Leo Schofield Jr., subject of 'Bone Valley' podcast, to leave prison April 30

Leo Schofield Jr., the convicted murderer whose claim of innocence has gained international attention, will leave prison in less than two weeks.

The Florida Commission on Offender Review voted Wednesday to grant Schofield parole after nearly 36 years in prison. A majority of the three-member panel agreed to his release on April 30 from Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami.

A Polk County jury in 1989 convicted Schofield of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing two years earlier of his wife, Michelle Saum Schofield. Florida abolished parole in the 1980s, but inmates convicted of murder before 1994 are eligible for release after serving at least 25 years.

Schofield’s presumptive parole release date was set about a decade ago for June 2023. But the parole commission voted last May to push the date back to June 25 of this year and ordered Schofield transferred from Hardee Correctional Institution to Everglades, which operates a transitional program for inmates preparing to be released.

The commission considered Schofield’s case Wednesday morning during its monthly review of parole and conditional release requests. The panel comprises Chair Melissa Coonrod, Richard Davison and David Wyant, a former Bartow police officer.

Davison proposed keeping Schofield’s “walkout date” of June 25, but Wyant and Coonrod agreed to the earlier release date requested by Schofield’s representative, Scott Cupp, a former judge.

Schofield, 57, is expecting to enter a transitional house in the Tampa area.

“I want to thank my countless supporters who have walked with me where no one should have had to walk,” Schofield said in a statement emailed by Gilbert King, the writer and narrator of “Bone Valley,” a podcast devoted to the case. “I hope you will all continue on this journey with me as I fight for my full exoneration, and true justice for Michelle.”

It was the fifth time that the commission has considered possible parole for Schofield and followed a recommendation of parole by the panel’s investigators. Schofield had exhausted all his legal options to challenge his conviction.

Maintaining his innocence

Schofield’s plight became an international cause through “Bone Valley,” which began releases in 2022. The 14-part audio series has been downloaded more than 10 million times, according to its production company.

While offering a journalistic examination of the case, King — a Pulitzer Prize-winning author — asserted that Schofield was wrongfully convicted.

Schofield, an aspiring rock musician living in Lakeland, reported the disappearance of his 18-year-old wife in February 1987. Three days later, her body was found in a phosphate pit along State Road 33 in Lakeland, submerged beneath a piece of plywood. Michelle had been stabbed 26 times in the neck, chest and back.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office soon charged Schofield, then 21, with Michelle’s murder. During his 1989 trial, the prosecution offered no physical evidence but presented testimony from a neighbor who said she saw Schofield carrying what appeared to be a body from his mobile home the night of Michelle’s disappearance.

Schofield has always maintained his innocence. He said that he declined a plea bargain offer from the late John Aguero, the assistant state attorney who led his prosecution.

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Cupp, who resigned his position as a judge to advocate for Schofield, led the testimony supporting his release during the allotted 10 minutes in Wednesday’s hearing. Those speaking in person or by phone included Schofield’s brother, Jason Schofield, fellow inmates and correctional officers from prisons where Schofield has been held.

A man identifying himself as a correctional officer at Jefferson Correctional Institution in the Panhandle said he had known Schofield for 27 years. A diabetic, the man described how Schofield came to his rescue and sought medical help when he passed out because of low blood sugar while on duty.

Another supporter, David Welch, said he met Schofield in 1994, soon after he entered a Florida prison with a life sentence at age 17. Schofield was an educational clerk.

“Leo Schofield told me, when I first came in and went through the orientation process, that I can do my time a couple of ways,” Welch said. “I could be like others and just play poker and play basketball and run around the rec yard and waste my life, or I could make the best of it. That's what I did.”

Welch said he earned his GED and entered a vocational training program and, at Schofield’s urging, got involved with Kairos Prison Ministries, now serving as chair of the program at Avon Park Correctional Institution.

