Speaker 1: Before I ever met Jeremy's former girlfriend, Jamie, before I
Speaker 1: knew Jamie and Jeremy had a son together named Justin.
Speaker 1: I read carefully through something she said about Jeremy in
Speaker 1: a deposition.
Speaker 2: Good morning, it is November twenty eight, two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: You were here in winter Haven, Florida, taking the statement
Speaker 2: of Jamie Nellam's n E l amf the office.
Speaker 1: She said something that as far as I could tell,
Speaker 1: no one had ever looked into.
Speaker 3: He told me he had killed a taxi cab driver
Speaker 3: he was sixteen seventeen at Todd and that he had
Speaker 3: gotten away with it.
Speaker 1: So when I finally got to talk to her, I
Speaker 1: asked her about it. One of the things that we
Speaker 1: learned about from your deposition was that I think they
Speaker 1: asked if you were aware of Jeremy committing any other crimes,
Speaker 1: and he said, to you killed the cab driver once.
Speaker 1: Can you just walk us through what you remember of
Speaker 1: that moment.
Speaker 4: Actually, we were at his grandmother's house. He had taken
Speaker 4: me to meet his grandmother out in Saint Cloud somewhere
Speaker 4: I think it was, and something had happened because Jeremy
Speaker 4: was yelling at this guy and he was angry and
Speaker 4: he I mean, he was furious with that. I can
Speaker 4: remember him being so angry with this guy that he
Speaker 4: was yelling at and he had his fist clenched.
Speaker 1: Jeremy once told me about this conflict too. It was
Speaker 1: between him and his mom's boyfriend. Jeremy said he was
Speaker 1: accusing this boyfriend of abusing his mom.
Speaker 5: I told him, Pierre touched my mom off, kill him,
Speaker 5: And I meant that right. I'm just trying to straight up.
Speaker 1: Jamie says she remembers that incident and Jeremy getting very.
Speaker 4: Angry and he started a kind of lunge and his
Speaker 4: grandmother said something it you need to stop. It's going
Speaker 4: to be just like with.
Speaker 6: That cab driver. I think what she was saying, and
Speaker 6: she's going to kill him. Don't do that.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what his grandmother was afraid of,
Speaker 4: that he was going to hurt this guy. And I
Speaker 4: can remember asking him, like, what does she mean about
Speaker 4: the cab driver and he said he said nothing, nothing, nothing,
Speaker 4: and he kept putting me off, putting me off. Well,
Speaker 4: it was middle of the night. I can remember us
Speaker 4: laying down and we were on a mattress on the
Speaker 4: floor and I was almost asleep, and I can remember
Speaker 4: him saying, my grandma thinks I killed a cab driver.
Speaker 4: That's how he said it. My grandma thinks I killed
Speaker 4: a cab driver. And I didn't say anything, and he said,
Speaker 4: are you asleep?
Speaker 6: And I said no. He said, did you hear me?
Speaker 6: And I said yeah. I said, did you kill the
Speaker 6: cab driver?
Speaker 4: And he said yeah, but it was I got away
Speaker 4: with it, and then he won't talk about it anymore.
Speaker 1: If you've been listening since the beginning of this story,
Speaker 1: you've heard Jeremy tell me a little about this murder.
Speaker 5: When I called it task to get a drive and
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna rob him. But when I pointed to gunad,
Speaker 5: I guess it just touch it boom.
Speaker 7: You know, I know it.
Speaker 5: Sooner or later, it's going to come back helm me.
Speaker 5: I just wait for It's a matter of time.
Speaker 1: Jeremy is in prison for life for murdering just one person,
Speaker 1: Donald Moorehead, the man who's blood Jamie saw on Jeremy's pants.
Speaker 1: Jeremy confessed to police the next day. Then when Kelsey
Speaker 1: and I first met him in prison, he confessed to
Speaker 1: two more murders. Leo Schofield's wife, Michelle, and a cab driver.
Speaker 1: But the State of Florida insists those two confessions are fabrications,
Speaker 1: that Jeremy is just seeking attention or manipulating me, a
Speaker 1: naive writer who fell for his lies, and through it all,
Speaker 1: they maintain their original claims that Jeremy Scott isn't worth
Speaker 1: listening to, no matter how much evidence says otherwise. A
Speaker 1: Florida prosecutor once told me, the only chance in hell
Speaker 1: I have a one day convincing the state to overturn
Speaker 1: Leo's conviction is to show them that Jeremy is telling
Speaker 1: the truth. No one is going to reopen these murder
Speaker 1: cases unless I hand them some undeniable piece of evidence
Speaker 1: that corroborates Jeremy's confessions. So that is my mission, and
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott has become my most constant ally, someone I
Speaker 1: believe is being more truthful and more credible than the
Speaker 1: prosecutors and sheriffs, the ones who failed to properly investigate
Speaker 1: them murders Jeremy is confessed to getting away with. That's
Speaker 1: why I asked Jeremy for his help. Dear mister King,
Speaker 1: he wrote me last year, I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: the whole story, he said, I want you to understand
Speaker 1: I can be charged with this murder, and I'm okay
Speaker 1: with this. I will never get out, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you.
Speaker 8: Do you my manslef to have my feet soruti sorrys.
Speaker 9: In this VASTI seihachish to the warm.
Speaker 1: Stuff Bone Valley, Season two, Jeremy, Chapter four, Horse and Buggy.
Speaker 1: After Jeremy confessed I'm taping and writing to killing a
Speaker 1: cab driver, I brought everything i'd learned to the Ossiola
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office. This was a thirty four year old
Speaker 1: unsolved murder, and they said they'd look into it again.
