There are some very disturbing people in the world. Many people experience severe emotional disorders. In all honesty, some pose an extremely dangerous threat. The sickness of certain people is demonstrated by a murder case in Florida where it's possible the wrong man was convicted.
When Michelle Schofield finished her shift in 1987, she was scheduled to pick up her husband. But when Leo Schofield's wife was late in showing up, he started to worry. In the end, she would never arrive. It was discovered that the 18-year-old had been murdered.
The body of Michelle Schofield was discovered in a nearby drainage channel. She had suffered over twenty stab wounds. Leo Schofield never in his wildest dreams imagined that he would be accused of killing his wife.
However, despite adamant denials and zero physical evidence linking Leo to the murder, he was arrested. Leo Schofield was charged with first-degree murder. After a lengthy trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
The foundation of the prosecution’s case was nothing more than a feeble portrayal of Leo as being an argumentative and verbally abusive spouse. Leo continued to say he was innocent. However, his pleas for a new trial were denied.
Schofield’s attorneys kept pointing to an unknown set of mysterious fingerprints found in Michelle’s Mazda. There was supposedly also a confession by a Jeremy Lynn Scott. Appellate courts still refused to give Leo a new trial.
However, in 2018, Leo’s case caught the eye of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Gilbert King decided to probe into what he felt was a “clear miscarriage of justice.” King went to Florida to dig into the case. What he found was startling.
The further King’s investigation went, the more he was convinced that Leo Schofield was “wrongfully convicted.” He felt the State of Florida failed to adequately investigate Jeremy Lynn Scott. Scott’s fingerprints turned out to be the mysterious third set found in the car.
King couldn’t fathom why a man was still in prison when a confessed murderer whose fingerprints were found on the victim’s car was still free. He wanted answers, and he got them. Finally, in 2004, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement admitted the fingerprints belonged to Scott.
Scott had been serving a life sentence for robbing and strangling Donald Moorehead. Scott killed the 38-year-old Moorehead with a phone cord. King turned his startling revelations into a podcast called “Bone Valley.”
In the final ninth episode, Scott admits to how he forced his way into Michelle’s car and murdered Leo’s young wife. Scott says he never meant to kill Michelle. He insists that a hunting knife fell out of his pocket, and she started screaming.
Scott says he just panicked. He says he regrets killing her. Scott claims that he’s punished every night when he sleeps. Virtually every night, he wakes up horrified to “see a dead body sleeping next to me.” Scott also admits to shooting a cab driver in April 1987.
Investigators had been stuck in their efforts to solve the Intercession, Florida, shooting. But Leo Schofield remains in prison. Why hasn’t his case been revisited? Scott contends that, “The man has been in prison 33 years. He needs to be out. That man ain’t do nothing. He’s innocent.”
King says that Scott has confessed to killing at least four people. However, prosecutors continue to claim he is an unreliable liar. “Reasonable doubt” is the ultimate benchmark necessary to convict. A confession and fingerprints are more than enough to cast “extreme doubt.”
But no one from the prosecution will entertain the possibility that they have the wrong man in prison. Innocence Project of Florida Executive Director Seth Miller told The New York Post. “That’s the kind of tunnel vision that leads to wrongful convictions.”
The sheer reluctance of prosecutors to revisit a potentially wrongful conviction is egregious negligence. Leo could be paroled as soon as May. However, he will not qualify because he refuses to apologize for something he says he did not do. Gilbert King promises to keep fighting.