Another supporter said he met Schofield in 2002 at South Bay Correctional Facility in Palm Beach County. He recalled how Schofield, who played guitar in a praise band, offered guitar lessons to him and other inmates.

“I believe that he's an excellent candidate for parole, and I believe that he is the epitome of a model prisoner that will translate into being a successful citizen in society,” the man said.

The panel also heard from a coordinator with Noah Community Outreach, a nonprofit that operates the transitional program that Schofield is expected to enter. He said that he and Schofield shared classes together before his release from prison.

The nonprofit has a bed for Schofield in a brand-new house and offers “an all-star team” to support him after his release, the man said.

Jason Schofield called from Idaho to plead for his brother’s release.

Cupp asked the commission to set Schofield’s “walkout date” as April 30 rather than the scheduled release date of June 25.

“He needs to go as soon as possible, April 30, not June 25, not in two more months,” Cupp said. “If that becomes the lockout date, that, in my opinion, is merely punitive. It really serves no purpose whatsoever.”

Prosecutor blasts media

The State Attorney’s Office for the 10 ^th Judicial Circuit, based in Bartow, sent a representative to all the previous parole hearings to argue against Schofield’s release, and Assistant State Attorney Jacob Orr returned Wednesday.

Orr emphasized the violent nature of the crime for which Schofield was convicted. He said that the case had been reviewed by multiple courts, all of which denied Schofield’s quest for a new trial.

Orr denounced the “Bone Valley” podcast and media coverage of Schofield’s plight. He accused the “Bone Valley” team of selective and misleading editing, while defending retired State Attorney Jerry Hill , who spoke against Schofield’s release at a 2020 parole hearing.

“This should cause concern for anybody that thinks they know the facts about this case because they heard podcasts, read something on social media or the internet or even in a newspaper article," Orr said. "Good storytellers picked up this case, and they told stories that are incomplete and misrepresent the actual evidence in the case, and sometimes are false. You are reading, or more likely hearing, a very compelling story that has no fidelity to the truth.”

“Bone Valley,” featuring extensive interviews with Schofield, asserts that Jeremy Scott, now serving a life sentence for another murder, actually killed Michelle. Investigators found a fingerprint in Michelle’s vehicle, which had been abandoned along Interstate 4, though it was not linked to Scott until 2004.

Prosecutors said that Scott’s habit of stealing stereos from abandoned vehicles explained the print. Schofield filed an appeal in 2009, seeking a new trial, but was denied. He filed again in 2017 , after his lawyers talked to Scott, who confessed to killing Michelle both verbally and in writing.

During a subsequent evidentiary hearing, Scott described seeing Michelle Schofield at a convenience store and asking her for a ride. He stabbed her inside her car, he said.

But Scott appeared to recant under cross-examination when shown an autopsy photo of Michelle’s stab wounds. Prosecutors said that Scott told Schofield’s lawyers he would confess in exchange for $1,000 and later claimed to be responsible for every murder committed in Polk County in 1987 and 1988.

Circuit Judge Kevin Abdoney ruled after the evidentiary hearing that Scott was “not credible” and “could not recount facts accurately.” Florida’s Second District Court of Appeals rejected Schofield’s bid for a new trial in 2020, writing that Scott’s testimony at the hearing had been “to put it mildly, bizarre.”

Scott has repeated his confession in the “Bone Valley” podcast, offering more details about what he claims happened.

A second season of the “Bone Valley” podcast is planned, and a production company recently announced plans to create a multi-season, scripted drama series based on Schofield’s case. King is writing a book on the case, scheduled for publication next year.

“After serving nearly 36 years for a crime he did not commit, Leo Schofield will be released on parole in the coming weeks,” Cupp said in an emailed statement. “While we are grateful for the Commission’s action, Mr. Schofield is by no means free. He will soon be moved to a halfway house and placed on community control. From there, we will continue to fight for his exoneration — the only way we can correct this grave injustice.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Leo Schofield Jr., subject of 'Bone Valley' podcast, to leave prison April 30