremy testifies once again. This time, he tells a different story. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
There's this room at Hearty Correctional Institution, in a building
where religious services are held. It's a tiny room, maybe
five by eight feet, a closet, really, but the inmates
call it the war Room. This is where we do
war spiritual warfare. The walls are cinderblock painted prison gray.

(00:22):
There are two stools to kneel on during prayer, and
thin wooden strips line the walls where inmates can thumbtack
prayer requests jotted on index cards. Leo finds himself in
the war Room one day in twenty sixteen, six years
after his evidentiary hearing. Despite the fingerprint evidence linking Jeremy

(00:45):
Scott to Michelle's murder, the judge denied Leo's motion for
a new trial. Leo's now been in prison for twenty
eight years and he fears he'll never get out. And
ever since his encounter with Jeremy Scott in the tunnel
beneath the courthouse, Leo has been grappling with feelings he'd
never known before. In the War Room, he contemplates that

(01:09):
moment and how he'd stood there, just feet away from Jeremy,
ready to take justice into his own hands. I had
carried the wrongful mantle of the murder of my life
for all them years, only to allow myself to be
brought to a place where I could actually do it

(01:30):
by this system. And I was feeling like a murderer,
and I didn't want that. When Jeremy's prince were found
in Michelle's car, Leo's lawyer showed him everything they had
on Jeremy, including his criminal history and his psychiatric reports.

(01:52):
And in the process of going through all of that,
I begin learning Jeremy's story, because we all have a story, right,
and his story is miserable. It's just a miserable story.
Leo realizes that if Jeremy Scott is the person who
killed Michelle, he isn't the monster he'd imagined. He'd done

(02:13):
terrible things as a teenager, yes, but he was also
a kid with a low IQ, serious behavioral problems, and
a long history of abuse. Even knowing all this, Leo
begins to worry that the anger that's building inside is
going to destroy him. It was a bitterness that leads

(02:35):
up to the war room, and I understood this. I'm
a believer, and so from a spiritual sense, I believe
that I'm saved. I know that my wife Michelle was saved.
She was saved in a little church were up the
road here in Albury, and so she's delivered. The only
one that's losing in this thing right now is Jeremy,

(02:56):
who's never known the love of a mother, never known
a love of a friend, never had a friend, and
he's in prison for crimes he's committed, and everybody hates him.
He's got an ad i Q. He has no support,
no nothing. And I said to God, I said, okay,
if this is your will, this is all I ask.
Helped me to forgive so that I can be free

(03:19):
of that helped me to forgive him. And then if
you would, you forgive him and let him know love
for the first time in his life ever. Leo writes
his prayer for Jeremy on a note card and tax
it to the wall. Now other inmates coming to the

(03:42):
war room will see the card and pray for Jeremy too,
And I didn't think nothing else of it. I came
out of the war room and went about my day.
But a few days later Chrissy comes to visit Leo,
and she's got news. Chrissie tells Leo that Jeremy Scott

(04:03):
has just confessed to killing Michelle. Do you my man
to my feels sorteps sorless in this VASTI I seeation,

(04:43):
I reach desperation to the world star Bone Valley, chapter seven,

(05:30):
I lost it. Generally speaking, when you have someone who's
been convicted of a crime, you have to move mountains
to try and get that conviction overturned. This is criminal
defense attorney Andrew Crawford. Scott Cupp has now become Judge
Scott Cup and he's no longer permitted to represent Leo.

(05:53):
Andrew read about Leo's case in a local newspaper and
he wanted to help, so he picks up where Scott
Cupp left off. With Leo out of legal options. Andrew
knows the only way he can get Leo's case back
into court is with once again the discovery of new evidence,
so he starts writing letters to everyone who'd been housed

(06:14):
with Jeremy Scott in prison in case Jeremy had mentioned
anything to them about Michelle's Scofield and he also writes
to Jeremy. By the time I wrote him the letter
had nothing to lose, and I figured maybe he would
say something. The letter that Andrew sent says, in part,

(06:35):
I now represent LEO Scofield. If there is any further
information you could provide me in helping to free this
truly innocent man, I would greatly appreciate it. I await
your response. Nearly a year passes. Then, in July of
twenty sixteen, a letter arrives from Columbia Correctional Institution. It's

(06:58):
from Jeremy. I was very surprised, and I was very puzzled.
I didn't think i'd hear anything from him because he
hadn't really talked to anybody else. And then opening up
and reading the letter, After reading the tone of the letter,
I could tell that he had something that he wanted
to say, or something that he wanted to convey. What
it was, I wasn't sure, and because of his extensive record,

(07:20):
I wanted to be extremely cautious about it as well.
Jeremy is being cage in the letter. He tells Andrew
he has information about the Schofield case that he's willing
to die with if he talks. He wants to know
what's in it for him. He wants to talk to
Andrew one on one. Andrew sets up a phone call
a few weeks later, but in the state of Florida,

(07:44):
it's illegal to record phone calls without the consent of
all parties involved, So Andrew decides he needs someone to
listen in on the conversation and take notes. He walks
down the hall of his office building and knocks on
the door of another lawyer. And he came into my
office and he said, hey, man, I got this call
and I'd like to have someone present with me. And

(08:04):
I said, okay, you know, I didn't know anything about
the case. This is Sean Costas. Sean practiced his family law.
He's in the same building as Leo's lawyer, but he
and Andrew don't really work together. I do zero criminal law,
and I've never been asked to listen in on a call.
So I grabbed my note pads, so, yeah, I'll be

(08:25):
in there, no problem. So we got into his office
and I sat down at you know, Andrew's desk, and
he's got two chairs situated, you know, little executive chairs there,
and I'm sitting in one. He just said, just listen up.
Andrew puts the phone on speaker and makes the pre
arranged call to Columbia Correctional Institution. Jeremy picks up the phone. Jeremy,

(08:52):
got you right to the point, like right off the bat,
and I put it in clothes from my note it
says in quotes, got the wrong man in prison, end quote.
And then he says I was present when she died.

