God Help Us

Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they'd lose it, they actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Helen Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Karen in Georgia and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime, comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you, watch this. We have to think of something to say after welcome every week and we're doing it. Every week for 10 years. Almost 10 years. 10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. On this podcast in cells, we unpack an emerging mindset. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either. A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point. Tomorrow is the day of retribution. The day in which I will have my revenge. This is In Cells. Listen to Season 1 of In Cells on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You've been around the system for a long time. Could you ever imagine the day where you'd sit at a table with a microphone and vouch for a man who says he's not guilty? No. In fact, I've stated many times I'm probably way over my skis right now. Technically, I'm not supposed to be doing this. But it's like, if I don't do it, who the fuck's gonna do it? This is Judge Scott Cupp. He isn't supposed to make any public comments on pending cases. At all. Florida's Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits it. And yet, that's exactly what he's doing. To me, a writer. This could cost him not only a seat on the 20th Circuit Court. He could even be disbarred. I can't. I just can't let it go. The first time I met Judge Scott Cupp was in 2018, when I was invited to speak at a conference about my book Devil in the Grove. It's a story of four young black men in Central Florida who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in 1949. A young Thurgood Marshall represented them at trial, decades before he became the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. I spent five years investigating this story. And when Devil in the Grove won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013, it brought renewed attention, outrage, and even political action to the case. In late 2021, I was in the courtroom when the state of Florida formally dismissed all charges against the young men known as the Groveland Four. Their families patiently waited for full exonerations, and after 72 years, they finally had justice. If you know something that's right, stand up for it. Be persistent and stand back-footed on God's promises. Let Him work His plan. I don't care if it takes 72 years, it might take 80 years. He did it for me, and He'll do it for you. I talk about Florida's notorious legal history a lot in my book presentations, like the one I did for a group of judges in Naples, Florida, back in August of 2018. I didn't know him yet, but Judge Cup was in the audience. He'd seen my name, Gilbert King, on the program. I actually thought you were a comic. He had me confused with the comedian, Gilbert Gottfried. I glanced at the name, and I was like, "Oh, this is..." But then, for whatever reason, I decided to stay, and all the seats in the back for people who want to, like, quietly duck out and not be seen, those were taken. So I remember being off to the side, up in the front, and then quickly became apparent you weren't a comic. And your presentation was obviously extremely powerful, and all I could think about was I got to get this guy on Leo. And I just pulled my card out and wrote whatever I wrote on the back. After my talk, I was signing books, and the judge handed me his business card. On the back, he'd written the name Leo Schofield and his Florida Department of Corrections number, 115760. He also wrote, quote, "Not just wrongfully convicted, he's an innocent man." When I turned the card over, I saw the name Judge Scott Cup. He nodded and told me to call him sometime. I held on to the card for a few days. I was unsure about whether or not to call. I hate disappointing people by telling them I can't pursue a story. But at the same time, I'd never gotten a tip from a judge before. So sitting in my office in Brooklyn one afternoon, I pick up the phone. It's the end of the day, and I'm immediately put through to Judge Cup. When I tell him who I am, his voice takes on a sense of urgency. He brushes off my small talk and gets right into it. He starts telling me about Leo's story, how, in February 1987, when Leo Schofield was 21 years old, his 18-year-old wife, Michelle, was killed. Two years later, Leo was convicted of her murder. That was over 30 years ago. Leo claimed he was innocent from day one, and he still maintains his innocence. And here's the other thing Judge Cup wanted me to know. 17 years after Michelle's murder, newly discovered forensic evidence from the crime scene pointed to a new suspect. But the state of Florida quickly shut down the investigation. You or somebody like you is Leo's last shot at having any semblance of a life. I not only want Leo free. I want the public to accept and believe in his innocence and that he was