Speaker 1: There's this room at Hardy Correctional Institution, in a building
Speaker 1: where religious services are held. It's a tiny room, maybe
Speaker 1: five by eight feet, a closet, really, but the inmates
Speaker 1: call it the war Room.
Speaker 2: It's just where we do war spiritual warfare.
Speaker 1: The walls are cinderblock painted prison gray. There are two
Speaker 1: stools to kneel on during prayer, and thin wooden strips
Speaker 1: line the walls where inmates can thumbtack prayer requests jotted
Speaker 1: on index cards. Leo finds himself in the war Room
Speaker 1: one day in twenty sixteen, six years after his evident
Speaker 1: Sherry hearing. Despite the fingerprint evidence linking Jeremy Scott to
Speaker 1: Michelle's murder, the judge denied Leo's motion for a new trial.
Speaker 1: Leo's now been in prison for twenty eight years and
Speaker 1: he fears he'll never get out. And ever since his
Speaker 1: encounter with Jeremy Scott in the tunnel beneath the courthouse,
Speaker 1: Leo's been grappling with feelings he'd never known before. In
Speaker 1: the War Room, he contemplates that moment and how he'd
Speaker 1: stood there, just feet away from Jeremy, ready to take
Speaker 1: justice into his own hands.
Speaker 3: I had carried the wrongful mantle of the murder in
Speaker 3: my life for all them years, only to allow myself
Speaker 3: to be brought to a place where I could actually
Speaker 3: do it by this system.
Speaker 2: And I was feeling like a murderer, and I didn't
Speaker 2: want that.
Speaker 1: When Jeremy's prints were found in Michelle's car, Leo's lawyer
Speaker 1: showed him everything they had on Jeremy, including his criminal
Speaker 1: history and his psychiatric reports.
Speaker 3: And in the process of going through all of that,
Speaker 3: I began learning Jeremy's story, because we all have a story, right,
Speaker 3: and his story is miserable, and it's just a miserable story.
Speaker 1: Leo realizes that if Jeremy Scott is the person who
Speaker 1: killed Michelle, he isn't the monster he'd imagined. He'd done
Speaker 1: terrible things as a teenager, yes, but he was also
Speaker 1: a kid with a low IQ, serious behavioral problems, and
Speaker 1: a long history of abuse. Even knowing all this, Leo
Speaker 1: begins to worry that the anger that's building inside is
Speaker 1: going to destroy him.
Speaker 3: It was a bitterness that leads up to the war room.
Speaker 3: And I understood this. I'm a believer, and so from
Speaker 3: a spiritual sense, I believe that I'm saved.
Speaker 2: I know that my wife Michelle was saved.
Speaker 3: You'd saved in a little church or up the road
Speaker 3: here in Marlbury, and so she's delivered. The only one
Speaker 3: that's losing in this thing right now is Jeremy, who's
Speaker 3: never known the love of a mother, never known the
Speaker 3: love of a friend, never had a friend, and he's
Speaker 3: in prison for crimes he's committed, and everybody hates him.
Speaker 2: He's got an eighty IQ. He has no support, no nothing.
Speaker 3: And I said to God, I said, okay, if this
Speaker 3: is your will, this is all I ask, help me
Speaker 3: to forgive so that I can be free of that.
Speaker 3: Help me to forgive him, and then, if you would,
Speaker 3: you forgive him and let him know love for the
Speaker 3: first time in his life ever.
Speaker 1: Leo writes his prayer for Jeremy on a note card
Speaker 1: and tax it to the wall. Now other inmates coming
Speaker 1: to the war room will see the card and pray
Speaker 1: for Jeremy too.
Speaker 2: And I didn't think nothing else of it. I came
Speaker 2: out of the war room and went about my day.
Speaker 1: But a few days later, Chrissy comes to visit Leo,
Speaker 1: and she's got news. Chrissy tells Leo that Jeremy Scott
Speaker 1: has just confessed to killing Michelle.
Speaker 3: Do you my man?
Speaker 2: I have to have my feelt.
Speaker 4: Sru sorry list.
Speaker 2: In this vasty.
Speaker 4: Uclation Abrege despish to the world who holding stuff.
Speaker 1: To bone Valley Chapter seven, I lost it.
Speaker 5: Generally speaking, when you have someone who's been convicted of
Speaker 5: a crime, you have to move mountains to try and
Speaker 5: get that conviction overturned.
Speaker 1: This is criminal defense attorney Andrew Crawford. Scott Cupp has
Speaker 1: now become Judge Scott Cup and he's no longer permitted
Speaker 1: to represent Leo. Andrew read about Leo's case in a
Speaker 1: local newspaper and he wanted to help, so he picks
Speaker 1: up where Scott Cupp left off with Leo out of
Speaker 1: legal options. Andrew knows the only way he can get
Speaker 1: Leo's case back into court is with once again the
Speaker 1: discovery of new evidence, so he starts writing letters to
Speaker 1: everyone who'd been housed with Jeremy Scott in prison in
Speaker 1: case Jeremy had mentioned anything to them about Michelle Schofield.
Speaker 1: And he also writes to Jeremy, you know.
Speaker 5: By the time I wrote him the letter had nothing
Speaker 5: to lose, and I figured maybe he would say something.
Speaker 1: The letter that Andrew sent says, in part, I now
Speaker 1: represent Leo Schofield. If there is any further information you
Speaker 1: could provide me in helping to free this truly innocent man,
Speaker 1: I would greatly appreciate it. I await your response. Nearly
Speaker 1: a year passes. Then, in July of twenty sixteen, a
Speaker 1: letter arrives from Columbia Correctional Institution. It's from Jeremy.
Speaker 5: I was very surprised, and I was very puzzled. I
Speaker 5: didn't think i'd hear anything from him because he hadn't
Speaker 5: really talked to anybody else. And then opening up and
Speaker 5: reading the letter, after reading the tone of the letter,
Speaker 5: I could tell that he had something that he wanted
Speaker 5: to say, or something that he wanted to convey. What
Speaker 5: it was, I wasn't sure, and because of his extensive record,
Speaker 5: I wanted to be extremely cautious about it as well.
Speaker 1: Jeremy is being cagey in the letter. He tells Andrew
Speaker 1: he has information about the Schofield case that he's willing
Speaker 1: to die with if he talks. He wants to know
Speaker 1: what's in it for him. He wants to talk to
Speaker 1: Andrew one on one. Andrew sets up a phone call
Speaker 1: a few weeks later, but in the state of Florida,
Speaker 1: it's illegal to record phone calls without the consent of
Speaker 1: all parties involved, So Andrew decides he needs someone to
Speaker 1: listen in on the conversation and take notes. He walks
Speaker 1: down the hall of his office building and knocks on
Speaker 1: the door of another lawyer.
Speaker 6: And he came into my office and he said, hey, man,
Speaker 6: I got this call and I'd like to have someone
Speaker 6: present with me. I said, okay, you know, I didn't
Speaker 6: know anything about the case.
Speaker 1: This is Sean Costas. Sean practices family law. He's in
Speaker 1: the same building as Leo's lawyer, but he and Andrew
Speaker 1: don't really work together.
Speaker 6: I do zero criminal law, and I've never been asked
Speaker 6: to listen in on a call. So I grabbed my
Speaker 6: notepat so, yeah, I'll be in there, no problem. So
Speaker 6: we got into his office and I sat down at
Speaker 6: you know, Andrew's desk, and he's got two chairs situated,
Speaker 6: you know, little executive chairs there, and I'm sitting in one.
