September 28, 2022 • 53 mins
Chapter 3 of 9
Facing the death penalty, Leo Schofield retains renowned Polk County defense attorney Jack Edmund, who must square off against an aggressive young prosecutor, John Aguero at trial. The prosecutor builds his case around testimony from numerous witnesses who describe a volatile relationship between Leo and Michelle, and a witness who claims to have observed something suspicious on the night Michelle disappeared.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I was in a cell with two other guys that
were in for murder. One death from the got the
death penalty. I'm not sure what the other one got.
And they were so.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Cavalier about it.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
One of them made a joke, maybe we can get
them to give us an electric couch, and they made
that joke.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
That's the way it was in the jail.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Just having to be part of that, you know, to
like I'm one that would be sitting in the couch,
you know, that's beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't even belong in this story.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's June of nineteen eighty eight, sixteen months after Michelle
Schofield was found stabbed to death in a drainage canal
in Polk County, Florida. Her husband of just six months,
Leo Schofield, is now sitting in the Polk County jail
facing first degree murder charges. The prosecutor, John Aguero, is
(01:13):
seeking the death penalty. Leo insists he's innocent.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Do you my mans left to have my field? Soru
sorremists in this vastity see Rage to the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Bone Valley, Chapter three. Trial by Ambush. The very first
thing that got me hooked on Leo's case was the
trial transcript that Judge Scott Kupp sent to me. The
trial lasted about two weeks in March of nineteen eighty nine,
(03:03):
and unfortunately there was an audio or video recording in
the courtroom, but the trial transcript documents every word of
what was said. There's a lot that happened over those
two weeks, so we're going to break it down. The
first thing to focus on is Leo's defense. At twenty
two years old and unable to make bail, Leo sits
(03:26):
in the Polk County Jail awaiting trial. Since he's unable
to afford an attorney, his case is assigned to the
Office of the Public Defender.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
My name is Tony Maloney and my job is mostly
related to homicide cases.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Tony Maloney was an investigator with the office, and she
recalls that a young colleague, Holly Stutz, was sent down
to the jail to interview Leo.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
And she took a lot of interest in Schofield's case.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Leo starts from the beginning and Holly takes detailed notes
to Holly. Leo is coming across like a young man
who was desperately searching for his wife, and the more
she learns about his timeline, the more she's convinced that
Leo could not have murdered Michelle. So Holly goes back
to the Public Defender's office and briefs Tony and the attorneys.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And she called him her little rock and roller, and.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
She just.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Believed in him. I mean, she really wanted to fight
the fight. Anybody that I worked with closely on that case,
we all really wanted to believe Leo, and he was
so adam that he didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
But as the Public Defender's office is working on his case,
Leo is talking to his cellmates and they're giving him advice.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
One of those cellmates that I had was this guy
named Squeegee.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Who apparently got his nickname from killing a guy with
a squeegee.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Squeeze had said, you can't go to trial and I'm
out of charge with a public defender, you cannot do that.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Squeegee tells him that public defenders are known in the
system as public pretenders. Leo can't trust his life to
these attorneys as an investigator for the Public Defender's office.
These are things Tony Maloney has heard before.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Oh in the jail, they'd say no, you've got to
have a real lawyer. That was how they would say
it to me, and then they got my speech. Let
me explain to you how we work cases. No leaf
will be left unturned. You will have two lawyers on
your case and they have a lot of education and experience.
(05:51):
You will have at least one investigator, more than likely
you'll have two, and more. You will have specialists to
help us evaluate your case. And I said, you know,
you're not going to get any finer defense than you're
going to get right here. And Leo probably got that
speech for more than one of us.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
But other inmates like Squeegee are getting into Leo's head.
The public Pretender's office will not save you. They tell
him you need a superstar attorney.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
All I'm looking for. Somebody needs to come and save me.
You know, I don't know how you're going to do
it or what needs to be done. I don't know
anything about the system, how it works, on any of
that stuff. I just know that I need some out.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
One name that keeps coming up is Jack Edmund, the
most famous private defense attorney in Polk County. He's expensive,
but you gotta get Jack Edmund. They're telling Leo.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I was starstruck with Edmund.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So Leo arranges a meeting with Edmund and one day
he's brought to an attorney's room. He assumes he'll be
meeting Edmund, but instead the guy sitting there introduces himself
as Bob Knipper, Jack Edmund's investigator.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And he said, uh, he said, sign, my name is
Bob Knipper. I work for Jack Edmund. If you want
the best, you gotta pay top dollar. My fee is
ten thousand dollars off the top. Without proper representation, your
life will land in Rayford.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Rayford is the Florida State Prison. It's where Old Sparky,
Florida's Electric Chair sits. By the late nineteen eighties, Florida
had not yet switched to lethal injection, and Florida's electric
Chair was the nation's so called busiest instrument of death.
Old Sparky claimed the lives of twenty men that decade,
(07:46):
including serial killer Ted Bundy, who was executed only weeks
before Leo's trial would begin. Leo tells Bob Nipper about
the car accident he was in. How just a few
months after Michelle's murder, he was a passenger in a
car that flipped over and he broke his neck. He
was getting fifty thousand dollars in an insurance settlement, Nipper
(08:09):
tells Jack Edmund, who agrees to represent Leo. If Leo
signs over the.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Settlement and the case goes away, Leo.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Drops Tony Maloney and the Public Defender's Office to go
with the celebrated defense attorney Jack Edmund, with a quote
unquote real lawyer like Edmund looking into his case, Leo's
hoping this will all be cleared up quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Now that's how I ended up dismissing the Public Defense Office,
which was the biggest mistake that I made at that time.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Months pass and Leo doesn't hear anything from his private attorney,
Jack Edmund. He's learning that when you're charged with a
capital crime, nothing happens fast. Then one night, Leo says
the guards at his cell to take him down for
an attorney visit. He's led into a little room with
(09:06):
a table in a few chairs. He assumes he's there
to finally meet his defense attorney, Jack Edmund, but it's
not Edmund. It's the prosecutor, John Aguero, who walks into
the room.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So when he comes in. I remember him from the plane.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
He wore an Alexic chair tie tack and I'll never
forget that because I commented when I saw it, I said,
you don't think that's kind of morbid And he said, no, no,
just like that, playing his day.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
John Aguero sits down at the table and Leo doesn't
know what to expect.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
He said, I want to I want to talk to
you about your father.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I said, okay.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
He said, I believe your father is guilty in your
cover and form.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Leo has heard this line before. He's already gone through
the interrogation about his father with the detective's Weeks and Putnam,
and he's under the impression that Aguero or anyone who
shows up in a suit and tie has authority over him,
so he's supposed to answer their questions.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I never hinted at I need a lawyer. I mean,
it never even crossed my mind to say I need
my lawyer here.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So now Leo's alone in a room with his prosecutor,
the man trying to send him to the electric chair.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I was being polite. I was being trusting, you know,
I mean I trusted in the process. You know, I
knew this was going to be made right. All I
had to do was was convince him that I was
telling the truth.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
That's what you're supposed to do. That's how I was raised.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Leo says that Aguero doesn't bring a tape recorder. He
doesn't have someone there to take notes or anyone to
witness the conversation. It's just Leo and Aguero.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
You would never talk to a potential witness or a
suspect without recording it. You just don't do it unless
you don't want to be recorded. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Aguero looks Leo in the eye. Listen, He says, I
know you didn't kill Michelle. Your father did it, and
if you agree to testify against him, I'll draw up
some paperwork and you can walk out of here.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You know, I think he really thought that dad did it.
I think that a guirro believed that dad did it.
I don't think he ever really believed that I did it.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Aguero doesn't have any physical evidence against Leo's father or
any eyewitness testimony that connects him to Michelle on the
night she disappeared. He just knows about this weird premonition
that Leo Senior told a police officer and others that
a vision from God had led him to Michelle's body.
To Aguero, this is beyond suspicious, but Leo refuses the deal.
(11:58):
He insists that he's telling Aguero the truth. He didn't
kill Michelle, and neither did his father.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You want me to testify to something that would be
a lie. I don't have that information. What happened is
exactly what I've been saying. What I've just told you again,
and what I told them multiple times over and over
and over again, that never will change. That's what happened.
And he got really frustrated with me telling him that,
(12:27):
and he slammed his hand on the table and he said,
I'm going to put you in the electric chair. And
I said, that's what you're going to have to do,
but I'm not going to say something that's not true.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
When Leo first told us about this meeting with Aguero,
he was so matter of fact about the visit. I
didn't even question it. But when I mentioned it to
other attorneys, I got the same reaction again and again.
Eyebrows were raised. Twice. I was asked to turn off
the tape recorder. These attorneys were appalled. They told me
that prosecutors are never supposed to negotiate plea deals or
(13:09):
offers of immunity without defense council present. It could violate
the sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel in
all criminal proceedings.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
That man came and saw me, he offered me an immunity,
and they'll testify against my father.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
The attorneys I spoke to told me that this was
completely unethical and that Aguero could have been subject to
disciplinary action, but some lawyers said they weren't surprised that
state attorneys were getting away with these kind of things
in rural counties like Polk. Kelsey and I file record
requests to try to corroborate Leo's claim that Aguero visited
(13:47):
him in the jail, but we were told those records
no longer exist, so we only have Leo's word that
this meeting with Aguero took place. But we would soon
learn that this wasn't the only time Aguero was accused
of doing something like this. Ideally, we would have asked
Aguero about this directly, but he died in twenty seventeen.
