Gilbert King Bone Valley Injustice Leo Schofield Case final

In 1987, 21-year-old guitarist Leo Schofield was pursuing his rockstar dreams when his teenage wife Michelle was found dead in a phosphate mining pit in Lakeland, Florida. Two years later, Schofield was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder he has always denied.


Fifteen years after Schofield’s conviction, previously unidentified fingerprints from Michelle’s car matched Jeremy Scott — a troubled teen with an extensive history of violence who lived near the young couple at the time. Scott has now confessed to Michelle’s murder, yet Schofield remains behind bars.


Along with producer Kelsey Decker, King leads listeners on a unique and provocative true crime investigation featuring firsthand accounts from both Schofield and Scott themselves. With heartrending clarity and suspense, Bone Valley unearths new evidence in the case, exposing the catastrophic flaws in the American criminal justice system and documenting the story of these two men in their desperate search for truth and redemption.


It’s a return to Central Florida for King, whose New York Times-bestselling book, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, also took place in the region. His remarkably thorough research for that book led to the 2021 exonerations of the wrongly-accused men known as the Groveland Four. King has written about race, civil rights, and the death penalty for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic.

“How does a man spend over three decades behind bars when there are layers of evidence pointing to his innocence?” asks King. “I hope this series answers that question, exposes how our court system got this case very wrong, and helps point to the truth for Leo, as well as for Michelle.”


“This truly is a case like no other. Leo Schofield maintains his innocence as he sits behind bars for this murder, while Jeremy Scott confessed but was never charged for it,” said Jason Flom, founder and CEO of Lava for Good. “The state of Florida believes neither of them. We hope that by revealing the parallel narratives of these two men, we will finally expose the truth and bring about the justice that Leo has awaited for over three decades.”


To listen to Bone Valley and the current slate of Lava for Good series, find them on all popular podcast platforms or visit www.lavaforgood.com to learn more.

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