Speaker 1: I was in a cell with two other guys that
Speaker 1: were in for murder. One death from the got the
Speaker 1: death penalty. I'm not sure what the other one got.
Speaker 1: And they were so.
Speaker 2: Cavalier about it.
Speaker 1: One of them made a joke, maybe we can get
Speaker 1: them to give us an electric couch, and they made
Speaker 1: that joke.
Speaker 2: That's the way it was in the jail.
Speaker 1: Just having to be part of that, you know, to
Speaker 1: like I'm one that would be sitting in the couch,
Speaker 1: you know, that's beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 2: I don't even belong in this story.
Speaker 3: It's June of nineteen eighty eight, sixteen months after Michelle
Speaker 3: Schofield was found stabbed to death in a drainage canal
Speaker 3: in Polk County, Florida. Her husband of just six months,
Speaker 3: Leo Schofield, is now sitting in the Polk County jail
Speaker 3: facing first degree murder charges. The prosecutor, John Aguero, is
Speaker 3: seeking the death penalty. Leo insists he's innocent.
Speaker 2: Do you my mans left to have my field soru
Speaker 2: sorreness in this vastity? See Rage to the.
Speaker 3: Bone Valley, Chapter three, Trial by Ambush. The very first
Speaker 3: thing that got me hooked on Leo's case was the
Speaker 3: trial transcript that Judge Scott Kupp sent to me. The
Speaker 3: trial lasted about two weeks in March of nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately there was an audio or video recording in
Speaker 3: the courtroom, but the trial transcript documents every word of
Speaker 3: what was said. There's a lot that happened over those
Speaker 3: two weeks, so we're going to break it down. The
Speaker 3: first thing to focus on is Leo's defense. At twenty
Speaker 3: two years old and unable to make bail, Leo sits
Speaker 3: in the Polk County Jail awaiting trial. Since he's unable
Speaker 3: to afford an attorney, his case is assigned to the
Speaker 3: Office of the Public Defender.
Speaker 4: My name is Tony Maloney and my job is mostly
Speaker 4: related to homicide cases.
Speaker 3: Tony Maloney was an investigator with the office, and she
Speaker 3: recalls that a young colleague, Holly Stutz, was sent down
Speaker 3: to the jail to interview Leo.
Speaker 4: And she took a lot of interest in Schofield's case.
Speaker 3: Leo starts from the beginning and Holly takes detailed notes
Speaker 3: to Holly. Leo is coming across like a young man
Speaker 3: who was desperately searching for his wife, and the more
Speaker 3: she learns about his timeline, the more she's convinced that
Speaker 3: Leo could not have murdered Michelle. So Holly goes back
Speaker 3: to the Public Defender's office and briefs Tony and the attorneys.
Speaker 4: And she called him her little rock and roller, and.
Speaker 5: She just.
Speaker 4: Believed in him. I mean, she really wanted to fight
Speaker 4: the fight. Anybody that I worked with closely on that case,
Speaker 4: we all really wanted to believe Leo, and he was
Speaker 4: so adam that he didn't do it.
Speaker 3: But as the Public Defender's office is working on his case,
Speaker 3: Leo is talking to his cellmates and they're giving him advice.
Speaker 1: One of those cellmates that I had was this guy
Speaker 1: named Squeegee.
Speaker 3: Who apparently got his nickname from killing a guy with
Speaker 3: a squeegee.
Speaker 1: Squeeze had said, you can't go to trial and I'm
Speaker 1: out of charge with a public defender, you cannot do that.
Speaker 3: Squeegee tells him that public defenders are known in the
Speaker 3: system as public pretenders. Leo can't trust his life to
Speaker 3: these attorneys as an investigator for the Public Defender's office.
Speaker 3: These are things Tony Maloney has heard before.
Speaker 4: Oh in the jail, they'd say no, you've got to
Speaker 4: have a real lawyer. That was how they would say
Speaker 4: it to me, and then they got my speech. Let
Speaker 4: me explain to you how we work cases. No leaf
Speaker 4: will be left unturned. You will have two lawyers on
Speaker 4: your case and they have a lot of education and experience.
Speaker 4: You will have at least one investigator, more than likely
Speaker 4: you'll have two, and more. You will have specialists to
Speaker 4: help us evaluate your case. And I said, you know,
Speaker 4: you're not going to get any finer defense than you're
Speaker 4: going to get right here. And Leo probably got that
Speaker 4: speech for more than one of us.
Speaker 3: But other inmates like Squeegee are getting into Leo's head.
Speaker 3: The public Pretender's office will not save you. They tell
Speaker 3: him you need a superstar attorney.
Speaker 1: All I'm looking for. Somebody needs to come and save me.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know how you're going to do
Speaker 1: it or what needs to be done. I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about the system, how it works, on any of
Speaker 1: that stuff. I just know that I need some out.
Speaker 3: One name that keeps coming up is Jack Edmund, the
Speaker 3: most famous private defense attorney in Polk County. He's expensive,
Speaker 3: but you gotta get Jack Edmund. They're telling Leo.
Speaker 2: I was starstruck with Edmund.
Speaker 3: So Leo arranges a meeting with Edmund and one day
Speaker 3: he's brought to an attorney's room. He assumes he'll be
Speaker 3: meeting Edmund, but instead the guy sitting there introduces himself
Speaker 3: as Bob Knipper, Jack Edmund's investigator.
Speaker 1: And he said, uh, he said, sign, my name is
Speaker 1: Bob Knipper. I work for Jack Edmund. If you want
Speaker 1: the best, you gotta pay top dollar. My fee is
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars off the top. Without proper representation, your
Speaker 1: life will land in Rayford.
Speaker 3: Rayford is the Florida State Prison. It's where Old Sparky,
Speaker 3: Florida's Electric Chair sits. By the late nineteen eighties, Florida
Speaker 3: had not yet switched to lethal injection, and Florida's electric
Speaker 3: Chair was the nation's so called busiest instrument of death.
