The February 1987 murder of Michelle Saum Schofield is one of the most puzzling cases of all time, and has a lot to do with more than just the horrific crime itself.
After all, her husband Leo Schofield was found guilty as reported on ABC’s 20/20: Last Seen in Lakeland, but there are indications that someone else may have been involved. So if you want to know more about the first one, including how he’s believed to be involved, what the legal ramifications are, and where he stands now, we’ve got the information you need.
What’s his name?
In 1986, 20-year-old Leo and 17-year-old Michelle, both high school dropouts, met for the first time. They hit it off right away and couldn’t stay apart. They moved in together soon after, and their Southside Assembly of God Church reportedly paid for their entire wedding to help them “walk in sin no more.” However, six months into their already troubled marriage, Michelle was killed in one of the worst ways: She was stabbed 26 times.
The truth is that Leo, who reported Michelle missing, was quickly suspected because her neighbors, friends and family said their relationship was abusive and they were fighting the entire time. Some witnesses said he often yelled at his wife, but others said he wasn’t just violent; At one point he even threatened to kill his wife, they said. When a neighbor said she heard the couple arguing that fateful night and then said she saw Leo leave while he had put a large thing in his suitcase, the doubts multiplied manifold.
Although there was a lot of blood and evidence at the spot where Michelle was found, Schofield’s trailer is said to have been the scene of the crime. This didn’t help Leo’s case. Although the neighbor’s story had many issues, the 20 other people who testified about his violent tendencies made it clear that prosecutors were right. Leo was arrested in June 1988 and charged with murder. After two hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty in 1989. He was only 21 at the time. It is very important to remember that there was no physical evidence against him.
Where is Leo Schofield at this time?
Leo was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. He has spent the last 30+ years behind bars in a government facility and has never stopped saying he is innocent. This is evident from the many appeals he has made over the years, particularly after Jeremy Lynn Scott’s fingerprint was linked to the case and he was said to have confessed (which he later denied), but to no avail. Leo told ABC’s 20/20 in 2022, “Innocent isn’t involved, has no plan for it, didn’t know it was happening, didn’t know it was going to happen, and didn’t want it to happen.” It’s me.”
Although the former band member admitted to hitting his wife Michelle twice in the courthouse bleachers, he said he was not violent during the incident. “Physical abuse is a type of abuse, and I’m guilty of emotional abuse,” Leo said. “I screamed a lot and wasn’t above banging a wall or being very dramatic.”
Leo Robert Schofield Jr., 57, is being held at Hardee Correctional Institution in Bowling Green, Florida, a mixed-security prison. He may be paroled in 2023, but Leo, his second wife Crissie Carter, their daughter Ashley and The Innocence Project of Florida are still working hard to prove his innocence. They want to clear his name and bring what they believe is justice to Michelle.
Although there is no physical evidence linking him to the brutal stabbing, Leo, then 21, was arrested and convicted, largely because a witness said she heard screams from the coach on the night Michelle went missing couple.
The witness also said she saw Leo put something large in the truck of a car. She was one of the witnesses at Leo’s trial who said he was a bad husband.
Leo, on the other hand, always said he had nothing to do with the murder.
“Innocent had nothing to do with it, had no idea it was going to happen, didn’t know it was going to happen and didn’t want it to happen.
ABC News said Leo’s defense team and allies pointed to unidentified fingerprints found in Michelle’s car.
After his second wife, Crissie, got him a new lawyer, Leo’s fingerprints were matched to those of Jeremy Scott, who was already in prison for murder and serving a life sentence.
In 2016, Leo’s attorney, Andrew Crawford, said Jeremy admitted killing Michelle during an unrecorded phone call.
However, when asked by state investigators, Jeremy denied having anything to do with the murder. However, according to ABC News, he said he would confess to each murder for $1,000.
Recently, podcast producer and host Gilbert King said that Jeremy made a detailed confession on the record in a two-hour interview and letters.
He told the Tampa Bay Times, “He felt really bad about what he had done. He told me that this was terrible for him. We got him to sit down and tell us about himself.”
Michelle has not been seen since quitting her job at a restaurant. Before her body was found in a canal seven miles away, her car was found on the side of the road.
During the conversation, the prisoner talks to Amy about the day police found Michelle’s body: “I was so angry at God at the time.
“I took off my shirt. I hit a tree, then onto the ground, and then I pulled grass out of the ground.”
He says this about Jeremy Scott’s confession and the court’s decision to dismiss the case and start over: “I’m very angry about this. My wife was killed by him. It’s hard to forget.”
