Speaker 1: Something unexpected happened after I told you the story of
Speaker 1: a man convicted of murdering his own wife.
Speaker 2: I am one hundred percent innocent.
Speaker 3: That means someone else killed in my wife.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard Season one of Bone Valley, you
Speaker 1: might want to go back and listen. It's the story
Speaker 1: of Leo Schofield, who spent thirty six years in prison
Speaker 1: for a crime he swears he did not commit.
Speaker 2: I just want justice for my dead wife. That's what
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: After investigating his case for years, I'm convinced he's telling
Speaker 1: the truth because I also met the one man who
Speaker 1: says he knows for sure that Leo is innocent.
Speaker 4: I'm saying he didn't do it, that's what I mean.
Speaker 4: And he didn't do it.
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott told me in terrifying detail how he was
Speaker 1: the one who killed Michelle Schofield.
Speaker 4: So she gave me a ride, and that's one of them.
Speaker 4: I guess I lost it Dan and she went to
Speaker 4: screaming and panicing and stuff.
Speaker 1: When I first learned about Jeremy Scott, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to know any more than I had. Here was a
Speaker 1: man with a history of extraordinary violence. He was impulsive,
Speaker 1: and volatile, attacking random citizens and teenage girls on the outside,
Speaker 1: and cellmates, guards and nurses while locked behind bars. I'll
Speaker 1: admit at first I saw Jeremy as sort of a monster.
Speaker 1: It was Leo, of all people who changed my mind. Leo,
Speaker 1: whose wife was murdered by this man, was able to
Speaker 1: see something in Jeremy that I couldn't.
Speaker 3: And I was looking for this creature that you know,
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I could hate that, I could I could
Speaker 3: detest that, could be repulsed by and vindicated in all
Speaker 3: of it. And then you see him and what is he?
Speaker 3: He's a broken individual, broken vessel, someone who's never known
Speaker 3: what it is to be loved. My prayer is that
Speaker 3: somehow he comes to know love that gives him some
Speaker 3: kind of peace.
Speaker 1: Jeremy was trying to tell me and anyone who would
Speaker 1: listen the truth that he was the guilty one, not Leo.
Speaker 4: I've been trying to help him and doing everything I could.
Speaker 1: In season one of Bone Valley, I told you the
Speaker 1: story of a man fighting to prove his innocence. This
Speaker 1: season the story of a man trying to prove his
Speaker 1: own guilt and the unlikely collection of people who heard
Speaker 1: Jeremy confess of nowhere step forward to help him make
Speaker 1: things right.
Speaker 2: So I spoke to Jeremy yesterday.
Speaker 5: You know when I try to encourage him to stay
Speaker 5: out of trouble, and I would.
Speaker 2: Tell him because I did love him. I did love Jeremy.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until you knew him a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: I just knew him as a kid.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Gilbert King Home, I'm the son of Jeremy and Scott.
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott confessed and the state of Florida doesn't believe him.
Speaker 1: These are the stories of the people who do.
Speaker 2: When y'all wanted to talk to me, before I tried,
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. I never talked to anybody about
Speaker 2: any of this. I couldn't see here. A year ago,
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. I could do it today.
Speaker 7: Everything in life takes effect, you know, Like I don't
Speaker 7: want to hide nothing. Everything I say I want everybody
Speaker 7: to hear, Like like, at the end of the day,
Speaker 7: I'm literally a son of a killer.
Speaker 8: Do you, my maness, love to have my feet sorru
Speaker 8: steps sorn in this vastity? Uh see relation.
Speaker 9: Outreach dezhday stuff.
Speaker 1: So Boom Valley Season two Jeremy Chapter one, you told
Speaker 1: me No. One morning in the fall of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: I woke up to a flood of text messages, a
Speaker 1: mist call, and a voicemail that came in at one am.
Speaker 6: Hi, Gilbert King. This is Justin Allen. I was born
Speaker 6: on March nineteen eighty nine. I'm the son of Jamie Allens.