Speaker 3: Old Sparky claimed the lives of twenty men that decade,
Speaker 3: including serial killer Ted Bundy, who was executed only weeks
Speaker 3: before Leo's trial would begin. Leo tells Bob Nipper about
Speaker 3: the car accident he was in. How just a few
Speaker 3: months after Michelle's murder, he was a passenger in a
Speaker 3: car that flipped over and he broke his neck. He
Speaker 3: was getting fifty thousand dollars in an insurance settlement, Nipper
Speaker 3: tells Jack Edmund, who agrees to represent Leo. If Leo
Speaker 3: signs over the.
Speaker 4: Settlement and the case goes away, Leo.
Speaker 3: Drops Tony Maloney and the Public Defender's Office to go
Speaker 3: with the celebrated defense attorney Jack Edmund, with a quote
Speaker 3: unquote real lawyer like Edmund looking into his case, Leo's
Speaker 3: hoping this will all be cleared up quickly.
Speaker 1: Now that's how I ended up dismissing the Public Defense Office,
Speaker 1: which was the biggest mistake that I made at that time.
Speaker 3: Months pass and Leo doesn't hear anything from his private attorney,
Speaker 3: Jack Edmund. He's learning that when you're charged with a
Speaker 3: capital crime, nothing happens fast. Then one night, Leo says
Speaker 3: the guards at his cell to take him down for
Speaker 3: an attorney visit. He's led into a little room with
Speaker 3: a table in a few chairs. He assumes he's there
Speaker 3: to finally meet his defense attorney, Jack Edmund, but it's
Speaker 3: not Edmund. It's the prosecutor, John Aguero, who walks into
Speaker 3: the room.
Speaker 2: So when he comes in. I remember him from the plane.
Speaker 1: He wore an Alexic chair tie tack and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget that because I commented when I saw it, I said,
Speaker 1: you don't think that's kind of morbid And he said, no, no,
Speaker 1: just like that, playing his day.
Speaker 3: John Aguero sits down at the table and Leo doesn't
Speaker 3: know what to expect.
Speaker 1: He said, I want to I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about your father.
Speaker 2: I said, okay.
Speaker 1: He said, I believe your father is guilty in your
Speaker 1: cover and form.
Speaker 3: Leo has heard this line before. He's already gone through
Speaker 3: the interrogation about his father with the detective's Weeks and Putnam,
Speaker 3: and he's under the impression that Aguero or anyone who
Speaker 3: shows up in a suit and tie has authority over him,
Speaker 3: so he's supposed to answer their questions.
Speaker 1: I never hinted at I need a lawyer. I mean,
Speaker 1: it never even crossed my mind to say I need
Speaker 1: my lawyer here.
Speaker 3: So now Leo's alone in a room with his prosecutor,
Speaker 3: the man trying to send him to the electric chair.
Speaker 1: I was being polite. I was being trusting, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I trusted in the process. You know, I
Speaker 1: knew this was going to be made right. All I
Speaker 1: had to do was was convince him that I was
Speaker 1: telling the truth.
Speaker 6: That was it.
Speaker 1: That's what you're supposed to do. That's how I was raised.
Speaker 3: Leo says that Aguero doesn't bring a tape recorder. He
Speaker 3: doesn't have someone there to take notes or anyone to
Speaker 3: witness the conversation. It's just Leo and Aguero.
Speaker 1: You would never talk to a potential witness or a
Speaker 1: suspect without recording it. You just don't do it unless
Speaker 1: you don't want to be recorded. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: Aguero looks Leo in the eye. Listen, He says, I
Speaker 3: know you didn't kill Michelle. Your father did it, and
Speaker 3: if you agree to testify against him, I'll draw up
Speaker 3: some paperwork and you can walk out of here.
Speaker 1: You know, I think he really thought that dad did it.
Speaker 1: I think that a guirro believed that dad did it.
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever really believed that I did it.
Speaker 3: Aguero doesn't have any physical evidence against Leo's father or
Speaker 3: any eyewitness testimony that connects him to Michelle on the
Speaker 3: night she disappeared. He just knows about this weird premonition
Speaker 3: that Leo Senior told a police officer and others that
Speaker 3: a vision from God had led him to Michelle's body.
Speaker 3: To Aguero, this is beyond suspicious, but Leo refuses the deal.
Speaker 3: He insists that he's telling Aguero the truth. He didn't
Speaker 3: kill Michelle, and neither did his father.
Speaker 1: You want me to testify to something that would be
Speaker 1: a lie. I don't have that information. What happened is
Speaker 1: exactly what I've been saying. What I've just told you again,
Speaker 1: and what I told them multiple times over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, that never will change. That's what happened.
Speaker 1: And he got really frustrated with me telling him that,
Speaker 1: and he slammed his hand on the table and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put you in the electric chair. And
Speaker 1: I said, that's what you're going to have to do,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to say something that's not true.
Speaker 3: When Leo first told us about this meeting with Aguero,
Speaker 3: he was so matter of fact about the visit. I
Speaker 3: didn't even question it. But when I mentioned it to
Speaker 3: other attorneys, I got the same reaction again and again.
Speaker 3: Eyebrows were raised. Twice. I was asked to turn off
Speaker 3: the tape recorder. These attorneys were appalled. They told me
Speaker 3: that prosecutors are never supposed to negotiate plea deals or
Speaker 3: offers of immunity without defense council present. It could violate
Speaker 3: the sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel in
Speaker 3: all criminal proceedings.
Speaker 1: That man came and saw me, he offered me an immunity,
Speaker 1: and they'll testify against my father.
