Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And this is Red Handed. And welcome back for part two of our look at the case of Leo and Michelle Schofield. Let's just immediately, I think, pick up where we left off last week. At the start of Leo's trial in 1989 in Polk County.
The state claimed that Leo was an angry, violent young man who abused his wife Michelle regularly, and he had finally ended up killing her in a fit of rage. The defense didn't deny that Leo had a temper, but they said there was no evidence to say that Leo killed Michelle. In fact, there was plenty of evidence to the contrary that the state was clearly ignoring.
The prosecution, led by John Aguero, came in hot and got started by calling a total of 21 witnesses to testify to Leo's abuse of Michelle. Again, this will be a theme throughout this episode. How Jack Edmund did not contest this is beyond me. Now look.
People testifying as to their experience or like what they witnessed of how Leo treated Michelle in and of itself isn't the problem because he is on trial for her murder. So it is highly relevant. The issue is how many witnesses, 21 witnesses, being allowed to testify to basically the same thing over and over and over again.
Jack Edmund should have challenged this and would easily have won that challenge. It's massively over the top to present 21 witnesses to this effect. And it could have been shown as prejudicial just by the sheer volume of the number of witnesses. But he doesn't. He's just sat there watching Leo get slaughtered.
There's no denying that these witnesses were enormously damaging to Leo's case.
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Chapter 2: What was the prosecution's strategy in Leo Schofield's trial?
His own friends, like Buddy Anderson and Vince Rayner, testified against him. Bobby said that Leo could get mad over the smallest things. And while he never actually saw Leo hit Michelle, he had heard them arguing and heard slapping sounds. While Vince said that he saw Leo with a knife that Leo called his equaliser.
But another friend, who lived with them, said that he once saw Leo punch Michelle in the stomach because she bought him his drink in the wrong cup. Another friend recalls Leo telling his wife, if I don't stop myself, I will end up killing you.
Michelle McCluskey, Michelle's best friend, said that she had seen Leo hit Michelle multiple times, and once he'd even screamed, shut up, I hate you, I'll kill you, you bitch.
Now, it's worth noting that on one hand, some of these friends, like Buddy, are Leo's alibis at various points in the night. And they testify as such. But they also testify against Leo, making, to me, their alibis for him more believable. Because they've got no skin in the game to, like, defend their mate.
The other thing worth mentioning is that while I have no doubt at all that Leo was physical and abusive towards Michelle, and he actually takes a stand himself in court and admits to some of the physical violence, but he said that he only slapped Michelle twice, but that they did argue a lot.
And also, it's worth saying that some of the friend's stories went from maybe I saw him slap her once or heard something that sounded like a physical altercation to being much more dramatic retellings by the time of the trial. I am not saying he wasn't physical with Michelle, but it all gets more and more and more and more by the time they get to trial.
I'm not saying any of it is acceptable, but that's what happened.
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Chapter 3: How did the defense challenge the abuse allegations against Leo?
Mm-hmm.
And actually, most of his friends originally, when Michelle's body is first found, couldn't believe that Leo killed Michelle. They all defend him. It was only after they were told about what Alice Scott said she had seen that they changed their minds. And look, I get it. Their friend Michelle has been brutally murdered. And remember, these are very young people.
And you've got the police and the prosecution telling you Leo did it. I mean, why would you question them? And if you had seen, as most of them had, Leo lose his temper with Michelle, it would also be natural for them to want to ensure that the court heard it. So even if they exaggerate or say things more than they were, or maybe it is how it was, I'm not shocked that that's what was happening.
But the question isn't, was Leo abusive towards Michelle? That's not what he's on trial for. The question is, while Leo could be angry and physical towards Michelle, did he kill her? Yeah.
And some of the testimony seems like it could have been misunderstandings or people misremembering. For example, one friend said that Leo told her he may have killed Michelle and not remember doing it. Leo claimed that that wasn't true at all. Someone asked him if he could have killed Michelle and then blacked out and he told them no way. Yeah.
There were also accusations that Leo had started saying Michelle was dead the day after she vanished and that he was sure the police would try and pin it on him because he was her husband, which in hindsight doesn't look great.