wrongfully convicted. I'm definitely intrigued, but I tell the judge I'm working on another book that I need to finish. I tell him it could be a while before I can start looking into the Schofield case. I can feel his disappointment through the phone. Before I hang up, though, he asks a favor. Just read the trial transcripts. Don't take my word for it. Read the transcripts. Because that's what hooked me, and that's what should hook everyone. So that's what I do. I sit down in front of the computer and start reading trial transcripts that he sends me. Typed up pages of everything that was said in the courtroom during Leo's trial. There are thousands of pages, and I can't stop reading. The state's theory of the crime makes no sense to me. There's nothing that resembles a real search for truth and justice. And even though I already know the jury's verdict, I'm still shocked that the trial ends with Leo's conviction. I'm also completely hooked. I get back to Judge Kopp with a ton of questions, and his answer is only confirm what a shit show this case is. I start thinking maybe I can take a short break from writing my book, spend some time down in Florida doing research for a feature story on this case. But the more I looked into it, the more obsessed I became. There seemed to be so much more to this story. And that short break from my book, it wasn't so short. I would end up spending the next three and a half years of my life doing what Judge Kopp was hoping I'd do. A thorough investigation into the Leo Schofield case, something that the state of Florida never did. So I packed my files, my computer, and even my dog Maisie into the car, and made the long drive south from Brooklyn. I needed to go back to Central Florida, a place I can never seem to get away from. And the whole drive down, I can't shake what Judge Kopp keeps telling me about Leo Schofield. This guy is innocent. God help us if we can't get this right. Both depths are endless in this valley of tears. I wanna see a revelation, I wanna know who you are. I'm reaching out in desperation to the one who's holding the stars. BONE VALLEY, CHAPTER ONE, GOD HELP US There are so many stories of wrongful convictions from around the country where innocent people spend decades in prison for crimes they are later exonerated for. And there's no other state like Florida when it comes to getting it wrong. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Florida has executed 99 people. But the state also has the highest rate of error in capital cases. Over that same period, 30 defendants sentenced to death were found to be wrongfully convicted. That means that for every three people executed in Florida, one person has been found innocent and released from death row. Usually, I write stories about Florida's brutal history of wrongful convictions from the pre-civil rights era. So most of the people involved have died a long time ago. There's no one to interview, just documents and case files to pour over. But this time, it's different. The people at the heart of this case are still alive. And as I was about to find out, they were willing to talk. The transcripts and documents could show that Leo was wrongfully convicted, but they couldn't reveal what truly happened to Michelle Schofield back in 1987 or why the state of Florida would shut down the investigation. So I want to talk to Leo. I've interviewed men who were in the Klan back in the day and I've spoken to convicted murderers, as well as men who were exonerated after serving time. But I'd never been to a prison before, and I was bringing along a research assistant. This was new to her too. I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know, like, where would we be sitting to talk to this guy? Are there going to be guards around? Is he going to be handcuffed? Am I going to feel safe? I wasn't sure. This is Kelsey Decker. I had just hired her to help me research my new book before I decided to pivot to Leo's case. So Kelsey scanned and read all of Leo's legal files. And then she was hooked too. Before long, she knew Leo's case even better than I did. But Kelsey was also fresh out of college. She'd never done any investigative work before, let alone gone inside a prison to interview a man convicted of murdering his young wife. Neither of us knew quite what she was signing up for, or how long we'd end up working on this story together. But in March of 2019, I asked her to fly down to Florida, and we made the drive to Hardy Correctional to meet Leo Schofield. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. How about yourself? Very good. We got there, you know, we had to leave phones in the car. I think the only thing we brought in was the recorder, and we had to bring our driver's license, like photo IDs in. Do you currently possess any contraband, such as cell phones, firearms, ammunition, also devices, nice, narcotics? Went in there, take off shoes, belts, empty pockets, put everything through the scanner, have to walk through the body metal detector, get the pat down. I still not entirely sure why they do this, but they have to inspect like the bottom of your feet. So we give them our IDs, and they give us these little like body alarms, and you have to put the little loop on that through your belt, and have it, you know, at your waist, and there's just one button on it. And it basically, you know, if you are in trouble, it sends an alert to the correction officers. I'm like, what situation am I going to find myself in where I might need to press this button? I mean, I was absolutely nervous. A corrections officer leads us through a series of heavy doors until we make it to a little room with a round table and a couple of chairs. The officer who guides us here leaves the room, and then we just sit and wait until they bring Leo in. We're in an administrative building, and there are officers and staff chatting outside in the hallways. You might be able to hear them throughout our interviews with Leo. Let me thank both of you for your time. You don't have to thank us for anything else. And, you know, close the door, and we're in there alone with him, and he sat down and thanked us, and I think we just, you know, we just got into it. Hey, listen, this is the story. It is what it is. You believe it. Don't believe it. It's up to you. It will not change the fact that I'm an innocent man. And that truth transcends people's disbelief. You know, I don't need you to believe in me to make it true. So here's what we learn about Leo. He's a teenager in the early 1980s when his family moves from Fall River, Massachusetts to Lakeland, a city in Polk County, Florida. I know what that's like. I moved from New York to Central Florida around the same time to attend college in Tampa. I used to drive from Tampa to Orlando a lot, and I'd go through Polk County, and it was just that, a place to pass through. Real country with farmland, cattle, citrus groves, and its biggest city, Lakeland, was sort of the poor stepchild that sat between Tampa and Orlando. While I was driving I-4, I'd hear radio ads for heavy metal concerts at the Lakeland Civic Center. Bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest played there a lot in the 1980s. When Leo moves to Polk County, Florida from Massachusetts, he has a thick New England accent that immediately sets him apart. This isn't the Florida you see on postcards with Art Deco hotels, Pink Flamingos, and White Sand beaches. This is Central Florida, and Polk County is unmistakably the South. And, you know, down here they're wearing alligator shirts and all that stuff, and I'm wearing a rock and roll shirt, ripped up jeans, and a jean vest with all these army pins on it. They don't get any of that, you know what I mean? And I don't get any of the cowboy hat stuff. He never feels like he fits in, so he drops out of school and starts doing odd jobs with his father. In 1985, he meets a girl named Michelle Saum, who lives nearby in Lakeland. He's 19, and she's 16. Tell me about the first time that you saw Michelle, the very first time you caught a glance at her. I'll never forget that. She was my best friend's girlfriend. My best friend at the time was a kid named Manny Trocola, and I was giving him guitar lessons, and I happened to go over in his house, and walked in his bedroom. The first time I ever saw Michelle, she was sitting on his bed, and it was just instant lightning. That was the first time I met her. I'll never ever forget that. But Michelle was with Manny, so Leo was casually seeing other girls while he chased his true passion. My pursuit was music. I have been grooming myself for the rock and roll thing all my life. It's the only thing I haven't knew. I mean, I've been playing guitar since I was seven years old. When Leo first meets Michelle, he's in a heavy metal band called Rhino. Rhino was an acronym that was spelled R-Y-N-O. It's almost an embarrassment, but it stood for Rock You Nuts Off, and I actually did not care if I had a band name, but I didn't have a lot of decisions making over that, and we were just a little club band, a little party band. Leo was Rhino's lead guitarist, and then there was Dave Collins. Girls like Leo a lot because he looked like a rock star, you know, and he acted like that, yeah, on the stage and all. Dave played bass. He was one of Leo's good friends, and Leo used to spend a lot of weekends at his house. Kelsey and I sat down with him and his wife, Liz, in their home in Lakeland. He was a good guitarist and a little high, strong at times. You know, there's a thing about guitarists and bands. Most of them are kind of hard to get along with. Dave tells us about this one time when Rhino played a show on a flatbed trailer in the woods for free beer. Leo was seeing this other girl at the time, and she lifted her top, flashing another guy. And Leo got mad and took his guitar and threw it into bonfire, and then he ran off into the woods. We ran off and finally found him and brought him back. Somebody went and grabbed that guitar out of the fire before it got too bad of shape. I remember he played that for quite a while. It's kind of like burnt in certain places and stuff like