Speaker 6: Her name is to be Chaney Allen and the son
Speaker 6: of Jeremylyn Scott.
Speaker 1: Jeremy's son wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 6: Maybe he just called me that please.
Speaker 1: I texted him back right away and we started chatting.
Speaker 1: His messages felt urgent. He just finished listening to his
Speaker 1: father confessed to murder. Justin wrote, sorry for getting excited
Speaker 1: and talking so much. I've never had a chance to
Speaker 1: talk about my dad. And I'm thirty four.
Speaker 7: Hello, Hey, Justin, Hey, it's Gilbert.
Speaker 6: How are you.
Speaker 7: I'm pretty good.
Speaker 2: How you doing. I'm doing good.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry I missed you last night.
Speaker 3: I know it was it was late.
Speaker 8: I was listening the.
Speaker 7: Whole time I woke up. I was a little crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could imagine it. I mean one of the
Speaker 1: first of a long list of things Justin wants to
Speaker 1: talk about is actually not his dad, it's Leo. Justin
Speaker 1: has listened to our podcast, done all these sleepless calculations,
Speaker 1: and he's come to this.
Speaker 2: Conclusion with the Oh Leo situation.
Speaker 7: If you really stop and think about it, I pretty
Speaker 7: much owe him my life.
Speaker 1: If Jeremy had gone to jail instead of Leo, Justin
Speaker 1: would have never been conceived.
Speaker 7: Something about it. The murder was in nineteen eighty seven, right, right, Okay,
Speaker 7: Leo ended up taking the hit from my dad. But
Speaker 7: within that time, my dad was free, you know, and
Speaker 7: he was still with my mom and they had me.
Speaker 7: So if the cops and everything would have done their
Speaker 7: job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I
Speaker 7: would have never existed.
Speaker 1: While we're on the phone, I realized Justin is with
Speaker 1: his own son.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, I'm holding I'm holding my boy right now,
Speaker 7: and it's pacing back and forth and not a lot
Speaker 7: on my mind. Yeah, yeah, here, hold on, here's some grims.
Speaker 7: He wants the color now.
Speaker 2: His birthday was yesterday, oh sweet, two years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just He tells me he's raising his son
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend Ariel, who also has three young daughters
Speaker 1: from a prior relationship.
Speaker 7: That's how I look at it. They're my girls because
Speaker 7: I take care of him with my girl.
Speaker 1: This is why his voicemail came in so late at night.
Speaker 1: He's incredibly busy. He works the night shift as a
Speaker 1: supermarket manager and during the day he's taking care of
Speaker 1: the kids while Ariels at work.
Speaker 7: My boy two years old, and I'll talk about him
Speaker 7: walking and trying to talk now and everything else. He
Speaker 7: likes supermonsters. You know, I'm trying to teach him right.
Speaker 7: And this is all thanks to Leo taking the fucking
Speaker 7: hit for my dad.
Speaker 1: Justin tells me he feels immense guilt about Leo Schofield.
Speaker 10: If I'm able to help Leo, it'll make me feel
Speaker 10: uncomfortable about myself because I feel guilty even being alive.
Speaker 10: I'm not gonna lie like because think about it, the
Speaker 10: dude lost his wife and had to go to jail
Speaker 10: for thirty five years just to have the killer that
Speaker 10: killed your wife son live.
Speaker 1: In the podcast, he heard his dad trying to tell
Speaker 1: the truth about Michelle's murder to help absolve Leo. It
Speaker 1: was the first time he ever heard his.
Speaker 7: Dad speak dude. When I heard my dad's voice. That
Speaker 7: shit hit me because no one ever talks about my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Justin told me growing up, his mom never spoke
Speaker 1: about his dad at all. Nothing bad, nothing good, just nothing.
Speaker 1: But when he was around other family members, he'd catch
Speaker 1: bits and pieces.
Speaker 7: You know, I didn't know my dad was, you know,
Speaker 7: from a young age. I listened. I'm not stupid, like
Speaker 7: I knew he killed from a very young age. It's
Speaker 7: just whenever I hear stories about him, is always something different.
