Since the show’s first airing in 1978, ABC’s “20/20” has been covering one hard-hitting, scary true-crime case after another to show how bad people can be.
So, of course, the first episode of season 45, called “Last Seen in Lakeland” and focusing on the brutal murder of Michelle Saum Schofield in 1987, is no different. Now, if you want to know more about the same thing, especially about what happened, the investigations that followed, and what happened after, we have the important facts for you.
How Did Michelle Schofield Die?
Around 8:15 pm on February 24, 1987, Michelle Schofield, who was 18 and from Lakeland, Florida, left her job at a local burger joint to go home. She was never seen alive again. Almost 90 minutes later, she did call her husband Leo, but they supposedly just caught up. After that, he asked to be picked up from a friend’s house so they could go get something to eat. But she didn’t get there when she said she would, so he started looking for her just after midnight. He called both of their parents, followed her route, and checked their trailer home, but to no avail.
In the hours that followed, Michelle’s family called the police, talked to nearby hospitals, and printed fliers in a desperate attempt to find her, but nothing worked. According to court documents, a friend saw her orange Mazda hatchback on the side of Exit 44 of Interstate 4 on February 25. This helped the police and her family narrow their search area. It’s important to note that the trunk of her car wasn’t locked, the back speakers were missing, and there were hairs stuck in the back panel, all of which made people think something was wrong.
Investigators and volunteers looked all over the area, but it wasn’t until February 27, 1987, that Michelle’s father-in-law, Leo Sr., found her cold, bloody body. She was under a piece of plywood in a canal that was full of water near the intersection of State Road 33 and Interstate 44, about seven miles from where her car was found. According to the autopsy, the 18-year-old girl died after being stabbed 26 times and losing five pints of blood. She did not die quickly, easily, or without pain.
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Who put Michelle Schofield to death?
Given how horrible the crime was, detectives went straight to Michelle’s family and friends to find out if she had any problems. They found out that her marriage was far from perfect. In fact, they heard that the couple often got into heated arguments, and witnesses said that Leo Schofield even hit his wife and threatened to kill her. Then, their neighbor Alice Scott said she had heard and seen the Schofields fighting on that fateful night before Leo left with a large object shoved into the trunk of his car.
As if that wasn’t enough, another witness said that her car and his father’s truck were together near where her body was found the morning after she went missing, which seemed to point the finger at Leo. So, on June 24, 1988, Leo was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of his wife Michelle, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. The case was based only on evidence that suggested he did it.
When Leo went to trial about a year later, Alice’s whole story was called into question because she had a history of mental health problems and her timeline of the crime didn’t make much sense. That’s because Leo was with his wife’s father, who was supposedly already looking for her, around the time she said they had a violent fight at their trailer home, and Leo was with her father.
Still, 21 other reliable witnesses testified to Leo’s violent outbursts and anger problems, so it only took the jury two hours to reach a guilty verdict. Leo was found guilty and given a life sentence, but he kept saying he wasn’t guilty even during his trial, when he told the court he didn’t kill Michelle. “I’m telling you, you’re making a mistake. “I can show you that,” he said.
Scott Jeremy Lynn
Since then, all of Leo’s appeals have been turned down, but it’s important to note that a fingerprint found in Michelle’s car in 2004 matched a different Jeremy Lynn Scott. Jeremy is a convicted felon who is also known as “Bam Bam.” He has seven convictions for crimes like armed robbery, arson, and battery, and he was cleared of murder when he was 15. Also, he is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and armed robbery because in 1988 he hit a man in the head with a bottle and then strangled him.
The most important thing, though, is that Jeremy is said to have once admitted that he was also the person who killed Michelle. He saw her on the phone with Leo at a gas station and asked for a ride. After she agreed, Jeremy is said to have told her how to get to a lake where he killed her with a hunting knife while he was high on prescription pills. But because he wouldn’t sign an official statement or talk to a detective and later changed his mind about what he had said, he wasn’t believed. So, Leo is still in jail for killing his wife.
What happened to Jeremy Scott?
Jeremy Scott is still serving his life sentence in Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida. Scott’s fingerprints were found in Michelle’s car, so Schofield’s lawyers asked for a new trial. The request was denied because, as ABC News reported, “the court found that Scott’s fingerprints alone would not likely have led to an acquittal on retrial and ruled that there were no problems with the trial evidence that would have led to Leo’s exoneration.”