(14:11):
We reached out to the state attorney's office to see
if others who worked with John Aguero would talk to us,
but they declined our requests for interviews. Leo's been in
the Polk County jail for nine months now. Jack Edmond
(14:32):
has been his lawyer for nearly six months, but Leo
still hasn't met him until finally, the night before his trial,
Leo is taken down to an attorney's room and he
lays eyes on his defense lawyer for the very first time.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
He had cowboy hat, ripped jeans, button up short, Patrick
Cameron hanfilters, and a yellow lego pad was empty. He
didn't have a note.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Edmund shakes Leo's hand. He's sixty three years old, and
he's the first to admit his own legal shortcomings. He
once told a local reporter when I need research, I
call someone who's gifted and bright, and I'm neither. Edmund's
style was to conduct what he called trial by ambush,
reacting to the States case and exposing its weaknesses in
(15:31):
cross examination.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
He was the one you wanted if you were guilty, guilty, guilty,
and somebody had to mesmerize jury.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
This is Grady Juddon, the current Sheriff of Paul County.
He was good friends with Jack Edmund.
Speaker 7 (15:49):
If you were guilty and had to win on the
emotion of the jury, you always wanted Jack Edmund because
I have seen him walk so many guilt people out
of the courtroom. Because of his charisma, his personality, his intellect,
and his absolute mastery of the courtroom.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
There's none better.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
But if you needed to win a case on the law,
the fine print of the law, you didn't want Jack Edmond.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Edmund didn't do any pre trial interviews with witnesses or
hire any experts to analyze the evidence, and during his
meeting with Leo, they didn't go over the state's evidence either.
To Leo, Edmund didn't seem very familiar with his case.
But Edmund says that Assistant state Attorney John Aguero has
offered Leo a deal. This one has nothing to do
(16:46):
with his father. Aguero will reduce the first degree murder
charge to second degree murder if Leo agrees to plead guilty.
That comes with a twelve year sentence. But given that
Leo has no criminal record and with credit for time served,
Leo could actually be out of prison in just a
few years. To Edmund, this plea deal is a sign
(17:09):
that the state isn't confident in the strength of its
case against Leo. But before Leo can even think it over,
Edmund tells him he already took the liberty of turning
down Aguero's deal. Leo didn't know it at the time,
but this isn't supposed to happen either. Leo says he
(17:29):
would never plead guilty to anything anyway, but even so,
he did think it was strange that his lawyer didn't
consult with him first. It would be the first in
a string of very strange decisions by Jack Edmund.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
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Speaker 8 (18:27):
Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is
a philanthropic community that partners with America's boldest change makers
to tackle the root causes of our country's biggest problems,
including the failed war on drugs that has criminalized addiction,
fueled over incarceration, and shattered communities. By thirty five, Kelly
(18:49):
Lingard was an executive with a fortune twenty it company.
If you had asked her thoughts on addiction, she would
have said that addiction was about making bad choices and irresponsibility.
But after hearing the story of a woman in recovery,
Kelly's perspective shifted. She began to understand that addiction was
a problem of pain, not irresponsibility, as she discovered how
(19:12):
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the long run. After watching too many women get sober
only to relapse and die.
Speaker 9 (19:20):
Within days or weeks of completing a recovery program, Kelly
knew she could use her business skills to make a difference.
She left her career and started Unshattered with the mission
of ending the addiction relapse cycle. Unshattered employs women in recovery,
training them to make premium handbags from upcycled materials and
(19:41):
providing them with a compassionate community that helps them continue
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It demonstrates a smarter way of treating addiction that moves
away from criminalization and keeps people out of the system.
Kelly Lingo as one of the many entrepreneurs partnering with
(20:02):
Stand Together to drive solutions in education, healthcare, poverty, and
criminal justice.
Speaker 8 (20:09):
To learn more about addiction and the War on Drugs,
listen to The War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The trial begins on March eighth, nineteen eighty nine. It's
the morning after Leo met Jack Edmund for the first time,
and he walks into court with his defense attorney at
his side.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
He was a known quantity. Everybody in the court house
is newing.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
This is Judge Charles Davis, the trial judge in Leo's case.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
I mean he mussed I had at least a twenty
nine inch waist, I mean real small pencil like fellow
Jack Edmund Quirk. Every morning, every morning that you're in
traw He walks into the courtroom and he comes up
to the bench and on the bench he places two
rolls of life savers. He walks over to the clerk
(21:09):
stand and he places two rolls of life savers. He
walks over to the stenographer's stan and he places two
rolls of life savers. Then he goes to the state
attorney's table and he places one roll of lifesare But
my kids loved it when I tried cases with Jack Edmund,
because I came home with pockets full of life savers.
I mean, that was his mo.
Speaker 10 (21:32):
Jack was very flamboyant and he had a delightful Southern accent,
just a drawl.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
This is Susie Shottlecatti. She's been reporting on the Polk
County courts for the Lakeland Ledgers since nineteen eighty four.
The Leo Schofield case was one of the first trials
she covered, gavel to gavel, as she says.
Speaker 10 (21:54):
Jack actually took acting lessons to perform for a jury,
and he looked like Colonel Sanders. He always wore boots,
and he always wore a western suit. You know, it
was a suit, but it had the western cut in
the back.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
That's for Leo. He was looking a little rough around
the edges when he entered the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I was into rock and roll. I was a musician.
I was in a band. I was pretty successful with
doing that. If I could do this again so that
the jury knows who I am, I'd go in there
just like I was every day.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I never wore a suit in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I hadn't cut my hair, and I don't remember the
last time I cut my hair before I went to jail.
But it wasn't like I looked like I crawled out
of a dumpster, you know. It was who I was now.
They cut my hair off, and it was cut off
into jail, which you can imagine is not like super
cuts or anything.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And then I had two suits.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
One of them was my father's and the other one
was I believe it was David Collins, who was still
a friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And one was a DOC blue and one was a
light blue.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Neither one of them fit. I'd wear one one day,
one the next. And then I wore the light blue
jacket with the DOC blue pants, and like blue pants
of the DC blue jacket, just kept switching it for
the entire trial.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
As Leo takes his seat at the defendant's table, he
catches a glimpse of the prosecutor, John Aguero on the
other side of the courtroom. Since Leo turned down both
of Aguero's offers, the young prosecutor is laser focused on
sending the heavy metal kid from Massachusetts to the electric chair.
At the time of Leo's trial, Aguero is thirty six
(23:44):
years old, he's recently been promoted the chief homicide prosecutor,
and he's already put one man on death row. So
Aguero is supremely confident and he commands everyone's attention in
the courtroom. Now, jury selection begins, but there's already a problem.
Another high profile death penalty case is happening at the
(24:05):
same time in the same courthouse. Both cases are pulling
potential jurors from the same pool of people that showed
up for jury duty. But one by one, potential jurors
are being excused because they can't afford to take weeks
out of their lives to sit on a long trial,
so the pool of available jurors is dwindling. Twelve jurors
(24:27):
are eventually selected for the Leo Schofield trial, but no alternates.
That means that if anyone on the jury gets sick,
or has a family emergency, there won't be anyone to
replace them. Leo's lawyer, Jack Edmond, could have stopped the
trial right there until they could seat alternate jurors, but Aguero,
the prosecutor, wants to proceed. Edmond also agrees to proceed
(24:52):
with no alternate jurors, which is odd because this is
a death penalty case. It only takes one vote of
not guilty to cause a mistrial, so you want as
many jurors as possible. But Leo trusts his famous lawyer.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
You know, I don't have any idea what that means
for me. I'm wanting to help a guirl. I'm wanting
to show him what a nice guy I am. You
know what I mean, Because I'm thinking somewhere along the
line in this nightmare of a dream i'm having, that
we're all going to wake up and see that this
isn't right, and even Aguerol will see that it isn't right.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Because justice plays out always.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
John Aguero walks toward the jury to deliver the state's
opening argument. What kind of person is Leo Schofield?
Speaker 8 (25:50):
He asks?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Is he a docile, mild mannered young man? As he
sits there looking at you today, you're going to find
out that's the farthest thing from the true truth. Leo
Schofield is a very violent young man.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Oh John was thunderous, and he was very demonstrative. He
would use his arms. He would be we are here
because and then he's spin on his heel and point
to the defendant to say, because that man decided that
no no, no Da didn't deserve to live any longer.