Speaker 3: The attorneys I spoke to told me that this was
Speaker 3: completely unethical and that Aguero could have been subject to
Speaker 3: disciplinary action, but some lawyers said they weren't surprised that
Speaker 3: state attorneys were getting away with these kind of things
Speaker 3: in rural counties like Polk. Kelsey and I file record
Speaker 3: requests to try to corroborate Leo's claim that Aguero visited
Speaker 3: him in the jail, but we were told those records
Speaker 3: no longer exist, so we only have Leo's word that
Speaker 3: this meeting with Aguero took place. But we would soon
Speaker 3: learn that this wasn't the only time Aguero was accused
Speaker 3: of doing something like this. Ideally, we would have asked
Speaker 3: Aguero about this directly, but he died in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: We reached out to the state attorney's office to see
Speaker 3: if others who worked with John Aguero would talk to us,
Speaker 3: but they declined our requests for interviews. Leo's been in
Speaker 3: the Polk County jail for nine months now. Jack Edmond
Speaker 3: has been his lawyer for nearly six months, but Leo
Speaker 3: still hasn't met him until finally, the night before his trial,
Speaker 3: Leo is taken down to an attorney's room and he
Speaker 3: lays eyes on his defense lawyer for the very first time.
Speaker 1: He had cowboy hat, ripped jeans, button up short, Patrick
Speaker 1: Cameron hanfilters, and a yellow lego pad was empty. He
Speaker 1: didn't have a note.
Speaker 3: Edmund shakes Leo's hand. He's sixty three years old, and
Speaker 3: he's the first to admit his own legal shortcomings. He
Speaker 3: once told a local reporter when I need research, I
Speaker 3: call someone who's gifted and bright, and I'm neither. Edmund's
Speaker 3: style was to conduct what he called trial by ambush,
Speaker 3: reacting to the States case and exposing its weaknesses in
Speaker 3: cross examination.
Speaker 7: He was the one you wanted if you were guilty, guilty, guilty,
Speaker 7: and somebody had to mesmerize jury.
Speaker 3: This is Grady Juddon, the current Sheriff of Paul County.
Speaker 3: He was good friends with Jack Edmund.
Speaker 7: If you were guilty and had to win on the
Speaker 7: emotion of the jury, you always wanted Jack Edmund because
Speaker 7: I have seen him walk so many guilt people out
Speaker 7: of the courtroom. Because of his charisma, his personality, his intellect,
Speaker 7: and his absolute mastery of the courtroom.
Speaker 2: There's none better.
Speaker 7: But if you needed to win a case on the law,
Speaker 7: the fine print of the law, you didn't want Jack Edmond.
Speaker 3: Edmund didn't do any pre trial interviews with witnesses or
Speaker 3: hire any experts to analyze the evidence, and during his
Speaker 3: meeting with Leo, they didn't go over the state's evidence either.
Speaker 3: To Leo, Edmund didn't seem very familiar with his case.
Speaker 3: But Edmund says that Assistant state Attorney John Aguero has
Speaker 3: offered Leo a deal. This one has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with his father. Aguero will reduce the first degree murder
Speaker 3: charge to second degree murder if Leo agrees to plead guilty.
Speaker 3: That comes with a twelve year sentence. But given that
Speaker 3: Leo has no criminal record and with credit for time served,
Speaker 3: Leo could actually be out of prison in just a
Speaker 3: few years. To Edmund, this plea deal is a sign
Speaker 3: that the state isn't confident in the strength of its
Speaker 3: case against Leo. But before Leo can even think it over,
Speaker 3: Edmund tells him he already took the liberty of turning
Speaker 3: down Aguero's deal. Leo didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 3: but this isn't supposed to happen either. Leo says he
Speaker 3: would never plead guilty to anything anyway, but even so,
Speaker 3: he did think it was strange that his lawyer didn't
Speaker 3: consult with him first. It would be the first in
Speaker 3: a string of very strange decisions by Jack Edmund.
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Speaker 8: Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is
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Speaker 8: including the failed war on drugs that has criminalized addiction,
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Speaker 8: listen to The War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts
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Speaker 3: The trial begins on March eighth, nineteen eighty nine. It's
Speaker 3: the morning after Leo met Jack Edmund for the first time,
Speaker 3: and he walks into court with his defense attorney at
Speaker 3: his side.
Speaker 5: He was a known quantity. Everybody in the court house
Speaker 5: is newing.
Speaker 3: This is Judge Charles Davis, the trial judge in Leo's case.
Speaker 5: I mean he mussed I had at least a twenty
Speaker 5: nine inch waist, I mean real small pencil like fellow
Speaker 5: Jack Edmund Quirk. Every morning, every morning that you're in
Speaker 5: traw He walks into the courtroom and he comes up
Speaker 5: to the bench and on the bench he places two
Speaker 5: rolls of life savers. He walks over to the clerk
Speaker 5: stand and he places two rolls of life savers. He
Speaker 5: walks over to the stenographer's stan and he places two
Speaker 5: rolls of life savers. Then he goes to the state
Speaker 5: attorney's table and he places one roll of lifesare But
Speaker 5: my kids loved it when I tried cases with Jack Edmund,
Speaker 5: because I came home with pockets full of life savers.
Speaker 5: I mean, that was his mo.
Speaker 10: Jack was very flamboyant and he had a delightful Southern accent,
Speaker 10: just a drawl.
Speaker 3: This is Susie Shottlecatti. She's been reporting on the Polk
Speaker 3: County courts for the Lakeland Ledgers since nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: The Leo Schofield case was one of the first trials
Speaker 3: she covered, gavel to gavel, as she says.
Speaker 10: Jack actually took acting lessons to perform for a jury,
Speaker 10: and he looked like Colonel Sanders. He always wore boots,
Speaker 10: and he always wore a western suit. You know, it
Speaker 10: was a suit, but it had the western cut in
Speaker 10: the back.
Speaker 3: That's for Leo. He was looking a little rough around
Speaker 3: the edges when he entered the courtroom.
Speaker 1: I was into rock and roll. I was a musician.