(09:13):
And then Andrew asked who killed her? And then the
guy says it wasn't Leo. And then Andrew asked, you
know who it was, and then he said, can't say
it right now. And then as to Leo, he said
he does not deserve to be there, and then he

(09:34):
said I was present in the car. It was a
rainy night, she was at a gas station. She gave
me a ride, and then there was some hidden leg
where she was murdered. And he also said I was
jugged up bad that night. And then Andrew asked him
what happened at this hidden leg and then he said

(09:58):
he being Jeremy, said she was killed and started her car.
There was no blood, and then he said there was
a hunting knife or a compass knife. And then he
said they don't like me talking to lawyers around here.
And then Andrew asked Jeremy what happened when he got

(10:18):
to the lake and then he said I lost it.
I killed her. And then he said he would testify
to it, and that he was willing to take a
polygraph test. And then he said I'm sorry, man, and
that's the end of my notes. You know, my impression

(10:43):
of Jeremy was that he wanted to like come clean
about it, and he was remorseful, as I recall, you know,
he was upset that someone else was in jail or
a murder that he committed. Jeremy Scott had just given

(11:05):
a detailed confession to the murder of Michelle's Scofield. A
confession like this should certainly qualify as new evidence which
could lead to a new trial for Leo, if not
an outright dismissal of the charges against him. And there
was one other thing Sean had in his notes. Did
Jeremy say anything about a prosecutor? He did? There was

(11:32):
there was something. Yeah here it is it says prosecutor alied,
But I didn't know what it meant. It didn't mean
anything to me because I don't do any criminal law,
but something about the prosecutor lied to him. We have
a theory about what this means. We know that in

(11:54):
two thousand and five, Jeremy had been brought to Assistant
State Attorney John Aguero's office. Jeremy and Aguero had spoken
at length without anyone else present, and the meeting wasn't recorded.
Before the evidentiary hearing in twenty ten, Aguero testified in
a deposition that he wasn't alone in his office with

(12:17):
Jeremy Scott. He said that the cold case detective who
was investigating Jeremy had been there with him, But this
detective had written in a report that he was on
vacation that week, and his report clearly states that Aguero
admitted to him that he brought Jeremy into his office
while the detective was away. So Assistant State Attorney John

(12:41):
Aguero lied under oath about this meeting with Jeremy Scott.
But we don't think that's the lie Jeremy's talking about.
We've always been curious about what exactly went on behind
closed doors. Maybe Aguero told Jeremy to talk about stealing
the stereo a certain way, maybe he helped Jeremy with

(13:03):
his testimony for Leo's evident Cherry hearing, or maybe he
promised Jeremy something in return and never followed through. And
that's the lie Jeremy is talking about. Because Aguero didn't
record the meeting or have anyone else present, Jeremy's the
only other person who can say what happened behind that
closed door. After Jeremy Scott confesses over the phone to

(13:33):
the murder of Michelle Scofield, Leo's lawyer, Andrew Crawford immediately
prepares an affidavit, a written legal document that details what
Jeremy has said on the phone call. All Jeremy has
to do is sign it. Jeremy sent an affidavit back,
which I was extremely puzzled by. It said no. He

(13:54):
wrote the word no on it. We have copies of
this affidavit. On the line where Jeremy was supposed to
have signed his name are two big letters N O
without assigned affidavit. Andrew knows he has to try something else.
He wants to send a private investigator to talk to
Jeremy Scott to get the confession on tape. Everything in

(14:20):
my life is a home runner or a failure, or
you're getting there, you know, so it's not never easy peasy.
This is Pat McKenna. He's been a private investigator for
thirty seven years and he's been involved in some of
the biggest criminal cases in Florida. If you recognize his name,
it might be because of his work with clients like O. J.

(14:43):
Simpson and Casey Anthony. After reading up on Leo's case,
McKenna agrees to visit Jeremy. He drives to the prison
where two corrections officers escort him into a meeting room.
So two guys come to get me, and they brought
me into a room and they stay. I said, well,
I really want to see this guy by myself. I said, no,

(15:03):
you can't see this guy for yourself. I said, why not?
He said, this is a bad dude. He's in administration,
confinement or the shoe or something. I forget what his
status was at that time. I said, I'm seeing I've
been in prisons all over this country and around the world.
I've been in prisons. I've met with some of the
most dastardly criminals you can imagine. I really would like

(15:25):
to be alone with the guy. I said, can't happen.
We will stand at the door, but the door stays
open while you're doing this. I'm still frustrated because I'm
thinking this is not any good. I want to talk
to this guy, and you never trust guards, not the
over here and then miss misstake what they just heard.
But anyway, so I hear just clanging of chains and

(15:47):
I'm sitting facing the doorway and here comes Jeremy and
they had him chained like Houdini couldn't have got out
of this stuff. I mean, his wrists were chained to
his belt chain, came from the belt chain down to
the ankles. They were chained together. So he basically dishoveled
and jingled. And what was interesting was I looked at

(16:08):
him and he's got a mask over his face, like
a white gauze thing. But it was kind of like
I was thinking Hannibal Elector. This guy's got a mask on,
but it wasn't like in the movie, but it was
a full face mask. And I said, what's this solid?
Boddy said, well, he's a spitter. He'll spit all over
everybody and fighting Kashi and all that. And he comes in.
He goes, who the fuck is this guy? I go, Jeremy,

(16:30):
it's Pat McKenna. I'm a private investigator. I have a
letter from it. And he stops, take me out of here.
Ain't talking to this guy. Corrections officers lead Jeremy out
of the room. Pat McKenna doesn't get the recorded confession
he'd hoped for, but still Leo's lawyer, Andrew Crawford has