And he would just be off to the races. He
would get up there with nothing and he would just
(26:34):
tell a story.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
But when Leo's defense attorney, Jack Edmund rises for his opening,
it's clear he hasn't done his homework. Right off the bat,
he gets the name of Leo's landlord wrong. Then Edmund
mixes up the days of the week from when Michelle
disappears until she's found. He stands before a map of
Lakeland and starts describing roads and distances and times out
(27:00):
any context or story. Maybe the jury is able to
follow along, but Edmund does not. He points to Cumby
Road and seems confused. Let's see, he says, staring at
the map. Now I'm lost. I'd done goofed up, hadn't
I more silence. Nope, I'm wrong, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think he thought that this case was really a
weak case. It was a weak, circumstantial case, and there's
no way you're going to hang for us to be
murder on this kid. And so he didn't put much
in it, and unfortunately he underestimated the power of Johnny Wirl.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Still, Leo remains optimistic Edmond had told him that he
had a ninety percent chance of walking out of the
court acquitted. After both sides make opening statements, Aguero starts
calling witnesses to answer his opening question, what kind of
person is Leo Schofield? The state's case against Leo Schofield
(28:05):
is a circumstantial case, which means John Aguero has no
physical evidence linking Leo to Michelle's murder and no witness
who claimed to have seen the actual crime. So instead,
Aguero brings in a steady stream of bad character witnesses.
It's an onslaught. There's twenty one of them all together.
(28:27):
One witness after another describes incidents where Leo punches holes
in the wall, turns over furniture, and smashes guitars that
he dragged Michelle up a flight of stairs by her hair.
But that's not all. Witnesses testify that Leo didn't help
with his wife's funeral arrangements, that he wasn't able to
tell the officer his wife's year of birth, and that
(28:50):
he was going out to bars with friends not long
after Michelle was killed. Aguero wants the jury wondering what
kind of guy does that?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
And every trial has what they call it's a black day.
This is what I learned in the jail. Everybody knows,
you go a trial, there is a black day where
something doesn't go right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
But for me, every one of those days was a
black day.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
One of the witnesses Aguero calls to the stand is
Michelle McCluskey. She spots Leo as soon as she enters
the courtroom.
Speaker 11 (29:29):
I walked in and he was turned around in his
chair and watched me, you know, walk up, and he
stared at me. But instead of being afraid or trying
not to walk eyes with him, I just wanted to
stare him down. I wanted to burn all in him
with my eyes. You know.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
This is Michelle Schofield's best friend who helped Leo look
for his wife when she went missing. Michelle McCluskey had
her suspicions about Leo after Michelle disappeared, but now two
years later she he's convinced that Leo killed Michelle.
Speaker 11 (30:03):
They asked me, what was my relationship to Michelle and
how long did I know her? And what was my
relationship to Leo? And I just looked at him and
I had to think about it for a minute, and
I said he was my friend, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Michelle McCluskey describes a very unstable relationship between Leo and
Michelle and tells Aguero that she saw the couple fight
a lot. One time she heard Leo yell from another room,
shut up, I hate you. I'll kill you, you bitch.
She says she thought you heard Leo slapper, but Michelle
swore to her that Leo didn't. As I read the
(30:43):
trial transcript, there's no doubt Leo comes off terribly. So
many people are testifying about Leo's temper. He smashes things,
screams at Michelle, gets violent with her. I have to
think that after listening to this part of the state's case,
the jury has already decided that Leo is a bad
husband and maybe even a bad person. But Leo isn't
(31:07):
on trial for that. John Aguero is going to have
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Leo killed Michelle,
and with his next witness, Aguero introduces the one piece
of evidence he has that could potentially link Leo to
the crime. Alice Scott, who Aguero calls the busy body
of the neighborhood, takes the stand.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
She's a neighbor.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I thought she was a pretty nice lady and she
would have no reason to try to hurt me and
he she must have seen something.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Alice Scott tells the jury that in the early morning
hours of February twenty fifth, she looked out her bathroom
window and she did see something. She says she saw
Leo carry out something heavy from his trailer and put
(32:00):
it in the back of the Mazda. Alice is careful
to say that she doesn't know what Leo was carrying,
but Aguero ties it together with a question, you didn't
know that he might be carrying a body out? No
Alice answers, but she takes Aguero's cue and Alice starts
calling the heavy object the body. Alice also claims that
(32:25):
she saw Leo return to the trailer the next morning
with a carpet cleaner. He took it in the house,
Alice says, and he had the door open and he
was cleaning the carpet.
Speaker 12 (32:36):
What would her motive have been other than just to
report what she saw?
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Susie Shattlecatty, the local reporter, watched Alice Scott's testimony intently
in the courtroom.
Speaker 10 (32:50):
Yeah, she didn't have a dog in this house. She
didn't really know those people that well, and there was
no reason for her to try to fabricate something that
didn't happen or that she she didn't actually see. So,
you know, I think that made her testimony pretty powerful.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
When it's the defense's turn to question Alice Scott, Jack
Edmond asked her if she can remember the exact night
this happened. She tells Edmund that she can't remember dates.
But Alice says, her sister in law, Linda Sells, who
lives next door, also saw Leo emerge with the heavy object.
They'd even chatted about it right there across the fence
(33:34):
that divided their yards, Alice says. So Alice's sister in law,
Linda Sells, is called to the stand. She says she
and Alice did see Leo carrying something heavy to the Mazda,
but Linda says this happened a week or two before
the night Michelle disappeared. She says she knows this because
(33:56):
she did not talk with Alice on the night Michelle
went missing. When I came to this part of the
trial transcript, I had to stop to make sure I
just read that correctly. The state's whole case hinges on
the testimony of its star witness, Alice Scott. Aguero must
have hoped his next witness would get on the stand
(34:17):
and corroborate Alice's testimony. Instead, Linda Cells has directly contradicted her.
As Leo watches Linda Cells on the stand, something clicks
in his memory.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I remember then carrying an amplifier out of my house
and placing it in the back of my car. And
you might not have known what I was carrying, because
I did carry it out, and it was a bigger
amp and I carried it out and I put it
in the back of my car. But you knew what
it was not. You knew it wasn't a body. There's
no way you could have mistaken an AMP for body.
And the night that Michelle was missing. I definitely didn't
(34:54):
carry anything out of the house, so you're telling a lie.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
If Aguero was phased by seeing Linda Sells contradict the
testimony of his star witness, he didn't show it. Besides,
he was more focused on another witness, Leo Schofield Senior.
His premonition, the one he claimed led him to Michelle's body,
has become a major part of Aguero's case.
Speaker 10 (35:20):
The thought that he woke up in the night and
had this image. And first of all, that ditch is
like every other ditch in Polk County, So what took
you there that as opposed to anywhere else?
Speaker 12 (35:35):
It just seemed so totally incredulous.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Reporter Susie Shattlecotty was eager to hear how Leo Senior
would do on the stand. She'd already heard his story
about a vision leading him to Michelle's body in a
drainage canal off State Road thirty three.
Speaker 10 (35:54):
When I first heard that, it's like, oh, come on,
I think everybody had that feeling, because if you've been
out on thirty three thirty five years ago, they had
to pipe in sunlight out there.
Speaker 12 (36:07):
It was out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Leo Senior takes the stand and John Aguero begins his questioning.
Speaker 12 (36:17):
Oh, John had a heyday with that. I mean, how
can you not just you know this vision?
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Leo's father knew that his story of a premonition sounded
weird and could hurt his son's case, so he attempts
to walk back his comments, saying that he didn't recall
mentioning a vision from God to anyone. He says he
may have, but he just couldn't remember his exact words.
But the thing is, his comments were well documented. Multiple
(36:50):
witnesses testified to it, and his story about the vision
had been recorded in an official police report. From just
reading the words on the pages, Leo Senior doesn't come
across as very credible, and Aguero keeps hammering him. Isn't
it true that you went to State Road thirty three
(37:10):
that day because you knew you were going there to
find the body? No, sir, Leo Senior replies. Seeing his
dad witherr under Aguero's aggressive questioning is painful for Leo,
and he can't understand why his father would say that
God had led him to Michelle's body.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I was like, what the hell is that we were
looking for three days. You know, who's going to believe that?
Why would you even say something like that. He wanted
to believe God was helping him, and you know, he
knew something was wrong. We all knew something was wrong.
We're looking for my wife in ditches whatever. You're not
looking at a ditch thinking everything's okay. I don't even
(37:50):
remember what his actual testimony was on the stand. He
tried to clean it up, and that was the worst
thing he could do, you know, because now you've got Aguero,
who's a master at, you know, twisting your head off,
and he did exactly that.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
One of the reasons Aguero was so aggressive with Leo
Senior is because he's an alibi witness for his son's
whereabouts on a night Michelle disappeared. There were times when
Leo claimed to be alone with his father looking for Michelle.
So if Aguero could show the jury that there's something
suspicious about Leo Senior, he's hoping the jury will also
(38:24):
reject Leo's alibi.
Speaker 12 (38:26):
That probably hurt his case more than anything.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
This was definitely one of the blacker days for Leo.
Seven days after opening arguments, Jack Edmond begins his defense
he calls Leo Schofield Junior to the stand.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
My initial reaction was no good thing comes when you
put to the.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Feral stand, Judge Charles Davis.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
No matter how sincere and convincing he is, it makes
one innocent slip up. It's magnified right off the bat.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Leo admits that he had a temper. I had a
bad habit of hollering and screaming, and it wasn't beyond
me to throw a temper tantrum once in a while,
he tells Jack Edmund, and yes, he did knock over
a coffee table in his trailer. He also admits to
two instances in which he slapped Michelle. But he never
punched her, he says, and he never dragged her by
(39:25):
the hair up any flight of stairs. Edmund leads Leo
through his actions and movements on the night Michelle disappeared,
and Leo tells the same story he always tells to
police and defense attorneys. It never changes. When Prosecutor John
(39:57):
Aguero gets his chance to question Leo, It's March twentieth.