Speaker 7: I don't know what's true or falls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we talk, I get the sense that overnight,
Speaker 1: Justin has embarked on a delicate and complicated mission to
Speaker 1: find out everything he can about his dad, however difficult,
Speaker 1: and to see if any of what he learns can
Speaker 1: bolster his dad's confession and help Leo. A big part
Speaker 1: of that mission is getting his mom, Jamie, to talk
Speaker 1: to me. Among the texts he sent me were screenshots
Speaker 1: of a Facebook conversation he had with her. He tells
Speaker 1: her he just finished listening to the podcast, and he
Speaker 1: floods the chat box between them with questions about Jeremy's murders,
Speaker 1: whether or not Jeremy really loved her, if he tried
Speaker 1: to kill her. She answers his questions, and she tells
Speaker 1: him that his dad only saw him once.
Speaker 7: We didn't want to attest. The first time he ever
Speaker 7: cried in front of her was seeing me. He's never
Speaker 7: once held me.
Speaker 1: I already knew something about Justin's mom, Jamie Nellams. She
Speaker 1: was Jeremy's girlfriend around the time of Michelle Schofield's murder.
Speaker 1: While I was investigating Jeremy's crimes. I saw her name
Speaker 1: in police reports, so Kelsey and I tried to talk
Speaker 1: to her years ago. She even agreed to meet us
Speaker 1: for lunch at a nearby restaurant County. She texted me
Speaker 1: that she was on her way. We waited and waited,
Speaker 1: but Jamie never showed up and I never heard from
Speaker 1: her again. But now, after hearing his dad talk for
Speaker 1: the very first time, Justin was asking Jamie to talk
Speaker 1: to me. In the messages to his mom, he talked
Speaker 1: about hearing Jeremy's voice. He wrote, he sounded alone and afraid,
Speaker 1: always on guard. Trust issues. Weirded me out. How alike
Speaker 1: we are. He wanted to know if she heard the
Speaker 1: podcast too. She says, I haven't. I'm sorry, hon, I
Speaker 1: can't bring myself to hear his voice again. He says,
Speaker 1: I understand fully, and when he tells her, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to contact Gilbert King now and see what happens. She
Speaker 1: says he tried to contact me a while back. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't talk to him. I just couldn't do it. Later on,
Speaker 1: she says, my psych doctor thinks I should tell my
Speaker 1: story to Gilbert King if it would be therapeutic. Justin
Speaker 1: urges me to contact her again. He says, she wants
Speaker 1: to talk.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 7: How are you feeling about this.
Speaker 2: Microphone and all that? It's it's it's okay.
Speaker 6: I'm a little.
Speaker 2: More okay with it now than I was. It's just,
Speaker 2: you know, when all this first starting, and then I
Speaker 2: spent so many years trying not to think about it
Speaker 2: and not to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Kelsey and I rent a hotel room for an interview
Speaker 1: with Jamie.
Speaker 2: It was it was really rough there for a while
Speaker 2: because I went through years of nightmares and the paranoia.
Speaker 1: Kelsey has arranged the room simply, three chairs, a table
Speaker 1: in the middle, and two microphones set up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna say, if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: I sit down across from Jamie. She's dressed in jeans,
Speaker 1: and a blouse, her short brown hair showing just a
Speaker 1: hint of gray. She's visibly nervous as we settle around
Speaker 1: the table doing this. I wanted to start slowly, assuming
Speaker 1: she might have a hard time opening up. But as
Speaker 1: she spoke, I realized that this was going to be
Speaker 1: different from the Jamie I had come to know through
Speaker 1: depositions and courtroom transcripts.
Speaker 2: Justin finally reached a point where he wanted to start
Speaker 2: asking questions.
Speaker 1: In those formal settings, she was responding to lawyers focused
Speaker 1: solely on the facts. Here, it became clear she was
Speaker 1: responding to Justin. She was determined to give him the
Speaker 1: answers he'd always wanted about his father's life and her own.