Speaker 2: He just said, just listen up.
Speaker 1: Andrew puts the phone on speaker and makes the pre
Speaker 1: arranged call to Columbia Correctional Institution. Jeremy picks up the phone.
Speaker 6: Jeremy got, you know, right to the point, like right
Speaker 6: off the bat, and I put it in quotes from
Speaker 6: my note. It says end quotes, got the wrong man
Speaker 6: in prison, end quote. And then he says I was
Speaker 6: present when she died. And then Andrew asked who killed her?
Speaker 6: And then the guy says it wasn't Leo. And then
Speaker 6: Andrew asked, you know who it was, and then he said,
Speaker 6: can't say it right now. And then as to Leo,
Speaker 6: he said he does not deserve to be there. And
Speaker 6: then he said I was present in the car. It
Speaker 6: was a rainy night, she was at a gas station.
Speaker 6: She gave me a ride, and then there was some
Speaker 6: hidden lake where she was murdered. And he also said
Speaker 6: I was jugged up bad that night. And then Andrew
Speaker 6: asked him what happened at this hidden lake and then
Speaker 6: he said he being Jeremy, said she was killed inside
Speaker 6: her car. There was no blood, and then he said
Speaker 6: there was a hunting knife or a compass knife. And
Speaker 6: then he said they don't like me talking to lawyers
Speaker 6: around here. And then Andrew asked Jeremy what happened when
Speaker 6: he got to the lake and then he said I
Speaker 6: lost it. I killed her. And then he said he
Speaker 6: would testify to it, and that he was willing to
Speaker 6: take a polygraph test. And then he said I'm sorry, man,
Speaker 6: And that's the end of my notes. You know, my
Speaker 6: impression of Jeremy was that he wanted to like come
Speaker 6: clean about it, and he was remorseful, as I recall,
Speaker 6: you know, he was upset that someone else was in
Speaker 6: jail or a murder that he committed.
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott had just given a detailed confession to the
Speaker 1: murder of Michelle Schofield. A confession like this should certainly
Speaker 1: qualify as new evidence which could lead to a new
Speaker 1: trial for Leo, if not an outright dismissal of the
Speaker 1: charges against him. And there was one other thing Sean
Speaker 1: had in his notes. Did Jeremy say anything about a prosecutor?
Speaker 7: He did?
Speaker 8: There was.
Speaker 6: There was something. Yeah here it is It says prosecutor lied,
Speaker 6: But I didn't know what it meant. It didn't mean
Speaker 6: anything to me because I don't do any criminal law,
Speaker 6: but something about the prosecutor.
Speaker 2: Lied to him.
Speaker 1: We have a theory about what this means. We know
Speaker 1: that in two thousand and five, Jeremy had been brought
Speaker 1: to Assistant State Attorney John Aguero's office. Jeremy and Aguero
Speaker 1: had spoken at length without anyone else present, and the
Speaker 1: meeting wasn't recorded. Before the evidentiary hearing in twenty ten,
Speaker 1: Aguero testified in a deposition that he wasn't alone in
Speaker 1: his office with Jeremy Scott. He said that the cold
Speaker 1: case detective who was investigating Jeremy had been there with him,
Speaker 1: But this detective had written in a report that he
Speaker 1: was on vacation that week, and his report clearly states
Speaker 1: that Aguero admitted to him that he brought Jeremy into
Speaker 1: his office while the detective was away. So Assistant State
Speaker 1: Attorney John Aguero lied under oath about this meeting with
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott. But we don't think that's the lie Jeremy's
Speaker 1: talking about. We've always been curious about what exactly went
Speaker 1: on behind closed doors. Maybe Aguero told Jeremy to talk
Speaker 1: about stealing the stereo a certain way, maybe he helped
Speaker 1: Jeremy with his testimony for Leo's evident Jarry hearing, or
Speaker 1: maybe he promised Jeremy something in return and never followed
Speaker 1: through and that's the lie Jeremy is talking about. Because
Speaker 1: Aguero didn't record the meeting or have anyone else present,
Speaker 1: Jeremy is the only other person who can say what
Speaker 1: happened behind that closed door. After Jeremy Scott confesses over
Speaker 1: the phone to the murder of Michelle Schofield, Leo's lawyer,
Speaker 1: Andrew Crawford immediately prepares an affidavit, a written legal document
Speaker 1: that details what Jeremy had said on the phone call.
Speaker 1: All Jeremy has to do.
Speaker 2: Is sign it.
Speaker 5: Jeremy sent an Affidavid back, which I was extremely puzzled
Speaker 5: by and said no. He wrote the word no on it.
Speaker 1: We have copies of this affidavit. On the line Jeremy
Speaker 1: was supposed to have signed his name are two big
Speaker 1: letters no. Without assigned affidavit. Andrew knows he has to
Speaker 1: try something else. He wants to send a private investigator
Speaker 1: to talk to Jeremy Scott to get the confession on tape.
Speaker 9: Everything's in my life is a home runner or a failure,
Speaker 9: or you're getting there, you know, so it's not never easy. Pasy.
Speaker 1: This is Pat McKenna. He's been a private investigator for
Speaker 1: thirty seven years and He's been involved in some of
Speaker 1: the biggest criminal cases in Florida. If you recognize his name,
Speaker 1: it might be because of his work with clients like
Speaker 1: oj Simpson and Casey Anthony. After reading up on Leo's case,
Speaker 1: McKenna agrees to visit Jeremy. He drives to the prison,
Speaker 1: where two corrections officers escort him into a meeting room.
Speaker 9: So two guys come get me, and they brought me
Speaker 9: into a room and they stay. I said, well, I
Speaker 9: really want to see this guy by myself. He said,
Speaker 9: oh no, you can't see this guy yourself. I said,
Speaker 9: why not? He said, this is a bad dude. He's
Speaker 9: in administration, confinement or the shoe or something. I forget
Speaker 9: what his status was at that time. I said, I've
Speaker 9: seen I've been in prisons all over this country and
Speaker 9: around the world. I've been in prisons. I've met with
Speaker 9: some of the most dastardly criminals you can imagine. I
Speaker 9: really would like to be alone with the guy. I said,
Speaker 9: can't happen. We will stand at the door, but the
Speaker 9: door stays open while you're doing this. I'm still frustrated
Speaker 9: because I'm thinking this is not any good. I want
Speaker 9: to talk to this guy, and you never trust guards
Speaker 9: not to over here and then miss misstate what they
Speaker 9: just heard. But anyway, so I hear just clanging of
Speaker 9: chains and I'm sitting facing the doorway and here comes
Speaker 9: Jeremy and they had him chained like Houdini couldn't have
Speaker 9: got out of this stuff. I mean, his wrists were
Speaker 9: chained to his belt chain, came from the belt chain
Speaker 9: down to the ankles. They were chained together. So he
Speaker 9: basically just shoveled and jingled. And what was interesting was
Speaker 9: I looked at him, and he's got a mask over
Speaker 9: his face, like a white gauze thing. But it was
Speaker 9: kind of like I was thinking Hannibal lecture. This guy's
Speaker 9: got a mask on, but it wasn't like in the movie,
Speaker 9: but it was a full face mask. And I said,
Speaker 9: what's this all about? He said, well, he's a spitter.
Speaker 9: He'll spit all over everybody and fight and Karshi and
Speaker 9: all that. And he comes in. He goes, who the
Speaker 9: fuck is this guy? I go, Jeremy, it's Pat McKenna.