Aguero had the weekend of Saint Patrick's Day to prepare
for his cross examination. He's feeling lucky.
Speaker 10 (40:09):
He was going to do cross right after lunch, and
I remember seeing him when we were getting ready to
go in the courtroom and I overheard somebody saying, John,
you're ready. He said, I've been ready for this for weeks.
And it was just the tone in his voice. You
could tell it's like, let me at him.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Aguero approaches the young man he arrested almost a year before.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I don't have any training in how to speak to people.
I've never been on trial before.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I've never had my life so exposed and so exaggerated
and manipulated and all that. So I'm sitting there and
I'm scared of death as it is.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Leo focuses on answering Aguero's questions accurately, but he feels
that he isn't connecting to the.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Jury, and that is a problem of this case. My
short spoken, my inability to open up.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
But how do you do that? How do you do
that when you know all this stuff is wrong?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
But these people are not going to believe you anyway,
and he's the homeboy hero, it's almost impossible.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Aguero begins his questioning, and Leo consents that this prosecutor
is prepared. He's challenging Leo on everything from the number
of times he slapped Michelle to the phone calls he
made when Michelle went missing. And Leo can feel the
eyes of the jury on him. But Leo isn't tripped
up by anything. Aguero asks and his answers are consistent.
(41:47):
Aguero keeps the pressure on.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
My emotions were insecure, fear, and he played on that.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Aguero knew that he was masterful in that.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
And it's a very unfortunate thing because I look back
at it, kicking myself.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Now, what do I have to fear in this man?
You know why these people are nothing to me? This
is the story.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Tell the story, you know, Tell him the truth and
don't give him the ability to keep breaking you, cutting
you off and painting this picture, you know, with his
own strokes.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
Leo is trying really hard to hold his composure, but
it was tough. John was making it really really tough
because John was just all over him. He was just
calling him on absolutely everything. And if memory serves me,
toward the end, Leo is starting to get pretty rattled,
you know, because John was just telling him, We're not
(42:46):
buying it, We're not buying this.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I remember sitting there and looking at my mother and
she was just crying. The sad reality is I was
waiting for someone to just rescue me.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Once John Aguero is done with Leo, Jack Edmond rests
his case for the defense, Aguero gives the first closing argument.
Speaker 10 (43:10):
It's when I kind of coined myself the twelve Days
of Christmas. Closing argument, he would be, if you want
to and I think he did it on this one,
if you want to.
Speaker 12 (43:20):
Believe that this man is innocent, then you.
Speaker 10 (43:23):
Have to believe that this is a coincidence. And then
you bring up the next one and say, if you
want to believe that he didn't do it, then you
have to believe that this and this, that both of
these are coincidences, and then you go all the way
down the list.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
His closing might have been persuasive, but it's also full
of misstatements. At one point, Aguero tells the jury to
imagine Michelle screaming, no, Leo, don't stab me. Alice Scott
said no such thing on the stand. As for Alice's
sister in law, Linda Sells, he simply pretends that her
(43:58):
testimony about which they saw Leo carrying something heavy didn't
contradict Alice's statements. He approaches many of the discrepancies and
testimony this way and finds a way to tie them
up quickly and confidently. Aguero then argues that it was
no premonition or vision that led Leo Senior to Michelle's body.
(44:21):
He says Leo's father knew exactly where to find her
because he dumped her there, and Leo and his parents
were never out searching for Michelle. They are liars. He says,
they were making phone calls and driving around town to
craft a false alibi. There's no question Aguero was in
(44:41):
command of his case against Leo Schofield. He's a tough
act to follow, even for someone as charismatic as the
Southern gentleman in the Western cut suit with the rolls
of life savers Jack Edmund rises for his clothing and
drives home the point that there is no physical evidence
connecting Leo Schofield to the murder of his wife. It's
(45:03):
an entirely circumstantial case built around bad character evidence and
the testimony of Alice Scott, which he argues cannot be
trusted in the States rebuttal. Aguero concludes with a dramatic statement.
He points at Leo and tells the jury.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
You don't have to lock up your eighteen year old
daughters at night, because we have the murderer sitting right
over there. And the reason that was so bothersome to
me is that all the things I had to answer
for and try to swim through and present myself in
this ridiculous suit, this ridiculous haircut to a jury who's
going to ultimately decide my faith. The one thing I'm
(45:43):
not allowed by law to tell them is that this
same confident guy that's standing before you bacon me and
acting like he's so sure, is the same one that
offered me immunity to prosecute my father.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
I'm thinking the same thing. If Aguero offered Leo immunity
because he's sure it was the father and not the
son who killed Michelle, why is he still trying to
put Leo in the electric chair. Now that it's time
for the jury to deliberate, two of the jurors are gone.
One was forced to drop off for health reasons and
(46:23):
the other had a family emergency with no alternates. The
jury is now down to ten, and now as only
ten jurors are sent into deliberations. I can't imagine what
Edmund was thinking. That's two fewer people on the jury
who could have been more sympathetic to Leo's version of events.
Of course, the man I wanted to talk to the
(46:44):
most about this was Jack Edmund himself, but by the
time I was reading the transcripts, he, like John Aguero,
had also passed away. The jury deliberates for just four hours,
then they turned with the verdict.
Speaker 12 (47:01):
When the bailiff came in and said we have a verdict.
Speaker 10 (47:04):
I remember Jack walking across the room and he was
just looking down and shaking his head and saying, that's
too soon, that's too soon.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Michelle McCluskey was sitting in the courtroom next to Michelle
Schofield's dad, David's Sam. She was holding David's.
Speaker 11 (47:23):
Hand, shaking, physically shaking. Dave Jeanne was all sweaty. He
definitely wanted a guilty verdict. We all did. By that time.
There was no question. I don't remember anybody not believing
it at that point, so you know, I was trying
to hold myself together.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
The verdict is read, Leo is found guilty of first degree.
Speaker 11 (47:47):
Murder, and I remember when they said he was guilty.
That we were just relieved and happy and a few
it because it was a celebration. Afterwards, there was some
level of the really deep sadness to know that, Yeah,
(48:10):
of course the jury found him guilty. He really did this,
you know what I mean, Like there is no more
questioning it at all. He did this.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Honestly.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I think I was numb, Yeah, I know, I honestly, Gilbert,
for life of me, I can't remember what I was
thinking when the jury was coming out.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
After the verdict was read, they.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Took me to a holding cell because now I'm going
in the penalty phase and I'm gonna have to face
the death penalty. And in a couple of minutes Edmund
had come in through the bars and they let him
in the cell with me, and I remember telling him
I don't want to die, and.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
He gave me a hug and he said I'm not
gonna let.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
That happen, and I remember telling him then I can't
even cry. I was so numb and beat down and
disgusted that I don't think sadness was the reaction for me.
For me, it was I was incredulous that this could
(49:26):
even be taking place.
Speaker 5 (49:27):
You know.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I mean, it was just so beyond my ability to
imagine I would personally be facing something like that.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
When Leo was brought back into court the next morning
for sentencing, he addresses the jury in his cheap, mismatched
suit and his jailhouse haircut. This is what he says.
It's hard for me to sit up here and plead
with you for my life because you already found me guilty.
You've already taken it away. I'm telling you you're making
(50:00):
a mistake, a big mistake. I'm not guilty. I didn't
kill my wife. I'm asking please don't take it. I
can show you. I can prove it to you. I
don't even know what to say to you. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
I simply told the jury you made a mistake. You
know I'm not guilty. I did not do it. And
I think I was even trying to tell him I
can prove it to you. I was so desperate to
something wasn't told right. We didn't get all the story out.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
The jury deliberates, then hands their recommendation to the judge.
John Aguero, the prosecutor with the old sparky tie clasp,
has failed to send Leo Schofield to the electric chair.
Leo is sentenced to life in prison. The first time
(51:07):
Kelsey and I finished reading through the transcript, all we
can think about is this one moment in Jack Edmond's
closing argument when he reminds the jury that police never
found any fingerprints in the car that matched Leo or
Michelle Schofield, And then Edmund asked the jury this question,
wouldn't you like to know if someone else's fingerprints were
(51:30):
in that Mazda? The painful truth is someone else's fingerprints
were found in the Mazda, and the fingerprint evidence was
right there for Jack Edmond to see. If Edmund had
just looked into these prints, he would have been able
to see that someone had been in the car, someone
(51:51):
who was yet to be identified, someone who might have
known something about Michelle's murder. So Leo's right. They didn't
get the whole story out, and that's what Kelsey and
I set out to do. Get the whole story. The
story of Michelle's murder doesn't end with Leo's conviction. In fact,
(52:15):
the story is just beginning. Bone Valley is a production
of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Number One. Our executive producers are Jason Flohm and Kevin
Wordiskarak Kornhaber is our senior producer. Britz Spangler is our
(52:38):
sound designer. Roxandra Guidy is our editor. Fact checking by
Maximo Anderson. Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our
theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed
by Lee, Bob and the Truth. It was written by
Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hearty Correctional Institution.