(16:54):
the notes from the phone call with Jeremy and the
sworn witness statement from his colleague Seanice, so Andrew files
a motion with the court. He's hoping that even without
a taped confession, this will be enough to trigger a
new hearing. Andrew also notifies the State Attorney's office that
Jeremy has confessed. They send two investigators to interview Jeremy

(17:19):
at Columbia Correctional Institution, but they found out afterwards that
their tape recorder had failed, so they try again. The
state wants to get their own version of Jeremy's story.
So it's Monday, March thirteenth, twenty seventeen, one one pm
at the State Attorney's Office in the Deposition Room four. Jeremy,

(17:45):
I want to talk to you again, just basically about
the same thing that we talked about before. The interview
does not start well. Jeremy's upset. You want me to
confess to everything over here. Ain't what it's gonna happen
like that? And then you go by trying to help
me get out, and you know, bad trying to help

(18:05):
me get no dealing or black trying to do nothing,
nobody trying to see me, no money and nobody you're
trying to do nothing. So why would I help somebody else?
They ain't trying to help me. You're gonna make confess
some pay me if you don't want to, maybe confess something,
leave me alone. That's the why, That's why I worked.
What do you mean pay you? I don't know what
I mean? Is I told you? The investigators try to
get Jeremy to talk about what he told Andrew Crawford

(18:27):
on the phone. Did you tell him anything that would
make him believe that you were giving a confession? On man,
No confessions unless I got now, unless you got something
put in my hand. I ain't that crazy. I know
that much. Jeremy has been in prison for almost as

(18:47):
long as Leo now twenty seven years. His grandma, the
only person he had contact with outside the prison, died
in two twelve, and my grandma passed away. I has
to do it is still you see, it's going back
to Poe County. Then she would laugh, would I would
love to be here. I get about business, and now

(19:11):
she did. I don't want to see go buy. At
the time of this recording in twenty seventeen, Jeremy has
no family contact, no visitations, no lawyers. He gets no
letters and no phone calls from people on the outside,

(19:32):
and he has no money in his canteen, which means
he only eats what they're serving in the cafeteria. He
can't buy anything like deodorant and can only use the
state issued soap and toothpaste. On top of that, he's
constantly getting in trouble in prison and placed under increased
security similar to solitary confinement. It's a desolate place to

(19:55):
be in physically and psychologically. And now Jeremy knows that
he has information someone wants, it only makes sense that
he would try to use it to his advantage. Maybe
he can tell his story and get something out of it.
Whatever the reason, Jeremy doesn't want to tell the investigators
the same story he told Andrew. Instead, he returns to

(20:20):
his previous story about how his fingerprints ended up in
Michelle Scofield's Mazda. He says he used to steal from
cars abandoned on I four, but Now, what you're talking
about is when out stealing stereo system at the cars.
That's what you're talking when you're taking stereo systems out

(20:41):
of cars. Let's talk about that for a little bit.
Is what was what were you doing? You brought up
how many? How many cars would you take stereo systems?
The investigators are pressing Jeremy for details. Who was he with,
what car was he driving? What did he do with
the stereo equipment he stole. Jeremy can't stick to one story.

(21:05):
He's not sure who was with him. Might have been
this guy Rambo, but probably it was his buddy Robert.
But then Jeremy starts telling the story like he was
by himself, almost like he forgot he said Robert was
in the car with him. He tells them he was
in his friend Cheryl's car, but in an earlier statement

(21:27):
he said he was in his girlfriend Jamie's car. But
there's one thing Jeremy does admit to telling Andrew Crawford
on the phone. So you during that phone call, you've
never made any statements two facts of that case that
would lead him to believe that you were confessing to

(21:47):
the murder of Michelle Scofield. He did remember saying him.
Jeremy says, I don't believe he did it, as in,
I don't believe Yo Schofield did it, which of course
doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why would Jeremy
think that unless he knew something about the murder or

(22:10):
he knew someone who did. Then, toward the end of
their interview, just when they're wrapping up, Jeremy tells them this,
as far as Michelle, as far as this cab driver
and Casimme and whoever else they are you trying to
talk about, I don't know anything about it. Right out

(22:33):
of the blue, totally unprompted, Jeremy brings up this cab driver.
The investigators don't even know what to say. I don't
know anything about a cab d there's a cab driver.
Some cab driver got shot and Kasimi that's not related

(22:54):
to the Scofield came. I heard about it in prison.
I heard my name. I don't I don't know anything
about a cab driver. Let's keep it. It sounds like
Jeremy sort of laughs says something like that's fine. Trust me.
I spent a lot of time obsessing over why Jeremy

(23:16):
would bring this up. This has to be the same
cab driver murder that Jeremy casually confessed to three decades ago,
the same murder he told his girlfriend Jamie that he'd
gotten away with, the same murder we think dan Odie
was almost put to death for. And in twenty seventeen,

(23:37):
this cab driver is still on Jeremy's mind. Is he
trying to see if these investigators know about it, or
if the state is going to charge him, or is
it weighing on his mind like Michelle's murder seemed to be. Regardless,
the investigators completely blow off this mention of a cab driver.

(23:58):
They just laugh it off. They didn't even bother to
ask any follow up questions. If they could have gotten
Jeremy talking about the cabby murder, maybe he would have
come back around to talk about Michelle. Or they just
might have left the deposition room with a confession to
a thirty year old unsolved murder. The investigators leave without

(24:24):
any meaningful information about Jeremy's connection to Michelle Scofield and
with no leads about Jeremy's possible connection to the murder
of a cab driver. But what they do get from
Jeremy was valuable. Jeremy had told the investigators he would
confess to a murder if he was paid or if
there was something in it for him. These kinds of

(24:49):
statements cast doubt onto Jeremy's motives for confessing to Michelle
Scofield's murder. Now the state can ignore the content of
Jeremy's confession and attack his credibility instead. So the investigators
did have something to bring back to the state attorney,
and this time they managed to turn on the tape recorder. Hi.