A few witnesses also testified that Leo started dating about a week after Michelle was buried, with rumours even swirling about a woman who he'd had move in with him. But again on the stand, Leo claims that this was his married cousin who had asked if she could come and live with him in Florida to escape her relationship.
Again, it's just a lot of like he said, she said and things that make him look bad. But the bottom line is that all of the allegations of abuse and of Leo saying things around the time that make him look guilty or even dating other people or anything like that aren't hard facts when it comes to murder. it certainly was a very smart way for the state to start.
Because by the end of their whopping 21 character-assassinating witnesses, the jury hated Leo. And Jack Edmund, his attorney, had done nothing to stop it.
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Chapter 4: What were the key testimonies that impacted Leo's case?
It seems to have suspiciously turned up after it became known that the police didn't find any blood in the trailer. But Alice just tells the court, I did tell the police that, they must just not have written it down.
And it only got more mental with Alice Scott on the stand. Because she just told this story when she was under direct examination by Aguero. But when she was under cross-examination, even with a shockingly ill-prepared Jack Edmund, she was immediately caught out. So, what did she do? She changed her story.
To the second version, she told police months before, shifting the entire timeline and placing Leo at his trailer when we know that he was at Michelle's dad's house. It's a total mess. And unbelievable how she ended up being the state's star witness. And for Jack Edmund, like, there are so many easy wins for him. This is exactly it. So many. It's like he doesn't know the case. Yeah.
A first year law student would be like, excuse you?
You're going to call it a body, are we? A fucking true crime podcaster would have been like, are we just going to call it a body, are we? Like, it is. It's wild.
Yeah.
So let's come to Linda Sells. Linda Sells, as we said, is Alice Scott's sister-in-law. And Alice Scott tells everybody, I spoke to Linda about it the next day. So she can back up everything I'm saying, right? As a contemporaneous witness to what I witnessed. But the problem is, Alice Scott, according to police notes, because she apparently also sees it, right? That's what Alice Scott says.
Alice Scott says, not only did I see it, not only did I talk to Linda Sells about it, Linda Sells also saw it. Saw Leo carrying the heavy object, the body, out of the trailer into his car. The problem is, Linda says, according to the police notes, that for her to have seen that at that time that Alice Scott says it happened, she would have had to have been home from work early.
Because she was like, I worked every day until 3am. I would have had to be home early. And I was home early. And I did see him move something heavy out of his trailer into his car. But it was five days before Michelle vanished.
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Chapter 5: What inconsistencies arose during witness testimonies?
So, yeah, like, I don't know. None of this makes sense. Like we said, it's very, very, very, very likely that Michelle was killed where she was found due to the amount of blood and how soon after she died she was placed in the water, according to the post-mortem. It doesn't make sense that her body was just moved to the canal after she was dead.
And it makes even less sense that she was, let's go with it, held alive. So she's taken alive. a couple of days before. She's held alive somewhere for all that time and then brought to that waterway, not far from the search area where everybody is looking and where her car was found six miles away that very day, to be killed and then dumped in the water.
Tool probably did see something, but it seems very unlikely that whatever he saw was to do with this case. But Aguero sticks him on the stand anyway. And again, Jack Edmund, who basically seems to know nothing about this case, just allows it unchallenged.
It's a mess. Aguero took a big risk tying himself to Alice Scott. And he obviously does that because she's the only one who places Leo with Michelle that night.
I can't believe that Aguero spoke to Alice Scott, looked at the case and thought, yeah, she's credible. I think he knew. He knew she was a mess. But he's like, she's all he's got.
Hmm.
So he needed her, given how weak his case was, as we'll continue to see. But Alice Scott was not a reliable person. She had struggled with her mental health for years, and she'd been sectioned before. That doesn't help.
No.
And it also doesn't help that years after the trial, Alice Scott, by then ex-husband, did an interview with the Tampa Bay Times. And he said that he was actually with her at the times that she claimed to have been looking out of the window on the night that Michelle vanished.
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Chapter 6: How did Leo's father influence the investigation?