Speaker 2: If me dealing with my crap can help him, it's
Speaker 2: worth it. It's worth it. I can deal with this
Speaker 2: to help him. If it's just for me, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing this. I wouldn't be saying I'm just being real.
Speaker 2: If it was just to do your book or just
Speaker 2: to do a podcast or whatever, I wouldn't be sitting here.
Speaker 2: I'm doing this for Justin. I really am.
Speaker 10: Where were you born?
Speaker 2: You know, what did your parents do for a living?
Speaker 8: Just give us an idea of your growing up and
Speaker 8: what you were doing.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can remember weekends at my grandmother's house. She
Speaker 2: had thirteen kids, and there'd be like thirty of us,
Speaker 2: all as cousins. We'd go over on Friday, we'd stay
Speaker 2: there to Sunday. The parents would all be in the
Speaker 2: house playing canasta all weekend. They'd had their weekend marathon.
Speaker 2: The kids were outside playing.
Speaker 11: We used to play in the orange grow and Jamie,
Speaker 11: all of us be cousins.
Speaker 5: We would go over there and we would play like
Speaker 5: freeze tag or you know, hide and seek, and you
Speaker 5: know things like that in the orange growth.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Stone lived just two doors down from Jamie's grandma.
Speaker 5: We knew all the neighbors. All the neighbors knew all
Speaker 5: the kids and who they belonged to. So if you
Speaker 5: did something you weren't supposed to, your parents were going
Speaker 5: to hear about it.
Speaker 1: When Jamie was seven, her mom married a strict and
Speaker 1: controlling ex navy guy. By the time she turns seventeen,
Speaker 1: they're divorced and her mom gets a job as head
Speaker 1: nurse at a local hospital.
Speaker 2: She worked to all of our chiefs, so we were
Speaker 2: pretty much on our own.
Speaker 1: Jamie found herself experiencing a new sense of freedom, one
Speaker 1: she'd never known before. With her stepfather out of the picture,
Speaker 1: she could finally breathe, and in that space there's a
Speaker 1: quiet resistance to the controls she'd grown up under.
Speaker 2: Well, we found that club secret picture, a rave club
Speaker 2: with no alcohol. It was a safe place for teenagers.
Speaker 2: They didn't let people over eighteen in and it was
Speaker 2: a dance club. It had the flashing lights and the
Speaker 2: neon lights, and we would wear the white shirts or
Speaker 2: with the black lights, you know, it would kind of glow.
Speaker 1: One night in April nineteen eighty seven, Jamie sitting in
Speaker 1: the chair right off the dance floor. She's got thick
Speaker 1: brown hair and glasses like a wallflower, hiding off to
Speaker 1: the side with her friend Maria when they see this
Speaker 1: teenage boy enter the club. He's tall and thin, and
Speaker 1: he moves with confidence and a quiet presence. It's hard
Speaker 1: to ignore. His name is Jeremy Scott.
Speaker 2: None of us had ever seen him before, and he's
Speaker 2: heading toward them. Well, when I first met him, the
Speaker 2: first thing I thought was his eyes. He had the
Speaker 2: most purecing eye. They would just like look into you,
Speaker 2: and I remember sitting in the chairs and he was
Speaker 2: wearing all black, so you couldn't really see him, but
Speaker 2: you could see his eyes and he was just staring
Speaker 2: at me. And I can remember being nervous, you know,
Speaker 2: because I'd never had a boyfriend before and never really talked.
Speaker 2: I was so shy, so shy mad. And I remember
Speaker 2: him kicking my chair and saying, you want to dance?
Speaker 2: And we danced and that that was it.
Speaker 1: At the end of the night, Jeremy walked her to
Speaker 1: her car.
Speaker 2: I had a big seventy three Cutlas Supreme.
Speaker 1: Jamie's friend Maria, leaned on one side of the car with.
Speaker 2: Her boyfriend and they were hugging and kissing and stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, Jeremy and Jamie settled by the driver's.