Speaker 1: I thought the detectives there would be grateful for the
Speaker 1: leads I'd given them, but I was wrong. The Sheriff's
Speaker 1: office blew me off. They never got back to me,
Speaker 1: and I was banging my head against the wall again.
Speaker 1: But then, one morning, after we'd made public everything we'd learned,
Speaker 1: I got an unexpected message on Facebook. It was from
Speaker 1: Buddy Shepherd, the first detective to arrive at the scene
Speaker 1: of the murder. In Shepherd's profile pick, he's wearing a
Speaker 1: white cowboy hat. I clicked the message. Mister King, it
Speaker 1: has been brought to my attention that you might want
Speaker 1: to speak to me. I am Buddy Shepherd, retired staff
Speaker 1: inspector of the Osceola County Sheriff's Office. If in fact,
Speaker 1: you do, please contact me. Thank you from a big
Speaker 1: fan of all your books. I couldn't get anyone from
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office to give me the time of day
Speaker 1: with this case, and now the lead detective at the
Speaker 1: center of it says he wants to talk.
Speaker 10: Hello, mister Shepherd, how are you?
Speaker 11: A Shepherd's my daddy and he's in dead for three years.
Speaker 9: Now, how are you?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 7: You're so pretty?
Speaker 11: Watch out, Kogo baby, Now you get going from here.
Speaker 1: Buddy's tiny three legged lapdog runs over to us. His
Speaker 1: name is Kujo Kujo right.
Speaker 9: Kujo definitely looks like a.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, Kujo baby. Go to the house, honey.
Speaker 1: I was surprised Buddy Shepherd wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 1: He was the detective who first tried to pin this
Speaker 1: murder on a man named Dan Odie. Dan was brought
Speaker 1: to trial for the murder twice, and after a hung
Speaker 1: jury in the first trial, he was found not guilty
Speaker 1: by a jury of his peers, but his name was
Speaker 1: still dragged through the mud. And in the first season
Speaker 1: of Bone Valley, I talked to several people who told
Speaker 1: me Detective Buddy Shepherd threatened them, Like Tanya Dean.
Speaker 13: His name was Buddy Shepherd. I will never I just
Speaker 13: got chills. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: She was a fifteen year old single mother at the
Speaker 1: time of the murder, and she said Shepherd pushed her
Speaker 1: to tell a false story.
Speaker 13: And I remember telling my dad, Dad, they're making me lie.
Speaker 13: They're telling me what I have to say, or they're
Speaker 13: going to take my babies.
Speaker 1: And then there was dan Odie himself, the man who
Speaker 1: faced the electric chair because of Shepherd.
Speaker 12: Oh, Buddy Shepherd, he was just he was bounding, determined
Speaker 12: to frighten me.
Speaker 7: He wasn't going to let it go.
Speaker 1: So why would Buddy want to talk to me of
Speaker 1: all people? And did I want to talk to him?
Speaker 1: Buddy had spent some time in jail for threatening a
Speaker 1: guy on his front lawn with a gun. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be next. But in his message confirming our visit,
Speaker 1: he wrote, I hope you are well, my favorite author. Damn,
Speaker 1: this guy really knows how to turn on the Southern Charm.
Speaker 1: Not long after that message, Kelsey and I were with
Speaker 1: Buddy outside his trailer near Intercession City.
Speaker 7: He wanted to.
Speaker 1: Address the accusations against him.
Speaker 11: I didn't step on any laws or rules of evidence
Speaker 11: or anything, but they investigated me.
Speaker 1: For the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the accusations
Speaker 1: that Buddy Shephard was threatening witnesses to frame dan Odie.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, they did an investigation and like
Speaker 1: in a week, they cleared you.
Speaker 12: Yes.
Speaker 1: Sure it was hard, but I wanted to keep Buddy talking.
Speaker 1: I asked him if he'd be willing to give us
Speaker 1: a tour of the crime scene, to take us back
Speaker 1: to April of nineteen eighty seven, the night Joseph Lavera
Speaker 1: was killed. Buddy has back problems, so he gets around
Speaker 1: with a roll lader, sort of a walker with wheels
Speaker 1: that you can sit down and rest if you need to.
Speaker 9: In the back.
Speaker 1: I folded up his roll lader and put it in
Speaker 1: the trunk. Buddy sat up front with me and Kelsey
Speaker 1: sat in the back with her microphone pointed between us.
Speaker 11: If you want to just turn right here and yeah
Speaker 11: restricted area. Oh, if we put that up for people
Speaker 11: to shoot at.
Speaker 1: The area just outside of Intercession City is still pretty rural.
Speaker 1: We passed through farmland and prairies with cattle grazing along
Speaker 1: the way, so Intercession City. The whole time Buddy was
Speaker 1: in the car, I kept wondering why he wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to me.
Speaker 7: All these roads in here are named after my family. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 7: I saw a Shepherd.
Speaker 9: Street up here, is ain't you?
Speaker 1: Besides Jerry Jeremy, Buddy Shepherd and I are probably the
Speaker 1: two people who know more about this case than anyone
Speaker 1: else alive. And I'm convinced Buddy knows things I don't,
Speaker 1: things nobody else knows. Maybe this former detective who wanted
Speaker 1: to convict Dan Odie would now reveal some key piece
Speaker 1: of information or evidence to finally prove that Jeremy Scott
Speaker 1: was the person who killed the taxi cab driver. I
Speaker 1: want him to talk.
Speaker 11: It was right about in here we pull over to
Speaker 11: the side of Old Tampa Highway and park on the
Speaker 11: spot where Lavera's body was found in April nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: That night, a nearby resident heard gunshots and called police, and.
Speaker 11: He, of course called USh And I was at home
Speaker 11: in bed. Yeah, it was like midnight ers, yes, sure,
Speaker 11: about mid nine, one o'clock, and they called me immediately
Speaker 11: and told me to get down here.
