EDITORIAL: Review two cases linked by a strong claim to innocence
We have no reason to believe that Michelle Schofield and Joseph Lavair ever met, though they lived in adjacent counties. In early 1987, she was a 18-year-old newlywed working as a waitress at a diner near Lakeland, and he was 25, driving a cab in Kissimmee.
But their fates are linked forever by shocking, random violence that left them dead on Central Florida roadsides just a few months apart. And through the person who has confessed to killing them both.
That confession, by a convicted murderer named Jeremy Scott, is hard to doubt. It’s been expressed through letters to public officials, conversations with fellow prisoners and in taped interviews with journalist Gilbert King, the Pulitzer-prize winner who details both crimes in his top-rated podcast Bone Valley. Scott has described each murder in a way that matches the physical evidence and dovetails with police timelines and witness testimony. The only fingerprint found in her car was his; all the rest, including her own, were wiped away by the killer.
“I sleep with dead bodies every night when I go to bed. That’s my punishment,” Scott told King, in an interview from the prison where he’s serving a life sentence for an unrelated 1988 murder.
Anatomy of Injustice
Scott has never been officially charged in either death. Instead, authorities fixated early on suspects in each case, seemingly acting on hunches more than any solid physical evidence. Dan Otte, the man accused of killing Lavair, was relatively lucky—after a mistrial, he was acquitted and freed, as detailed in stories by the Orlando Sentinel’s Cristobal Reyes.
Leo Schofield, Michelle’s husband, would not be so fortunate. He has spent the last 35-plus years in prison, insisting on his innocence and, as he told King, praying that someday someone will see the truth.
The last flames of hope are flickering out. Leo Schofield has probably exhausted all his appeals; any DNA samples appear to be long gone, along with copious physical evidence that must have existed but was never collected. Many of the people accused (in some cases, knowingly) of building the case against him are now dead themselves, beyond remorse for the injustice that becomes more evident every time the Schofield case is reviewed.
Schofield is up for parole in March but is likely to be denied, King says, until he admits his guilt. (This matches patterns we’ve observed ourselves: the state officials who determine parole status routinely question potential parolees about their remorse for their crimes.) We suspect Leo Schofield will remain steadfast in his innocence, though he says he’s forgiven those who painted a false picture of his actions and even the man who ended the life of his young bride.
Who can help?
You may think we’re overly trusting in our judgment of Schofield’s plight and our insistence that injustice has been done. Please don’t take our word for it. Listen to Bone Valley, the nine-part podcast series that Gilbert King and researcher Kelsey Decker crafted. Look at the copious photographs and trial transcripts on the website lavaforgood.com/bone-valley, one of many platforms where the podcast is available. Listen to the interviews, including one of Scott’s most emphatic confessions, and hear him describe details only the killer would know: Scott knew the brand of cigarettes he dropped at the scene, for example. He knew where he’d abandoned each of his victim’s vehicles, and could explain the conditions in which Schofield’s orange Mazda and Lavair’s cab were found.
And consider King’s bona fides: In 2013, he won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for “Devil in the Grove,” another masterful expose. In it, he details past wrongs that led to the public exoneration of four Black men falsely accused of rape in the town of Groveland, and the bloody aftermath—including the roadside killing of one by the men by Lake Sheriff Willis McCall.
One of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first official acts after his 2018 election was to officially pardon those four young men, nearly 70 years later.
A petition on the website change.org suggests one of the few remaining ways that Schofield might yet establish his innocence: Transferring his case to a judicial circuit where the elected state attorney has established a conviction integrity unit. DeSantis, who could order that transition, has several options. Prosecutors based in Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville and Miami are among those who have devoted resources to uncovering the truth behind shaky convictions.
Meanwhile, more powerful people could voice their faith in Schofield’s innocence. Charlotte County-based Circuit Judge Scott Cupp, who previously represented Schofield, plans to leave the bench in March to take up his case once again. We lament those who refuse to even consider that they or their predecessors could ever be wrong.
Among them: Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, one of the few people who could, with a word, spark a new inquiry that might lead to undoing this wrongdoing. “I have no lingering doubt about this case,” Judd said Friday through his press secretary, in response to a Sentinel inquiry. “It was litigated, he was found guilty, and an appellate court found no reason to go against that. The case makes for an interesting story, but the accused had his day in court and was convicted. There is no evidence that has come forward that shows the wrong person is in prison for this murder.”
That last sentence is resoundingly, manifestly wrong. We plead with Judd, DeSantis and others to take another look at the evidence that has in fact come forward: In addition to Scott’s detailed confessions, there are witnesses who have recanted their testimony and a few who say they were coerced; time frames that don’t fit Schofield’s known actions and other key details. And we urge readers to read Reyes’ stories and listen to King’s podcasts. Both will be linked in the online version of this editorial.
Defend innocence statewide
Finally, we appeal to Florida’s law enforcement, prosecutors and others to establish a statewide authority to reconsider cases like Schofield’s. This is neither the first time a conviction has fallen apart decades later, nor will it be the last. In fact, Florida has seen one death row exoneration for every three people it executes.
It should be clear by now: Justice carries no expiration date—and injustice never ceases to fester.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
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WATCH THE BONE VALLEY PODCAST BY PULITZER-AWARD WINNER GILBERT KING: https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/se0-introducing-bone-valley/
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