(53:01):
Bone Valley is written and produced by me Gilbert King.
You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at Lava for Good. To see photos and documents from
our investigation and exclusive behind the scenes content, visit Lava
Forgood dot com
I was in a cell with two other guys that
were in for murder. One death from the got the
death penalty. I'm not sure what the other one got.
And they were so.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Cavalier about it.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
One of them made a joke, maybe we can get
them to give us an electric couch, and they made
that joke.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
That's the way it was in the jail.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Just having to be part of that, you know, to
like I'm one that would be sitting in the couch,
you know, that's beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't even belong in this story.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's June of nineteen eighty eight, sixteen months after Michelle
Schofield was found stabbed to death in a drainage canal
in Polk County, Florida. Her husband of just six months,
Leo Schofield, is now sitting in the Polk County jail
facing first degree murder charges. The prosecutor, John Aguero, is
(01:13):
seeking the death penalty. Leo insists he's innocent.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Do you my mans left to have my field? Soru
sorremists in this vastity see Rage to the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Bone Valley, Chapter three. Trial by Ambush. The very first
thing that got me hooked on Leo's case was the
trial transcript that Judge Scott Kupp sent to me. The
trial lasted about two weeks in March of nineteen eighty nine,
(03:03):
and unfortunately there was an audio or video recording in
the courtroom, but the trial transcript documents every word of
what was said. There's a lot that happened over those
two weeks, so we're going to break it down. The
first thing to focus on is Leo's defense. At twenty
two years old and unable to make bail, Leo sits
(03:26):
in the Polk County Jail awaiting trial. Since he's unable
to afford an attorney, his case is assigned to the
Office of the Public Defender.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
My name is Tony Maloney and my job is mostly
related to homicide cases.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Tony Maloney was an investigator with the office, and she
recalls that a young colleague, Holly Stutz, was sent down
to the jail to interview Leo.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
And she took a lot of interest in Schofield's case.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Leo starts from the beginning and Holly takes detailed notes
to Holly. Leo is coming across like a young man
who was desperately searching for his wife, and the more
she learns about his timeline, the more she's convinced that
Leo could not have murdered Michelle. So Holly goes back
to the Public Defender's office and briefs Tony and the attorneys.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And she called him her little rock and roller, and.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
She just.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Believed in him. I mean, she really wanted to fight
the fight. Anybody that I worked with closely on that case,
we all really wanted to believe Leo, and he was
so adam that he didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
But as the Public Defender's office is working on his case,
Leo is talking to his cellmates and they're giving him advice.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
One of those cellmates that I had was this guy
named Squeegee.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Who apparently got his nickname from killing a guy with
a squeegee.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Squeeze had said, you can't go to trial and I'm
out of charge with a public defender, you cannot do that.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Squeegee tells him that public defenders are known in the
system as public pretenders. Leo can't trust his life to
these attorneys as an investigator for the Public Defender's office.
These are things Tony Maloney has heard before.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Oh in the jail, they'd say no, you've got to
have a real lawyer. That was how they would say
it to me, and then they got my speech. Let
me explain to you how we work cases. No leaf
will be left unturned. You will have two lawyers on
your case and they have a lot of education and experience.
(05:51):
You will have at least one investigator, more than likely
you'll have two, and more. You will have specialists to
help us evaluate your case. And I said, you know,
you're not going to get any finer defense than you're
going to get right here. And Leo probably got that
speech for more than one of us.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
But other inmates like Squeegee are getting into Leo's head.
The public Pretender's office will not save you. They tell
him you need a superstar attorney.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
All I'm looking for. Somebody needs to come and save me.
You know, I don't know how you're going to do
it or what needs to be done. I don't know
anything about the system, how it works, on any of
that stuff. I just know that I need some out.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
One name that keeps coming up is Jack Edmund, the
most famous private defense attorney in Polk County. He's expensive,
but you gotta get Jack Edmund. They're telling Leo.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I was starstruck with Edmund.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So Leo arranges a meeting with Edmund and one day
he's brought to an attorney's room. He assumes he'll be
meeting Edmund, but instead the guy sitting there introduces himself
as Bob Knipper, Jack Edmund's investigator.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And he said, uh, he said, sign, my name is
Bob Knipper. I work for Jack Edmund. If you want
the best, you gotta pay top dollar. My fee is
ten thousand dollars off the top. Without proper representation, your
life will land in Rayford.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Rayford is the Florida State Prison. It's where Old Sparky,
Florida's Electric Chair sits. By the late nineteen eighties, Florida
had not yet switched to lethal injection, and Florida's electric
Chair was the nation's so called busiest instrument of death.
Old Sparky claimed the lives of twenty men that decade,
(07:46):
including serial killer Ted Bundy, who was executed only weeks
before Leo's trial would begin. Leo tells Bob Nipper about
the car accident he was in. How just a few
months after Michelle's murder, he was a passenger in a
car that flipped over and he broke his neck. He
was getting fifty thousand dollars in an insurance settlement, Nipper
(08:09):
tells Jack Edmund, who agrees to represent Leo. If Leo
signs over the.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Settlement and the case goes away, Leo.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Drops Tony Maloney and the Public Defender's Office to go
with the celebrated defense attorney Jack Edmund, with a quote
unquote real lawyer like Edmund looking into his case, Leo's
hoping this will all be cleared up quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Now that's how I ended up dismissing the Public Defense Office,
which was the biggest mistake that I made at that time.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Months pass and Leo doesn't hear anything from his private attorney,
Jack Edmund. He's learning that when you're charged with a
capital crime, nothing happens fast. Then one night, Leo says
the guards at his cell to take him down for
an attorney visit. He's led into a little room with
(09:06):
a table in a few chairs. He assumes he's there
to finally meet his defense attorney, Jack Edmund, but it's
not Edmund. It's the prosecutor, John Aguero, who walks into
the room.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So when he comes in. I remember him from the plane.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
He wore an Alexic chair tie tack and I'll never
forget that because I commented when I saw it, I said,
you don't think that's kind of morbid And he said, no, no,
just like that, playing his day.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
John Aguero sits down at the table and Leo doesn't
know what to expect.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
He said, I want to I want to talk to
you about your father.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I said, okay.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
He said, I believe your father is guilty in your
cover and form.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Leo has heard this line before. He's already gone through
the interrogation about his father with the detective's Weeks and Putnam,
and he's under the impression that Aguero or anyone who
shows up in a suit and tie has authority over him,
so he's supposed to answer their questions.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I never hinted at I need a lawyer. I mean,
it never even crossed my mind to say I need
my lawyer here.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So now Leo's alone in a room with his prosecutor,
the man trying to send him to the electric chair.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I was being polite. I was being trusting, you know,
I mean I trusted in the process. You know, I
knew this was going to be made right. All I
had to do was was convince him that I was
telling the truth.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
That's what you're supposed to do. That's how I was raised.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Leo says that Aguero doesn't bring a tape recorder. He
doesn't have someone there to take notes or anyone to
witness the conversation. It's just Leo and Aguero.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
You would never talk to a potential witness or a
suspect without recording it. You just don't do it unless
you don't want to be recorded. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Aguero looks Leo in the eye. Listen, He says, I
know you didn't kill Michelle. Your father did it, and
if you agree to testify against him, I'll draw up
some paperwork and you can walk out of here.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You know, I think he really thought that dad did it.
I think that a guirro believed that dad did it.
I don't think he ever really believed that I did it.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Aguero doesn't have any physical evidence against Leo's father or
any eyewitness testimony that connects him to Michelle on the
night she disappeared. He just knows about this weird premonition
that Leo Senior told a police officer and others that
a vision from God had led him to Michelle's body.
To Aguero, this is beyond suspicious, but Leo refuses the deal.
(11:58):
He insists that he's telling Aguero the truth. He didn't
kill Michelle, and neither did his father.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You want me to testify to something that would be
a lie. I don't have that information. What happened is
exactly what I've been saying. What I've just told you again,
and what I told them multiple times over and over
and over again, that never will change. That's what happened.
And he got really frustrated with me telling him that,
(12:27):
and he slammed his hand on the table and he said,
I'm going to put you in the electric chair. And
I said, that's what you're going to have to do,
but I'm not going to say something that's not true.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
When Leo first told us about this meeting with Aguero,
he was so matter of fact about the visit. I
didn't even question it. But when I mentioned it to
other attorneys, I got the same reaction again and again.