Speaker 7: So I did. What was it like when you got here?
Speaker 11: The body was laying off road, probably about forty or
Speaker 11: fifty feet. We had crime scene investigators already there, and
Speaker 11: they set up some lights. And I'll never forget. I'll
Speaker 11: never forget seeing that boy's eyes.
Speaker 7: That was eerie. His eyes roping, Wow, his eyes roping.
Speaker 11: I could see the whites of his eyes and eating
Speaker 11: his pupils.
Speaker 7: And that stays with you, right, it does. It stayed
Speaker 7: with me till this day.
Speaker 15: Because it was like a twenty five year old kid, right, Yeah,
Speaker 15: he was just really a kid working his butt off
Speaker 15: as a taxi cab driver, and nobody should be killed
Speaker 15: for doing their job.
Speaker 1: Standing there on the side of the road with Buddy,
Speaker 1: it became clear there was so much more to the story.
Speaker 1: I still needed to understand, Like who was Joseph Laver.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know more, so I tried to track
Speaker 1: down his ex wife, Janet. I sent her a few messages.
Speaker 1: She never responded, but I had a rural address in
Speaker 1: southwestern Georgia, that seemed promising. It would be a long drive,
Speaker 1: but I had to try. When I pulled up to
Speaker 1: the address, I saw an above ground pool in the
Speaker 1: front yard with half a dozen kids splashing and laughing
Speaker 1: in the water. On the porch, a young woman in
Speaker 1: summer clothes stepped out, shielding her eyes from the sun.
Speaker 1: I introduced myself and explained that I was looking for Janet.
Speaker 1: She seemed wary at first, her eyes narrowing as she
Speaker 1: sized me up. The kids in the pool stopped playing
Speaker 1: and their laughter faded as they turned to watch this
Speaker 1: stranger standing in the yard with a thick Georgian accent.
Speaker 1: The young woman finally spoke at It was her mom.
Speaker 1: She's at work just up the road, she said, and
Speaker 1: even offered directions. A few minutes later, I pulled up
Speaker 1: to a small mobile home office situated along a busy
Speaker 1: stretch of road. When I walked through the door, the
Speaker 1: shopkeeper's bells chimed softly. A middle aged woman behind a
Speaker 1: desk looked up and fixed her eyes on me. The
Speaker 1: office was quiet and we were alone. I introduced myself, gently,
Speaker 1: explaining why I had come to say. She was stunned
Speaker 1: would be an understatement. She sat in silence, staring at
Speaker 1: me for what felt like minutes. Sometimes reinvestigating a murder
Speaker 1: case that's been shelled for more than thirty years can
Speaker 1: stir up consequences. I try to tread carefully around. If
Speaker 1: there's one thing I've learned following this story to its
Speaker 1: farthest edges, is that some people survive by burying their
Speaker 1: most traumatic memories just to move on. And then here
Speaker 1: I come, a writer with a podcast asking them to
Speaker 1: revisit the very past they've worked so hard to leave behind.
Speaker 1: As I explained my investigation into Joseph Lavert's death, she
Speaker 1: glanced down, her fingers moving across her phone as she
Speaker 1: sent a text, still not saying a word. I mentioned
Speaker 1: that I'd tried to call her a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and she responded bluntly she'd blocked me. I assured her
Speaker 1: that I could answer any questions she might have about
Speaker 1: the case. A few minutes later, the bells jingled again
Speaker 1: as another woman walked in. Her name was Joy, Janet's sister.
Speaker 1: After receiving Janet's text, she googled me and decided I
Speaker 1: seem legitimate. With Joy's reassurance, Janet's demeanor softened, She relaxed
Speaker 1: and eventually agreed to speak with me.
Speaker 3: What was it like when I walked through this door?
Speaker 12: Blew?
Speaker 3: My mom shot me, devastated me. I just just shock.
Speaker 1: I explained to Janet that I wanted to understand more
Speaker 1: about Joseph, about who he was before he was killed.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a picture.
Speaker 3: I've been looking forever. I can't find a single picture. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, I only had one picture of him. He
Speaker 3: didn't like pictures taken. Yeah, he looked he had dark JB.
Speaker 3: He had dark hair, skinny JB.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that Joseph Lever went by JB.
Speaker 3: A lot of hair, black hair, sick, very sick. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's handsome. Yeah, I mean I'm married, and of course
Speaker 3: he was handsome. He loved marshals.
Speaker 16: He had ninja suits, the numb chucks, the stars, the sword.
Speaker 3: That was his stuff. I mean, that's what he was
Speaker 3: majorly into.
Speaker 16: Yeah, we were like, it was best friends for you know,
Speaker 16: and then then we got married and right away we
Speaker 16: were having a baby, very quickly. Actually we got married.
Speaker 16: He loved the fish too, Oh, yes, loved the fish.
Speaker 1: Janet tells me she and JB went fishing the day
Speaker 1: before their son was born.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I was nine months pregnant.
Speaker 16: Was out there fishing and freezing cold because christ was
Speaker 16: born in December, and we're out there fishing.
Speaker 3: I said, what happens if I go in labor?
Speaker 16: They said, we gotta get We got the way till
Speaker 16: we finished fishing, and we laughed about it, and then
Speaker 16: of course they went labor the next day for eighteen
Speaker 16: long hours.
Speaker 1: Janet and JB had a son together, a boy named Christopher.
Speaker 1: Their marriage ended when Christopher was just two, but they
Speaker 1: remained friends, and.
Speaker 3: He was a cab driver. Had it only been for
Speaker 3: a few months. I had been working there long.
Speaker 1: Janet's last comversation with JB was about making plans to
Speaker 1: get together the next.