(25:15):
I'm Jason Flom, CEO and founder of Lava for Good podcasts,
Home to Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, The War on Drugs,
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(25:39):
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Stand Together is a philanthropic community that partners with America's
boldest changemakers to tackle the root causes of our country

(26:00):
biggest problems, including the failed war on drugs that has
criminalized addiction, fueled over incarceration, and shattered communities. By thirty five,
Kelly Lingard was an executive with a fortune twenty it company.
If you had asked her thoughts on addiction, she would
have said that addiction was about making bad choices and irresponsibility.

(26:23):
But after hearing the story of a woman in recovery,
Kelly's perspective shifted. She began to understand that addiction was
a problem of pain, not irresponsibility, as she discovered how
difficult it is for people to maintain their sobriety in
the long run. After watching too many women get sober
only to relapse and die within days or weeks of

(26:44):
completing a recovery program, Kelly knew she could use her
business skills to make a difference. She left her career
and started Unshattered with the mission of ending the addiction
relapse cycle. Unshattered employees women in recovery, training them to
make premium handbags from upcycled materials and providing them with

(27:04):
a compassionate community that helps them continue their journey beyond
sobriety to move toward healing and growth. It demonstrates a
smarter way of treating addiction that moves away from criminalization
and keeps people out of the system. Kelly Lingard is
one of the many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to

(27:25):
drive solutions and education, healthcare, poverty, and criminal justice. To
learn more about addiction and the War on Drugs, listen
to The War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts. Andrew Crawford, Leo's lawyer, is
hoping that a judge will grant Leo a new trial

(27:47):
based on the evidence of Jeremy's phone call confession. An
evidentiary hearing is granted and set for October twenty seventeen.
It's just a couple weeks out when out of the
lou Andrew receives another letter from Jeremy Scott. His spelling
and punctuation make it a little tough to read, but

(28:07):
this is what it says. Here's Andrew reading it. Dear
mister Crawford, I would like to make a statement. I
Jeremy land Scott write this of my own free will,
mister Scofield did not kill Missus Schofield. He didn't have
anything to do with it. I Jeremy land Scott, killed
Missus Scofield that night. I can tell you everything, what

(28:29):
kind of knife it was, and how the cops pick
me up, But let me go. I can tell you
stuff where they found Missus Scofield. Only the person that
killed her would know. It's time to end all this.
I won't talk to the state. They have made promises
to me, but at the end it was all lies.
You can hook me to that lie. That'll tell if

(28:51):
you are lying or not. Everything I will tell will
be the truth. Mister Crawford, this is my statement, and
my own handwriting spelling ain't too good. Hope to hear
from you soon, Jeremy el Scott. This letter, with Jeremy's

(29:12):
signature at the bottom signals something has changed. Andrew thinks
this may be a sign that Jeremy is willing to talk.
He asked Pat McKenna to go see Jeremy one more time.
But what Andrew doesn't know is that Jeremy mailed out
two more letters, one to the State attorney's office and

(29:32):
one to the judge that had been assigned to Leo's
upcoming hearing. The two letters are slightly different, but they
have the same general message. Jeremy says he's confessing to
all murders in Polk County in the years nineteen eighty
seven and nineteen eighty eight, and he's asking to be
left alone and put back on death row. Andrew had

(29:56):
no way of knowing this yet, and neither did Pat McKenna,
who was waiting to talk to Jeremy in an attorney
room at the prison. Just like last time, I hope
they're not bringing this guy in, you know, just crazed

(30:16):
or something. So in he walks, he's standing there. I'm
sitting in a chair and I remember just saying, man,
you look a lot better than you did the last
time I saw you. And he still won't sit down yet,
but he sees on the table in front of me,
I had laid out a letter from Andrew, the letter
that Jeremy wrote, and I had tape recorder on the
table too, and we got to talk and I said,

(30:38):
I just I want to see if you'll talk to
me about that case. He's I don't need to, I
told I just told the judge yesterday and the prosecutors
and everybody. I confess to everything. I go, you confess
to everything? He said, yeah, Well I didn't know him
in every murder that's ever happened in the county. Just
out of frustration, I guess. So I said, well, you know,
we'll sit down, we start talking. Introduced Jeremy Scott. Jeremy,

(31:03):
can you uh frasier right hand? These were everything here
and tell me the truth and the whole truth. I
was going to go through the whole kinds of question answers,
I said, Jeremy, I just wanted you to go ahead
and just explain what happened that night with Michelle. This
word's overused, but it became surreal for me. His whole

(31:27):
body started to change, right he was twitching a little bit,
and he just he quit looking at me, and he
looked right at my dictaphone, my tape requorder sitting right there,
and he was leaning over it and just it was
like he was unburdening himself or something. He was like
talking just like a foot away from my dictaphone there,
and I'm just kind of watched them earlier, earlier in

(31:49):
nineteen eighty seven, I got released from prison not too
long important. I ran into Michelle. Apparently we had met
Corns or her at a party. It was round round

(32:09):
February around midnight, maybe one one o'clock in the morning
or something, at a Texico station. I've been out drinking,
popping peels all nine part in you. She asked me,
was I waiting on the phone? I said, Noah, I
need a ride. I'm a little weary drunk. But she said,

(32:35):
I know you. I said, I know, and but she
asked me what I want. I said, I'm one Northcoming Road.
There's trailers I'm known to sleep and trailers, you know,
bandoned houses and stuff. So Jeremy says that Michelle agrees
to drive him to a trailer park on Northcomby Road,

(32:56):
just up the street. Really, she hit me a ride
going down Rain and I got my jacket on, you know.
So we're going down to color the road. They passed
the trailer park where Jeremy used to live with his grandparents.
Now Jeremy has another idea, you know, maybe I can