Speaker 1: I was in a band. I was pretty successful with
Speaker 1: doing that. If I could do this again so that
Speaker 1: the jury knows who I am, I'd go in there
Speaker 1: just like I was every day.
Speaker 2: I never wore a suit in my life.
Speaker 1: I hadn't cut my hair, and I don't remember the
Speaker 1: last time I cut my hair before I went to jail.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like I looked like I crawled out
Speaker 1: of a dumpster, you know. It was who I was now.
Speaker 1: They cut my hair off, and it was cut off
Speaker 1: into jail, which you can imagine is not like super
Speaker 1: cuts or anything.
Speaker 2: And then I had two suits.
Speaker 1: One of them was my father's and the other one
Speaker 1: was I believe it was David Collins, who was still
Speaker 1: a friend of mine.
Speaker 2: And one was a DOC blue and one was a
Speaker 2: light blue.
Speaker 1: Neither one of them fit. I'd wear one one day,
Speaker 1: one the next. And then I wore the light blue
Speaker 1: jacket with the DOC blue pants, and like blue pants
Speaker 1: of the DC blue jacket, just kept switching it for
Speaker 1: the entire trial.
Speaker 3: As Leo takes his seat at the defendant's table, he
Speaker 3: catches a glimpse of the prosecutor, John Aguero on the
Speaker 3: other side of the courtroom. Since Leo turned down both
Speaker 3: of Aguero's offers, the young prosecutor is laser focused on
Speaker 3: sending the heavy metal kid from Massachusetts to the electric chair.
Speaker 3: At the time of Leo's trial, Aguero is thirty six
Speaker 3: years old, he's recently been promoted the chief homicide prosecutor,
Speaker 3: and he's already put one man on death row. So
Speaker 3: Aguero is supremely confident and he commands everyone's attention in
Speaker 3: the courtroom. Now, jury selection begins, but there's already a problem.
Speaker 3: Another high profile death penalty case is happening at the
Speaker 3: same time in the same courthouse. Both cases are pulling
Speaker 3: potential jurors from the same pool of people that showed
Speaker 3: up for jury duty. But one by one, potential jurors
Speaker 3: are being excused because they can't afford to take weeks
Speaker 3: out of their lives to sit on a long trial,
Speaker 3: so the pool of available jurors is dwindling. Twelve jurors
Speaker 3: are eventually selected for the Leo Schofield trial, but no alternates.
Speaker 3: That means that if anyone on the jury gets sick,
Speaker 3: or has a family emergency, there won't be anyone to
Speaker 3: replace them. Leo's lawyer, Jack Edmond, could have stopped the
Speaker 3: trial right there until they could seat alternate jurors, but Aguero,
Speaker 3: the prosecutor, wants to proceed. Edmond also agrees to proceed
Speaker 3: with no alternate jurors, which is odd because this is
Speaker 3: a death penalty case. It only takes one vote of
Speaker 3: not guilty to cause a mistrial, so you want as
Speaker 3: many jurors as possible. But Leo trusts his famous lawyer.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have any idea what that means
Speaker 1: for me. I'm wanting to help a guirl. I'm wanting
Speaker 1: to show him what a nice guy I am. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Because I'm thinking somewhere along the
Speaker 1: line in this nightmare of a dream i'm having, that
Speaker 1: we're all going to wake up and see that this
Speaker 1: isn't right, and even Aguerol will see that it isn't right.
Speaker 2: Because justice plays out always.
Speaker 3: John Aguero walks toward the jury to deliver the state's
Speaker 3: opening argument. What kind of person is Leo Schofield?
Speaker 8: He asks?
Speaker 3: Is he a docile, mild mannered young man? As he
Speaker 3: sits there looking at you today, you're going to find
Speaker 3: out that's the farthest thing from the true truth. Leo
Speaker 3: Schofield is a very violent young man.
Speaker 10: Oh John was thunderous, and he was very demonstrative. He
Speaker 10: would use his arms. He would be we are here
Speaker 10: because and then he's spin on his heel and point
Speaker 10: to the defendant to say, because that man decided that
Speaker 10: no no, no Da didn't deserve to live any longer.
Speaker 10: And he would just be off to the races. He
Speaker 10: would get up there with nothing and he would just
Speaker 10: tell a story.
Speaker 3: But when Leo's defense attorney, Jack Edmund rises for his opening,
Speaker 3: it's clear he hasn't done his homework. Right off the bat,
Speaker 3: he gets the name of Leo's landlord wrong. Then Edmund
Speaker 3: mixes up the days of the week from when Michelle
Speaker 3: disappears until she's found. He stands before a map of
Speaker 3: Lakeland and starts describing roads and distances and times out
Speaker 3: any context or story. Maybe the jury is able to
Speaker 3: follow along, but Edmund does not. He points to Cumby
Speaker 3: Road and seems confused. Let's see, he says, staring at
Speaker 3: the map. Now I'm lost. I'd done goofed up, hadn't
Speaker 3: I more silence. Nope, I'm wrong, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I think he thought that this case was really a
Speaker 1: weak case. It was a weak, circumstantial case, and there's
Speaker 1: no way you're going to hang for us to be
Speaker 1: murder on this kid. And so he didn't put much
Speaker 1: in it, and unfortunately he underestimated the power of Johnny Wirl.
Speaker 3: Still, Leo remains optimistic Edmond had told him that he
Speaker 3: had a ninety percent chance of walking out of the
Speaker 3: court acquitted. After both sides make opening statements, Aguero starts
Speaker 3: calling witnesses to answer his opening question, what kind of
Speaker 3: person is Leo Schofield? The state's case against Leo Schofield
Speaker 3: is a circumstantial case, which means John Aguero has no
Speaker 3: physical evidence linking Leo to Michelle's murder and no witness
Speaker 3: who claimed to have seen the actual crime. So instead,
Speaker 3: Aguero brings in a steady stream of bad character witnesses.