Speaker 16: Day, and so it was talking about going down to
Speaker 16: the park and I told him I would make sandwiches
Speaker 16: and and we just go down there and have a
Speaker 16: pet name and let Chris play and on the swings
Speaker 16: and stuff.
Speaker 3: And I said, you know, what do you think? And
Speaker 3: he said, that's a good idea.
Speaker 16: He said, let's do that, And he said he wanted
Speaker 16: to talk to me about something.
Speaker 1: But JB went to his shift that night and never
Speaker 1: made it home.
Speaker 16: We got a call I get three o'clock in the
Speaker 16: morning that he had been killed, and then I had
Speaker 16: to tell Chris.
Speaker 3: Then his daddy went to live with Jesus.
Speaker 16: But you know he's too, I said, he went to
Speaker 16: live with Jesus. Now we we're not going to see
Speaker 16: him no more because you know, trying not to cry.
Speaker 16: You know, he's going to live with Jesus. And he
Speaker 16: looked at me. Sat there a minute and he looked
Speaker 16: at me. He said, how'd he get there? And I
Speaker 16: let that him and I said a horse and buggy.
Speaker 16: He said a horse and baky, I said yeah. He
Speaker 16: jumped down and as hard as he could run to
Speaker 16: other than the house, hollering for my brother in law.
Speaker 3: I'm a danny, up, a danny, up Danny and he
Speaker 3: said what son? He said, my daddy went to live
Speaker 3: with Jesus. And you know what he got there, no
Speaker 3: or a horse and buggy. And he was happy because
Speaker 3: his daddy rode a horse and buggy.
Speaker 1: At his funeral, Janet learned what jab had wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to her about.
Speaker 3: My best friend at the time.
Speaker 16: He said that he was going to tell me that
Speaker 16: he loved me, and he wanted us to get back together.
Speaker 16: I was like, are you sure, and she said, yes,
Speaker 16: He's called me and told me, you know that that's
Speaker 16: what he wanted to talk to you about.
Speaker 1: But Janet would never have that conversation with the father
Speaker 1: of their son.
Speaker 16: You know, he was only two and he loved his
Speaker 16: dad and he never had that daddy. You know, he
Speaker 16: never had him all his love bad enough he got
Speaker 16: shot three times right, and then just left the lay there,
Speaker 16: and then nobody ever got to pay.
Speaker 3: It's like his life didn't matter.
Speaker 1: It was Buddy Shepherd's job to find out who killed JB.
Speaker 1: A week after the murder, he had his suspect.
Speaker 11: We had a chalkboard and we wrote down anybody's name
Speaker 11: that could have done this. We put dan Odie at
Speaker 11: the top of it. Dan Odie was six foot three
Speaker 11: and weighed two ten two twenty and I mean a big,
Speaker 11: raw boned cow man. I just not big muscle. But
Speaker 11: everything was just as tight as it could be in
Speaker 11: his arms and his chest. We were investigating dan Odie
Speaker 11: right from the very beginning. We had their wrist warrant.
Speaker 11: We didn't tell anybody about it, and we come down
Speaker 11: here and started following Dan around.
Speaker 7: Dan was in a pickup shuckle. We started falling and.
Speaker 11: He knew we were behind him, but he wouldn't come
Speaker 11: into Ostiola County, and so I blocked him off and
Speaker 11: I came out with a shotgun on him and we
Speaker 11: put him on the ground and arrested him.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We saw that picture in the Orlando sitting on did you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like laid out on the ground.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Looking at all the case files, I could never figure
Speaker 1: out why Buddy Shepherd set his sights on Dan Odie
Speaker 1: for this murder. Buddy just tells me that's where his
Speaker 1: investigation led him. What Buddy Shepherd didn't know was that
Speaker 1: at the very moment he began investigating who killed JB.
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott was hiding in an abandoned house just a
Speaker 1: few blocks away from the crash taxi, waiting for Buddy's
Speaker 1: dogs to sniff him out. Jeremy told me this, and
Speaker 1: from what Buddy tells me, it sounds like police dogs
Speaker 1: had picked up Jeremy sent from a baseball cap that
Speaker 1: was left behind in the taxi.
Speaker 11: We had two dogs from the time. They did track
Speaker 11: himTo the abandoned house, but they lost him there. Tried
Speaker 11: to run a track from the taxi cab even gave
Speaker 11: the dog the hat smell. But there have been so
Speaker 11: many people running the streets and everything that the dog
Speaker 11: got misdirected.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the dog thought that whoever did this went
Speaker 1: to the abandoned house.
Speaker 7: Yes, sure, okay, yes.
Speaker 1: Sir, the dogs got close, but they lost his scent.
Speaker 1: Jeremy and I went over this too.
Speaker 17: I talked to the lead detective for that taxi cab
Speaker 17: tain Yeah, and he told me that they had the
Speaker 17: dogs out and the dogs like lost the scent at
Speaker 17: an abandoned house, like they were that close.
Speaker 18: See you know the railroad tracks right there, ye, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 18: you know I walked. I walk on the railad track
Speaker 18: the Steel park right you know, if bus train comes hit,
Speaker 18: you're sick, gonna be going.
Speaker 14: I never heard that before.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I didn't think it worked, But it didn't work.