Speaker 2: Side and we just kind of stood there awkwardly for
Speaker 2: a few minutes, and he asked if next Friday i'd
Speaker 2: meet him at the mall. Well, I was kind of
Speaker 2: iffy because the ones that went to the mall were
Speaker 2: the type of kids that didn't go to secrets, you know.
Speaker 2: These were the smokers and the drinkers, and that's where
Speaker 2: the cops would always show up, was at the mall.
Speaker 2: But I said, yeah, I'd meet him at the mall,
Speaker 2: and I did.
Speaker 1: From what I've learned about Jeremy, secret seems like the
Speaker 1: last place he'd want to be. Tight supervision, no alcohol,
Speaker 1: and parents hovering just outside. So a few nights later,
Speaker 1: Jamie meets up with Jeremy at one of his usual
Speaker 1: spots behind the Lakeland Mall.
Speaker 2: Now, when I met him at the mall, I asked
Speaker 2: him where he was staying at, and he said he
Speaker 2: was staying downtown. He did ask me for a ride home,
Speaker 2: and I had dropped him off at this house. And
Speaker 2: I remember looking at this house and thinking it looked abandoned,
Speaker 2: like nobody lived there, like it was falling apart. But
Speaker 2: there was lights on upstairs, there was people staying there.
Speaker 2: It was all kids like him. They were hijacking electricity
Speaker 2: off the apartment complex behind it with cords, so that's
Speaker 2: how they had lights on. So, come to find out,
Speaker 2: that's where he stayed out a lot, and that's where
Speaker 2: he would take me a lot of times, was to
Speaker 2: abandon houses. And that's where you know, he'd be like,
Speaker 2: you're staying with me tonight, and we'd go downtown and
Speaker 2: find an abandoned building and we'd climb in and go
Speaker 2: to sleep, And here I got a nice townhouse and
Speaker 2: bed waiting for me at home, and I'm in love,
Speaker 2: you know, And honestly, if I want to be honest,
Speaker 2: it was kind of exciting.
Speaker 1: Jeremy's hanging out with people like this guy named Rambo Stocky,
Speaker 1: twenty something who wears Camo, rides a motorcycle, and who
Speaker 1: spent some time in the Polk County jail and burglary charges.
Speaker 11: They were not my people.
Speaker 1: Jamie's childhood friend, Jennifer was less than impressed with Jamie's
Speaker 1: new boyfriend.
Speaker 5: I wasn't comfortable with the people that he was with,
Speaker 5: and I never understood what she saw in him, to
Speaker 5: be honest with you, they were, you know, the headbanging
Speaker 5: rock and roller, you know, the drugging type was what
Speaker 5: we referred to him as they were just looking at them. Okay,
Speaker 5: so very judgmental, but being an adult now, I would
Speaker 5: say a bunch of loadlifes. But she was my friend,
Speaker 5: you know, we were young but dumb kids.
Speaker 1: She was in love Jamie spending more and more time
Speaker 1: trying to understand Jeremy's secret off the grid world. She
Speaker 1: wants to know more about him and the people who
Speaker 1: matter in his life.
Speaker 2: He talked a lot about his grandmother. He talked a
Speaker 2: lot about his grandfather and how they used to call
Speaker 2: him Jeremiah, and that Jeremiah was a bullfrog. That was
Speaker 2: his grandfather's favorite song, and they called him Bam Bam,
Speaker 2: and they thought it was so cute because he'd beat
Speaker 2: everything up with sticks and stuff and thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: As we talk with Jamie, since she was allowing herself
Speaker 1: to remember not just the painful truth Justin would have
Speaker 1: to confront about his father, but perhaps for the first
Speaker 1: time in decades, she was willing to think about why
Speaker 1: she'd once been drawn to Jeremy Scott.
Speaker 2: Jeremy had that good side, and he had that funny side,
Speaker 2: and he could be sweet and caring, and you know,
Speaker 2: he had that good in him.
Speaker 7: I saw it.
Speaker 1: But Jamie also found herself doing things for Jeremy, things
Speaker 1: she never would have imagined doing before she met him.