(33:17):
get it late or something. So I tell her to
turn off in the road. It's a behind the little
trees is the lake, you know, and people call there
all the time. Where we get it there. Yeah, so
I ain't know nobody lives here. I said, no, it's

(33:38):
just where they people come and make out. Jeremy thinks
maybe they'll have sex, but Michelle rejects his advances. She
tells him she's married. You know, I'm married. Like, let's say, great,
you know, and I'm wanting to reached in and grab

(33:59):
her cigarettes and put out a joint, he says. He
reaches into his jacket to pull out a pack of
cigarettes and then a knife falls out of his pocket.
Seven hands knife, maybe swent one hundred knives. Uh, it's
so what you call uh where at the end of

(34:19):
the hand where it has a thing where he knows
you if you go east west north important or you know,
someone help us. Yeah, yeah, guess a little hunting and
I you know, not no big butcher knife and none
of that stuff. A little you know. So Michelle sees
the knife. She she went to panty and started screaming

(34:42):
and hitting, you know, and I'm you know, the next
thing I know, I lost it, you know, And next
thing I know it, you know, I done done stabber.
You know, I don't know how many times, you know,
And I'm like panicking now because do what just happened.

(35:07):
After he stabs her, Jeremy says, he pauses, sits in
the car and has a smoke, you know, sit there
for a few minutes in the car, and then was
raining outside and I started smoking, got out the car,
went to put the driver's side opening. Dorman, you go

(35:30):
over by the lake, have some plastic, try to protect
her for beaning by the gators, snakes or whatever, you know,
and I slat down in the water. After he drags
her body into the water, he says, he gets back

(35:52):
in the car after dag in the car went to
die for I guess I stole the car out, pull
over to his side, got a knife and had a
towel of like cos the towel that was in the car.
Drive and drive that you know, thank apprents off the

(36:13):
car stey Willis stuff. Then Jeremy leaves the stalled out
car and walks up the exit to a little store
was there's a there's a dumpster and a little store
stall and closed. I went out there up the hill
and note path after the knife in and towel in

(36:34):
there in the trash. Make sure that it was you know,
in deep in an area. As Kelsey and I listened
to this, to this description of Jeremy walking up a
hill to this little store, we can't help but notice
the similarities between this and what we'd heard from Leo
about the night he found the Mazda. Jeremy's description is

(36:55):
so similar to the way Leo describes walking up a
hill to the closed gas station to call police. There
was only one store off that exit back in nineteen
eighty seven, which means that if we believe both of
these men's stories, Leo was tracing Jeremy's footsteps when he
was searching for Michelle just forty eight hours after her murder,

(37:17):
and Leo might have been standing just feet away from
the murder weapon that Jeremy had dropped in the dumpster there.
Jeremy goes on, he says, he starts walking back towards
Lakeland when he sees the Mazda again on the side
of the road, asking when I am relive. You know,
I gave the stereo system and I took these figures

(37:40):
out and my finger prints off the doors and stuff. Again,
that's how my pomp prank got owned the windshield inside
the car. Oh I know, is I will went to
the nearest jader on coming road, and I was passed
out next morning. Most of what Jeremy says matches what

(38:10):
we know where Michelle's body was found and where the
car was abandoned, the condition of the car having stalled out,
the murder weapon which was never recovered, the equalizer and
the speakers that had been stolen, and the car must
have been wiped down because Michelle's prints were never found
by crime scene technicians. Michelle was found fully closed, and

(38:36):
the medical examiner found no signs of sexual assault, and
the medical examiner also documented scrapes on Michelle's back that
were consistent with her body being dragged after she'd been killed.
But Jeremy says a couple of things that differ from
what we know. Michelle's last known location was Sparky's, which

(38:57):
is an Exxon station, not a Texico, so he has
the name of the gas station wrong. And if they
met right after she made the call to Leo, it
would have been closer to ten o'clock, not midnight as
Jeremy says. But Jeremy also says he was drunk and high,
so it's not a huge leap to assume he might

(39:18):
not remember everything in perfect detail, but the general circumstances
seemed to line up. It was already dark out and
it was raining that night, and he says she was
at a gas station pay phone when he approached her,
the last place Michelle was seen alive when she called
Leo and said she was on her way. Jeremy's detail

(39:43):
about covering Michelle's body with plastic also differs from what
we know. There are no plastic sheets or tarps listed
in the evidence logs, and Jeremy doesn't mention the plywood
that was covering her body. But Jeremy's motivation for covering
the body, which she says, was to protect it from
the alligators and snakes that might be in the water.

(40:06):
This detail hints that one more thing we can corroborate
a sense of shame and remorse. You know, I didn't
mean to kill Michelle schooling off and never tend to
do any harm. I packed the night when she started
hitting on me and I fell out of my jacket.

(40:28):
It was meant from nobody, you know. I live alone
on the streets. I've been oldness profession for a long time.
I don't know what Leo is guilty of whatever the

(40:50):
state stay did in the other cases. I don't know.
I knew. No, he didn't murder his wife. We might
did other things to look, but he didn't kill her.
I'm going to take a lot of tablement protector all this,
and this is my statement, and I will say it again.

(41:13):
I'm a live poor room. Okay, thank you. I appreciate it.
And uh, and do this tape. You know. I come
out of the jail and I'm as i'm walking out,
I'm still thinking in my mind, holy shit, I can't

(41:36):
believe this just happened. Can't wait to get out and
call Andrew. I remember going out to my car and
calling him up and said, uh, he just gave me
a sworn tape confession of the murder. That was like

(42:01):
the best day ever. It was this is this one,
this time, It's really it. Oh, this is it. When Chrissy,
Leo's wife, first got the news that Jeremy Scott had confessed,
she was flooded with emotion, as was Chrissie and Leo's daughter, Ashley. Yes,
you heard that correctly. Chrissie and Leo have a daughter.