Speaker 1: All these years later, Jeremy Scott is still waiting for
Speaker 1: the police to hold him accountable.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter to Jeremy saying, I know it
Speaker 1: must be difficult to replace memories from so many years
Speaker 1: ago and then write them down in a letter. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine how that must feel trying to tell people
Speaker 1: all of this and they won't believe you. I just
Speaker 1: wanted you to know that I'm listening and I'm grateful
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Jeremy wrote back with a letter
Speaker 1: unlike anything i'd ever read. I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: the whole story, he wrote. I want you to understand
Speaker 1: I can be charged with this murder, and I'm okay
Speaker 1: with this. I will never get out, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you. What followed was a stream of details
Speaker 1: that could not possibly have come from somebody who just
Speaker 1: read about this case in the news. I'm going to
Speaker 1: read to you what he wrote. Dear mister King, I
Speaker 1: might can't remember every little thing, okay, and what I
Speaker 1: tell you is true. He explained he'd broken into a
Speaker 1: CoP's house and stole a three point fifty seven magnum
Speaker 1: pistol he found in a closet. I got a ride
Speaker 1: to Kasimi. It was after eleven thirty pm. I was
Speaker 1: walking around. I really didn't know what to do. Then
Speaker 1: I thought about showing the gun at someone and asked
Speaker 1: for their money, like on TV, but there were too
Speaker 1: many people around. Then I saw a taxi cab. Jeremy
Speaker 1: writes that he got the number and called. When a
Speaker 1: cab come to pick me up, I told him that
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to Intercession City. I know this
Speaker 1: place better than most. I lived there when I was little.
Speaker 1: I told him I live on Old Dixie Highway, so
Speaker 1: it's real dark out there at night. Once we passed
Speaker 1: the last house, I pulled the gun out. When he
Speaker 1: saw what I had, I told him to keep driving.
Speaker 1: Once I know there ain't any home close by, I
Speaker 1: told him to pull over, to turn the car off
Speaker 1: and leave the lights on. Then we got out. I
Speaker 1: asked him where does he keep the money? That's when
Speaker 1: he told me there ain't any because he just came
Speaker 1: on and I was the first person he picked up.
Speaker 1: JB was lying to Jeremy. His shift was just about
Speaker 1: to end, and he'd hidden one hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: dollars in a folded map tucked inside the glove compartment. Outside,
Speaker 1: the night was pitch black, the round headlights of the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven Dodged Sedan casting faint light along Old
Speaker 1: Tampa Highway. JB was staring down the barrel of a
Speaker 1: three point fifty seven magnum and this is the part
Speaker 1: of the letter where Jeremy describes the murder. I was
Speaker 1: pointing the gun at him. I had the damn thing
Speaker 1: pulled back and waved it at him. Then all I
Speaker 1: remember was hearing this loud boom.
Speaker 9: I look at him, and.
Speaker 1: It seems that he was coming, and I shot him again,
Speaker 1: then once more. I'm sure that I shot that gun
Speaker 1: three times. It was crazy. I ran to the car
Speaker 1: and turned it around and was going real fast until
Speaker 1: I got to the stop sign. I turned and went
Speaker 1: over the tracks, then turned real fast right. I was
Speaker 1: going fast and I couldn't stop it. Then I hit
Speaker 1: a car and it hit another, I think. But once
Speaker 1: I hit that car, I turned the wheel real fast
Speaker 1: and I hit a pole. I remember trying to get
Speaker 1: out fast. I got the gun in case. As I
Speaker 1: was getting out, I heard and saw two people. Jeremy
Speaker 1: writes that he knew one of them, someone named John,
Speaker 1: and he says he yelled at them, told him the
Speaker 1: car was going to blow, then took off over the tracks.
Speaker 1: In his letter to me, Jeremy included a hand drawn
Speaker 1: map of the streets of Intercession City, carefully sketching the
Speaker 1: exact route he took in the stolen taxigab. After the murder,
Speaker 1: he wrote, look at this map. It will show you
Speaker 1: the truth. With arrows and lines, Jeremy illustrated how the
Speaker 1: taxi ricocheted off a parked car before crashing into a
Speaker 1: light pole. He accurately labeled the streets and even drew
Speaker 1: figures to represent the witnesses he saw approaching the scene.
Speaker 1: He also sketched a path to show the direction he
Speaker 1: fled afterward. Nearly every detail matched police reports and witness depositions.
Speaker 1: His account went beyond anything that had ever been revealed
Speaker 1: in the media coverage of the case. At the end
Speaker 1: of his letter, Jeremy wrote, I really want to thank
Speaker 1: you for helping me, because I feel it's the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. That's why I told you the whole story.
Speaker 1: Seems that people listen to you. It turns out that's
Speaker 1: not always the case. By the time I got in,
Speaker 1: Jeremy's confession verified his connection to Intercession City and how
Speaker 1: he was able to corroborate details from the murder of J. B.
Speaker 1: Lavere that were never made public. I was feeling incredibly optimistic.
Speaker 1: There was no possible way law enforcement could ignore this
Speaker 1: new evidence. I took what I had to the Orlando Sentinel,
Speaker 1: and they decided to do a front page features story
Speaker 1: about my investigation. They even reached out to the Sheriff's
Speaker 1: office in advance for a comment, and the sheriff responded
Speaker 1: with this, thank you for your patients. As we gathered
Speaker 1: the facts. Following the meeting with mister King in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office did re examine
Speaker 1: the Lavere homicide case. After a careful review, we did
Speaker 1: not find any facts to substantiate the claim that Jeremy
Speaker 1: Scott was the killer. We believe, based on the evidence,
Speaker 1: Daniel Odie is and was the correct suspect. When I
Speaker 1: read their response, I was stunned and furious, and the
Speaker 1: more I read, the worse it got. The Asciola Sheriff
Speaker 1: publicly smeared Dan's name, once again, calling him a murderer
Speaker 1: who had gotten off on a technicality. Let's be clear,
Speaker 1: Dan Odie was acquitted because a jury of his peers
Speaker 1: found him not guilty of murder. There's nothing technical about that.