Eyebrows were raised. Twice. I was asked to turn off
the tape recorder. These attorneys were appalled. They told me
that prosecutors are never supposed to negotiate plea deals or
(13:09):
offers of immunity without defense council present. It could violate
the sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel in
all criminal proceedings.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
That man came and saw me, he offered me an immunity,
and they'll testify against my father.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
The attorneys I spoke to told me that this was
completely unethical and that Aguero could have been subject to
disciplinary action, but some lawyers said they weren't surprised that
state attorneys were getting away with these kind of things
in rural counties like Polk. Kelsey and I file record
requests to try to corroborate Leo's claim that Aguero visited
(13:47):
him in the jail, but we were told those records
no longer exist, so we only have Leo's word that
this meeting with Aguero took place. But we would soon
learn that this wasn't the only time Aguero was accused
of doing something like this. Ideally, we would have asked
Aguero about this directly, but he died in twenty seventeen.
(14:11):
We reached out to the state attorney's office to see
if others who worked with John Aguero would talk to us,
but they declined our requests for interviews. Leo's been in
the Polk County jail for nine months now. Jack Edmond
(14:32):
has been his lawyer for nearly six months, but Leo
still hasn't met him until finally, the night before his trial,
Leo is taken down to an attorney's room and he
lays eyes on his defense lawyer for the very first time.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
He had cowboy hat, ripped jeans, button up short, Patrick
Cameron hanfilters, and a yellow lego pad was empty. He
didn't have a note.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Edmund shakes Leo's hand. He's sixty three years old, and
he's the first to admit his own legal shortcomings. He
once told a local reporter when I need research, I
call someone who's gifted and bright, and I'm neither. Edmund's
style was to conduct what he called trial by ambush,
reacting to the States case and exposing its weaknesses in
(15:31):
cross examination.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
He was the one you wanted if you were guilty, guilty, guilty,
and somebody had to mesmerize jury.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
This is Grady Juddon, the current Sheriff of Paul County.
He was good friends with Jack Edmund.
Speaker 7 (15:49):
If you were guilty and had to win on the
emotion of the jury, you always wanted Jack Edmund because
I have seen him walk so many guilt people out
of the courtroom. Because of his charisma, his personality, his intellect,
and his absolute mastery of the courtroom.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
There's none better.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
But if you needed to win a case on the law,
the fine print of the law, you didn't want Jack Edmond.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Edmund didn't do any pre trial interviews with witnesses or
hire any experts to analyze the evidence, and during his
meeting with Leo, they didn't go over the state's evidence either.
To Leo, Edmund didn't seem very familiar with his case.
But Edmund says that Assistant state Attorney John Aguero has
offered Leo a deal. This one has nothing to do
(16:46):
with his father. Aguero will reduce the first degree murder
charge to second degree murder if Leo agrees to plead guilty.
That comes with a twelve year sentence. But given that
Leo has no criminal record and with credit for time served,
Leo could actually be out of prison in just a
few years. To Edmund, this plea deal is a sign
(17:09):
that the state isn't confident in the strength of its
case against Leo. But before Leo can even think it over,
Edmund tells him he already took the liberty of turning
down Aguero's deal. Leo didn't know it at the time,
but this isn't supposed to happen either. Leo says he
(17:29):
would never plead guilty to anything anyway, but even so,
he did think it was strange that his lawyer didn't
consult with him first. It would be the first in
a string of very strange decisions by Jack Edmund.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
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(18:15):
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Speaker 8 (18:27):
Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is
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to tackle the root causes of our country's biggest problems,
including the failed war on drugs that has criminalized addiction,
fueled over incarceration, and shattered communities. By thirty five, Kelly
(18:49):
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If you had asked her thoughts on addiction, she would
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But after hearing the story of a woman in recovery,
Kelly's perspective shifted. She began to understand that addiction was
a problem of pain, not irresponsibility, as she discovered how
(19:12):
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Speaker 9 (19:20):
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(20:02):
Stand Together to drive solutions in education, healthcare, poverty, and
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Speaker 8 (20:09):
To learn more about addiction and the War on Drugs,
listen to The War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The trial begins on March eighth, nineteen eighty nine. It's
the morning after Leo met Jack Edmund for the first time,
and he walks into court with his defense attorney at
his side.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
He was a known quantity. Everybody in the court house
is newing.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
This is Judge Charles Davis, the trial judge in Leo's case.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
I mean he mussed I had at least a twenty
nine inch waist, I mean real small pencil like fellow
Jack Edmund Quirk. Every morning, every morning that you're in
traw He walks into the courtroom and he comes up
to the bench and on the bench he places two
rolls of life savers. He walks over to the clerk
(21:09):
stand and he places two rolls of life savers. He
walks over to the stenographer's stan and he places two
rolls of life savers. Then he goes to the state
attorney's table and he places one roll of lifesare But
my kids loved it when I tried cases with Jack Edmund,
because I came home with pockets full of life savers.
I mean, that was his mo.
Speaker 10 (21:32):
Jack was very flamboyant and he had a delightful Southern accent,
just a drawl.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
This is Susie Shottlecatti. She's been reporting on the Polk
County courts for the Lakeland Ledgers since nineteen eighty four.
The Leo Schofield case was one of the first trials
she covered, gavel to gavel, as she says.
Speaker 10 (21:54):
Jack actually took acting lessons to perform for a jury,
and he looked like Colonel Sanders. He always wore boots,
and he always wore a western suit. You know, it
was a suit, but it had the western cut in
the back.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
That's for Leo. He was looking a little rough around
the edges when he entered the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I was into rock and roll. I was a musician.
I was in a band. I was pretty successful with
doing that. If I could do this again so that
the jury knows who I am, I'd go in there
just like I was every day.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I never wore a suit in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I hadn't cut my hair, and I don't remember the
last time I cut my hair before I went to jail.
But it wasn't like I looked like I crawled out
of a dumpster, you know. It was who I was now.
They cut my hair off, and it was cut off
into jail, which you can imagine is not like super
cuts or anything.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And then I had two suits.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
One of them was my father's and the other one
was I believe it was David Collins, who was still
a friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And one was a DOC blue and one was a
light blue.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Neither one of them fit. I'd wear one one day,
one the next. And then I wore the light blue
jacket with the DOC blue pants, and like blue pants
of the DC blue jacket, just kept switching it for
the entire trial.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
As Leo takes his seat at the defendant's table, he
catches a glimpse of the prosecutor, John Aguero on the
other side of the courtroom. Since Leo turned down both
of Aguero's offers, the young prosecutor is laser focused on
sending the heavy metal kid from Massachusetts to the electric chair.
At the time of Leo's trial, Aguero is thirty six
(23:44):
years old, he's recently been promoted the chief homicide prosecutor,
and he's already put one man on death row. So
Aguero is supremely confident and he commands everyone's attention in
the courtroom. Now, jury selection begins, but there's already a problem.
Another high profile death penalty case is happening at the
(24:05):
same time in the same courthouse. Both cases are pulling
potential jurors from the same pool of people that showed
up for jury duty. But one by one, potential jurors
are being excused because they can't afford to take weeks
out of their lives to sit on a long trial,
so the pool of available jurors is dwindling. Twelve jurors
(24:27):
are eventually selected for the Leo Schofield trial, but no alternates.
That means that if anyone on the jury gets sick,
or has a family emergency, there won't be anyone to
replace them. Leo's lawyer, Jack Edmond, could have stopped the
trial right there until they could seat alternate jurors, but Aguero,
the prosecutor, wants to proceed. Edmond also agrees to proceed
(24:52):
with no alternate jurors, which is odd because this is
a death penalty case. It only takes one vote of
not guilty to cause a mistrial, so you want as
many jurors as possible. But Leo trusts his famous lawyer.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
You know, I don't have any idea what that means
for me. I'm wanting to help a guirl. I'm wanting
to show him what a nice guy I am. You
know what I mean, Because I'm thinking somewhere along the
line in this nightmare of a dream i'm having, that
we're all going to wake up and see that this
isn't right, and even Aguerol will see that it isn't right.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Because justice plays out always.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
John Aguero walks toward the jury to deliver the state's
opening argument. What kind of person is Leo Schofield?
Speaker 8 (25:50):
He asks?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Is he a docile, mild mannered young man? As he
sits there looking at you today, you're going to find
out that's the farthest thing from the true truth. Leo
Schofield is a very violent young man.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Oh John was thunderous, and he was very demonstrative. He
would use his arms. He would be we are here
because and then he's spin on his heel and point
to the defendant to say, because that man decided that
no no, no Da didn't deserve to live any longer.
And he would just be off to the races. He
would get up there with nothing and he would just
(26:34):
tell a story.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
But when Leo's defense attorney, Jack Edmund rises for his opening,
it's clear he hasn't done his homework. Right off the bat,
he gets the name of Leo's landlord wrong. Then Edmund
mixes up the days of the week from when Michelle
disappears until she's found. He stands before a map of
Lakeland and starts describing roads and distances and times out
(27:00):
any context or story. Maybe the jury is able to
follow along, but Edmund does not. He points to Cumby
Road and seems confused. Let's see, he says, staring at
the map. Now I'm lost. I'd done goofed up, hadn't
I more silence. Nope, I'm wrong, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think he thought that this case was really a
weak case. It was a weak, circumstantial case, and there's
no way you're going to hang for us to be
murder on this kid. And so he didn't put much
in it, and unfortunately he underestimated the power of Johnny Wirl.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Still, Leo remains optimistic Edmond had told him that he
had a ninety percent chance of walking out of the
court acquitted. After both sides make opening statements, Aguero starts
calling witnesses to answer his opening question, what kind of
person is Leo Schofield? The state's case against Leo Schofield
(28:05):
is a circumstantial case, which means John Aguero has no
physical evidence linking Leo to Michelle's murder and no witness
who claimed to have seen the actual crime. So instead,
Aguero brings in a steady stream of bad character witnesses.