Speaker 1: At first, it wasn't anything too bad, just sort of weird.
Speaker 2: I had money, you know, all I had to do
Speaker 2: was ask. But he would take me and we'd go
Speaker 2: donate plasma and we'd do that three times a week.
Speaker 1: It's not unlike giving blood to the Red Cross. They
Speaker 1: go into a harsh, fluorescent lit room where people wait
Speaker 1: in long lines, trading the plasma and their blood for cash.
Speaker 2: And I know the first time he took me, it
Speaker 2: was like one hundred dollars for being a first time donor,
Speaker 2: they pay you a large amount. But then after that,
Speaker 2: I think it was like twenty five first time, fifteen
Speaker 2: the second time, and ten the third time, so it
Speaker 2: was like fifty bucks something like that, and then as
Speaker 2: soon as we get done, I'd give him the money.
Speaker 1: It's like they live in separate worlds. Well, Jamie rollerskates
Speaker 1: with friends. Jeremy's getting drunk in the park. Well she's
Speaker 1: in school. He's breaking into houses and pawning whatever he can.
Speaker 2: And we hadn't been together a while, and we weren't
Speaker 2: together all the time. I mean, this is a thing
Speaker 2: you've got to understand. I would see him for two
Speaker 2: or three days, and then I wouldn't see him for
Speaker 2: three or four months. And then i'd see him for
Speaker 2: two or three days, and then I wouldn't see him
Speaker 2: for six weeks. He didn't have a house phone, he
Speaker 2: didn't have a house, so he'd either call me from
Speaker 2: a payphone, or I wentn't hear from him, And when
Speaker 2: he would show up, he'd call from a paythone, Hey,
Speaker 2: meet me down the road. Then when I would see him,
Speaker 2: it was constant. He was right there in my face, constant,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't go anywhere do anything without him right there.
Speaker 1: One day, Jeremy tells Jamie he wants to take a
Speaker 1: trip a few hours north. Jeremy gets behind the wheel,
Speaker 1: even though he doesn't have a license.
Speaker 2: He was wanting me to meet his mom. I hadn't
Speaker 2: met his mom yet.
Speaker 1: After hours of driving, they finally make it to Perry, Florida.
Speaker 1: Jeremy pulls into a gas station where his mother, Linda
Speaker 1: is working.
Speaker 2: It was the only gas station in the hotel. And
Speaker 2: I can remember us pulling up to the hess station
Speaker 2: and her coming out, and her exact words were, what
Speaker 2: the eff are you doing here? And I just kind
Speaker 2: of sat there and shock, you know, I'm like, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is his mom. And he turned around and he
Speaker 2: got back in the car and we drove down the
Speaker 2: road and he pulled off the side of the road
Speaker 2: and I looked at him and I said, are you okay?
Speaker 2: And I guess I shouldn't have said that. And as
Speaker 2: soon as I said, are U okay, he punched me
Speaker 2: as hard as he could and he kicked me out
Speaker 2: of the car. And I remember him kicking me out
Speaker 2: of the car. I mean looking down this road and
Speaker 2: there's nothing but palmmeadow trees and big old pine trees
Speaker 2: and nothing. There's no building, you know, And I started crying,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, he's going to leave me here. I
Speaker 2: don't know anybody. I'm not going to talk to that lady.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking to her. She talks to her son
Speaker 2: that way. What's she gonna say to me? Yeah? And
Speaker 2: about ten minutes later, he came back. He came back,
Speaker 2: and he picked me back up.
Speaker 1: They make the long, quiet drive back to Polk County.
Speaker 1: From that moment on, her fear was mounting. And always there,
Speaker 1: sitting in that hotel room with Jamie, listening to her
Speaker 1: go back in time, I could see she was entering
Speaker 1: some of the territories she tried to leave behind, things
Speaker 1: that caused her a lot of pain and at times
Speaker 1: probably caused justin some pain too.
Speaker 7: She tried it, but she struggled a lot, like she
Speaker 7: was far from a perfect mom. But she loved us. Yeah,
Speaker 7: like I give her that. She loved us for all
Speaker 7: her heart and I knew that, but.