that. But, you know, he was young. He did have a temper, but, you know, there were certain people that didn't like him, but I think it was mainly because the girls liked him. Most of the time, to be honest. I've seen pictures of Leo at the time. His hair is jet black and long in a style that screamed 1980s hard rock. And with his overbite, I think he looks like a young Freddie Mercury, the lead singer from Queen. While Leo's out there pursuing his rock star dreams, his best friend Manny gets into some trouble and ends up in a juvenile detention facility in South Florida. Not long after Manny had went to prison, I was at home in my parents' house, and I got a call when my mom said, "It's for you," and I'm talking to her on the phone, and she's just talking to me like, "I know, but I can't recognize her voice, but I'm not trying to give that up, you know, so I'm just listening until I can figure it out." And, you know, when she mentioned Manny, I finally figured out why this is Michelle, unbelievable. Michelle found Leo's number in Manny's address book. They talk for a while, then Leo invites Michelle to come see his band. She was just feeling, you know, sad and lonely over Manny being gone, and I said, "Well, if you can make it over to where we're playing, I'll take you home afterward." And I did, and I don't think we spent minutes apart after that. Michelle breaks it off with Manny, and over the next few months, Leo gets to know Michelle, and he gets to know her family, too. Michelle was the middle child and only daughter. At first, she's a pretty traditional childhood in Lakeland. She and her brothers would play in their treehouse in the backyard, and on weekends, she'd go to the roller rink with her friends. But then came the difficult years. Her parents' divorce, and shortly after, her mother's in a car crash. She suffers significant brain damage and returns to Texas to be cared for by her family. Michelle and her two brothers stay in Florida with their father, David Somme, but a house fire leaves them homeless for a period of time. From there, Michelle and her brothers move into a children's home in Lakeland. They live there for a few years until their dad finishes rebuilding the family home. By the time Michelle starts dating Leo, she's 17 years old, and her single dad is putting in long hours at a local phosphate mine. Michelle comes from a broken home and a good family, but still a broken family with a lot of challenges. Even at that age, when we met and she was young, she had a lot of free reign. She would come over to our house, and of course we were partying, but we were older, we were of age. This is Liz Collins, and she's still married to Dave, Rhino's bass player, and Leo's good friend at the time. She didn't drink over there, but she would spend the night over there with Leo at our house. Before we would go to bed, I said, "Michelle, does your mom and dad know you're here? Oh, they don't care where I go." So I never could understand that, you know, why they gave her so much freedom like that. By this time, Leo moved out of his parents' house and was living on his own, and soon after Michelle meets Leo, she moves in with him. They bounce between a few different apartments with a variety of roommates until another couple offers up a second bedroom in their single-wide trailer. The mobile home is in North Lakeland, near a part of town called Cumbie Settlement. The neighborhood is mostly quiet, with old-growth live oak trees draped in Spanish moss. Their trailer is about a mile off Cumbie Road, which is a little less peaceful. From what I gather from interviews I've done, it seems like Cumbie was a mostly white, low-income, high-crime area. Michelle, like Leo, also dropped out of high school, and she gets a job on Cumbie Road, working as a waitress at Tom's Restaurant, a drive-in diner serving burgers and southern comfort food. Leo trades in his motorcycle and gets an orange Mazda station wagon. He's focused on his music, but painting houses to pay the bills. Living with another couple in a small trailer was difficult for everyone, and at times things became tense. One fight in particular keeps coming up over and over. In the past, our arguments were usually about the car. Leo and Michelle shared the Mazda. Sometimes Michelle would use it to go visit friends, and Leo would never hear from her. She didn't have a license, so I couldn't have her on my insurance, and she'd already been stopped once by a cop. Thankfully, they let her go, and she was close to home. Leo and Michelle didn't have a phone at their trailer, but Leo begged her to stop somewhere and get a message to him if she was going to be out with the car. I would always tell her, "You're not my daughter, so you want to go pick up your friends and do this and do that?" I don't have any issues with that. My issue is, is that if I'm expecting you here, and you're not going to be here for two more hours, you need to call and tell me, you know, so I'm not worried. So we always had these fights about the car, because she wouldn't do it, and she'd show up