It's an onslaught. There's twenty one of them all together.
(28:27):
One witness after another describes incidents where Leo punches holes
in the wall, turns over furniture, and smashes guitars that
he dragged Michelle up a flight of stairs by her hair.
But that's not all. Witnesses testify that Leo didn't help
with his wife's funeral arrangements, that he wasn't able to
tell the officer his wife's year of birth, and that
(28:50):
he was going out to bars with friends not long
after Michelle was killed. Aguero wants the jury wondering what
kind of guy does that?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
And every trial has what they call it's a black day.
This is what I learned in the jail. Everybody knows,
you go a trial, there is a black day where
something doesn't go right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
But for me, every one of those days was a
black day.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
One of the witnesses Aguero calls to the stand is
Michelle McCluskey. She spots Leo as soon as she enters
the courtroom.
Speaker 11 (29:29):
I walked in and he was turned around in his
chair and watched me, you know, walk up, and he
stared at me. But instead of being afraid or trying
not to walk eyes with him, I just wanted to
stare him down. I wanted to burn all in him
with my eyes. You know.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
This is Michelle Schofield's best friend who helped Leo look
for his wife when she went missing. Michelle McCluskey had
her suspicions about Leo after Michelle disappeared, but now two
years later she he's convinced that Leo killed Michelle.
Speaker 11 (30:03):
They asked me, what was my relationship to Michelle and
how long did I know her? And what was my
relationship to Leo? And I just looked at him and
I had to think about it for a minute, and
I said he was my friend, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Michelle McCluskey describes a very unstable relationship between Leo and
Michelle and tells Aguero that she saw the couple fight
a lot. One time she heard Leo yell from another room,
shut up, I hate you. I'll kill you, you bitch.
She says she thought you heard Leo slapper, but Michelle
swore to her that Leo didn't. As I read the
(30:43):
trial transcript, there's no doubt Leo comes off terribly. So
many people are testifying about Leo's temper. He smashes things,
screams at Michelle, gets violent with her. I have to
think that after listening to this part of the state's case,
the jury has already decided that Leo is a bad
husband and maybe even a bad person. But Leo isn't
(31:07):
on trial for that. John Aguero is going to have
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Leo killed Michelle,
and with his next witness, Aguero introduces the one piece
of evidence he has that could potentially link Leo to
the crime. Alice Scott, who Aguero calls the busy body
of the neighborhood, takes the stand.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
She's a neighbor.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I thought she was a pretty nice lady and she
would have no reason to try to hurt me and
he she must have seen something.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Alice Scott tells the jury that in the early morning
hours of February twenty fifth, she looked out her bathroom
window and she did see something. She says she saw
Leo carry out something heavy from his trailer and put
(32:00):
it in the back of the Mazda. Alice is careful
to say that she doesn't know what Leo was carrying,
but Aguero ties it together with a question, you didn't
know that he might be carrying a body out? No
Alice answers, but she takes Aguero's cue and Alice starts
calling the heavy object the body. Alice also claims that
(32:25):
she saw Leo return to the trailer the next morning
with a carpet cleaner. He took it in the house,
Alice says, and he had the door open and he
was cleaning the carpet.
Speaker 12 (32:36):
What would her motive have been other than just to
report what she saw?
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Susie Shattlecatty, the local reporter, watched Alice Scott's testimony intently
in the courtroom.
Speaker 10 (32:50):
Yeah, she didn't have a dog in this house. She
didn't really know those people that well, and there was
no reason for her to try to fabricate something that
didn't happen or that she she didn't actually see. So,
you know, I think that made her testimony pretty powerful.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
When it's the defense's turn to question Alice Scott, Jack
Edmond asked her if she can remember the exact night
this happened. She tells Edmund that she can't remember dates.
But Alice says, her sister in law, Linda Sells, who
lives next door, also saw Leo emerge with the heavy object.
They'd even chatted about it right there across the fence
(33:34):
that divided their yards, Alice says. So Alice's sister in law,
Linda Sells, is called to the stand. She says she
and Alice did see Leo carrying something heavy to the Mazda,
but Linda says this happened a week or two before
the night Michelle disappeared. She says she knows this because
(33:56):
she did not talk with Alice on the night Michelle
went missing. When I came to this part of the
trial transcript, I had to stop to make sure I
just read that correctly. The state's whole case hinges on
the testimony of its star witness, Alice Scott. Aguero must
have hoped his next witness would get on the stand
(34:17):
and corroborate Alice's testimony. Instead, Linda Cells has directly contradicted her.
As Leo watches Linda Cells on the stand, something clicks
in his memory.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I remember then carrying an amplifier out of my house
and placing it in the back of my car. And
you might not have known what I was carrying, because
I did carry it out, and it was a bigger
amp and I carried it out and I put it
in the back of my car. But you knew what
it was not. You knew it wasn't a body. There's
no way you could have mistaken an AMP for body.
And the night that Michelle was missing. I definitely didn't
(34:54):
carry anything out of the house, so you're telling a lie.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
If Aguero was phased by seeing Linda Sells contradict the
testimony of his star witness, he didn't show it. Besides,
he was more focused on another witness, Leo Schofield Senior.
His premonition, the one he claimed led him to Michelle's body,
has become a major part of Aguero's case.
Speaker 10 (35:20):
The thought that he woke up in the night and
had this image. And first of all, that ditch is
like every other ditch in Polk County, So what took
you there that as opposed to anywhere else?
Speaker 12 (35:35):
It just seemed so totally incredulous.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Reporter Susie Shattlecotty was eager to hear how Leo Senior
would do on the stand. She'd already heard his story
about a vision leading him to Michelle's body in a
drainage canal off State Road thirty three.
Speaker 10 (35:54):
When I first heard that, it's like, oh, come on,
I think everybody had that feeling, because if you've been
out on thirty three thirty five years ago, they had
to pipe in sunlight out there.
Speaker 12 (36:07):
It was out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Leo Senior takes the stand and John Aguero begins his questioning.
Speaker 12 (36:17):
Oh, John had a heyday with that. I mean, how
can you not just you know this vision?
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Leo's father knew that his story of a premonition sounded
weird and could hurt his son's case, so he attempts
to walk back his comments, saying that he didn't recall
mentioning a vision from God to anyone. He says he
may have, but he just couldn't remember his exact words.
But the thing is, his comments were well documented. Multiple
(36:50):
witnesses testified to it, and his story about the vision
had been recorded in an official police report. From just
reading the words on the pages, Leo Senior doesn't come
across as very credible, and Aguero keeps hammering him. Isn't
it true that you went to State Road thirty three
(37:10):
that day because you knew you were going there to
find the body? No, sir, Leo Senior replies. Seeing his
dad witherr under Aguero's aggressive questioning is painful for Leo,
and he can't understand why his father would say that
God had led him to Michelle's body.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I was like, what the hell is that we were
looking for three days. You know, who's going to believe that?
Why would you even say something like that. He wanted
to believe God was helping him, and you know, he
knew something was wrong. We all knew something was wrong.
We're looking for my wife in ditches whatever. You're not
looking at a ditch thinking everything's okay. I don't even
(37:50):
remember what his actual testimony was on the stand. He
tried to clean it up, and that was the worst
thing he could do, you know, because now you've got Aguero,
who's a master at, you know, twisting your head off,
and he did exactly that.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
One of the reasons Aguero was so aggressive with Leo
Senior is because he's an alibi witness for his son's
whereabouts on a night Michelle disappeared. There were times when
Leo claimed to be alone with his father looking for Michelle.
So if Aguero could show the jury that there's something
suspicious about Leo Senior, he's hoping the jury will also
(38:24):
reject Leo's alibi.
Speaker 12 (38:26):
That probably hurt his case more than anything.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
This was definitely one of the blacker days for Leo.
Seven days after opening arguments, Jack Edmond begins his defense
he calls Leo Schofield Junior to the stand.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
My initial reaction was no good thing comes when you
put to the.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Feral stand, Judge Charles Davis.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
No matter how sincere and convincing he is, it makes
one innocent slip up. It's magnified right off the bat.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Leo admits that he had a temper. I had a
bad habit of hollering and screaming, and it wasn't beyond
me to throw a temper tantrum once in a while,
he tells Jack Edmund, and yes, he did knock over
a coffee table in his trailer. He also admits to
two instances in which he slapped Michelle. But he never
punched her, he says, and he never dragged her by
(39:25):
the hair up any flight of stairs. Edmund leads Leo
through his actions and movements on the night Michelle disappeared,
and Leo tells the same story he always tells to
police and defense attorneys. It never changes. When Prosecutor John
(39:57):
Aguero gets his chance to question Leo, It's March twentieth.
Aguero had the weekend of Saint Patrick's Day to prepare
for his cross examination. He's feeling lucky.