Speaker 1: It was a constant battle to keep Jeremy out of
Speaker 1: her mind.
Speaker 2: I was burying them from me. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: So it wasn't that I was trying to protect Justin.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that I was trying to keep them from Justin.
Speaker 2: I didn't talk about to anybody.
Speaker 1: But now, with wanting to know everything, Jamie told me
Speaker 1: it was time she said it all out loud. She
Speaker 1: takes us back to nineteen eighty eight, she's dating Jeremy
Speaker 1: and he disappears yet again.
Speaker 2: I still don't know what he went to prison for.
Speaker 2: I remember asking him several times and he never answered me.
Speaker 2: I know Jeremy used to like to wait outside the
Speaker 2: Green Parrot and wait for the gay people to leave,
Speaker 2: and he'd beat him up with baseball bats and stuff.
Speaker 1: He'd hang outside Lakeland's gay bars like the Green Parrot
Speaker 1: and Fantasy two thousand.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, that's how he ended up
Speaker 2: with stitches that one night. He ended up with stitches
Speaker 2: in his knee in his head because he waited outside
Speaker 2: Green Parrot and they knew he was there and jumped
Speaker 2: him and he got some of his own medicine.
Speaker 1: The lesson doesn't take, and he's soon back at Lake
Speaker 1: Morton after dark, prowling for his next targets.
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody knew what Lake Morton was, and that
Speaker 2: was the gay hangout, and a lot of them got robbed,
Speaker 2: a lot of them got beat up, a lot of
Speaker 2: them got hurt, and it was just never reported. It
Speaker 2: was never in the newspapers, but everybody knew about it.
Speaker 1: I know from going through court records that Robin gay
Speaker 1: Men is not what Jeremy went to prison for this time. Instead,
Speaker 1: it was for breaking into a home in Lakeland stealing
Speaker 1: a few cameras of VCR and some other electronics. He
Speaker 1: was caught, convicted, and sentenced to state prison, where he
Speaker 1: spent over four months until his release in May of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: When he got out from that was when he was
Speaker 2: really different. And I don't know if something happened while
Speaker 2: he was in prison or I don't know what it was,
Speaker 2: but he was a total different person. And that's when
Speaker 2: his eyes were empty and there was nothing, I mean,
Speaker 2: he never smiled, there was nothing, There was nothing there,
Speaker 2: and I can remember looking at him and just not
Speaker 2: even really recognizing him, not even knowing who he was.
Speaker 1: Weeks after Jeremy got out of prison, Jamie remembers him
Speaker 1: disappearing again. For a while, she didn't see or hear
Speaker 1: from him. She had no idea where he was until
Speaker 1: one hot summer morning, when Jamie, her sisters, and her
Speaker 1: mom were getting ready to head to Disney World for
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 2: He shows up that morning. I hadn't seen him in
Speaker 2: like three weeks. My mom was nice enough to offer
Speaker 2: to pay for him to go to Disney World with us,
Speaker 2: and he said no. But then he told me I
Speaker 2: couldn't go, and my mom put her foot down. Now
Speaker 2: she's going. We've already bought tickets. It's a family day.
Speaker 2: We're going. That was the first time I'd ever told
Speaker 2: him no. I had never told him no before ever
Speaker 2: for anything. Anything he ever asked me to do, I.
Speaker 1: Did it, except for this time. Jamie leaves with her
Speaker 1: mom and her sisters. They spend the entire day at
Speaker 1: the Magic Kingdom, and as they step into their ground
Speaker 1: floor apartment that night, they see him. Jeremy. He's outside
Speaker 1: knocking on the sliding glass door.
Speaker 2: He was in the backyard waiting, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: he sat there all day.
Speaker 1: Jamie steps out into the backyard. Jeremy gives a small wave,
Speaker 1: motioning for her to follow. It's dark now. Jeremy leads
Speaker 1: her to a spot behind the townhouses, out of sight.