Speaker 3: It's an onslaught. There's twenty one of them all together.
Speaker 3: One witness after another describes incidents where Leo punches holes
Speaker 3: in the wall, turns over furniture, and smashes guitars that
Speaker 3: he dragged Michelle up a flight of stairs by her hair.
Speaker 3: But that's not all. Witnesses testify that Leo didn't help
Speaker 3: with his wife's funeral arrangements, that he wasn't able to
Speaker 3: tell the officer his wife's year of birth, and that
Speaker 3: he was going out to bars with friends not long
Speaker 3: after Michelle was killed. Aguero wants the jury wondering what
Speaker 3: kind of guy does that?
Speaker 1: And every trial has what they call it's a black day.
Speaker 1: This is what I learned in the jail. Everybody knows,
Speaker 1: you go a trial, there is a black day where
Speaker 1: something doesn't go right.
Speaker 2: But for me, every one of those days was a
Speaker 2: black day.
Speaker 3: One of the witnesses a Guero calls to the stand
Speaker 3: is Michelle McCluskey. She spots Leo as soon as she
Speaker 3: enters the courtroom.
Speaker 11: I walked in and he was turned around in his
Speaker 11: chair and watched me, you know, walk up, and he
Speaker 11: stared at me. But instead of being afraid or trying
Speaker 11: not to walk eyes with him, I just wanted to
Speaker 11: stare him down. I wanted to burn all in him
Speaker 11: with my eyes. You know.
Speaker 3: This is Michelle Schofield's best friend who helped Leo look
Speaker 3: for his wife when she went missing Michelle. McCluskey had
Speaker 3: her suspicions about Leo after Michelle disappeared, but now two
Speaker 3: years later she he's convinced that Leo killed Michelle.
Speaker 11: They asked me, what was my relationship to Michelle and
Speaker 11: how long did I know her? And what was my
Speaker 11: relationship to Leo? And I just looked at him and
Speaker 11: I had to think about it for a minute, and
Speaker 11: I said he was my friend, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: Michelle McCluskey describes a very unstable relationship between Leo and
Speaker 3: Michelle and tells Aguero that she saw the couple fight
Speaker 3: a lot. One time she heard Leo yell from another room,
Speaker 3: shut up, I hate you. I'll kill you, you bitch.
Speaker 3: She says she thought you heard Leo slapper, but Michelle
Speaker 3: swore to her that Leo didn't. As I read the
Speaker 3: trial transcript, there's no doubt Leo comes off terribly. So
Speaker 3: many people are testifying about Leo's temper. He smashes things,
Speaker 3: screams at Michelle, gets violent with her. I have to
Speaker 3: think that after listening to this part of the state's case,
Speaker 3: the jury has already decided that Leo is a bad
Speaker 3: husband and maybe even a bad person, but Leo isn't
Speaker 3: on trial for that. John Aguero is going to have
Speaker 3: to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Leo killed Michelle,
Speaker 3: and with his next witness, Aguero introduces the one piece
Speaker 3: of evidence he has that could potentially link Leo to
Speaker 3: the crime. Alice Scott, who Aguero calls the busy body
Speaker 3: of the neighborhood, takes the stand.
Speaker 2: She's a neighbor.
Speaker 1: I thought she was a pretty nice lady and she
Speaker 1: would have no reason to try to hurt me and
Speaker 1: he she must have seen something.
Speaker 3: Alice Scott tells the jury that in the early morning
Speaker 3: hours of February twenty fifth, she looked out her bathroom
Speaker 3: window and she did see something. She says she saw
Speaker 3: Leo carry out something heavy from his trailer and put
Speaker 3: it in the back of the Mazda. Alice is careful
Speaker 3: to say that she doesn't know what Leo was carrying,
Speaker 3: but Aguero ties it together with a question, you didn't
Speaker 3: know that he might be carrying a body out? No
Speaker 3: Alice answers, but she takes Aguero's cue and Alice starts
Speaker 3: calling the heavy object the body. Alice also claims that
Speaker 3: she saw Leo return to the trailer the next morning
Speaker 3: with a carpet cleaner. He took it in the house,
Speaker 3: Alice says, And he had the door open and he
Speaker 3: was cleaning the carpet.
Speaker 12: What would her motive have been other than just to
Speaker 12: report what she saw?
Speaker 3: Susie Shattlecatty, the local reporter, watched Alice Scott's testimony intently
Speaker 3: in the courtroom.
Speaker 10: Yeah, she didn't have a dog in this house. She
Speaker 10: didn't really know those people that well, and there was
Speaker 10: no reason for her to try to fabricate something that
Speaker 10: didn't happen or that she she didn't actually see. So,
Speaker 10: you know, I think that made her testimony pretty powerful.
Speaker 3: When it's the defense's turn to question Alice Scott, Jack
Speaker 3: Edmond asked her if she can remember the exact night
Speaker 3: this happened. She tells Edmund that she can't remember dates.
Speaker 3: But Alice says, her sister in law, Linda Sells, who
Speaker 3: lives next door, also saw Leo emerge with the heavy object.
Speaker 3: They'd even chatted about it right there across the fence
Speaker 3: that divided their yards, Alice says. So Alice's sister in law,
Speaker 3: Linda Sells, is called to the stand. She says she
Speaker 3: and Alice did see Leo carrying something heavy to the Mazda,
Speaker 3: but Linda says this happened a week or two before
Speaker 3: the night Michelle disappeared. She says she knows this because
Speaker 3: she did not talk with Alice on the night Michelle
Speaker 3: went missing. When I came to this part of the
Speaker 3: trial transcript, I had to stop to make sure I
Speaker 3: just read that correctly. The state's whole case hinges on
Speaker 3: the testimony of its star witness, Alice Scott. Aguero must
Speaker 3: have hoped his next witness would get on the stand
Speaker 3: and corroborate Alice's testimony. Instead, Linda Cells has directly contradicted her.