Florida attorneys continue to fight for a man who remains in prison for the 1987 murder of his wife, even though a convicted killer has admitted to the crime more than once.
Prosecutors say 21-year-old Leo Schofield Jr. killed his 18-year-old wife, Michelle Saum Schofield, in a fit of rage. But as revealed in an exclusive interview he recently gave with 20/20, many people, including the Innocence Project of Florida, say Leo didn’t stab Michelle 26 times.
“‘Innocent’ means I had nothing to do with it, didn’t plan it and didn’t know it was going to happen,” said the 56-year-old prisoner at Hardee Correctional Institute in Bowling Green, Florida.
The case began on February 24, 1987, when Michelle quit her job at Tom’s drive-in restaurant at 8:15 p.m. but never returned to Lakeland, Fla., which is about 30 miles west of Tampa, according to the Innocence Project Florida. Leo and his father, Leo Schofield Sr., began asking people around town if they had seen Michelle while she was away.
Some people said she bought $3 worth of gas across the street from her place of work.
Three days later, Michelle’s body was found face down under a piece of plywood in a canal in Bone Valley, a part of central Florida known for its fossil beds and prehistoric history. Michelle had lost a lot of blood and was stabbed numerous times in the neck and back.
“In that moment, I was so mad at God,” Schofield said in “20/20.” “I took off my shirt. I hit a tree, hit the ground and pulled grass out of the ground.”
In June 1988, police arrested Leo after an investigation that lasted more than a year. However, the Innocence Project says the evidence they used against him was “completely circumstantial”. ABC News says witnesses have spoken a great deal about how angry Leo might get, which he admitted in court when he said he hit Michelle twice.
“Physical abuse is one type of abuse, but I’ve also hurt people emotionally,” Leo told 20/20. “I screamed a lot and wasn’t afraid to hit a wall or be very dramatic.”
Alice Scott’s testimony was also a big part of the case. She said she heard the couple fighting the night Michelle went missing, but the court didn’t believe her because the timeline didn’t make sense.
Former prosecutor Jerry Hill, who oversaw the original case, told 20/20 that “you’re going to find some discrepancies with eyewitness testimony” no matter who it is.
The body of an award-winning teacher was found by her 5-year-old daughter in her Texas home.
Although there was no physical evidence that Leo killed his wife, he was found guilty in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison.
But two years later, he met Crissie Carter, a former parole officer turned therapist. She believed Leo when he said he was innocent. Carter, who later married Leo and became the mother of their adopted child, re-investigated the case and quickly found unidentified fingerprints in Michelle’s car.
In 2004, the prints were placed on a database and linked to a man named Jeremy Scott, who was serving a life sentence for a 1988 murder. Jeremy Scott had nothing to do with the Schofields’ neighbor who testified against him. In the clemency plea, the canal where Michelle’s body was found was dubbed Scott’s “cave” and said to be a place where he had “sexual rendezvous” with his ex-girlfriend.
After Michelle was killed, Jeremy Scott was found guilty of killing 37-year-old Donald Morehead by hitting him in the head with a bottle and suffocating him with a telephone cord. Then he stole $20 and a car.
The Innocence Project says Scott was also charged with another murder, but he was never found guilty in this case. Oxygen.com looked at his prison records and found that he was convicted of a number of other crimes, including arson in 1986 and multiple burglaries in the late 1980s.
Leo has not been retried, although there has been new fingerprint evidence, which supporters say could show he didn’t kill Michelle.
In 2016, one of Leo’s new attorneys said he spoke to Scott on the phone, who allegedly admitted to killing Michelle. Scott also spoke to a private investigator who was hired to investigate the case.
In that conversation, Scott allegedly said Michelle offered to drive him somewhere before the two started arguing.
The Innocence Project says, “Scott didn’t have a car, so he often hitchhiked or begged for rides.”
Scott reportedly said he was “heavy high” from pills at the time of the murder, and his girlfriend said he was “extremely violent”.
But there were also problems with Scott’s story. He said he killed Michelle by stabbing her in her car, but the clemency report said there was no blood in the car.
ABC News says Scott also told state investigators he would confess to each murder if they gave him $1,000.
During a later hearing, Scott admitted to killing Michelle, but then said, “I didn’t do that,” when he saw photos of Michelle’s body after she died.
20/20 says Scott again said he killed Michelle in a prison interview with the Bone Valley True Crime Podcast that came out earlier this month.