‘Bone Valley’ Podcast Subject Is Granted Parole 37 Years After Wife’s Murder

U.S.|‘Bone Valley’ Podcast Subject Is Granted Parole 37 Years After Wife’s Murder https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/us/bone-valley-leo-schofield-parole.html U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. Leo Schofield has maintained innocence […]

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‘Bone Valley’ Podcast Subject Is Granted Parole 37 Years After Wife’s Murder

‘Bone Valley’ Podcast Subject Is Granted Parole 37 Years After Wife’s Murder thumbnail

U.S.|‘Bone Valley’ Podcast Subject Is Granted Parole 37 Years After Wife’s Murder

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/us/bone-valley-leo-schofield-parole.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Leo Schofield has maintained innocence all along in his wife’s murder in 1987, and another man has since confessed to the killing.

Leo Schofield, wearing an orange top from his prison uniform, stands in a courtroom, near a man wearing a dark jacket, white shirt and a red bow tie with black and white stripes.
Leo Schofield, who was serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife, maintained his innocence and became the subject of a podcast about the case. He was held at the Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade County, Fla., since last year.Credit…Ernst Peters-USA Today Network

Remy Tumin

For more than three decades, Leo Schofield Jr. maintained his innocence as he served 35 years of a life sentence in the murder of his wife, Michelle Schofield. He has been denied parole four times, even after another man confessed to the killing years ago.

Since he was put in prison, he has remarried, earned a theology degree and led Bible and guitar classes. He had grandchildren and became the subject of a podcast that tried to prove his innocence.

On April 30, Mr. Schofield, 58, will be a free man.

A parole board in Tallahassee, Fla., on Wednesday granted Mr. Schofield parole, nearly 35 years to the day since he was incarcerated. The same board extended his incarceration for a year last May and voted to transfer him to the Everglades Correctional Institution, west of Miami, where he has been in a transitional program for long-term inmates.

Image

Scott Cupp, Mr. Schofield’s lawyer, spoke before the Florida Commission on Offender Review on Wednesday.Credit…Gilbert King

Mr. Schofield’s story has been documented in “Bone Valley,” a nine-part podcast hosted by Gilbert King, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and Kelsey Decker. The podcast was released in September 2022, and painted a picture of a prosecution and conviction so riddled with errors, including a lack of evidence connecting Mr. Schofield to the crime and an ineffective trial lawyer, that a Florida circuit judge, Scott Cupp, quit his job to try to help exonerate Mr. Schofield.

“While we are grateful for the commission’s action, Mr. Schofield is by no means free,” Mr. Cupp said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for his exoneration — the only way we can correct this grave injustice.”

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