Speaker 3: As Leo watches Linda Cells on the stand, something clicks
Speaker 3: in his memory.
Speaker 1: I remember then carrying an amplifier out of my house
Speaker 1: and placing it in the back of my car. And
Speaker 1: you might not have known what I was carrying, because
Speaker 1: I did carry it out, and it was a bigger amp,
Speaker 1: and I carried it out and I put it in
Speaker 1: the back of my car. But you knew what it
Speaker 1: was not. You knew it wasn't a body. There's no
Speaker 1: way you could have mistaken an amp for body. And
Speaker 1: the night that Michelle was missing. I definitely didn't carry
Speaker 1: anything out of the house, so you're telling a lie.
Speaker 3: If Aguero was phased by seeing Linda Sells contradict the
Speaker 3: testimony of his star witness, he didn't show it. Besides,
Speaker 3: he was more focused on another witness, Leo Schofield Senior.
Speaker 3: His premonition, the one he claimed led him to Michelle's body,
Speaker 3: has become a major part of Aguero's case.
Speaker 10: The thought that he woke up in the night and
Speaker 10: had this image. And first of all, that ditch is
Speaker 10: like every other ditch in Polk County, So what took
Speaker 10: you there that as opposed to anywhere else?
Speaker 12: It just seemed so totally incredulous.
Speaker 3: Reporter Susie Shattlecotty was eager to hear how Leo Senior
Speaker 3: would do on the stand. She'd already heard his story
Speaker 3: about a vision leading him to Michelle's body in a
Speaker 3: drainage canal off State Road thirty three.
Speaker 10: When I first heard that, it's like, oh, come on,
Speaker 10: I think everybody had that feeling, because if you've been
Speaker 10: out on thirty three thirty five years ago, they had
Speaker 10: to pipe in sunlight out there.
Speaker 12: It was out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3: Leo Senior takes the stand and John Aguero begins his questioning.
Speaker 12: Oh, John had a heyday with that. I mean, how
Speaker 12: can you not just you know this vision?
Speaker 3: Leo's father knew that his story of a premonition sounded
Speaker 3: weird and could hurt his son's case, so he attempts
Speaker 3: to walk back his comments, saying that he didn't recall
Speaker 3: mentioning a vision from God to anyone. He says he
Speaker 3: may have, but he just couldn't remember his exact words.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, his comments were well documented. Multiple
Speaker 3: witnesses testified to it, and his story about the vision
Speaker 3: had been recorded in an official police report. From just
Speaker 3: reading the words on the pages, Leo Senior doesn't come
Speaker 3: across as very credible, and Aguero keeps hammering him. Isn't
Speaker 3: it true that you went to State Road thirty three
Speaker 3: that day because you knew you were going there to
Speaker 3: find the body? No, sir, Leo Senior replies. Seeing his
Speaker 3: dad witherr under Aguero's aggressive questioning is painful for Leo,
Speaker 3: and he can't understand why his father would say that
Speaker 3: God had led him to Michelle's body.
Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell is that we were
Speaker 1: looking for three days. You know, who's going to believe that?
Speaker 1: Why would you even say something like that. He wanted
Speaker 1: to believe God was helping him, and you know, he
Speaker 1: knew something was wrong. We all knew something was wrong.
Speaker 1: We're looking for my wife in ditches whatever. You're not
Speaker 1: looking at a ditch thinking everything's okay. I don't even
Speaker 1: remember what his actual testimony was on the stand. He
Speaker 1: tried to clean it up, and that was the worst
Speaker 1: thing he could do, you know, because now you've got Aguero,
Speaker 1: who's a master at, you know, twisting your head off,
Speaker 1: and he did exactly that.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons Aguero was so aggressive with Leo
Speaker 3: Senior is because he's an alibi witness for his son's
Speaker 3: whereabouts on a night Michelle disappeared. There were times when
Speaker 3: Leo claimed to be alone with his father looking for Michelle.
Speaker 3: So if Aguero could show the jury that there's something
Speaker 3: suspicious about Leo Senior, he's hoping the jury will also
Speaker 3: reject Leo's alibi.
Speaker 12: That probably hurt his case more than anything.
Speaker 3: This was definitely one of the blacker days for Leo.
Speaker 3: Seven days after opening arguments, Jack Edmond begins his defense
Speaker 3: he calls Leo Schofield Junior to the stand.
Speaker 5: My initial reaction was no good thing comes when you
Speaker 5: put to the.
Speaker 3: Feral stand, Judge Charles Davis.
Speaker 5: No matter how sincere and convincing he is, it makes
Speaker 5: one innocent slip up. It's magnified right off the bat.
Speaker 3: Leo admits that he had a temper. I had a
Speaker 3: bad habit of hollering and screaming, and it wasn't beyond
Speaker 3: me to throw a temper tantrum once in a while,
Speaker 3: he tells Jack Edmund, and yes, he did knock over
Speaker 3: a coffee table in his trailer. He also admits to
Speaker 3: two instances in which he slapped Michelle. But he never
Speaker 3: punched her, he says, and he never dragged her by
Speaker 3: the hair up any flight of stairs. Edmund leads Leo
Speaker 3: through his actions and movements on the night Michelle disappeared,
Speaker 3: and Leo tells the same story he always tells to
Speaker 3: police and defense attorneys. It never changes. When Prosecutor John
Speaker 3: Aguero gets his chance to question Leo, It's March twentieth.
Speaker 3: Aguero had the weekend of Saint Patrick's Day to prepare
Speaker 3: for his cross examination. He's feeling lucky.
Speaker 10: He was going to do cross right after lunch, and
Speaker 10: I remember seeing him when we were getting ready to
Speaker 10: go in the courtroom and I overheard somebody saying, John,
Speaker 10: you're ready. He said, I've been ready for this for weeks.
