Leo Schofield is free. After 36 years behind a Florida fence, he walked out of the Everglades Correctional Institution in April 2024. But if you think that’s the end of the story, you’ve got it all wrong. He isn't exonerated. He’s a parolee. Basically, the state of Florida still calls him a murderer, even though a serial killer named Jeremy Scott literally confessed to the crime—repeatedly—on tape and in court.
It's messy. Honestly, the deeper you look into the Leo Schofield Bone Valley saga, the more it feels like a fever dream of bureaucratic stubbornness.
You have a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Gilbert King, who spent years digging through the "Bone Valley" of Central Florida. He found the fingerprints. He found the witnesses the cops missed. He even found the guy who actually did it. And yet, the legal system just... sat there.
The Night Everything Broke
January 1987. Lakeland, Florida.
Michelle Schofield was 18. She was a teenager with her whole life ahead of her, married to a 21-year-old guitarist named Leo. They fought. People knew they fought. That’s what the prosecution leaned on later—the idea that Leo was a hothead who finally snapped.
When Michelle didn't come home from her job at Burger King, Leo didn't just sit around. He was frantic. He spent days searching. Eventually, her Mazda was found abandoned on I-4. Days later, her body was discovered in a phosphate pit, a "bone valley" graveyard of sorts, stabbed 26 times.
The state didn't have DNA. They didn't have a murder weapon.
They had a neighbor who claimed she saw Leo carrying something heavy to his car.
That was pretty much it.
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Leo was convicted in 1989. Two hours. That’s how long the jury took to decide he’d spend the rest of his life in prison.
Enter Jeremy Scott
Here’s where it gets truly wild. In 2004, those "unidentified" fingerprints found in Michelle’s car were finally run through a database. They matched Jeremy Scott.
Scott wasn't some random guy. He was a convicted murderer already serving life for a different killing. When confronted, he didn't just admit the prints were his; he described the murder of Michelle Schofield in detail. He talked about the knife. He talked about the location.
You’d think that would be enough for a "oops, our bad" from the state.
Nope.
Florida courts looked at Jeremy Scott—a guy with nothing to lose—and decided he wasn't "credible." They argued he was just a "confession junkie." Even though his prints were inside the car. Even though he knew things only the killer would know.
Why Bone Valley Changed the Game
If you haven't listened to the podcast, you should. Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker didn't just report on the case; they basically did the job the police should have done in the late 80s.
They sat in prison visiting rooms with Jeremy Scott.
They recorded him.
They walked the ground where Michelle was found.
The podcast created a groundswell of public pressure that the Florida Commission on Offender Review couldn't ignore forever. But even then, the "justice" was half-baked. When Leo finally got his parole hearing in 2023, they didn't just let him go. They sent him to a "transition program" for a year.
It was a slow-motion release for a man who had already lost three and a half decades.
Life After the Fence (2024-2026)
Since his release in April 2024, Leo’s life has been a blur of "firsts."
- Seeing a smartphone for the first time.
- Eating a meal that didn't come from a tray.
- Getting into a serious motorcycle accident in early 2025 (he survived, thankfully).
But the big news happened recently. In late 2025, Jeremy Scott died in prison.
Heart failure, apparently. He was 56.
For Leo, it was a strange kind of grief. He had actually forgiven Scott. He’d talked to him on the phone. He told the man who killed his wife—and essentially stole 36 years of his own life—that he didn't hate him.
"I had to do it to save my own life," Leo said. Bitterness is a poison, and he didn't want to swallow it anymore.
The Fight Isn't Over
So, what happens now?
Leo is 59 years old. He’s on parole, which means he has a curfew. He has to check in. He can't leave the state without permission. He’s "free," but he’s still tethered to a conviction for a crime he didn't commit.
The Innocence Project of Florida is still pushing for a full exoneration. They want his record cleared. They want the state to admit that John Aguero, the original prosecutor, ignored the truth to get a win.
There’s also a scripted TV series in the works based on the podcast. Maybe that will be the thing that finally shames the state into doing the right thing.
What you can do if you care about this case:
- Listen to the podcast: It’s the best way to understand the forensic failures.
- Support the Innocence Project: They are the ones doing the heavy legal lifting.
- Follow the legal updates: The push for a Conviction Integrity Unit in Florida’s 10th Circuit is the next major hurdle.
Leo Schofield is out, but he isn't home. Not really. True justice in Bone Valley would mean a piece of paper from the state that finally says the word he’s been shouting for 38 years: Innocent.