Speaker 9: I'm a private investigator. I have a letter from it.
Speaker 9: And he stops, take me out of here. I ain't
Speaker 9: talking to this Guy.
Speaker 1: Corrections officers lead Jeremy out of the room. Pat McKenna
Speaker 1: doesn't get the recorded confession he'd hoped for, but still
Speaker 1: Leo's lawyer, Andrew Crawford has the notes from the phone
Speaker 1: call with Jeremy and the sworn witness statement from his
Speaker 1: colleague Seank Justice, so Andrew files a motion with the court.
Speaker 1: He's hoping that even without a taped confession, this will
Speaker 1: be enough to trigger a new hearing. Andrew also notifies
Speaker 1: the State Attorney's office that Jeremy has confessed. They send
Speaker 1: two investigators to interview Jeremy at Columbia Correctional Institution, but
Speaker 1: they found out afterwards that their tape recorder had failed,
Speaker 1: so they try again. The state wants to get their
Speaker 1: own version of Jeremy's story.
Speaker 10: So it's Monday, March thirteenth, twenty seventeen. It's one thirty
Speaker 10: one pm at the State Attorney's Office and the deposition
Speaker 10: room before Jeremy, I want to talk to you again,
Speaker 10: just basically about the same thing that we talked about before.
Speaker 1: The interview does not start well. Jeremy's upset.
Speaker 2: You want me confess to everything over here?
Speaker 11: Man, ain't what's gonna happen like that, you know, and
Speaker 11: then nobody trying to.
Speaker 2: Help me get out.
Speaker 11: Ain't nobody trying to help me get no deal, Ain't
Speaker 11: no glad trying.
Speaker 7: To do nothing.
Speaker 2: Nobody trying to send me no money. Ain't nobody trying
Speaker 2: to do nothing? So why would I help somebody else?
Speaker 2: They ain't trying to help me.
Speaker 9: You're gonna make confess some pay me if you don't
Speaker 9: want to, maybe confess some leave me alone.
Speaker 4: That's the way.
Speaker 2: That's why I work.
Speaker 10: What do you mean pay you? I don't know that.
Speaker 1: What I mean is I told you the investigators try
Speaker 1: to get Jeremy to talk about what he told Andrew
Speaker 1: Crawford on the phone.
Speaker 8: Did you tell him anything that would make him believe
Speaker 8: that you were giving a confession?
Speaker 11: Nah, made no confessions unless I got another invest you
Speaker 11: got something put in my hand.
Speaker 2: I ain't that crazy. I know that much.
Speaker 1: Jeremy has been in prison for almost as long as Leo,
Speaker 1: now twenty seven years. His grandma, the only person he
Speaker 1: had contact with outside the prison, died in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: And my grandma passed away. I am I don't has
Speaker 2: to do with this though, And you know sense going
Speaker 2: back to Pope.
Speaker 11: County and back then, if she was alive, I would
Speaker 11: love be here, got to get by visits, and now
Speaker 11: she did.
Speaker 2: I don't want to see nobody.
Speaker 1: At the time of this recording in twenty seventeen, Jeremy
Speaker 1: has no family contact, no visitations, no lawyers. He gets
Speaker 1: no letters and no phone calls from people on the outside,
Speaker 1: and he has no money in his canteen, which means
Speaker 1: he only eats what they're serving in the cafeteria. He
Speaker 1: can't buy anything like deodorant and can only use the
Speaker 1: state issued soap and toothpaste. On top of that, he's
Speaker 1: constantly getting in trouble in prison and placed under increased
Speaker 1: security similar to solitary confinement. It's a desolate place to
Speaker 1: be in physically and psychologically. And now Jeremy knows that
Speaker 1: he has information someone wants, it only makes sense that
Speaker 1: he would try to use it to his advantage. Maybe
Speaker 1: he can tell his story and get something out of it.
Speaker 1: Whatever the reason, Jeremy doesn't want to tell the investigators
Speaker 1: the same story he told Andrew. Instead, he returns to
Speaker 1: his previous story about how his fingerprints ended up in
Speaker 1: Michelle Schofield's Mazda. He says he used to steal from
Speaker 1: cars abandoned on I four.
Speaker 12: Well, now what you're.
Speaker 11: Talking about is we're now stealing a stereo system at
Speaker 11: the cars.
Speaker 2: That's what you're talking about.
Speaker 8: When you're taking stereo systems out of cars.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that for a little bit.
Speaker 8: What what was what were you doing? You brought it
Speaker 8: up here?
Speaker 2: How many?
Speaker 8: How many cars would you take it?
Speaker 1: The investigators are pressing Jeremy for details. Who was he with,
Speaker 1: what car was he driving? What did he do with
Speaker 1: the stereo equipment he stole? Jeremy can't stick to one story.
Speaker 1: He's not sure who was with him. Might have been
Speaker 1: this guy Rambo, but probably it was his buddy Robert.
Speaker 1: But then Jeremy starts telling the story like he was
Speaker 1: by himself, almost like he forgot he said Robert was
Speaker 1: in the car with him. He tells them he was
Speaker 1: in his friend Cheryl's car, but in an earlier statement
Speaker 1: he said he was in his girlfriend Jamie's car. But
Speaker 1: there's one thing Jeremy does admit to telling Andrew Crawford
Speaker 1: on the phone.
Speaker 8: So you during that phone call, you've never made any
Speaker 8: statements to facts of that case. That would lead him
Speaker 8: to believe that you were confessing to the murder of
Speaker 8: Michelle Schofield.
Speaker 2: And that's when I remember saying that.
Speaker 1: Jeremy says, I don't believe he did it, as in,
Speaker 1: I don't believe Yo Schofield did it, which of course
Speaker 1: doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why would Jeremy
Speaker 1: think that unless he knew something about the murder or
Speaker 1: he knew someone who did. Then, toward the end of
Speaker 1: their interview, just when they're wrapping up, Jeremy tells them this.
Speaker 11: But as far as Michelle, as far as this cab
Speaker 11: driver and Simmy and.
Speaker 5: Whoever real estate trying to talk about, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know anything about it.
Speaker 1: Right out of the blue, totally unprompted, Jeremy brings up
Speaker 1: this cab driver. The investigators don't even know what to say.
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about a cat. There's a cab driver. Ah,
Speaker 2: some cab driver got shot and Simmy that's not related
Speaker 2: to the Schofield king. That's what I heard about it
Speaker 2: in prison.
Speaker 12: I heard my name.
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about a cab driver. Let's keep
Speaker 2: it to this.
Speaker 9: I don't know not.
Speaker 1: It sounds like Jeremy sort of laughs, says something like
Speaker 1: that's fine, trust me. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: obsessing over why Jeremy would bring this up. This has
Speaker 1: to be the same cab driver murder that Jeremy casually
Speaker 1: confessed to three decades ago, the same murder he told
Speaker 1: his girlfriend Jamie that he'd gotten away with, the same
Speaker 1: murder we think dan Odie was almost put to death for.
Speaker 1: And in twenty seventeen, this cab driver is still on
Speaker 1: Jeremy's mind. Is he trying to see if these investigators
Speaker 1: know about it, or if the state is going to
Speaker 1: charge him, or is it weighing on his mind like
Speaker 1: Michelle's murder seemed to be regardless, the investigators completely blow
Speaker 1: off this mention of a cab driver. They just laugh
Speaker 1: it off. They didn't even bother to ask any follow
Speaker 1: up questions. If they could have gotten Jeremy talking about
Speaker 1: the cabby murder, maybe he would have come back around
Speaker 1: to talk about Michelle. Or they just might have left
Speaker 1: the deposition room with a confession to a thirty year
Speaker 1: old unsolved murder. The investigators leave without any meaningful information
Speaker 1: about Jeremy's connection to Michelle Schofield and with no leads
Speaker 1: about Jeremy's possible connection to the murder of a cab driver.