late, and I'd be furious. You know, like, "Why don't you get it?" You know, like, and we go through these stupid, ridiculous arguments. She'd come in, and she's giddy and smiling. She's had a great day. She's driving. She loved driving the car, and me like a moron. I'm furious, because she's late. Leo was worried about her safety, but he also admits he was possessive. She was a great catch for me, even the rock star wannabe. You know, I just never had a girlfriend like Michelle, and she was absolutely everything. And so I didn't want to lose Michelle, and I felt like I had to control everything. But that is my greatest regret with Michelle. I was way too controlling, way too possessive, way too insecure, but I was young and didn't have a lot to think with. The arguments continue, but Leo wants things to get better. So when Leo starts doing some work painting houses for a man named Bob Good, he turns to him for relationship advice. Bob introduces him to the Southside Assembly of God, a church not far from where Leo and Michelle were living. The young couple meets with the pastor there, who finds out that Leo and Michelle are not just boyfriend and girlfriend. They are living together. He tells Leo and Michelle that they are living in sin. They need to get married. That wasn't really on my radar immediately. But it wasn't not on my radar either. There was no doubt in my mind that I could spend the rest of my life with Michelle. The question I had was, could she spend the rest of her life with me? You know, I didn't know if that was going to be something that she'd want to do. But I know that I wanted to be with her forever. And I went out to a field that her dad was working in that he owned. And he was out there digging post holes or something. I can't imagine what he was thinking. I mean, I was literally sweating when I went out there and quite the old fashioned way. I just came out and I asked him, I said, "Can I marry your daughter? Can I have your daughter's hand in marriage?" And for the life of me, I don't know why he said yes, but he did. And so when he said yes, I almost didn't know what to say to that. I'm like, "Okay, well, bye." Good. Well, you know how it goes. Michelle says yes, and they start thinking about a wedding. Money was tight, but the churchgoers were determined to see the marriage happen and sooner rather than later. So another couple and Dale and I put together a wedding and a reception for them. On one of our trips to Polk County, Kelsey went to a Sunday service at the church and met the Grinsteads who knew Leo and Michelle back in the day. It was a very traditional wedding ceremony, love, honor, and obey, sickness and health. Just very traditional, honey. Leo's parents attend the ceremony along with Michelle's dad, and her mom even makes the trip from Texas. Dave and Liz Collins are there along with other congregants who want to welcome Leo and Michelle into the church. I remember it like it happened yesterday. I remember seeing my bride coming in the church. You know, that was just amazing to me. And I had the thought when I was standing there waiting for her that I'm actually marrying this girl. I was just amazed that this girl's coming down the aisle and she's going to marry me. Leo and Michelle Schofield are pronounced husband and wife. They don't tell you how to kiss the bride. So when that time came, Brother Walton was saying, "Okay, that's enough. This is how I normally kiss her." And even she kind of giggled at that. There's a photo from the reception. Leo and Michelle standing next to a multi-layered wedding cake. They borrowed their outfits from another recently married couple at the church. Michelle's in a lacy white dress with flowers in her hair. Leo's wearing a white tuxedo with a black bow tie. They look so happy, holding hands, laughing and smiling at people off-camera. A young couple whose lives are just beginning together. On August 29th, 1986, Pastor Tom Waldron had accomplished what he'd set out to do. Preside over the wedding of Leo and Michelle so that they would no longer be living in sin. It was one of the best days of my entire life. Just six months later, Pastor Waldron would preside over Michelle's funeral service. Hi, I'm Jason Flom, CEO and founder of Lava for Good Podcasts, home to Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, The War on Drugs and many other great podcasts. Today, we're asking you, our listeners, to take part in a survey. Your feedback is going to help inform how we make podcasts in the future. Your complete and candid answers will help us continue to bring you more insightful and inspiring stories about important topics that impact us all. So please, go to lavaforgood.com/survey and participate today. Thank you for your support. Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community that partners with America's boldest changemakers to tackle the root causes of our country's biggest problems, including the broken criminal justice system. Weldon Angelos is one of those changemakers. At the age of 23, Weldon was arrested for a first-time offense of selling weed to a confidential informant. At the time, he was a budding musician, spending time with artists like Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Pink and Nas. His entire life was ahead of him when he was sentenced to a mandatory 55 years in federal prison without the possibility of early release. After serving 13 years, a bipartisan effort led to him getting officially pardoned. Upon his release, he founded the Weldon Project, a non-profit working to create better outcomes for those still in prison that fund social change and provides financial aid for all those who are still serving time for cannabis-related offenses. Weldon Angelos is one of the many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to drive solutions in education, health care, poverty, and criminal justice. To learn more about the War on Drugs, listen to the War on Drugs podcast on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the evening of February 24th, 1987. Leo and Michelle have been married for about half a year. After work, Leo is hanging out at his friend Buddy Anderson's house, waiting for band practice to start. Leo is also waiting for Michelle to call. She took the maus to the Tom's Restaurant for her waitressing shift. She clocks off around 8 p.m. and Leo told her he'd be at Buddy's. But it's after 8 and she still hasn't called. I went over there for practice, rode over there on my motorcycle. This is Dave, the bass player. We're getting ready to practice and all of a sudden Leo seemed to be very distraught and I don't think he said anything to me. It was Buddy that I talked to as I recall and I said, "What's going on?" Buddy tells Dave that Michelle hasn't shown up yet. And for me, it was like just irritating because stuff like that, you know, they'd had fights before and she ran off of their girlfriends and stuff like that and I'm thinking it's just the same thing, you know. So I took time out of my schedule to come all the way over here and now we're not going to practice because of this foolishness. Finally, at 9.45 p.m., the phone rings at Buddy's house. It's Michelle. So the one time, the one time she calls, the only time she ever called and she was going to be late, she was already late and but she called to tell me. She tells Leo that after work, she went back to their trailer to do housework. She fed their dogs and folded the laundry that she did earlier in the day at her father's place. There's no phone in their trailer, so she drove back to the gas station across the street from Tom's restaurant to call Leo from the pay phone there. She tells him she made $13 in tips and was excited about that. She says she put $3 of gas in the Mazda and bought a Coke. And it was a good conversation. I even asked her, I said, "No, it's that so hard, right? So now we don't have to have a fight. Everything's good. I know you're okay." Leo is about to head over to his other friend, Vince's house, which is basically just down the street from Buddy's. So I tell her to pick me up at Vince's house. We have that agreement. The last thing we say is, "I love you." There's no way Michelle's not on her way. 15 minutes pass, then a half hour. It's only about eight miles away, but Michelle has yet to show up at Vince's house. And so when she's not there at 10 o'clock, 10.30, no, I'm starting to get worried. First thought, so maybe she got stopped by a cop again or whatever. Minutes turn into hours. Still no Michelle. I think it was like 11.30. I called my father. He's in bed. I talked to my mom, and my mom gets my dad up out of bed. He says she's probably just out doing whatever, waiting a little while. She's not back. My little bed called me back. So at midnight, this is one of them times I'm just not going to forget because these big grandfather clock and it's bonging midnight. And I call and tell my dad, "She's not here. You need to come get me. Something's wrong." Michelle was less than 15 minutes away from where she was supposed to come pick me up. She made a phone call to us, to me, at 9.45 at Anderson's house. And no later than 10 o'clock, she should be there. So by midnight, when my father comes and finally gets me, I'm not thinking anything good. They figure there's only two ways Michelle could have driven from the gas station where she called Leo to Vince's house. So Leo and his dad drive both routes. No sign of Michelle or the Mazda anywhere. They go back to Leo's trailer to see if she's there. I went to the house. The lights were off. The car's not there. I don't stop because obviously it's not there. I had when dad drove by, one of her best friends' house, maybe the car's there. It's not there. The lights were off. She's not there. They go back to Vince's. She's not there. So Leo's dad waits in the driveway while Leo goes inside to make some phone calls. He's calling hospitals in the area to see if there have been any serious car accidents. But there's nothing. Then Leo makes one more call. At the time that I'm calling, it's 12.43 in the morning. Yes. I need to talk to somebody about finding my wife. She's four