Speaker 1: Now this had turned into something I couldn't walk away from.
Speaker 1: I had waited, trusted, and expected officials to take action
Speaker 1: to dig deeper for the truth. The Asciola County Sheriff's
Speaker 1: office might have decided to ignore Jeremy's confession and the
Speaker 1: evidence I'd gathered, but that didn't mean I was going
Speaker 1: to let it go. There were still untapped pass in
Speaker 1: my investigation, and now I knew exactly where I had
Speaker 1: to go. When the Sheriff's office wouldn't act, I turned
Speaker 1: to the prosecutors. Ah, shit, that's terrible. I'm gonna park
Speaker 1: this again. I just parked in a really shitty spot.
Speaker 1: One of those days, one of those days. How are
Speaker 1: you feeling about this, Causie, I feel confident.
Speaker 10: I was already awake when my alarm went off this morning.
Speaker 10: I was just already laying in bed thinking about it.
Speaker 9: So this one I actually have a good feeling about it.
Speaker 1: I reached out to the Ninth Circuit State Attorney's office,
Speaker 1: knowing that they had the authority to conduct their own
Speaker 1: investigation into who killed JB. I managed to arrange a
Speaker 1: meeting with Chief Assistant State Attorney Ryan Williams and two
Speaker 1: investigators from his office. He said, just text, send me
Speaker 1: a text message when you are downstairs. I'll come to
Speaker 1: escort you in. They agreed to meet with me and
Speaker 1: Kelsey on a federal holiday, no less because we were closed.
Speaker 7: I will also be dressed more casual than usual.
Speaker 1: Please feel free to be casual too late, dude, should
Speaker 1: I take off my deck at Then we walked toward
Speaker 1: the office and mentally prepare for what should be an
Speaker 1: important meeting. We should do a selfie in front of
Speaker 1: the courthouse for later. I don't think we need to
Speaker 1: do a selfie all right, Okay, I'm gonna do.
Speaker 9: It later after we're victorious.
Speaker 1: I guess we can walk over there coming down. They
Speaker 1: didn't allow us to record the meeting, but it was
Speaker 1: clear from the start that ASA Ryan Williams and his
Speaker 1: team were taking this seriously. Kelsey turned on the recorder
Speaker 1: again when we stepped outside. When we were presenting to them,
Speaker 1: they were curious, asking a ton of questions, really good questions.
Speaker 1: But unless they find some physical evidence from a legal standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's going to be difficult for them to go forward.
Speaker 10: It made a promise to us to look, which is
Speaker 10: much more than we got last time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I believe them. I really do feel like
Speaker 1: they were engaged, and they were they want to do
Speaker 1: this they just need that physical evidence, and I thought
Speaker 1: that was a much more real This could be the
Speaker 1: turning point that finally sets the record straight about JB's murder.
Speaker 1: We know, and you know, what are the odds that
Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott confesses to a murder of a taxi cab
Speaker 1: when he's not in prison, when it's a town he
Speaker 1: used to live in, and when he can draw a
Speaker 1: map showing his exact movements that match every witnesses. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that you know, from a
Speaker 1: storytelling point, I'm convinced, but they need physic in order
Speaker 1: to go forward, and that's where we are. A few
Speaker 1: weeks later, I get an update. Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: letter from Ryan Williams from December nineteenth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, mister King. I hope this email finds you
Speaker 1: well in the midst of a pleasant holiday season. I
Speaker 1: wanted again to reach out on this case and homicide
Speaker 1: we discussed back in September. Williams wrote that one of
Speaker 1: his investigators search for the physical evidence from the case
Speaker 1: at both the Sheriff's office and the county clerk. After
Speaker 1: several efforts, we obtained an answer and paperwork indicating that
Speaker 1: the physical evidence associated with the case was returned to
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office and was destroyed by them in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine. I have no reason to believe this
Speaker 1: destruction was improper in any way, but the bottom line
Speaker 1: is that it no longer exists to be tested. The
Speaker 1: Osceola County Sheriff's Office destroyed all the physical evidence from
Speaker 1: the Joseph of b Lavere homicide, all of it. I
Speaker 1: know that there had been a hat, hair samples, a bullet,
Speaker 1: twenty two fingerprints on the car. Jeremy Scott left fingerprints
Speaker 1: at the other three murders he confessed to. Now there's
Speaker 1: no way to know if the prince left behind were his.
Speaker 1: Williams was telling me that the sheriff destroyed all of it.
Speaker 10: Well, I mean, honestly, this sucks, but I'm also kind
Speaker 10: of like and that gives us more flexibility, you know,
Speaker 10: we can go, Yeah, we don't have to hold off
Speaker 10: or be polite because the state's looking into it, because
Speaker 10: they're obviously not so.
Speaker 1: H I mean, I just feel like there's more to
Speaker 1: do here.
Speaker 19: I'm not stopping, all right, talk to you later, bye, Asa.
Speaker 1: Ryan Williams encouraged me to keep investigating and told me
Speaker 1: to reach out if I uncovered anything significant. I try
Speaker 1: everything I can think of. I track down John, the
Speaker 1: witness that Jeremy recognized as he was getting out of
Speaker 1: the crash taxi. John grew up with Jeremy in Intercession City.
Speaker 1: At trial, he testified that it was dan Odie he
Speaker 1: saw getting out of the cab. I get John on
Speaker 1: the phone, and he remembered all of it. When I
Speaker 1: tell him that Jeremy is in prison today for a
Speaker 1: different murder, and he confessed to being the one who
Speaker 1: killed the cab driver, John says I gotta go and
Speaker 1: hangs up the phone. He doesn't say, no, it was
Speaker 1: dan Odie. He says, I gotta go. Click. After that,
Speaker 1: I went to his house three times, hoping he would
Speaker 1: change his mind and agree to talk to me. Every
Speaker 1: time I showed up, I saw his brother standing outside.