Speaker 1: But what they do get from Jeremy was valuable. Jeremy
Speaker 1: had told the investigators he would confess to a murder
Speaker 1: if he was paid or if there was something in
Speaker 1: it for him. These kinds of statements cast doubt onto
Speaker 1: Jeremy's motives for confessing to Michelle Schofield's murder. Now the
Speaker 1: state can ignore the content of Jeremy's confession and attack
Speaker 1: his credibility instead. So the investigators did have something to
Speaker 1: bring back to the state attorney, and this time they
Speaker 1: managed to turn on the tape recorder.
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Speaker 1: Andrew Crawford, Leo's lawyer, is hoping that a judge will
Speaker 1: grant Leo a new trial based on the evidence of
Speaker 1: Jeremy's phone call confession. An Evidentiarry hearing is granted and
Speaker 1: set for October twenty seventeen. It's just a couple weeks
Speaker 1: out when out of the lou Andrew receives another letter
Speaker 1: from Jeremy Scott. His spelling and punctuation make it a
Speaker 1: little tough to read, but this is what it says.
Speaker 1: Here's Andrew reading it.
Speaker 5: Dear mister Crawford, I would like to make a statement.
Speaker 5: I Jeremy lyn Scott write this of my own free will.
Speaker 5: Mister Schofield did not kill Missus Schofield. He didn't have
Speaker 5: anything to do with it. I jeremylyn Scott, killed Missus
Speaker 5: Schofield that night. I can tell you everything, what kind
Speaker 5: of knife it was, and how the cops picked me up.
Speaker 9: But let me go.
Speaker 5: I can tell you stuff where they found Missus Schofield.
Speaker 5: Only the person that killed her would know. It's time
Speaker 5: to end all this. I won't talk to the state.
Speaker 5: They have made promises to me, but at the end
Speaker 5: it was all lies. You can hook me to that lie.
Speaker 5: That'll tell if you are lying or not. Everything I
Speaker 5: will tell will be the truth. Mister Crawford, this is
Speaker 5: my statement and my own hand writing spelling. Ain't two good.
Speaker 5: Hope to hear from you soon, Jeremy Elscott.
Speaker 1: This letter, with Jeremy's signature at the bottom signals something
Speaker 1: has changed. Andrew thinks this may be a sign that
Speaker 1: Jeremy is willing to talk. He asked Pat McKenna to
Speaker 1: go see Jeremy one more time. But what Andrew doesn't
Speaker 1: know is that Jeremy mailed out two more letters, one
Speaker 1: to the State Attorney's office and one to the judge
Speaker 1: that had been assigned to Leo's upcoming hearing. The two
Speaker 1: letters are slightly different, but they have the same general message.
Speaker 1: Jeremy says he is confessing to all murders in Polk
Speaker 1: County in the years nineteen eighty seven and nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: and he's asking to be left alone and put back
Speaker 1: on death row. Andrew had no way of knowing this yet,
Speaker 1: and neither did Pat McKenna, who was waiting to talk
Speaker 1: to Jeremy in an attorney room at the prison.
Speaker 9: Just like last time, I hope they're not bringing this
Speaker 9: guy in, you know, just crazed or something. So in
Speaker 9: he walks. He's standing there. I'm sitting in a chair
Speaker 9: and I remember just saying, man, you look a lot
Speaker 9: better than you did the last time I saw you.
Speaker 9: And he still won't sit down yet, but he sees
Speaker 9: on the table in front of me, I had laid
Speaker 9: out a letter from Andrew, the letter that Jeremy wrote,
Speaker 9: and I had a tape recorder on the table too,
Speaker 9: and we got to talk and I said, I just
Speaker 9: I want to see if you'll talk to me about
Speaker 9: that case. He's I don't need to. I told I
Speaker 9: just told the judge yesterday and the prosecutors and everybody.
Speaker 9: I confess to everything.
Speaker 2: I go.
Speaker 9: You confess to everything? He said, yeah, Well I didn't know.
Speaker 9: He meant every murder that's ever happened in the county,
Speaker 9: just out of frustration, I guess. So I said, well,
Speaker 9: you know, we'll sit down, we start talking.
Speaker 15: Introduced Jeremy Scott. Jeremy, can you praise your right hand?
Speaker 15: You swear everything you're tell me is the truth and
Speaker 15: the whole truth, Sir.
Speaker 9: I was going to go through the whole all kinds
Speaker 9: of question, answered said Jeremy.
Speaker 12: I just wanted you to go ahead and just explain
Speaker 12: what happened that night with Michelle.
Speaker 9: This word's overused, but it became surreal for me. His
Speaker 9: whole body started to change, right, he was twitching a
Speaker 9: little bit, and he just hes quit looking at me,
Speaker 9: and he looked right at my dictaphone, my tape recorder
Speaker 9: sitting right there, and he was leaning over it, and
Speaker 9: I just it was like he was unburdening himself or something.
Speaker 9: He was like talking just like a foot away from
Speaker 9: my dictaphone there and I just kind of watched them.
Speaker 12: Early early year, nineteen eighty seven, I got released from
Speaker 12: prison not too long for I ran into Michelle. Apparently
Speaker 12: we had met Corynge or herb at a party. It
Speaker 12: was round Ralph February around midnight, maybe one o'clock in
Speaker 12: the morning or something, at a Texico station. I've been
Speaker 12: out drinking, popping peels all night, partying him.
Speaker 2: She asked me, was I laid on the.
Speaker 12: Phone and I said, no, I need a ride. I'm
Speaker 12: a little weary drunk.
Speaker 15: But she said I know you.
Speaker 12: I said, oh no, and but she asked me what
Speaker 12: I law. I said, I'm going Northcombing Road. There's trailers
Speaker 12: I'm known to sleep and trailers.
Speaker 2: You know, bandit houses and stuff.
Speaker 1: So Jeremy says that Michelle agrees to drive him to
Speaker 1: a trailer park on North Cumby Road, just up the street.
Speaker 12: Really, she hit me a rise going down and rain
Speaker 12: and I got my jacket on, you know, So we're
Speaker 12: going down North Calling Road.
Speaker 1: We go, they passed the trailer park where Jeremy used
Speaker 1: to live with his grandparents. Now Jeremy has another idea.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe I can get it late or somehow,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 12: So I tell her to turn. All in the road
Speaker 12: is behind the little trees, is the lake, you know,
Speaker 12: and people go there all the time. Well we get there.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so I know nobody lives here.
Speaker 12: I said, no, It says where the people come and
Speaker 12: make out.
Speaker 1: Jeremy thinks maybe they'll have sex, but Michelle rejects his advances.
Speaker 1: She tells him she's married.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm married.
Speaker 5: Like, let's say great, you know.
Speaker 12: And I went in and reached in and grabbing my
Speaker 12: cigarettes and put out a joint.
Speaker 1: He says. He reaches into his jacket to pull out
Speaker 1: a pack of cigarettes and then a knife falls out
Speaker 1: of his pocket.
