Is Leo Schofield Still in Prison? Parole, Not Exoneration

No. Leo Schofield is no longer in prison. He was paroled by the Florida State Commission on Offender Review on April 17, 2024, and walked out of the Everglades Correctional Institution on April 30, 2024, after serving more than 36 years of a life sentence for the 1987 murder of his wife, Michelle Schofield.¹² His first-degree murder conviction, however, has not been overturned. In the eyes of Florida law, he is still a convicted murderer, and his legal team continues to pursue full exoneration.³

Released on Parole, Not Exonerated

Schofield had been denied parole four times before the 2024 hearing. In May 2023, the board extended his incarceration for one more year but ordered him transferred to the Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade County for a transitional program that prepares long-term inmates for release. The three-member commission voted to grant parole the following spring.¹

Parole is not a finding of innocence. It is a supervised release, and Schofield’s terms reflect that. He was initially sent to a transitional house in Tampa,⁴ and his conditions require him to live in a halfway house for one year, participate in a community outreach program, undergo mental health and substance abuse evaluations, observe an 18-month curfew, and have no contact with Michelle Schofield’s family.³

The Conviction That Still Stands

On February 24, 1987, 18-year-old Michelle Saum Schofield disappeared in Lakeland, Florida. Her car was found abandoned at a highway exit ramp with its stereo speakers missing. The next day her body was recovered from a drainage canal, covered by a plank of plywood. She had been stabbed 26 times.³

Fifteen months later, in June 1988, her 22-year-old husband, Leo Schofield Jr., was arrested. He went to trial in Polk County in 1989. The case against him was entirely circumstantial; no forensic evidence tied him to the crime.² Prosecutors built a portrait of a violent marriage through character witnesses. Schofield testified that he had slapped his wife twice but denied the broader abuse allegations. The jury deliberated for roughly two hours and returned a guilty verdict. He was sentenced to life in prison.³

The Fingerprints and Jeremy Scott

In 2004, unidentified fingerprints lifted from Michelle Schofield’s abandoned car were run through improved forensic databases and matched to Jeremy Scott, then serving a life sentence for the 1988 killing of Donald Moorehead. Scott had lived less than two miles from where Michelle’s body was found.³²

When Polk County detectives questioned Scott in 2005, he said he routinely broke into parked cars to steal stereo equipment and denied any role in the murder. He held to that denial even when offered immunity.⁵

His account shifted in 2016. After receiving a letter from Schofield’s defense attorney Andrew Crawford, Scott called and said he had killed Michelle. He then refused to sign a written affidavit.⁵³

In 2021, Scott gave a taped confession to the podcast Bone Valley, describing stabbing Michelle after a robbery attempt went wrong. In the same interview he also confessed to the 1987 killing of taxi driver Joseph Lavair, an unsolved murder.⁶⁷ Prosecutors have never treated the confessions as credible. Chief Assistant State Attorney Jacob Orr said Scott “cannot and should not be believed,” citing the factual inconsistencies and the pattern of contradictory statements.

Why the Courts Have Not Overturned the Conviction

Schofield’s team has filed multiple post-conviction motions under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. Each has failed. A first motion was denied in 1996 and affirmed on appeal.⁸⁹ A 2017 motion built on Scott’s confessions was denied after the hearing at which he recanted; in May 2020 the Second District affirmed, calling Scott’s testimony “bizarre.”¹⁰

There are currently no pending post-conviction motions in his case.¹⁰

What Jeremy Scott’s Death Changes

Jeremy Scott died in prison on September 21, 2025, at age 56. As of late September 2025, the Florida Department of Corrections had not released an official cause of death. Scott was never charged with the murder of Michelle Schofield.¹⁰

Schofield’s attorneys say the death does not change their strategy. Scott’s prior confessions, given verbally, in writing, and under oath, can still be considered in future proceedings.¹⁰ Gilbert King, whose podcast Bone Valley drew national attention to the case, has said legal experts confirmed that recorded statements, affidavits, and prior testimony from a deceased witness remain usable in court.¹¹

What Exoneration Would Unlock

Because his conviction still stands, Schofield cannot seek compensation under Florida’s Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act. That statute requires the conviction and sentence to have been vacated by a court and requires a judicial finding that the person did not commit the offense.¹² The Florida Innocence Project’s page on his case states that he “is still wrongfully convicted.”² Schofield has said his “story won’t be complete until I’m exonerated,” and reporting as of mid-2026 indicates Florida legislators may take up the matter.¹³

Michelle Schofield’s own brother, Jesse, investigated the case after the podcast aired and wrote to the parole commission saying he lacked “confidence in the conviction of Leo Schofield.”¹¹

Where Schofield Is Now

On January 20, 2025, less than nine months after his release, Schofield was riding a motorcycle in Hillsborough County with his daughter Ashley as a passenger when an oncoming vehicle turned into their path. Both were severely injured. Schofield sustained an “open book” pelvic fracture, a lacerated bladder, a fractured lumbar vertebra, and broken bones in his wrists, hands, and feet, and underwent three surgeries in the first week.¹⁴ As of mid-2026, his left wrist had been replaced with a prosthetic, he had two plates in his right arm, and he was managing partial paralysis in his right leg and nerve damage in a vertebra. He has not been able to return to work as a mechanic.¹³

Schofield has since moved to Idaho to help his sister care for their mother. He speaks at judicial conferences and law schools about wrongful conviction and was scheduled to headline an advocacy event with Gilbert King in April 2026.¹³ Out of prison, still convicted, still fighting to clear his name.

1
The New York Times. Leo Schofield Granted Parole in Bone Valley Case
2
Florida Innocence Project. Leo Schofield
3
ABC News. Man Convicted of Wifes 1987 Murder Shares First Days With Family
4
The Lakeland Ledger. Leo Schofield Discusses Release From Prison in Lakeland Appearance
5
The Lakeland Ledger. Convicted Murderer Contradicts Himself on Stand
6
Oxygen. Jeremy Scott Says He Killed Michelle Saum Schofield
7
Tampa Bay Times. Who Is Jeremy Scott and How Many Murders Did He Commit
8
Findlaw. Schofield v. State
9
Casemine. Schofield v. State
10
The Lakeland Ledger. Alternate Suspect in Schofield Murder Dies in Prison at Age 56
11
WUSF. Gilbert King on His Bone Valley Podcast
12
Florida Legislature. Chapter 961 – Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act
13
Dayton Daily News. He Lost 36 Years for a Murder He Didnt Commit Then Forgave The Killer
14
The Lakeland Ledger. Leo Schofield and Daughter Severely Injured in Hillsborough Motorcycle Crash