Speaker 10 (40:09):
He was going to do cross right after lunch, and
I remember seeing him when we were getting ready to
go in the courtroom and I overheard somebody saying, John,
you're ready. He said, I've been ready for this for weeks.
And it was just the tone in his voice. You
could tell it's like, let me at him.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Aguero approaches the young man he arrested almost a year before.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I don't have any training in how to speak to people.
I've never been on trial before.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I've never had my life so exposed and so exaggerated
and manipulated and all that. So I'm sitting there and
I'm scared of death as it is.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Leo focuses on answering Aguero's questions accurately, but he feels
that he isn't connecting to the.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Jury, and that is a problem of this case. My
short spoken, my inability to open up.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
But how do you do that? How do you do
that when you know all this stuff is wrong?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
But these people are not going to believe you anyway,
and he's the homeboy hero, it's almost impossible.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Aguero begins his questioning, and Leo consents that this prosecutor
is prepared. He's challenging Leo on everything from the number
of times he slapped Michelle to the phone calls he
made when Michelle went missing. And Leo can feel the
eyes of the jury on him. But Leo isn't tripped
up by anything. Aguero asks and his answers are consistent.
(41:47):
Aguero keeps the pressure on.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
My emotions were insecure, fear, and he played on that.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Aguero knew that he was masterful in that.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
And it's a very unfortunate thing because I look back
at it, kicking myself.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Now, what do I have to fear in this man?
You know why these people are nothing to me? This
is the story.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Tell the story, you know, Tell him the truth and
don't give him the ability to keep breaking you, cutting
you off and painting this picture, you know, with his
own strokes.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
Leo is trying really hard to hold his composure, but
it was tough. John was making it really really tough
because John was just all over him. He was just
calling him on absolutely everything. And if memory serves me,
toward the end, Leo is starting to get pretty rattled,
you know, because John was just telling him, We're not
(42:46):
buying it, We're not buying this.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I remember sitting there and looking at my mother and
she was just crying. The sad reality is I was
waiting for someone to just rescue me.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Once John Aguero is done with Leo, Jack Edmond rests
his case for the defense, Aguero gives the first closing argument.
Speaker 10 (43:10):
It's when I kind of coined myself the twelve Days
of Christmas. Closing argument, he would be, if you want
to and I think he did it on this one,
if you want to.
Speaker 12 (43:20):
Believe that this man is innocent, then you.
Speaker 10 (43:23):
Have to believe that this is a coincidence. And then
you bring up the next one and say, if you
want to believe that he didn't do it, then you
have to believe that this and this, that both of
these are coincidences, and then you go all the way
down the list.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
His closing might have been persuasive, but it's also full
of misstatements. At one point, Aguero tells the jury to
imagine Michelle screaming, no, Leo, don't stab me. Alice Scott
said no such thing on the stand. As for Alice's
sister in law, Linda Sells, he simply pretends that her
(43:58):
testimony about which they saw Leo carrying something heavy didn't
contradict Alice's statements. He approaches many of the discrepancies and
testimony this way and finds a way to tie them
up quickly and confidently. Aguero then argues that it was
no premonition or vision that led Leo Senior to Michelle's body.
(44:21):
He says Leo's father knew exactly where to find her
because he dumped her there, and Leo and his parents
were never out searching for Michelle. They are liars. He says,
they were making phone calls and driving around town to
craft a false alibi. There's no question Aguero was in
(44:41):
command of his case against Leo Schofield. He's a tough
act to follow, even for someone as charismatic as the
Southern gentleman in the Western cut suit with the rolls
of life savers Jack Edmund rises for his clothing and
drives home the point that there is no physical evidence
connecting Leo Schofield to the murder of his wife. It's
(45:03):
an entirely circumstantial case built around bad character evidence and
the testimony of Alice Scott, which he argues cannot be
trusted in the States rebuttal. Aguero concludes with a dramatic statement.
He points at Leo and tells the jury.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
You don't have to lock up your eighteen year old
daughters at night, because we have the murderer sitting right
over there. And the reason that was so bothersome to
me is that all the things I had to answer
for and try to swim through and present myself in
this ridiculous suit, this ridiculous haircut to a jury who's
going to ultimately decide my faith. The one thing I'm
(45:43):
not allowed by law to tell them is that this
same confident guy that's standing before you bacon me and
acting like he's so sure, is the same one that
offered me immunity to prosecute my father.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
I'm thinking the same thing. If Aguero offered Leo immunity
because he's sure it was the father and not the
son who killed Michelle, why is he still trying to
put Leo in the electric chair. Now that it's time
for the jury to deliberate, two of the jurors are gone.
One was forced to drop off for health reasons and
(46:23):
the other had a family emergency with no alternates. The
jury is now down to ten, and now as only
ten jurors are sent into deliberations. I can't imagine what
Edmund was thinking. That's two fewer people on the jury
who could have been more sympathetic to Leo's version of events.
Of course, the man I wanted to talk to the
(46:44):
most about this was Jack Edmund himself, but by the
time I was reading the transcripts, he, like John Aguero,
had also passed away. The jury deliberates for just four hours,
then they turned with the verdict.
Speaker 12 (47:01):
When the bailiff came in and said we have a verdict.
Speaker 10 (47:04):
I remember Jack walking across the room and he was
just looking down and shaking his head and saying, that's
too soon, that's too soon.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Michelle McCluskey was sitting in the courtroom next to Michelle
Schofield's dad, David's Sam. She was holding David's.
Speaker 11 (47:23):
Hand, shaking, physically shaking. Dave Jeanne was all sweaty. He
definitely wanted a guilty verdict. We all did. By that time.
There was no question. I don't remember anybody not believing
it at that point, so you know, I was trying
to hold myself together.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
The verdict is read, Leo is found guilty of first degree.
Speaker 11 (47:47):
Murder, and I remember when they said he was guilty.
That we were just relieved and happy and a few
it because it was a celebration. Afterwards, there was some
level of the really deep sadness to know that, Yeah,
(48:10):
of course the jury found him guilty. He really did this,
you know what I mean, Like there is no more
questioning it at all. He did this.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Honestly.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I think I was numb, Yeah, I know, I honestly, Gilbert,
for life of me, I can't remember what I was
thinking when the jury was coming out.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
After the verdict was read, they.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Took me to a holding cell because now I'm going
in the penalty phase and I'm gonna have to face
the death penalty. And in a couple of minutes Edmund
had come in through the bars and they let him
in the cell with me, and I remember telling him
I don't want to die, and.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
He gave me a hug and he said I'm not
gonna let.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
That happen, and I remember telling him then I can't
even cry. I was so numb and beat down and
disgusted that I don't think sadness was the reaction for me.
For me, it was I was incredulous that this could
(49:26):
even be taking place.
Speaker 5 (49:27):
You know.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I mean, it was just so beyond my ability to
imagine I would personally be facing something like that.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
When Leo was brought back into court the next morning
for sentencing, he addresses the jury in his cheap, mismatched
suit and his jailhouse haircut. This is what he says.
It's hard for me to sit up here and plead
with you for my life because you already found me guilty.
You've already taken it away. I'm telling you you're making
(50:00):
a mistake, a big mistake. I'm not guilty. I didn't
kill my wife. I'm asking please don't take it. I
can show you. I can prove it to you. I
don't even know what to say to you. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
I simply told the jury you made a mistake. You
know I'm not guilty. I did not do it. And
I think I was even trying to tell him I
can prove it to you. I was so desperate to
something wasn't told right. We didn't get all the story out.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
The jury deliberates, then hands their recommendation to the judge.
John Aguero, the prosecutor with the old sparky tie clasp,
has failed to send Leo Schofield to the electric chair.
Leo is sentenced to life in prison. The first time
(51:07):
Kelsey and I finished reading through the transcript, all we
can think about is this one moment in Jack Edmond's
closing argument when he reminds the jury that police never
found any fingerprints in the car that matched Leo or
Michelle Schofield, And then Edmund asked the jury this question,
wouldn't you like to know if someone else's fingerprints were
(51:30):
in that Mazda? The painful truth is someone else's fingerprints
were found in the Mazda, and the fingerprint evidence was
right there for Jack Edmond to see. If Edmund had
just looked into these prints, he would have been able
to see that someone had been in the car, someone
(51:51):
who was yet to be identified, someone who might have
known something about Michelle's murder. So Leo's right. They didn't
get the whole story out, and that's what Kelsey and
I set out to do. Get the whole story. The
story of Michelle's murder doesn't end with Leo's conviction. In fact,
(52:15):
the story is just beginning. Bone Valley is a production
of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Number One. Our executive producers are Jason Flohm and Kevin
Wordiskarak Kornhaber is our senior producer. Britz Spangler is our
(52:38):
sound designer. Roxandra Guidy is our editor. Fact checking by
Maximo Anderson. Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our
theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed
by Lee, Bob and the Truth. It was written by
Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hearty Correctional Institution.
(53:01):
Bone Valley is written and produced by me Gilbert King.
You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at Lava for Good. To see photos and documents from
our investigation and exclusive behind the scenes content, visit Lava
Forgood dot com
Host
Gilbert King
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