In 2016, Schofield’s lawyer, Andrew Crawford, talked to Scott on the phone. During that call, Scott admitted to killing Michelle. The call wasn’t recorded, which is too bad. When state investigators looked into this, Scott said that for $1,000, he would say he killed anyone. After a year, Schofield’s lawyer hired a private detective to talk to Scott again. This time, it was caught on tape. Again, Scott said that he had killed Michelle.
Andrew Crawford got in touch with the Florida Innocence Project. The group pushed for a new trial, but instead got a hearing to look at the evidence. Scott testified and kept changing his mind about whether or not to kill Michelle. “They thought he had changed his mind,” Schofield’s wife said. In the end, the retrial was turned down. Now, a podcast wants to help Schofield feel better.
The podcast “Bone Valley” is trying to clear Schofield’s name
On September 21, 2022, the Bone Valley podcast came out on the Lava for Good platform, which had won awards for its other projects. The goal of the podcast, which is hosted by Gilbert King, “author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Devil in the Grove, which helped free four innocent men from prison,” is to hopefully get Schofield out of jail. Scott said the following when he was interviewed for the podcast: “Leo is not guilty. Nothing was done by that guy. He’s not guilty.”
Hopefully, the law will also see that this is true. Adnan Syed just got out of prison after being there for more than 20 years for killing Hae Min Lee in 1999. Most people agree that the Undisclosed Podcast was one of the most important things that led to his release. Bone Valley might be able to do the same thing for Leo Schofield.
What happened to Jeremy Scott?
Jeremy Lynn Scott has been a criminal since he was a teenager, and his record is long. He is currently in jail for a crime that has nothing to do with his past crimes. He was cleared of a murder charge when he was 15 (around 1984), but in the next three years, he set fires, robbed people, robbed people with guns, stole a lot of money, and beat up an official. But on November 1, 1988, the man from Polk County, Florida, went above and beyond by killing his friend Donald Moorehead, supposedly because he hadn’t been paid for a painting he’d done.
According to court records, Jeremy hit Donald in the head with a grape juice bottle and then strangled him to death with a phone cord early on that fateful day. He did this with a partner. When they didn’t find any money in his trailer home, they stole his car. Because of this, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery and given a life sentence in 1989. So, the criminal who is often called “Bam Bam” is doing his time at the mixed-security Florida State Prison (AKA Raiford Prison) in Bradford County. He is 53 years old.
Did Jeremy Scott Kill Michelle Schofield?
In 2004, a fingerprint found in Michelle Schofield’s abandoned car in 1987 that had never been identified before was matched to convicted killer Jeremy Scott. This linked Scott to the whole case. After that, he was questioned by the police because he was out of jail at the time of this crime and lived two miles away from where her body was found. That’s when he said he was a car stereo/equipment thief to explain why his fingerprint was there, but he said he had nothing to do with the murder in any way, shape, or form.
But things changed in 2016 when the lawyer for Michelle’s husband, convicted killer Leo Schofield, got in touch with Jeremy. The lawyer wanted to find out new information about the crime so that Leo Schofield could get a new trial. Jeremy is said to have confessed, but he flatly denied it during a police interview in 2017. He also said that he would gladly take the blame for any crime if someone paid him $1,000 in cash. He was questioned again, but this time it was recorded, and the tape caught all of what he said about how he killed the 18-year-old with a hunting knife on February 24, 1987.
According to Jeremy, he saw Michelle talking on the phone at a gas station and asked if he could give her a ride. When she agreed, he casually told her how to get to a quiet lake. He said that when he was reaching for his cigarettes and his sharp weapon fell out, which made her lose her mind and start hitting him. This made him lose his cool as well. In 1987, when he was 19, he said he was high on prescription pills and then said, “The next thing I knew, I lost it. I done stabbed her. I’m kind of freaking out right now because I don’t know what just happened.”
So, Leo’s case was brought to court for a preliminary hearing to find out if he should get a second trial. Jeremy actually took the stand and testified at this hearing. At first, he was very emotional when he said that he had killed Michelle 30 years ago, but there were a few problems with his story and things that were left out. When her autopsy photos were shown to him later, he said, “I didn’t do that.” This was seen as him going back on his confession, so the court said he couldn’t be believed.
In other words, it is not likely that Jeremy killed Michelle. Since Leo’s appeal was turned down and the original verdict was upheld, Jeremy is still guilty of the murder. Both of them are still in prison for the wrongs they have been proven to have done.
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