and a half hours late coming home from work and telling me this time that's the way for my job. And I was wondering if maybe she got picked up or not. I'm really worried about it. I'd like to find out something. The Sheriff's Department connects Leo to the jail so he can ask them if Michelle is being held there. And when I'm on the phone with the Sheriff's Department, Vince is sitting on the couch and he's looking at me. And I can see the look in his face. He's not feeling good about it either. By then, we're all knowing something's not right. Leo's being recorded by the Sheriff's Office and you can hear him talking to Vince while he waits on hold. I'm doubtful this is. They should be just fucking around. I mean, she is God help her. Because I can't afford to fucking worry about this kind of bullshit, you know? The slightest little problem is fucking tripping me out. I don't know why, but they just do, man. I hate this feeling. I fucking hate it. She was on her way here. That's why I'm tripping out, man. It's not like we're to do it. Hello, Phil? Yeah. I'm Phil. We don't have her. Oh, man. Could you put me back to the chest? I can follow a missing person. Okay, hold on. Okay, what's your last name? Michelle. Go field. Okay, how old are you? 18. Okay, and how tall is she? 5 foot 6. White. 105 pounds. Pale. Light brown. How do you know what she had on? Well, she was coming home from work, so more than likely she had red pants with a red and white strike shirt. How close she is? I'm on the GLC 81. Okay, what color is it? The color. Orange with black stripes. After the call, Leo goes back outside, gets in his dad's pickup, and they drive to his parents' trailer. It's about 1.30 a.m. His dad says he's not feeling well and goes to bed. Leo tries reaching anyone he can think of that might know where Michelle is. He even calls her grandmother Agnes, who lives nearby. No sign of Michelle. He calls the sheriff again and says he gets the same dispatcher. The woman told me, "I'll never forget this," she said. "Mr. Schofield, Michelle is 18 years old. If we find her, the only thing we can do is suggest that she get in touch with you." And I'm like, "You don't understand, we didn't have an argument. Something's wrong. She's by herself. Something's wrong." With his dad in bed, Leo convinces his mother, Cheryl, to go back out with him to look for Michelle. They drive by another friend's house, looking for the Mazda. At around 2.30 a.m., they pull into David's psalm's house. That's Michelle's father. And Leo wakes him up. Michelle's younger brother, Jesse, hears the conversation and also gets out of bed. I just heard a bunch of commotion and stuff, and I was just startled. And I got up, and I'm like, "What's going on?" Jesse says his dad picked up the shotgun he kept by his bed. You grabbed the shotgun? Well, you know, he don't know what's going on. Somebody banging on the front door, dude. That's what he does. Right. I mean, he's old school. And the first thing I hear is Leo talking to my dad, and then he's out of breath. And he's panicked. And he's like, "We don't know where Michelle is. Like, I've called everywhere. I'm dead or down." And I was like, "Man, why would you be so overly concerned about her being out at 2 a.m.?" She's 18 years old, man. Like, that's kind of the norm. You know what I mean? And just the people that she hung out with and stuff like that. They wouldn't be partying or anything all night, but they would just stay up late. I mean, that's kind of what you do when you're 18 years old. So I couldn't understand why the urgency of it and why he would physically show up at that hour. And how was your dad reacting to what he was saying? He was just trying to absorb the information that he was being told. David starts getting dressed to go out on his own to look for his daughter. Leo and his mom leave the Psalms house around 2.45 a.m. And while driving around Cumbie Road, they spot two patrol cars parked at a gas station. Leo approaches them. That night, I literally stopped and talked to three deputy sheriffs that were in two cars, two separate cars. And they didn't even have anything on a report that I already made. I mean, that was really frustrating. I mean, how many reports do I need to make before you people do something? Leo and his mom return to Leo's parents' trailer. She's tired and goes to bed. It got to be after four. I was at my parents' house. It started to rain. He looks outside the window of his parents' trailer. They live off a big highway, 98 North. And he's looking across the street to a parking lot. And it was a flashing light, like a beacon light. And Gilbert, I'm holding on to anything. I'm doing a chicken bone wish thing at this point. Anything. I'm looking for anything and anything's a possibility. He thinks for a moment. Doesn't really make any sense. But maybe this flashing light is a tow truck. Maybe they have the Mazda. So I grab my dad's jacket. I go off and I walk across the street in 98. And I get over to the store and it's a light drizzle. He makes it over to the parking lot. But it's not