Speaker 12: Seven inch knife, maybe hundred knives. Uh, it's what you
Speaker 12: call where at the end of the hand where it
Speaker 12: has a thing where he knows you if you go east, west,
Speaker 12: north or you know something, help us. Yeah, goottle, honey,
Speaker 12: and I you know, not no big butcher knife, none
Speaker 12: of that stuff.
Speaker 13: Little, you know.
Speaker 1: So Michelle sees the knife.
Speaker 12: She she went to panty and started screaming hidden, you know,
Speaker 12: and I'm you know, the next thing I know, I
Speaker 12: lost him, you know, And next time I know it you.
Speaker 2: Know, I done done stabber. You know, I don't know
Speaker 2: how many time or not, you know, And I'm.
Speaker 12: Like panicking now because I don't know what just happened.
Speaker 1: After he stabs her, Jeremy says, he pauses, sits in
Speaker 1: the car and has a smoke, you know, sit there
Speaker 1: for a.
Speaker 2: Few minutes in the car, and.
Speaker 12: Then it was raining outside and I started smoking, got
Speaker 12: out the car, went to the to the driver's side,
Speaker 12: open the doorman, you know, old by the lady, have
Speaker 12: some plastic, try to protect her for bean by the gators,
Speaker 12: snakes or whatever, you know, and I slay her down
Speaker 12: in the water.
Speaker 1: After he drags her body into the water, he says,
Speaker 1: he gets back in the car.
Speaker 9: After DA got in the car, went I die four.
Speaker 12: I guess I stole the car out, pull over to
Speaker 12: his side.
Speaker 16: He got the knife and got a towel of like.
Speaker 2: Paused to towel that was.
Speaker 13: In her car.
Speaker 12: Drive and drive it, you know, thank you for sault
Speaker 12: the car star willis.
Speaker 1: Then Jeremy leaves the stalled out car and walks up
Speaker 1: the exit to a little store.
Speaker 12: Car was there's a there's a dumpster and a little
Speaker 12: store store closed.
Speaker 2: I went out there up the hill.
Speaker 12: I know that after the knife and the towel in
Speaker 12: there in the trash, make sure it was, you know,
Speaker 12: in deep in there.
Speaker 1: As Kelsey and I listened to this, to this description
Speaker 1: of Jeremy walking up a hill to this little store,
Speaker 1: we can't help but notice the similarities between this and
Speaker 1: what we'd heard from Leo about the night he found
Speaker 1: the Mazda. Jeremy's description is so similar to the way
Speaker 1: Leo describes walking up a hill to the closed gas
Speaker 1: station to call police. There was only one store off
Speaker 1: that exit back in nineteen eighty seven, which means that
Speaker 1: if we believe both of these men's stories, Leo was
Speaker 1: tracing Jeremy's footsteps when he was searching for Michelle just
Speaker 1: forty eight hours after her murder, and Leo might have
Speaker 1: been standing just feet away from the murder weapon that
Speaker 1: Jeremy had dropped in the dumpster.
Speaker 9: There.
Speaker 1: Jeremy goes on, He says, he starts walking back towards
Speaker 1: Lakeland when he sees the Mazda again on the side
Speaker 1: of the road.
Speaker 12: That's when I realized, you know, I get a stereo system,
Speaker 12: and I took the figures out, and I and my
Speaker 12: fingerprints off the.
Speaker 2: Doors and stuff.
Speaker 12: Again, that's how my pump rint got on the windshield
Speaker 12: inside with the car. All I know is I went
Speaker 12: to the nearest jailer oncoming road and I.
Speaker 2: Was passed out the extor.
Speaker 1: Most of what Jeremy says matches what we know where
Speaker 1: Michelle's body was found and where the car was abandoned,
Speaker 1: the condition of the car having stalled out, the murder
Speaker 1: weapon which was never recovered, the equalizer and the speakers
Speaker 1: that had been stolen, and the car must have been
Speaker 1: wiped down because Michelle's prints were never found by crime
Speaker 1: scene technicians. Michelle was found fully closed, and the medical
Speaker 1: examiner found no signs of sexual assault, and the medical
Speaker 1: examiner also documented scrapes on Michelle's back that were consistent
Speaker 1: with her body being dragged after she'd been killed. But
Speaker 1: Jeremy says a couple things that differ from what we know.
Speaker 1: Michelle's last known location was Sparky's, which is an Exxon station,
Speaker 1: not a Texico, so he has the name of the
Speaker 1: gas station wrong. And if they met right after she
Speaker 1: made the call to Leo, it would have been closer
Speaker 1: to ten o'clock, not midnight, as Jeremy says. But Jeremy
Speaker 1: also says he was drunk and high, so it's not
Speaker 1: a huge leap to assume he might not remember everything
Speaker 1: in perfect detail, but the general circumstances seem to line up.
Speaker 1: It was already dark out and it was raining that night,
Speaker 1: and he says she was at a gas station payphone
Speaker 1: when he approached her, the last place Michelle was seen
Speaker 1: alive when she called Leo and said she was on
Speaker 1: her way. Jeremy's detail about covering Michelle's body with plastic
Speaker 1: also differs from what we know. There are no plastic
Speaker 1: sheets or tarps listed in the evidence logs, and Jeremy
Speaker 1: doesn't mention the plywood that was covering her body. But
Speaker 1: Jeremy's motivation for covering the body, what she says, was
Speaker 1: to protect it from the alligators and snakes.
Speaker 2: That might be in the water.
Speaker 1: This detail hints at one more thing we can corroborate,
Speaker 1: a sense of shame and remorse.
Speaker 12: You know, I didn't mean to kill Michelle school, y'all.
Speaker 2: I never tend to do any harm. I panted the
Speaker 2: night when she started hitting on me and I fell
Speaker 2: out of my jacket. It was meant for nobody. You know,
Speaker 2: I lived alone on the streets.
Speaker 12: I've been holding this confession for a long time. I
Speaker 12: don't know what Leo is guilty of.
Speaker 2: Whatever the state said he did in the other cases,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I knew. No, he didn't murge White.
Speaker 12: You might have did other things to work about.
Speaker 2: He didn't kill her.
Speaker 12: I'm going to take a line of tablement protect.
Speaker 6: Here all of this, and this is my statement, and.
Speaker 2: I will say it again on.
Speaker 12: A lit of port ram.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 9: And that's uh. Out of this tape.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 9: I come out of the jail and I'm as i'm
Speaker 9: walking out, I'm still thinking in my mind, holy shit,
Speaker 9: I can't believe this just happened. I can't wait to
Speaker 9: get out and call Andrew. I remember going out to
Speaker 9: my car and calling him up and said, uh, he
Speaker 9: just gave me a sworn, taped confession of the murder.
Speaker 7: That was like the best day ever. This is this one?
Speaker 7: This time is really it?
Speaker 9: Oh? This is it.
Speaker 1: When Chrissy, Leo's wife, first got the news that Jeremy
Speaker 1: Scott had confessed, she was flooded with emotion, as was Chrissy,
Speaker 1: and Leo's daughter, Ashley. Yes, you heard that correctly. Chrissy
Speaker 1: and Leo have a daughter. We should probably back up
Speaker 1: for one second to tell you the story. After leaving
Speaker 1: her visit with Leo one weekend back in the spring
Speaker 1: of two thousand, Chrissy got in her car and soon
Speaker 1: saw a woman she recognized walking on the side of
Speaker 1: the road.
Speaker 2: It was the.