Speaker 10: And it was just the tone in his voice. You
Speaker 10: could tell it's like, let me at him.
Speaker 3: Aguero approaches the young man he arrested almost a year before.
Speaker 2: I don't have any training in how to speak to people.
Speaker 2: I've never been on trial before.
Speaker 1: I've never had my life so exposed and so exaggerated
Speaker 1: and manipulated and all that. So I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: I'm scared of death as it is.
Speaker 3: Leo focuses on answering Aguero's questions accurately, but he feels
Speaker 3: that he isn't connecting to the.
Speaker 1: Jury, and that is a problem of this case. My
Speaker 1: short spoken, my inability to open up.
Speaker 2: But how do you do that? How do you do
Speaker 2: that when you know all this stuff is wrong?
Speaker 1: But these people are not going to believe you anyway,
Speaker 1: and he's the homeboy hero, it's almost impossible.
Speaker 3: Aguero begins his questioning, and Leo consents that this prosecutor
Speaker 3: is prepared. He's challenging Leo on everything from the number
Speaker 3: of times he slapped Michelle to the phone calls he
Speaker 3: made when Michelle went missing. And Leo can feel the
Speaker 3: eyes of the jury on him. But Leo isn't tripped
Speaker 3: up by anything. Aguero asks and his answers are consistent.
Speaker 3: Aguero keeps the pressure on.
Speaker 1: My emotions were insecure, fear, and he played on that.
Speaker 2: Aguero knew that he was masterful in that.
Speaker 1: And it's a very unfortunate thing because I look back
Speaker 1: at it, kicking myself.
Speaker 2: Now, what do I have to fear in this man?
Speaker 2: You know why these people are nothing to me? This
Speaker 2: is the story.
Speaker 1: Tell the story, you know, Tell him the truth and
Speaker 1: don't give him the ability to keep breaking you, cutting
Speaker 1: you off and painting this picture, you know, with his
Speaker 1: own strokes.
Speaker 10: Leo is trying really hard to hold his composure, but
Speaker 10: it was tough. John was making it really really tough
Speaker 10: because John was just all over him. He was just
Speaker 10: calling him on absolutely everything. And if memory serves me,
Speaker 10: toward the end, Leo is starting to get pretty rattled,
Speaker 10: you know, because John was just telling him, We're not
Speaker 10: buying it, We're not buying this.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting there and looking at my mother and
Speaker 1: she was just crying. The sad reality is I was
Speaker 1: waiting for someone to just rescue me.
Speaker 3: Once John Aguero is done with Leo, Jack Edmond rests
Speaker 3: his case for the defense, Aguero gives the first closing argument.
Speaker 10: It's when I kind of coined myself the twelve Days
Speaker 10: of Christmas. Closing argument, he would be, if you want
Speaker 10: to and I think he did it on this one,
Speaker 10: if you want to.
Speaker 12: Believe that this man is innocent, then you.
Speaker 10: Have to believe that this is a coincidence. And then
Speaker 10: you bring up the next one and say, if you
Speaker 10: want to believe that he didn't do it, then you
Speaker 10: have to believe that this and this, that both of
Speaker 10: these are coincidences, and then you go all the way
Speaker 10: down the list.
Speaker 3: His closing might have been persuasive, but it's also full
Speaker 3: of misstatements. At one point, Aguero tells the jury to
Speaker 3: imagine Michelle screaming, no, Leo, don't stab me. Alice Scott
Speaker 3: said no such thing on the stand. As for Alice's
Speaker 3: sister in law, Linda Sells, he simply pretends that her
Speaker 3: testimony about which they saw Leo carrying something heavy didn't
Speaker 3: contradict Alice's statements. He approaches many of the discrepancies and
Speaker 3: testimony this way and finds a way to tie them
Speaker 3: up quickly and confidently. Aguero then argues that it was
Speaker 3: no premonition or vision that led Leo Senior to Michelle's body.
Speaker 3: He says Leo's father knew exactly where to find her
Speaker 3: because he dumped her there, and Leo and his parents
Speaker 3: were never out searching for Michelle. They are liars. He says,
Speaker 3: they were making phone calls and driving around town to
Speaker 3: craft a false alibi. There's no question Aguero was in
Speaker 3: command of his case against Leo Schofield. He's a tough
Speaker 3: act to follow, even for someone as charismatic as the
Speaker 3: Southern gentleman in the Western cut suit with the rolls
Speaker 3: of life savers Jack Edmund rises for his clothing and
Speaker 3: drives home the point that there is no physical evidence
Speaker 3: connecting Leo Schofield to the murder of his wife. It's
Speaker 3: an entirely circumstantial case built around bad character evidence and
Speaker 3: the testimony of Alice Scott, which he argues cannot be
Speaker 3: trusted in the States rebuttal. Aguero concludes with a dramatic statement.
Speaker 3: He points at Leo and tells the jury.
Speaker 1: You don't have to lock up your eighteen year old
Speaker 1: daughters at night, because we have the murderer sitting right
Speaker 1: over there. And the reason that was so bothersome to
Speaker 1: me is that all the things I had to answer
Speaker 1: for and try to swim through and present myself in
Speaker 1: this ridiculous suit, this ridiculous haircut to a jury who's
Speaker 1: going to ultimately decide my faith. The one thing I'm
Speaker 1: not allowed by law to tell them is that this
Speaker 1: same confident guy that's standing before you bacon me and
Speaker 1: acting like he's so sure, is the same one that
Speaker 1: offered me immunity to prosecute my father.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking the same thing. If Aguero offered Leo immunity
Speaker 3: because he's sure it was the father and not the
Speaker 3: son who killed Michelle, why is he still trying to
Speaker 3: put Leo in the electric chair. Now that it's time
Speaker 3: for the jury to deliberate, two of the jurors are gone.