(42:25):
We should probably back up for one second to tell
you the story. After leaving her visit with Leo one
weekend back in the spring of two thousand, Chrissie got
in her car and soon saw a woman she recognized
walking on the side of the road. It was the
girlfriend of another inmate. The weather was bad that day

(42:48):
and this woman was pregnant, so Chrissie, being Chrissy, pulled
over and offered her a ride. On the drive, Chrissie
learned this young woman was struggling. A few of her
children were already in foster care, and the young woman
wasn't ready to care for another. So that's when the
Schofield stepped in. Chrissie first met Ashley the day after

(43:11):
she was born, and Leo held her in his arms
during visitation just a few days later. At first, the
adoption was informal. It took a few years for it
to be finalized, but Ashley was Leo and Chrissie's from
the start. Ashley is now in her early twenties. She

(43:32):
says that as a child she was raised on this
little patch of grass beside the visitation pavilion at Hearty
Correctional and that's where Ashley and Leo are sitting on
that same patch of grass the day Chrissie delivers the news,

(43:53):
and I said, Jeremy confessed, and we just all three
of us just hugged and and cried and cried and hugged.
I couldn't do nothing but grab both of them and
hug them. I mean the guy confessed, I mean, we
have physical events, we have a confession with the detail.

(44:14):
I felt like justice would finally the system would finally work.
I always believed that Wright would right itself somewhere. It
can't be so bad and so corrupt that they keep
letting this go on and on and on. So I
told I told Ashley, I said, Daddy's coming home. This

(44:42):
is it. It's over. The family starts getting ready for
another day in court. Yep, here we go again, to
prepare for the new hearing. Um sounds easy, like you
just schedule hearing and you go, But no, it takes
months and months and months and months and months and months.

(45:05):
Things are going to be a bit different at this hearing.
For one, John Aguero, the assistant state Attorney, he won't
be there. John Aguero died suddenly in July of twenty
seventeen while visiting his daughter abroad in Morocco So, the
prosecutor with the old sparky tie clasp, the one who

(45:26):
was there the day they arrested Leo, the one who
tried to pursue the death penalty in Leo's trial even
though he told Leo that he thought his father killed Michelle,
The one who had the forensic evidence in Leo's case destroyed.
This prosecutor who played such a huge role in Leo's
life the past twenty something years, he's gone, and in

(45:49):
an odd turn of events, Leo finds himself mourning his
prosecutor's death. I actually, like John Guero, my fellow, I
felt listen. I mean, I shouldn't say like, I may
be wrong about this. I believed early on that he
believed in what he was doing, because the alternative is

(46:12):
to think that he's doing it because I don't count,
he doesn't care about justice. That's not a good proposition
for me. So my fight was to prove my innocence
and then hopefully one day show him, and in this fantasy,
I have him admitting he was wrong, and then we

(46:35):
can go about and being friends or at least associates.
And so when he died, a part of me died
with him just because that opportunity is gone. And in
my faith, he knows the truth now, you know, And

(46:57):
I hope that him knowing that truth now is not
a reason why he's not comftable today. In John Aguero's
last years as assistant state Attorney, he ran into some
legal troubles of his own. In twenty eleven, he was
arrested for domestic battery during an argument with his estranged wife.

(47:20):
After a short retirement, the state Attorney brought him back
not to try cases, but to mentor up and coming prosecutors.
One of those he mentored is Victoria Avalon. She's now
representing the state at Leo's evidentiary hearing. Basically, she's the
new John Aguero State versus Leo Scofield eight two three

(47:46):
four SIXE. It's October twelfth, twenty seventeen. Just over a
week ago, Jeremy Scott gave a taped confession to the
murder of Michelle Scofield. Leo and his attorney's gathering a
Polk County courtroom to present the new evidence. A phone
confession the one he gave to Andrew and Sean, a

(48:06):
written confession the letter he sent to Andrew Crawford before
the phone call and now a taped confession. Mister Scofield
is entering the courtroom. Could we have appearances for the
record please? Sitting next to Leo is Andrew Crawford. Andrew
Crawford the attorney for mister Scofield and another attorney by
the name of Seth Miller. Seth Miller works for the

(48:30):
Innocence Project of Florida and they're now representing Leo. Having
the Innocence Project on your side can lend a lot
of credibility in legal proceedings like this one. On the
other side of the courtroom is Victoria Avalon, John Aguero's mentee,
and seated beside her is Jerry Hill. Jerry Hill was

(48:51):
Aguero's boss and now he's Victoria Avalon's boss. Victoria Avalon
and Jerry Hill are the last defenders of a Buero's legacy,
though of course, as representatives of the state, their official
job is to pursue justice for Michelle Scofield. Each side
is given the opportunity to give an opening statement before

(49:13):
the judge. Andrew Crawford goes first, based on the fingerprints,
which is forensically link mister Scott to the homicide, as
well as the subsequent admissions and confessions, and respectfully ask
support to grant mister Scofield a new trial. Andrew's opening
is quick and to the point, he argues, for less

(49:34):
than three minutes he's going to let the evidence speak
for itself. But then Victoria Avalon stands and her opening
statement goes on for nearly an hour. Just just case
doesn't really present you anything new factually other than the
newly discovered evidence that they're putting on. Most all of

(49:55):
the facts that you are going to hear over the
next couple of days has been debated endless for years.
At its heart, Avalon's main point seems to be that
Jeremy Scott is not a reliable witness and therefore his
confessions have no credibility. Mister Scott isn't trustworthy, and I'll
tell you why. Since the first time he's reached out

(50:17):
to the defense in twenty sixteen, he's flipflop three times.
Who knows what he'll say today. There's no doubt that
Jeremy can be a difficult witness. It's true that Jeremy
confessed to Leo's lawyers and then denied it. When the
state investigators came to see him, and Avalon is saying
that because of that, nothing Jeremy says can be believed.