Speaker 1: Girlfriend of another inmate. The weather was bad that day
Speaker 1: and this woman was pregnant, so Chrissy, being Chrissy, pulled
Speaker 1: over and offered her a ride. On the drive, Chrissy
Speaker 1: learned this young woman was struggling. Two of her children
Speaker 1: were already in foster care, and the young woman wasn't
Speaker 1: ready to care for another. So that's when the Schofields
Speaker 1: stepped in. Chrissy first met Ashley the day after she
Speaker 1: was born, and Leo held her in his arms during
Speaker 1: visitation just a few days later. At first, the adoption
Speaker 1: was informal. It took a few years for it to
Speaker 1: be finalized, but Ashley was Leo and Chrissie's from the start.
Speaker 1: Ashley is now in her early twenties. She says that
Speaker 1: as a child she was raised on this little patch
Speaker 1: of grass beside the visitation pavilion at Hardy Correctional and
Speaker 1: that's where Ashley and Leo are sitting on that same
Speaker 1: patch of grass the day Chrissy delivers.
Speaker 7: The news, and I said, Jeremy confessed, and we just
Speaker 7: all three of us just hugged and hugged and cried
Speaker 7: and cried and hugged.
Speaker 2: I couldn't do nothing but grab both of them and
Speaker 2: hug him.
Speaker 17: I mean, the guy confessed. I mean, we have physical evedents,
Speaker 17: we have a confession with the detail.
Speaker 2: I felt justice would finally the system would finally work.
Speaker 3: I always believed that right would right itself somewhere. It
Speaker 3: can't be so bad and so corrupt that they keep
Speaker 3: letting this go on and on and on. So I
Speaker 3: told I told Ashley, I said, Dad, he's coming home.
Speaker 7: This is it.
Speaker 2: It's over.
Speaker 1: The family starts getting ready for another day in court.
Speaker 17: Yep, here we go again to prepare for the new hearing.
Speaker 17: Sounds easy, like you just schedule hearing and you go,
Speaker 17: But no, it takes months and months and months and
Speaker 17: months and months and months.
Speaker 1: Things are going to be a bit different at this hearing.
Speaker 1: For one. John Aguero, the Assistant State attorney, he won't
Speaker 1: be there. John Aguero died suddenly in July of twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen while visiting his daughter abroad in Morocco. So the
Speaker 1: prosecutor with the old sparky tie clasp, the one who
Speaker 1: was there the day they arrested Leo, the one who
Speaker 1: tried to pursue the death penalty in Leo's trial even
Speaker 1: though he told Leo that he thought his father killed Michelle,
Speaker 1: The one who had the forensic evidence in Leo's case destroyed.
Speaker 1: This prosecutor who played such a huge role in Leo's
Speaker 1: life the past twenty something years, he's gone, and in
Speaker 1: an odd turn of events, Leo finds himself mourning his
Speaker 1: prosecutor's death.
Speaker 3: I actually like Don Gurro, I felt, and listen, I
Speaker 3: don't I mean, I shouldn't say like, I may be
Speaker 3: wrong about this.
Speaker 5: I y.
Speaker 3: I believed early on that he believed in what he
Speaker 3: was doing, because the alternative is to think that he's
Speaker 3: doing it because.
Speaker 2: I don't count, he doesn't care about justice. That's not
Speaker 2: a good proposition for me.
Speaker 3: So I'm My fight was to prove my insence and
Speaker 3: then hopefully one day show him.
Speaker 2: And in this fantasy I have.
Speaker 3: Him admitting he was wrong, and then we can go
Speaker 3: about and being friends or at least associates. And so
Speaker 3: when he died, a part of me died with him,
Speaker 3: just because that opportunity is gone.
Speaker 2: And in my faith, he knows the truth now, you know,
Speaker 2: And and.
Speaker 3: I hope that him knowing that truth now is not
Speaker 3: a reason why he's not comfortable today.
Speaker 1: In John Aguero's last years as assistant state Attorney, he
Speaker 1: ran into some legal troubles of his own. In twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: he was arrested for domestic battery during an argument with
Speaker 1: his estranged wife. After a short retirement, the state attorney
Speaker 1: brought him back not to try cases, but to mentor
Speaker 1: up and coming prosecutors. One of those he mentored is
Speaker 1: Victoria Avalon. She's now representing the state at Leo's evidentiary hearing. Basically,
Speaker 1: she's the new John Aguero.
Speaker 2: State versus. Leo Schofield eighty eight cf. Two three four
Speaker 2: six A one.
Speaker 1: It's October twelfth, twenty seventeen. Just over a week ago,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott gave a tape confession to the murder of
Speaker 1: Michelle Schofield. Leo and his attorneys gather in a Polk
Speaker 1: County courtroom to present the new evidence. A phone confession,
Speaker 1: the one he gave to Andrew and Sean, a written confession,
Speaker 1: the letter he sent to Andrew Crawford before the phone call,
Speaker 1: and now a taped confession.
Speaker 2: Mister Schofield is entering the courtroom.
Speaker 17: Could we have appearances for the record please?
Speaker 1: Sitting next to Leo is Andrew Crawford.
Speaker 2: Andrew Crawford the attorney for mister Schofield.
Speaker 1: And another attorney by the name of Seth Miller.
Speaker 2: Mister Scofield.
Speaker 1: Seth Miller works for the Innocence Project of Florida and
Speaker 1: they're now representing Leo. Having the Innocence Project on your
Speaker 1: side can lend a lot of credibility in legal proceedings
Speaker 1: like this one. On the other side of the courtroom
Speaker 1: is Victoria Avalon, John Aguero's mentee, and seated beside her
Speaker 1: is Jerry Hill. Jerry Hill was Aguero's boss and now
Speaker 1: he's Victoria Avalon's boss. Victoria Avalon and Jerry Hill are
Speaker 1: the last defenders of a Guero's legacy, though of course,
Speaker 1: as representatives of the state, their official job is to
Speaker 1: pursue justice for Michelle Schofield. Each side is given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to give an opening statement before the judge. Andrew
Speaker 1: Crawford goes first.
Speaker 5: Based on the fingerprints which forensically link mister Scott to
Speaker 5: the homicide, as well as the subsequent admissions and confessions,
Speaker 5: and respectfully asked the court to grant mister Scofield.
Speaker 2: A new tribe.
Speaker 1: Andrew's opening is quick and to the point, he argues
Speaker 1: for less than three minutes, he's going to let the
Speaker 1: evidence speak for itself. But then Victoria Avalon stands and
Speaker 1: her opening statement goes on for nearly an hour.
Speaker 16: Judge, this case doesn't really present you anything new factually,
Speaker 16: other than the newly discovered evidence that they're putting on.
Speaker 16: Most all the facts that you are going to hear
Speaker 16: over the next couple of days has been debated endlessly
Speaker 16: for years.
Speaker 1: At its heart, Avalon's main point seems to be that
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott is not a reliable witness and therefore his
Speaker 1: confessions have no credibility.
Speaker 16: Mister Scott isn't trustworthy, and I'll tell you why. Since
Speaker 16: the first time he's reached out to the defense in
Speaker 16: twenty sixteen, he's flip flopped three times.
Speaker 2: Who knows what he'll say today.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that Jeremy can be a difficult witness.
Speaker 1: It's true that Jeremy confessed to Leo's lawyers and then
Speaker 1: denied it when the state investigators came to see him,
Speaker 1: and Avalon is saying that because of that, nothing Jeremy
Speaker 1: says can be believed.
Speaker 16: The one thing that all of us in this room,
Speaker 16: I think can agree on and will agree on, is
Speaker 16: that Jeremy Scott is not a reliable witness.