Speaker 2: I'm Gilbert Camp.
Speaker 5: I'm investigating that Jeremy shot died.
Speaker 1: He called me a persistent motherfucker. Oh, but in a
Speaker 1: nice way. My brother's still not talking to you.
Speaker 3: He told me he's not all right.
Speaker 1: I understand. This was one of those times when I
Speaker 1: wished I had the power to subpoena witnesses. Still, there
Speaker 1: was one piece of evidence, probably the most important in
Speaker 1: the entire case. It had been destroyed by the Sheriff's office,
Speaker 1: but I believe there was a way to link it
Speaker 1: to Jeremy and to the murder of JB.
Speaker 7: Levere.
Speaker 1: Jeremy told me that after he killed JB, he got
Speaker 1: behind the wheel of the cab, drove it a mile
Speaker 1: away and crashed it into a utility poll. When Buddy
Speaker 1: Shepherd arrived at the scene in nineteen eighty seven, he
Speaker 1: saw the crashed cab empty after the murderer had gotten
Speaker 1: out and run away, and.
Speaker 11: He come barreling down through here. He was, needless to say,
Speaker 11: he was hauling Bud.
Speaker 1: Former Detective Buddy Shepherd took us to that spot.
Speaker 7: So what did you see.
Speaker 1: When you pull up the like it's the cars right
Speaker 1: in there somewhere right.
Speaker 11: Yes, sir, front end of it just demolished pretty well.
Speaker 11: When I looked inside, the door was left open on
Speaker 11: the drive or see, and I looked in and saw
Speaker 11: the cab.
Speaker 1: A black cap left behind by JB's murderer.
Speaker 7: I want to see, Godly man, I'm working from memory.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 11: It was a rebel flag on the front of it,
Speaker 11: a battle flag in a skull and a skull, yes, sir, yes, sir,
Speaker 11: And that was the cap. It was dark colored and everything. Yeah,
Speaker 11: it got knocked off of him and he didn't grab it.
Speaker 1: Jeremy mentions the hat in a letter he wrote me.
Speaker 1: The hat was given to him by his cousin Jason.
Speaker 1: He says, I didn't know that I forgot my hat.
Speaker 1: My cousin gave me. The hat was black. We wore
Speaker 1: so many hats growing up as kids. We always thought
Speaker 1: they were cool hats. If the hat were still around,
Speaker 1: the State Attorney's office could test the sweatband for DNA
Speaker 1: or compare the hares found inside with Jeremy's. But since
Speaker 1: the Ossiola County Sheriff's Office destroyed it, that's no longer
Speaker 1: an option. Buddy used to work at the Sheriff's office
Speaker 1: and says he knows the guy responsible for destroying the evidence.
Speaker 11: One thing I'm really upset about this whole mess. Wiley
Speaker 11: Black had that evidence destroyed.
Speaker 1: We saw that Major Wiley Black supervised the homicide and
Speaker 1: Violent Crimes unit at the time the evidence was destroyed.
Speaker 7: It is very upsetting. To me, he had no right
Speaker 7: to do that.
Speaker 11: You don't get rid of evidence, you don't get rid
Speaker 11: of reports, you don't get rid of any of that.
Speaker 11: I'm a murder for fifty years. Fifty fifty years. I
Speaker 11: remember it.
Speaker 1: While the Sheriff's office may have eliminated the physical evidence,
Speaker 1: a clear photograph of the hat still exists in the
Speaker 1: case files. I've always wondered if someone in Jeremy's family
Speaker 1: might have a photo of either Jeremy or his cousin
Speaker 1: Jason wearing that baseball hat. I wrote to Jeremy about it,
Speaker 1: and he got back to me right away. He wrote,
Speaker 1: you asked me if I had pictures. No, I don't,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there's some out there. Grandma had some,
Speaker 1: but when she passed away. I don't know who would
Speaker 1: have got them all. She always saved all of them.
Speaker 1: But Aunt Debbie, Judy or Mama might have some. I
Speaker 1: don't really know. I tried to track down Jason Scott, who,
Speaker 1: according to Jeremy, gave him a black baseball cap. Jason
Speaker 1: passed away years ago, but I've been texting with Jason's brother, Joshua.
Speaker 1: I wanted to show him a picture of the hat.
Speaker 1: In person to see his reaction, but we couldn't make
Speaker 1: it work. Finally, I decided to text him a photo
Speaker 1: of the hat instead, long shot, I wrote, but does
Speaker 1: this hat look familiar? A few hours later, Joshua replied, Yes,
Speaker 1: I recognize that cap, he wrote, Jeremy and his brother
Speaker 1: Dean fought over that cap, but my mom always told
Speaker 1: us that cap wasn't fit to wear. The next time
Speaker 1: Jeremy called me, I mentioned that I'd spoken with his
Speaker 1: cousin Joshua. I wanted to see if Jeremy could confirm
Speaker 1: what Joshua had said about the hat, that he and
Speaker 1: his brother Royal Dean had fought over it.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I can't. In prison, my brother had it. I
Speaker 18: mean that was a hat Jason gave me if I
Speaker 18: went to prison.
Speaker 12: The first time.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I got out, my brother had it and I took.
Speaker 5: It back right and we had a big argument about it.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still holding out hope that the family might
Speaker 1: find a picture of Jeremy or even his cousin Jason,
Speaker 1: wearing that hat. I told Buddy Shepherd more than once
Speaker 1: that I believed he went after the wrong man and
Speaker 1: dan Odie, and that I was convinced Jeremy Scott had
Speaker 1: killed J. B. Levere after showing him all the evidence
Speaker 1: I'd uncovered. I just wanted to know if any of
Speaker 1: it had made a difference to him.
