Gilbert King - Leo Schofield "Bone Valley" Parole Hearing

Leo Schofield is up for parole after serving more than three decades for the murder of his wife Michelle in 1987. The Lakeland man insists he's innocent and his case has attracted new attention thanks to a podcast called "Bone Valley" that examines the evidence. We speak with Bone Valley's creator and co-host Gilbert King, ahead of Schofield's parole hearing May 3rd (Wed).

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Gordon Bird here, thank you forlistening to Beyond the News. Our interview

(00:03):
with Gilbert King has a little bitof a breakup as he answers the first
question. Just be patient and it'llclear up and it'll be a very interesting
interview, So please stick around.Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News in
Tallassee. There is a parole hearingcoming up on Wednesday, made the third
for Leo Schofield, Lakeland man whowas convicted in the nineteen eighty seven murder

(00:25):
of his wife when he was twentyone and she was eighteen. This case
is getting a lot of attention,much more so that at his last hearing,
mainly because of a podcast called BoneValley. Gilbert King is a Pulitzer
Prize winning investigative reporter who hosts thepodcast. He and researcher Kelsey Decker have

(00:45):
been digging into that case and providinga very extensive look into it and a
different look at a lot of theevidence. Gilbert King, thank you very
much and welcome to Beyond the News. Oh thanks for having me on,
Gordon, I appreciate it. Well. First, the story of how you
were drawn to look into this case, going back to nineteen eighty seven is

(01:07):
very unusual, and it involves ajudge now a former judge who called the
case to your attention, if youcould kind of share with us a little
bit the background of how you gotinvolved in Bone, the case that's featured
in Bone Valley. Yes, sure, it totally came unexpectedly. Book for
my footel in the grove for ajudicial conference in Nichols, and after I

(01:29):
got speaking, a judge approach meand to be a business card with Leo
Scofield's name on it, and itsaid, not just wrongfully convicted, he's
an innocent man. And you know, when you get a tip like that
from a judge, it catches yourattention. And so that started the next
four and a half years of thisjourney where I reinvestigated the Leo Scofield case

(01:49):
and basically, I think we've provento every reasonable person that he's an innocent
man's been wrongfully convicted. And youknow, it's one of those cases where
the deeper you look, the morethe evidence pointed to another man, and
that other man confessed and he's arrestedlylinked to the crime scene. So to
me, it was the fascinating caseyou have in prison, and we know

(02:09):
who did it. Now that retiredjudge you mentioned will be appearing at the
hearing tomorrow, as I understand nowthe case, as I understand it,
we're just going to be able toscum the surface here because you've done hours
and hours and several podcasts, awhole series on it. Leo Schofield had

(02:30):
reported his young wife Michelle missing,and she was found dead a couple of
days later on the north side ofLakeland. And what was the basis,
How did they decide to charge himand what led to him being convicted of
the crime. Yeah, well,it's interesting because you know, he was
cooperating the entire time, talking todetectives, he was searching for his wife,

(02:53):
so he just a year and ahalf went by, they had no
evidence connecting him to the crime andit was threatening to go cold. But
then a young prosecutor came in andtook a new look at it and decided
that he was going to target thehusband, which is basically what he did,
and so you know, he basicallyrailroaded Leo Scofield. They found some

(03:15):
evidence of a witness nearby who claimedshe saw something. We later found out
that she did see something, butit was one or two weeks earlier.
She was just mistaken about the date, which was confirmed by her sister in
law. So there's a lot ofshady evidence that led to his conviction,
and when we looked at it undera microscope, it was obvious what had
happened and that Leo Schofield was justwrongfully convicted. Now, speaking of microscope,

(03:39):
a lot of the argument for releasingmister Scofield centers around fingerprints that were
found on the car that Michelle Scofieldwas driving, and it, as I
understand, it took more than adecade to identify those fingerprints and tie someone
to them. Yeah, and that'slike the really interesting part of this case
because we know that people are wrongfullyconvicted all the time, and Leo's case

(04:02):
was one of those standard cases thatmaybe he would have, you know,
died in prison, except that seventeenyears into his sentence, some fingerprints were
found from the car that Michelle wasdriving when she disappeared, and those fingerprints
came back to a young violent manwho lived about a mile away from where
Michelle's body was found. His namewas Jeremy Scott, and his fingerprints were

(04:27):
found in this car, and itturns out Jeremy Scott had an extensive record
of violence. Later on, heended up confessing to four different murders,
three of them he's forensically tied to. And in our podcast, we ultimately
go into the prison and interview JeremyScott and it's one of the most compelling
hour and a half so that I'veever spent in my life listening to him

(04:49):
detail exactly how he killed Michelle Scofield. Now, prosecutors have called Jeremy Scott
an unreliable witness for a lot ofre Why do you think he's telling the
truth? Well, I think it'sbecause the same prosecutor that convicted Leo Scofield
also convicted Jeremy Scott of a murder. And so when you see that conflict

(05:10):
of interest, that case never shouldhave gone to him. It should have
been given to a different prosecutor whodidn't have the incentive to protect one of
his own convictions. And so hewas a very powerful and a very talented
young prosecutor, but I think hewas extraordinarily ethically compromised and ethically challenged,
and he basically decided that he wasgoing to keep Leo Scofield in prison even

(05:30):
when he knew that Jeremy Scott wasa real killer. And just to add
in the State Attorney's Office version,they have been standing by the conviction and
planned to have someone at the hearingto speak against the parole. I understand
you're going to be attending and you'regoing to be doing an updated version of
your podcast Bone Valley afterward. Sincemister Scofield is not going to admit to

(05:56):
the murder, that is taken asa sign of not showing remorse, and
that might be used as an argumentagainst granting parole. What is going to
happen at this hearing? What's theprocess and what do you expect to happen
at this hearing? Well, youknow, you bring up a really good
point. What's been keeping Scofield frombeing released? Because now he's served thirty
five years in prison, he wassent this twenty five years to life,

(06:20):
the model inmate, he's just doneeverything right, no disciplinary rectord, he's
a leader in the prison. Butbecause he doesn't show remorse and he doesn't
say that he did this crime,that he's being punished for that. And
I think he makes it very clearthat you know, he could have taken
please that would have had him outdecades ago, and yet he stood by

(06:41):
his innocence. It doesn't make anysense for a guilty person to do that.
Leo Scofield is innocence. That's whyhe cannot show remorse for this crime.
So what's going to happen tomorrow isthree commissioners are going to vote on
whether Leo Scofield should be released,whether he should be paroled, or whether
he should spend more time in prison. And you know, there's some tension

(07:03):
and some suspense because you know,this is Leo's fourth parole hearing and he's
been denied every time, mostly becausethe state shows up and says that Leo
Schofield hasn't shown any remorse and they'veused that against him to punish him.
And to wrap it up here,how can people find the Bone Valley podcast?

(07:23):
Well, Bone Valley can be foundjust about anywhere you listen to podcasts,
whether it's Spotify, Apple. It'sproduced by Lava for Good and it's
a nine episodes and we have somebonus episodes, including the one we're doing
on this upcoming parole hearing, anduh yeah, it's out there and it's
ready to be listened to. Everyepisode is available and free, and I

(07:45):
would be remiss in not mentioning thatone of the places where it can be
found is the iHeartRadio app where thispodcast is nestled, and we will include
a link to Bone Valley in thearticle that's accompanying this podcast, so that
will help you find it as well. Gilbert King, who is the host

(08:05):
along with Kelsey Decker of Bone Valley, thank you very much for joining us
on Beyond the News. Thanks somuch for having me Gordon. I really
appreciate it.