Speaker 1: And then she also goes after Leo's credibility.
Speaker 16: Yes, this was a circumstantial case, but that does not
Speaker 16: mean that we got the wrong man. We got the
Speaker 16: right man, a man who now will do anything to
Speaker 16: get out of the justice. The ten good men and
Speaker 16: women and true meet it out to him in nineteen
Speaker 16: eighty nine.
Speaker 1: She says that Leo, a man who has offered the
Speaker 1: chance to walk out of jail thirty years ago in
Speaker 1: exchange for testimony against his father, a man who turned
Speaker 1: down Aguero's second degree murder plea deal that would have
Speaker 1: freedom from prison decades ago. She says, this man, Leo Schofield,
Speaker 1: would do anything to get out of prison, and then
Speaker 1: she turns her attention to Andrew Crawford and Seth Miller
Speaker 1: Leo's defense. She asks the judge to consider their motivations.
Speaker 16: Evidence, who's looking for truth here and who's just trying
Speaker 16: to win? You will know it when you see it.
Speaker 1: After Victoria Avalon takes fifty minutes to go after just
Speaker 1: about everyone in the courtroom with her opening statement, it's
Speaker 1: time to call the first witness.
Speaker 2: Mister Miller, will you be calling the first witness? Yes,
Speaker 2: said Jeremy Scott leaves Scott.
Speaker 1: Jeremy's escorted to the stand. He's handcuffed and wearing an
Speaker 1: orange jumpsuit, and most of the photos from the hearing
Speaker 1: his head hangs down. He looks exhausted and frail.
Speaker 2: Hello, mister Scott, I want to take you back to
Speaker 2: February twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven, the day Michelle Schofield
Speaker 2: was murdered. Do you recall having an interaction with Michelle
Speaker 2: Scoffeld that night? I'm going a statement on record I
Speaker 2: say I say. Everything I say is on rig of court.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, Joey, what I say in court is
Speaker 2: where's true. You'll answer the questions, Sir I got say
Speaker 2: the singer, you answer the questions, the singer will be done, sir,
Speaker 2: and I keep pulling me out of prison for this bullshit.
Speaker 2: Can I have him declared as the hostile witness? You're
Speaker 2: on there? Yes, okay, thank you.
Speaker 1: Declaring Jeremy a hostile witness means Leo's attorneys can ask
Speaker 1: him leading questions. It's the friends between asking where was
Speaker 1: Michelle Schofield when you approached her? And isn't it true
Speaker 1: that you approached Michelle Schofield at the gas station? Mostly
Speaker 1: they're yes or no questions, so it isn't ideal for
Speaker 1: eliciting spontaneous answers, and it's something the defense was hoping
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have to do. After he's declared a hostile witness,
Speaker 1: Jeremy is still irritated, but he maintains the story he'd
Speaker 1: given Andrew Crawford on the phone, and the story that
Speaker 1: had been recorded by Pat McKenna a week before this hearing.
Speaker 2: It's true that you stated in that interview that you
Speaker 2: approached Michelle Scofield at the gas station. That's what I
Speaker 2: said on or recorder. That's what I said, and that
Speaker 2: Michelle Scofield was using a payphone at the time that
Speaker 2: you approached her, yes, sir, And that you were high
Speaker 2: on drugs that night. I was drunk, went on drug
Speaker 2: out drunk here right off drunk, And that you were
Speaker 2: drinking thunderbird wine, hey, sir. And that wine usually makes
Speaker 2: you violent, doesn't it, Yes, sir, it does.
Speaker 1: His answers are brief, yes sir, no, sir, but ultimately
Speaker 1: he sticks to the story. He confirms that he had
Speaker 1: asked Michelle Schofield for a ride, but that he directed
Speaker 1: her to a makeout lake instead of the trailer park
Speaker 1: he'd originally asked her to take him to. He confirms
Speaker 1: that once they got back there, he pulled out a
Speaker 1: cigarette or maybe it was a joint, but that's when
Speaker 1: his knife fell out. He confirms it was a small
Speaker 1: hunting knife with a compass on the end, and that
Speaker 1: he'd taken it from his uncle's closet. And he confirms
Speaker 1: that when Michelle saw the knife, she panicked and started
Speaker 1: hitting him. He's cooperating, but barely.
Speaker 2: Did you do with the knife?
Speaker 11: Listen, man, don't go into allis I can't. It's all right,
Speaker 11: bad enough, it's all right, bad enough, all right. I
Speaker 11: spent thirty buck years. All right, that's there you go.
Speaker 11: I'm confessing to the murder man.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it. I'll take a polygraph test on that.
Speaker 2: I just had some more questions. I don't have no
Speaker 2: more answers. Johnnor you will direct him answer the question.
Speaker 12: No matter what said.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard that. I don't care what you say.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard the question yet. Asked the question, and
Speaker 2: I said everything I had to say. Did you stab
Speaker 2: her with the knife? I told you I killed her.
Speaker 1: Jeremy confesses to killing Michelle. Then Seth begins to ask
Speaker 1: him about his interactions with Prosecutor John Aguero. Jeremy acknowledges
Speaker 1: the strange meeting, the meeting that happened behind hind closed
Speaker 1: doors without any witnesses or recordings made. Jeremy says that
Speaker 1: during that meeting, John Aguero had promised him help with
Speaker 1: parole in exchange for his testimony about the stereo theft.
Speaker 1: Aguero allegedly told him he had influence with the parole
Speaker 1: board and could make things happen if Jeremy quote stuck
Speaker 1: to the story he'd been giving.
Speaker 2: Did mister Guero help you come up with the testimony
Speaker 2: that you would give at the twenty ten evidentiary hearing
Speaker 2: in this case.
Speaker 11: Not really, he just stay to to, in fact, what
Speaker 11: I've been saying, because I've been telling the truth about
Speaker 11: my palm print.
Speaker 2: There's nothing different about that.
Speaker 11: In the stereo I did steal the stereo thing I
Speaker 11: deny it was Kofi, which was alive back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Jeremy says, Aguero told you to stick to
Speaker 1: his story about taking the stereo equipment. That was the truth.
Speaker 1: All Jeremy had to do was leave out the part
Speaker 1: about killing Michelle. Seth hands the witness over for cross examination.
Speaker 1: Now it's the state's turn to ask questions. Victoria Avalon
Speaker 1: approaches Jeremy Scott.
Speaker 16: Mister Scott is man. My name is Victoria Avalon. I'm
Speaker 16: the prosecutor in case.
Speaker 1: I've tried a couple times to reach out to Victoria Avalon.
Speaker 1: We've exchanged a few emails, but she's made it clear
Speaker 1: that she prefers her cases to be argued in a
Speaker 1: court of law, not the court of public opinion, as
Speaker 1: she's called it. I never really expected her to sit
Speaker 1: down with us, but of course I had to try.
Speaker 1: In her last email, she told me it wouldn't bother
Speaker 1: me at all if you entirely ignored me in your reporting.
Speaker 1: And now, after listening to Avalon's questioning of Jeremy Scott,
Speaker 1: I know why she might want her work on this
Speaker 1: case ignored.
Speaker 9: Last week, you.
Speaker 16: Talked to the defense investigator, mister McKenna, didn't.
Speaker 2: You, Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: Avalon asked Jeremy about his medications and what he was on,
Speaker 1: if anything, at the time he spoke to Pat McKenna.
Speaker 1: Being transferred between institutions, and especially back to a county jail,
Speaker 1: can be incredibly disruptive. Any sort of medical or psychological
Speaker 1: treatment might not be continued from one facility to the next.