Speaker 7: Did you know who Jeremy Scott was?
Speaker 1: Because he lived in Intercession City for some time.
Speaker 7: I knew of him. I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 7: seen him or spoke to him or nothing. I just
Speaker 7: knew him as a kid.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought when I showed you this and that, I
Speaker 1: thought you were going to say you could consider Jeremy
Speaker 1: Scott a suspect.
Speaker 11: Yes, I do do, Yeah, I do. Jeremy Scott could
Speaker 11: have done it, yeah, no doubt Mamiani could have done it.
Speaker 1: Even Buddy Sheppard, the detective who led the original investigation,
Speaker 1: acknowledges that Jeremy Scott should now be considered a suspect
Speaker 1: in the murder of JB. Leavere, And yet I remain
Speaker 1: the only person who has ever questioned Jeremy Scott about
Speaker 1: this crime. When Kelsey and I visited dan Odie in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, he eagerly supported our investigation. I promised him
Speaker 1: I'd return with everything I uncovered. I had hoped that
Speaker 1: with all the police and court records in hand, and
Speaker 1: Jeremy helping the piece together, each detail Dan's name could
Speaker 1: finally be cleared, and that the clarity and consistency of
Speaker 1: Jeremy's memories would solidify the truth behind not just his
Speaker 1: confession to j B. Lavere's murder, but to Michelle Schofield's
Speaker 1: murder as well. Now, with all the evidence destroyed, it
Speaker 1: feels like any chance of giving Dan the piece he
Speaker 1: deserves has been stolen for good. And here's what infuriates
Speaker 1: me most. To protect the narrative that they targeted the
Speaker 1: right men and Dan, Odie and Leo Schofield, the state
Speaker 1: is asking the public to swallow a lie that Jeremy
Speaker 1: Scott's confessions are just stories, not evidence. I can only
Speaker 1: assume these lawmen and prosecutors would rather bury the truth
Speaker 1: than admit their case was built on a lie at
Speaker 1: the cost of two innocent lives and any semblance of justice.
Speaker 1: I dredged all of this back up in an effort
Speaker 1: to set the record straight and to find something closer
Speaker 1: to true justice. Instead, it's mostly brought more turmoil for
Speaker 1: people like JB's ex wife.
Speaker 16: I mean, it's like opening a wound that or that
Speaker 16: box that you close up and put on the shelf
Speaker 16: and just leave it there. You know, you don't want
Speaker 16: to get through those emotions. You don't want to live
Speaker 16: that ever again.
Speaker 1: This is one of the painful, unintended consequences of digging
Speaker 1: into these old cases. Back in twenty nineteen, when we
Speaker 1: interviewed Dan Odie, I promised him I come back with
Speaker 1: everything I'd learned in my investigation. There were so many
Speaker 1: times over the years when I thought I'd finally be
Speaker 1: able to bring him good news that his name had
Speaker 1: been officially cleared in the murder of JB. Levere, but
Speaker 1: with the Sheriff's office destroying the evidence and dragging his
Speaker 1: name to the mud again in the Orlando Sentinel article,
Speaker 1: that closure may never come. This wasn't a call I
Speaker 1: wanted to make. I was afraid all of this would
Speaker 1: create even more pain.
Speaker 18: For Dan No and I just really always wanted to be.
Speaker 14: Able to come back to you and say, all right,
Speaker 14: this is it, this is who did it, and there's
Speaker 14: going to be charged and your your name will be
Speaker 14: officially cleared. And I just sort of wanted to say
Speaker 14: I'm sorry that I didn't get.
Speaker 12: There I don't know when I When I got that paper,
Speaker 12: I broke down.
Speaker 8: Man.
Speaker 12: I told myself, I thank you guy so much for
Speaker 12: taking the time to do what he did. At least
Speaker 12: now I got some clothes. You know, I can show
Speaker 12: people this pape. Look, I did not do this, no
Speaker 12: matter what to think. I did not kill the guy. Yeah,
Speaker 12: it meant a lot of people.
Speaker 14: Well, I'll definitely be getting back to you with any
Speaker 14: any updates that I can find, because I'm not quitting
Speaker 14: on it.
Speaker 12: I sure thank you about it. You're in my heart
Speaker 12: and you're in the lie. I appreciate what you did
Speaker 12: for me.
Speaker 14: I feel the same dam thank you so much.
Speaker 12: Ah, but you had a good day YouTube.
Speaker 14: Take care.
Speaker 1: Maybe, just maybe, reopening questions about the past can also
Speaker 1: lead to something more than heartbreak.
Speaker 13: That was just wanting to help a downtrodden person. Really,
Speaker 13: I didn't have any plans to keep writing him like that.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first letter that Jeremy sent to you?
Speaker 16: Well?
Speaker 1: I have it, oh right here, let me see that's
Speaker 1: next time. Owe Valley is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kepler, and Kevin Wortis.
Speaker 1: Karen Kornhaber is our senior producer. Jackie Pauley and Hannah
Speaker 1: Biel are our producers. Britz Spangler is our sound designer.
Speaker 1: Marianne Mchune is our editor. Fact checking by Dania Suleman.
Speaker 1: Jeff Cliburn is our head of marketing and Operations. Our
Speaker 1: social media director is Ismai Guardrama, our Social media manager
Speaker 1: is Sarah Gibbons, and our art director is Andrew Nelson.
Speaker 1: Additional research and production by Kelsey Decker. Additional sound recording
Speaker 1: by James Johnson. Bone Valley is written and produced by
Speaker 1: Me Gilbert King. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and
Speaker 1: threads at Lava for Good