Speaker 2: He bent over and he stood up and he turned
Speaker 2: around and he said, you told me no. And that's
Speaker 2: the last thing I remember. And that's when it really
Speaker 2: got bad, because I think that's when it was ingrained
Speaker 2: in me to never again tell him no. And I
Speaker 2: never did.
Speaker 11: I remember. I remember something with her jaw.
Speaker 5: It was always kind of kind of about a whack,
Speaker 5: not properly aligned, and I thought she was in a
Speaker 5: car accident.
Speaker 11: It was my understanding of what happened. Is that really
Speaker 11: what happened.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 5: She had bruises, and you know, there was a couple
Speaker 5: of times you could see where it looked like he
Speaker 5: grabbed her, someone grabbed her. You know, she had bruises
Speaker 5: on her arms and it looked like someone had punched
Speaker 5: her in the face.
Speaker 11: But you know, it was I felt.
Speaker 5: I can't remember what her explanation was, but you know,
Speaker 5: I felt like, you know, I wasn't paying attention, but
Speaker 5: it was. She always explained it away. So what are
Speaker 5: you going to say. I never saw him do anything.
Speaker 5: She never told me he did anything.
Speaker 2: I think there was a part of me that thought
Speaker 2: I could help him, that I could make it better,
Speaker 2: make him feel loved, and he'd be okay, and maybe
Speaker 2: he wouldn't do the things that he was doing, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. But I know that by the
Speaker 2: end it was all fear, that there was no There
Speaker 2: was no love there. It was all fear. Jeremy was
Speaker 2: in jail when I found out I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: By the fall of nineteen eighty eight, Jamie's been seeing
Speaker 1: Jeremy for about a year and a half, always on
Speaker 1: his terms. She's eighteen now and she drops out of school.
Speaker 2: I was having to stay with my grandmother because my
Speaker 2: mom found out I was pregnant and she kicked me out.
Speaker 2: So I was living at my grandmother's house and Jeremy
Speaker 2: showed up and I was showing I was scared to death,
Speaker 2: and I can remember him calling me a couple weeks
Speaker 2: later and telling me some fullless story about he was
Speaker 2: dying of some disease and I needed to find somebody else,
Speaker 2: and I can remember thinking about in my mind, he's
Speaker 2: breaking up with me because I'm pregnant, and the sick
Speaker 2: part of me was angry, how dare you break up
Speaker 2: with me because I'm pregnant with your kid? And I
Speaker 2: can remember I started crying and my aunt Mary walked in.
Speaker 2: She's like, what's wrong with you? And I said, he
Speaker 2: just broke up with me because I'm pregnant. And then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I caught myself when I stopped,
Speaker 2: and I smiled, and I said, he just broke up
Speaker 2: with me because I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1: Jamie thought she was finally rid of Jeremy and all
Speaker 1: the chaos, the violence and the abuse. But two weeks
Speaker 1: later he's back, this time with blood on his pants
Speaker 1: and a stolen car he wants Jamie to get in,
Speaker 1: and by now Jamie knows the consequences of telling Jeremy no.
Speaker 2: Next time, I knew I wasn't coming back. I knew
Speaker 2: if they didn't catch him, I was going to die.
Speaker 1: Own Valley is a production of LoVa for Good podcast
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number One. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Jason Flomm, Jeff Kempler and Kevin Wordis. Karen Kornhaber
Speaker 1: is our senior producer. Jackie Pauley and Hannah Biel are
Speaker 1: our producers. Britz Spangler is our sound designer. Marianne McCune
Speaker 1: is our editor. Fact checking by Dania Sulemant. Jeff Cliburn
Speaker 1: is our head of marketing and operations. Our Social media
Speaker 1: director is Ismati Guardrama, our Social Media manager is Sarah Gibbons,
Speaker 1: and our art director is Andrew Nelson. Additional research and
Speaker 1: production by Kelsey Decker. Additional sound recording by James Johnson.
Speaker 1: Bone Valley is written and produced by Me Gilbert King.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and threads at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good