(50:39):
The one thing that all of us in this room,
I think can agree on and will agree on, is
that Jeremy Scott is not a reliable witness. And then
she also goes after Leo's credibility. Yes, this was a
circumstantial case, but that does not mean that we got
the wrong man. We got the right man, a man

(51:01):
who now will do anything to get out of the
justice the ten good men and women and true meeted
out to him in nineteen eighty nine. She says that
Leo a man who has offered the chance to walk
out of jail thirty years ago in exchange for testimony
against his father, A man who turned down Aguero's second
degree murder plea deal that would have freedom from prison
decades ago. She says, this man, Leo Schofield, would do

(51:26):
anything to get out of prison, and then she turns
her attention to Andrew Crawford and Seth Miller Leo's defense.
She asks the judge to consider their motivations. Who's looking
for truth here and who's just trying to win. You
will know it when you see it. After Victoria Avalon

(51:49):
takes fifty minutes to go after just about everyone in
the courtroom with her opening statement, it's time to call
the first witness, mister Miller. Will you be calling the
first witness? Ye're on? Or Jeremy Scott, please, Jeremy Scott.
Jeremy's escorted to the stand. He's handcuffed and wearing an
orange jumpsuit, and most of the photos from the hearing

(52:10):
his head hangs down. He looks exhausted and frail. Hello,
mister Scott, I want to take you back to February
twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven, the day Michelle Scofield was murdered.
Do you recall having an interaction with Miss Michelle Schuil
that night. I'm going to stay on court. I got

(52:31):
to say it. I said everything I say is on
your court. I'm telling Joey when I say on court,
it's what's true. You'll answer the questions, Sir, I got
not gonna say about the singer. You answer the questions.
The singer will be done, Sir, Rock keep pulling me
out of prison for this bullshit. Can I have him
declared as a hostile witness. You're honor yes, okay, thank you.

(52:53):
Declaring Jeremy a hostile witness means Leo's attorneys can ask
him leading questions. It's the differ, friends, between asking where
was Michelle Scofield when you approached her? And isn't it
true that you approached Michelle Scofield at the gas station?
Mostly there yes or no questions. So it is an
ideal for eliciting spontaneous answers, and it's something that defense

(53:16):
was hoping they wouldn't have to do. After he's declared
a hostile witness, Jeremy is still irritated, but he maintains
the story he'd given Andrew Crawford on the phone, and
the story that had been recorded by Pat McKenna a
week before this hearing. It's true that you stated in
that interview that you approached Michelle Scofield at the gas station.

(53:40):
That's what I said on a recorder. That's what I said.
And that Michelle Scofield was using a pay phone at
the time that you approached her, Yes, sir, And that
you were high on drugs that night. I was drunk
when I'm drug off, drunk, right off, drunk and that

(54:05):
you were drinking thunderbird wine, hey, sir, and that wine
usually makes you violent, doesn't it, Yes, sir, it does.
His answers are brief, yes, sir, no, sir, but ultimately
he sticks to the story. He confirms that he had

(54:26):
asked Michelle Scofield for a ride, but that he directed
her to a makeout lake instead of the trailer park
he'd originally asked her to take him to. He confirms
that once they got back there, he pulled out a
cigarette or maybe it was a joint, but that's when
his knife fell out. He confirms it was a small
hunting knife with a compass on the end, and that

(54:46):
he'd taken it from his uncle's closet. And he confirms
that when Michelle saw the knife, she panicked and started
hitting him. He's cooperating, but barely did you do with
the knife? I'm kind of going to all this. You
can sor right? Bad enough, sorry, bad enough? All right,

(55:08):
it's been thirty buckan years. All right, let the thing go.
I'm confessing to the murder man. He didn't do it.
I'll take a podgraph test on that. I just had
some more questions. I don't have no more answers, your honor,
you will direct him to answer the question. Said, I
haven't heard what you say. I haven't heard the question yet.

(55:29):
Asked the question, I gotta said everything I had to say.
Did you stab her with the knife? I told you
I killed her. Jeremy confesses to killing Michelle. Then Seth

(55:50):
begins to ask him about his interactions with Prosecutor John Aguero.
Jeremy acknowledges the strange meeting, the meeting that happened behind
closed doors without any witnesses or recordings made. Jeremy says
that during that meeting, John Aguero had promised him help
with parole in exchange for his testimony about the stereo theft.

(56:15):
Aguero allegedly told him he had influenced with the parole
board and could make things happen if Jeremy quote stuck
to the story he'd been giving. Did mister Guero help
you come up with the testimony that you would give
at the at the twenty ten evidentially hearing in this case?

(56:35):
Not really? He just say, stay to to in fact,
what I've been saying, because I've been telling the truth
about mapall print and it's not nothing different about that.
In the stereo. I did still stereo, I think I did.
I was killingscopy which was alive back then. Yeah. Yeah, so,

(56:58):
Jeremy says, Aguero told to stick to his story about
taking the stereo equipment. That was the truth. All Jeremy
had to do was leave out the part about killing Michelle.
Seth hands the witness over for cross examination. Now it's
the state's turn to ask questions. Victoria Avalon approaches Jeremy Scott.