Speaker 1: At the time Jeremy gave his confession to Pat McKenna,
Speaker 1: he was off his meds and had been placed in
Speaker 1: a suicide cell. He's still off his meds. When Victoria
Speaker 1: Avalon asked Jeremy about his movements between institutions, and Jeremy's
Speaker 1: getting agitated. His transfers have been so frequent it's hard
Speaker 1: to keep them straight. And now he's back in the
Speaker 1: Polk County jail, where the conditions are terrible.
Speaker 2: Y'all call me up this again.
Speaker 16: I'm not calling, well, well, I'm here, and.
Speaker 11: I'm gonna beginning to kind of ja in incite seal
Speaker 11: in a cold floor, even with my fingers.
Speaker 2: Waiting to go back to my camp. Let's get back
Speaker 2: to my question, mister Scott. You gave two statements to.
Speaker 1: My investigators, Avalon grills Jeremy about all the times he'd
Speaker 1: previously denied killing Michelle Schofield. And as her cross examination
Speaker 1: goes on, she gets loud and more aggressive.
Speaker 16: But you're still never getting out and you know that,
Speaker 16: right you get down behind chain link.
Speaker 2: Right, objection has to answer to sustain.
Speaker 16: Your grandmother's dead rights the her eye of this, your
Speaker 16: grandmother's dead right, Yes she is when recently, when recently
Speaker 16: cover years, she's the only one on earth that cared
Speaker 16: about you, wasn't She got to answer out loud, Yeah,
Speaker 16: No one's sending you any money, correct, No, ma'am.
Speaker 2: This whole courtroom full of people, nobody's here for you. Ardly, No, ma'am.
Speaker 16: You can't even afford to buy deodorant, can you. No, ma'am,
Speaker 16: you gotta get money somehow, right, Yes, ma'am. Canteen ain't free,
Speaker 16: is it, No, ma'am?
Speaker 1: For you it seems that Avalon is doing whatever she
Speaker 1: can to go after Jeremy's credibility. It's as if she's saying, look,
Speaker 1: he's a pathetic person. He's unstable, and he'll do anything
Speaker 1: to get a little money or a little attention, even
Speaker 1: confessed to a murder he didn't commit. And she points
Speaker 1: out all the times that Jeremy has given inconsistent statements
Speaker 1: under oath. The judge will have to grapple with this.
Speaker 1: In order to accept that Jeremy Scott is telling the
Speaker 1: truth about Michelle Schofield's murder, he'll need to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: Jeremy has previously lied under oath numerous times. So Avalon
Speaker 1: is basically asking, how can we possibly know which version
Speaker 1: of Jeremy's story is the truth. She's saying, we can't,
Speaker 1: so Jeremy's confessions should be disregarded.
Speaker 16: You don't know he took the oath before he started testifying,
Speaker 16: didn't you, ma'am? He took the oath before he started
Speaker 16: testifying back in twenty.
Speaker 2: Ten, didn't you? Are you bashing me? That's not my question.
Speaker 16: My question is you took the oath today, and you
Speaker 16: took the oaths.
Speaker 2: Before you testify? In twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Right now, I just want to go back to mysel
Speaker 1: Jeremy just begged to be sent back to his cell,
Speaker 1: the same cell where he's sitting on a cold floor
Speaker 1: and eating with his fingers. He'd rather be there than
Speaker 1: here with Avalon. The judge tries to rein her in, Well.
Speaker 16: We ain't gotten started yet, that's Avalan, Yes, sir, that
Speaker 16: wasn't a question.
Speaker 1: Then Victoria Avalon starts getting into specifics about the violent stabbing.
Speaker 1: She's asking Jeremy to demonstrate how he held the knife
Speaker 1: and whether he first stabbed Michelle in the face or
Speaker 1: in the chest. Jeremy says he was drunk and he
Speaker 1: doesn't know.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 16: Take a look at this, mister Scott exhal.
Speaker 2: Look at it. I got to see you before. See again.
Speaker 2: During the witness judge.
Speaker 1: Sustain, Avalon is holding up one of the photographs from
Speaker 1: Michelle's autopsy, one of the photos we saw in the
Speaker 1: evidence room. They're hard to look at, and Jeremy doesn't
Speaker 1: want to look.
Speaker 2: What you did to huff. I didn't hear that answer.
Speaker 2: No I did do it.
Speaker 1: No I didn't do that. Victoria Avalon lets Jeremy's response
Speaker 1: hang in the air and decides to wrap up her
Speaker 1: cross examination. Now, Seth Miller re examines Jeremy Scott, and
Speaker 1: he uses his time to clarify Jeremy's response to Avalon.
Speaker 2: You were in a haze when you killed Michelle Schofield.
Speaker 2: Is that correct? So? I mean you don't remember how
Speaker 2: many times you stabbed her? Correct? You don't remember every
Speaker 2: single time you stabbed her. Correct. You don't remember every
Speaker 2: location that you stabbed her in, Is that correct? You
Speaker 2: just know that you stabbed her, Yes, with that hunting
Speaker 2: knife with the compass on it. Correct. And you feel
Speaker 2: ashamed of doing it, don't you. Yes, that's why you
Speaker 2: want to look at the picture. That's why you gave
Speaker 2: that answer to Miss Avalance. That correct. I killed it.
Speaker 1: After the hearing, local reporters would fixate on Jeremy's words,
Speaker 1: not I killed her, but I didn't do that. This line,
Speaker 1: taken out of context, would come to define the hearing.
Speaker 1: One headline read quote inmate recants his murder story. Susie Shattlecatty,
Speaker 1: the Lakeland Ledger reporter who'd been covering the case for
Speaker 1: twenty eight years, also believes that Jeremy recanted.
Speaker 16: I mean it was it was subtle, but it was
Speaker 16: he crumbled like a cheap suit.
Speaker 1: Even after Jeremy confessed multiple times on the stand, a
Speaker 1: recantation was the lasting impression on reporters. But listening to
Speaker 1: the recordings of this hearing, it's clear to me that
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott did not recant. Jeremy's words came after nearly
Speaker 1: two hours on the stand, two hours of standing handcuffed
Speaker 1: before a judge, answering questions and having his words and
Speaker 1: his life scrutinized, and that's when Jeremy is confronted by
Speaker 1: the picture from Michelle's autopsy. It was Victoria Avalon's final
Speaker 1: attempt to provoke him. This picture was taken after Michelle's
Speaker 1: body had been submerged in water for nearly three days.
Speaker 1: She was laid out on the autopsy table under the
Speaker 1: harsh lights. Her wounds had been cleaned, and the damage
Speaker 1: the knife had done was clearly visible. That's what Jeremy
Speaker 1: was seeing when he said, no, I didn't do that,
Speaker 1: But for me, it's something else. Jeremy says, his words
Speaker 1: at the end of the hearing that still haunt me.
Speaker 2: I killed it.
Speaker 1: Bone Valley is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number One. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Jason Flohm and Kevin Wordiskak. Kornhaber is our senior producer.
Speaker 1: Brit Spangler is our sound designer. Ruxandra Guidy is our editor.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Maximo Anderson. Our producer and researcher is
Speaker 1: Kelsey Decker. Our theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars,
Speaker 1: is performed by Lee Bob and The Truth. It was
Speaker 1: written by Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hearty
Speaker 1: Correctional Institution. Bone Valley is written and produced by me
Speaker 1: Gilbert King. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Twitter at lava for Good to See