Speaker 3: One was forced to drop off for health reasons and
Speaker 3: the other had a family emergency with no alternates. The
Speaker 3: jury is now down to ten, and now as only
Speaker 3: ten jurors are sent into deliberations. I can't imagine what
Speaker 3: Edmund was thinking. That's two fewer people on the jury
Speaker 3: who could have been more sympathetic to Leo's version of events.
Speaker 3: Of course, the man I wanted to talk to the
Speaker 3: most about this was Jack Edmund himself, but by the
Speaker 3: time I was reading the transcripts, he, like John Aguero,
Speaker 3: had also passed away. The jury deliberates for just four hours,
Speaker 3: then they turned with the verdict.
Speaker 12: When the bailiff came in and said we have a verdict.
Speaker 10: I remember Jack walking across the room and he was
Speaker 10: just looking down and shaking his head and saying, that's
Speaker 10: too soon, that's too soon.
Speaker 3: Michelle McCluskey was sitting in the courtroom next to Michelle
Speaker 3: Schofield's dad, David's Sam. She was holding David's.
Speaker 11: Hand, shaking, physically shaking. Dave Jeanne was all sweaty. He
Speaker 11: definitely wanted a guilty verdict. We all did. By that time.
Speaker 11: There was no question. I don't remember anybody not believing
Speaker 11: it at that point, so you know, I was trying
Speaker 11: to hold myself together.
Speaker 3: The verdict is read, Leo is found guilty of first degree.
Speaker 11: Murder, and I remember when they said he was guilty.
Speaker 11: That we were just relieved and happy and a few
Speaker 11: it because it was a celebration. Afterwards, there was some
Speaker 11: level of the really deep sadness to know that, Yeah,
Speaker 11: of course the jury found him guilty. He really did this,
Speaker 11: you know what I mean, Like there is no more
Speaker 11: questioning it at all. He did this.
Speaker 2: Honestly.
Speaker 1: I think I was numb, Yeah, I know, I honestly, Gilbert,
Speaker 1: for life of me, I can't remember what I was
Speaker 1: thinking when the jury was coming out.
Speaker 2: After the verdict was read, they.
Speaker 1: Took me to a holding cell because now I'm going
Speaker 1: in the penalty phase and I'm gonna have to face
Speaker 1: the death penalty. And in a couple of minutes Edmund
Speaker 1: had come in through the bars and they let him
Speaker 1: in the cell with me, and I remember telling him
Speaker 1: I don't want to die, and.
Speaker 2: He gave me a hug and he said I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna let.
Speaker 1: That happen, and I remember telling him then I can't
Speaker 1: even cry. I was so numb and beat down and
Speaker 1: disgusted that I don't think sadness was the reaction for me.
Speaker 1: For me, it was I was incredulous that this could
Speaker 1: even be taking place.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just so beyond my ability to
Speaker 1: imagine I would personally be facing something like that.
Speaker 3: When Leo was brought back into court the next morning
Speaker 3: for sentencing, he addresses the jury in his cheap, mismatched
Speaker 3: suit and his jailhouse haircut. This is what he says.
Speaker 3: It's hard for me to sit up here and plead
Speaker 3: with you for my life because you already found me guilty.
Speaker 3: You've already taken it away. I'm telling you you're making
Speaker 3: a mistake, a big mistake. I'm not guilty. I didn't
Speaker 3: kill my wife. I'm asking please don't take it. I
Speaker 3: can show you. I can prove it to you. I
Speaker 3: don't even know what to say to you. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I simply told the jury you made a mistake. You
Speaker 1: know I'm not guilty. I did not do it. And
Speaker 1: I think I was even trying to tell him I
Speaker 1: can prove it to you. I was so desperate to
Speaker 1: something wasn't told right. We didn't get all the story out.
Speaker 3: The jury deliberates, then hands their recommendation to the judge.
Speaker 3: John Aguero, the prosecutor with the old sparky tie clasp,
Speaker 3: has failed to send Leo Schofield to the electric chair.
Speaker 3: Leo is sentenced to life in prison. The first time
Speaker 3: Kelsey and I finished reading through the transcript, all we
Speaker 3: can think about is this one moment in Jack Edmond's
Speaker 3: closing argument when he reminds the jury that police never
Speaker 3: found any fingerprints in the car that matched Leo or
Speaker 3: Michelle Schofield, And then Edmund asked the jury this question,
Speaker 3: wouldn't you like to know if someone else's fingerprints were
Speaker 3: in that Mazda? The painful truth is someone else's fingerprints
Speaker 3: were found in the Mazda, and the fingerprint evidence was
Speaker 3: right there for Jack Edmond to see. If Edmund had
Speaker 3: just looked into these prints, he would have been able
Speaker 3: to see that someone had been in the car, someone
Speaker 3: who was yet to be identified, someone who might have
Speaker 3: known something about Michelle's murder. So Leo's right. They didn't
Speaker 3: get the whole story out, and that's what Kelsey and
Speaker 3: I set out to do. Get the whole story. The
Speaker 3: story of Michelle's murder doesn't end with Leo's conviction. In fact,
Speaker 3: the story is just beginning. Bone Valley is a production
Speaker 3: of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 3: Number One. Our executive producers are Jason Flohm and Kevin
Speaker 3: Wordiskarak Kornhaber is our senior producer. Britz Spangler is our
Speaker 3: sound designer. Roxandra Guidy is our editor. Fact checking by
Speaker 3: Maximo Anderson. Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our
Speaker 3: theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed
Speaker 3: by Lee, Bob and the Truth. It was written by
Speaker 3: Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hearty Correctional Institution.
Speaker 3: Bone Valley is written and produced by me Gilbert King.
Speaker 3: You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
Speaker 3: at Lava for Good. To see photos and documents from
Speaker 3: our investigation and exclusive behind the scenes content, visit Lava
Speaker 3: Forgood dot com