(57:22):
Mister Scott, my name is Victoria Avalon. I'm the prosecutor
in case. I've tried a couple times to reach out
to Victoria Avalon. We've exchanged a few emails, but she's
made it clear that she prefers her cases to be
argued in a court of law, not the court of
public opinion, as she's called it. I never really expected

(57:42):
her to sit down with us, but of course I
had to try. In her last email, she told me
it wouldn't bother me at all if you entirely ignored
me in your reporting. And now, after listening to Avalon's
questioning of Jeremy Scott, I know why she might want
her work on this case ignored. Last week, you talked

(58:04):
to the defense investigator, mister McKenna, didn't you yes. Man
Avalon asked Jeremy about his medications and what he was on,
if anything, at the time he spoke to Pat McKenna.
Being transferred between institutions, and especially back to a county jail,
can be incredibly disruptive. Any sort of medical or psychological

(58:25):
treatment might not be continued from one facility to the next.
At the time Jeremy gave his confession to Pat McKenna,
he was off his meds and had been placed in
a suicide cell. He's still off his meds. When Victoria
Avalon asked Jeremy about his movements between institutions, and Jeremy's
getting agitated. His transfers have been so frequent it's hard

(58:49):
to keep them straight. And now he's back in the
Polk County jail, where the conditions are terrible. Y'all call
me out this again. I'm not calling him. Well, well,
we're here and I'm gonna begin it account of you.
It recites so in the cold floor with my fingers,

(59:11):
where you go back to my kim. Let's get back
to my question, mister Scott, you gave two statements to
my investigators. Avalon grills Jeremy about all the times he'd
previously denied killing Michelle Scofield, and as her cross examination
goes on, she gets loud and more aggressive. But you're

(59:33):
still never getting out, and you know that, right, you
can die behind chain link right. Objection asked an answer
to sustained your grandmother's dead? Right? Where leave her? Eye
of this? Your grandmother's dead? Right when when recently cover years,

(59:55):
she's the only one on earth that cared about you,
wasn't She gotta answer out loud, Yeah, No one's sending
you any money? Correct? Oh man, this whole court room
full of people. Nobody's here for you, arely man. You

(01:00:20):
can't even afford to buy deodoran, can't you? Man? You
gotta get money somehow, right, Yes, Canteen ain't free, is it?
No man? No pride industry. It seems that Avalon is
doing whatever she can to go after Jeremy's credibility. It's
as if she's saying, look, he's a pathetic person. He's unstable,

(01:00:43):
and he'll do anything to get a little money or
a little attention. Even confessed to a murder he didn't commit.
And she points out all the times that Jeremy has
given inconsistent statements under oath. The judge will have to
grapple with this. In order to accept that Jeremy Scott
is telling the truth about Michelle Scofield's murder, he'll need

(01:01:05):
to acknowledge that Jeremy has previously lied under oath numerous times.
So Avalon is basically asking, how can we possibly know
which version of Jeremy's story is the truth? She's saying
we can't, so Jeremy's confessions should be disregarded. You know
he took before he started testifying, didn't he? Man, he

(01:01:30):
took the os before he started testifying back in two
thousand and ten, didn't you? Are you bashoning me? That's
not my question. My question is you took pios today
before he testifying two thousand and ten. Right, I just
want to go back to my soul. Jeremy just begged
to be sent back to his cell, the same cell

(01:01:52):
where he's sitting on a cold floor and eating with
his fingers. He'd rather be there than here with Avalon.
The judge tries to rein her in, and we hain't
gotten started yet. Yes, sir, that wasn't a question then
Victoria Avalon starts getting into specifics about the violent stabbing.

(01:02:17):
She's asking Jeremy to demonstrate how he held the knife
and whether he first stabbed Michelle in the face or
in the chest. Jeremy says he was drunk and he
doesn't know. Can you take a look at business for
Scott fifty two trials? Look at it? I see it again.

(01:02:40):
Entering the witness judge sta Avalon is holding up one
of the photographs from Michelle's autopsy, one of the photos
we saw in the evidence room. They're hard to look at,
and Jeremy doesn't want to look. You did to huh? No,

(01:03:06):
I didn't hear that answer? No, no, I didn't do that.
Victoria Avalon lets Jeremy's response hang in the air and
decides to wrap up her cross examination. Now, Seth Miller
re examines Jeremy Scott, and he uses his time to
clarify Jeremy's response to Avalon. You were in a haze

(01:03:29):
when you killed Michelle Scofield. Is that correct? So? I
mean you don't remember how many times you stabbed her. Correct?
You don't remember every single time you stabbed her. Correct?
You don't remember every location that you stabbed her in
is that correct? You just know that you stabbed her

(01:03:49):
with that hunting knife with a compass on it correct,
And you feel ashamed of doing it, don't you. That's
why you want to look at the picture. That's why
he gave that answer to Miss Avalance that correct. After

(01:04:12):
the hearing, local reporters would fixate on Jeremy's words, not
I killed her, but I didn't do that. This line,
taken out of context, would come to define the hearing.
One headline read quote inmate recants his murder story. Susie Shottlecatti,

(01:04:35):
the Lakeland Ledger reporter who'd been covering the case for
twenty eight years, also believes that Jeremy recanted. I mean
it was it was subtle, but it was you. He
crumbled like a cheap suit. Even after Jeremy confessed multiple
times on the stand, a recantation was the lasting impression
on reporters. But listening to the recordings of this hearing,

(01:05:00):
it's clear to me that Jeremy Scott did not recant.
Jeremy's words came after nearly two hours on the stand,
two hours of standing handcuffed before a judge answering questions
and having his words and his life scrutinized. And that's
when Jeremy is confronted by the picture from Michelle's autopsy.

(01:05:21):
It was Victoria Avalon's final attempt to provoke him. This
picture was taken after Michell's body had been submerged in
water for nearly three days. She was laid out on
the autopsy table under the harsh lights. Her wounds had
been cleaned, and the damage the knife had done was

(01:05:42):
clearly visible. That's what Jeremy was seeing when he said, no,
I didn't do that, But for me, it's something else.
Jeremy says, his words at the end of the hearing
that still haunt me. Bone Valley is a production of

(01:06:15):
Lava for Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number One.
Our executive producers are Jason Flam 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.

(01:06:35):
Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our theme song,
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 hearty correctional institution. Bone Valley is
written and produced by me Gilbert King. You can follow

(01:06:55):
the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at lava for
Good to See