Allegedly, at some point that day, Moorhead made a move on Brian Hall, who rejected him. Eventually that day, Moorhead passed out and Jeremy Scott decided that they should rob him. But he told Hall that if they did, then they had to kill Moorhead too, so that he didn't come after them. According to Brian Hall, Jeremy then smashed the sleeping man over the head with a bottle of juice.
and then forced him, Hall, to also deliver a blow, so that they were in it together. However, when it became clear that Moorhead wasn't dead, according to Hall, Jeremy took a telephone cable and strangled the man to death. Brian Hall got life, and while Jeremy Scott was originally sentenced to death, this was also later reduced to life.
So, if we zoom out and look at the timeline of his offending, Jeremy Scott was acquitted of the murder of Jewel Johnson, he ends up in Lakeland in 87, and weeks later, Michelle is killed. Soon after that, Jeremy leaves the area. The following year, 1988, he's convicted of the murder of Donald Moorhead, for which he's already in prison by the time Leo is sentenced for Michelle's murder.
But that's nowhere near the end of Jeremy Scott's suspected rap sheet.
On the 10th of April 1987, so six weeks after Michelle was killed, and I appreciate we're jumping all over the place timeline-wise, but it's because some of this can be attributed to him because, you know, he gets sent to prison. Some of it, like Michelle, they don't have him on the radar. And things like what I'm about to talk about now, we don't know if he did.
So yeah, six weeks after Michelle was killed, but a year before Moorhead was murdered, someone shot a 25-year-old cabbie named Joseph Laverre in Intersection City, Florida, which is just like the most lazy name for a city I can imagine. It's just in the middle of something.
So yes, a man named Dan Odie was actually arrested and tried for the murder of Laverre, but eventually released after two mistrials. And to be honest, the description of the killer that eyewitnesses gave, being average build, average height, with brown hair, was not a match for Dan Odie, who was absolutely huge. Sounded a lot more like Jeremy Scott.
And people got a decent look at the killer because the man who shot Laverre stole his cab and drove off at high speed before crashing into a nearby electrical pole. He then got out and as people were rushing over to see what had happened, he shouts, run away, it's going to blow, and then he flees. But people saw him.
Jeremy Scott would later admit to killing a cabbie in that area under similar circumstances to other people. And he also says in Bone Valley that he allegedly left his cousin's distinctive baseball cap in the backseat of Laver's cab. But like, there's no more information that I highly think he did do this, but there's no confirmation.
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Chapter 7: What new evidence emerged years after Leo's conviction?
It seems all quite nebulous. And also, Cumbie was a dangerous place, like I said last week. I don't know if it's all connected. But maybe Jeremy found out that what Aguero had told him wasn't true. Or at least that Leo wasn't some sort of serial killer. And maybe he felt guilty.
and like I said I think it would be really easy to think of Jeremy Scott as this cold-blooded killer of which there definitely exists that brand of killer but I think he shows remorse I think he's messed up I think he's highly highly dangerous and he hurt a lot of people but he does tell Gilbert King and I do believe him he says I sleep with dead people every night he's haunted and rightfully so
So after hearing this confession, Crawford put together an affidavit and sent it straight to Jeremy asking him to sign it. But when he sent it back, Jeremy had just written the word no across it. Running out of options, Leo's team hired a PI and sent him to Jeremy Scott to try and get the confession on tape. They also reported it to police and investigators were actually sent to talk to Jeremy.
But all he told them was that Leo Schofield didn't do it.
Yeah, he stops talking about the version he told Crawford on the phone.
Interestingly, though, Jeremy brought up the cabbie murder of his own volition and just said that he didn't know anything about it. Or Michelle. He does say that he would confess if he got paid or if there was something in it for him, which obviously just undermines his credibility.
But then, Leo's attorney got another letter from Jeremy Scott, this time saying, I can tell you stuff that only the killer of Michelle Schofield knows. And it must have felt like, this is it. Finally, this is it. He has put it in writing. He has said, I can tell you things that only the killer would know. And it must be so infuriating because Jeremy Scott is a very uneven person.
And it's just like one minute he says this, then he says this, and it's all over the place. But they get excited this time.
In another very infuriating turn of events, Jeremy Scott had been very busy with that pen of his because alongside this letter that he had sent to Crawford, he had also sent out more letters to the judge and the state attorney's office at the same time, saying that he was responsible for all of the murders in Polk County between 1987 and 1988, which just makes him look crazy.
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