a tow truck. It's just a street sweeper driving around the lot. And in that moment, right at that moment, right there, I started to cry in the rain. Because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. And I knew then my wife's in trouble. And I don't have any way to help her. Not a damn thing. And it was so frustrating. So I walked up to Buddy's house, which is a good little walk. I mean, they all live within the same marble. And you're walking in the rain. That was like a friggin eternity to get there. And I banged on his window when I finally got there. And he came and he let me in. I begged him, please take me out. Something's wrong. He said, just wait till the morning. Just wait. We can't do nothing now. Just wait. And I did not want to wait. But I had nothing else that I could do. But I was beyond worried. I was miserable. I didn't even think of sleeping. I didn't think of eating. I didn't think of changing my clothes. I didn't think of taking a shower. My next thought, my next objective, was getting somebody, getting a car, and let's go find Michelle. [MUSIC PLAYING] In the new podcast, "Hell in Heaven," two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People weren't wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive. And they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home, high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to "Hell in Heaven" on the iHeart radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. For my favorite murder on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. For my heart podcasts in Rococo Punch, this is "The Turning River Road." I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. Why did I think that way? Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man and in thinking to the point that if I died for him, that would be the greatest honor. But in 2014, the youngest of the girls escaped and sparked an international manhunt. For all those years, you know, he was the predator and I was the prey. And then he became the prey. Listen to "The Turning River Road" on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At daybreak, Leo walks back to his parents' trailer. There's still no word from Michelle, so he and his dad go down to the Lakeland Police Department, where they meet a rookie officer, Richard Cajadorian. Hang on a second. They do me a favor. Just intercept them a minute, letting them on the phone with that gentleman from New York. Of all night, Spielberg. Kelsey and I were able to track him down by phone in Lakeland, where he does private security at a local university. We talked to him while he was on duty in his patrol car. If you need to, we can call you back. It's not a problem. No, don't worry about it. I'm in. All right. We'd gotten a copy of Cajadorian's police report from that morning and emailed it to him to refresh his memory. But he said he didn't need it. Can you tell us where you were, what you remember back on February 25th when Leo Schofield and his father came to the Lakeland Police Department back in 1987? I can envision it right now. I was working on the station duty office desk. I stepped out of the booth, the little office there, and went to the hall and engaged them in conversation. And at first it seemed like a just a, and I ain't using the word typical, but it just seemed like just another missing person's information. And I was trying to take it apart as I was listening to, because a lot of times when you get a missing person, they're not really missing. They're just unaccounted for whatever reasons. And I was taking the information, asking what I considered standardized questioning about where you last saw her, what did she do for a living, as any blah, blah, blah. And Mr. Schofield, the father, was doing all the talking the way I remember it, almost all of it. I'd asked the question and the father would answer. And when I got down to the date of birth, Mr. Schofield gave me her date of birth and I said, why can't your son answer those questions? How do you know this and he doesn't? For whatever reason, that just, that question, it was like a cold knife blade in me. I just couldn't understand why the boy couldn't provide me his wife's date of birth. Leo had the same issue the night before. On his 1243 AM call to the sheriff's dispatcher, he knew his wife's birthday. It's December 8th, the day before his own birthday. He knew her age too. But on the call, he just had trouble remembering the year Michelle was born. Okay, how old do I look? 18. What's the name of that? What's the state? Five, that's what I'm talking about. I'm a little old, I'm thinking 12, 8, I don't remember the year. Please, 18, 60, I don't know, 66, 60, oh, 68, I don't know. Okay. He's stumbling on the birthday again with Cachadorian and the rookie officer finds this suspicious. He was distant. I tried to engage him. I think I said something to him about, can you look at me? I mean, look at me. You know, what's your wife's date of birth? Why is your father answering that question? Why don't you? How come you don't know your own wife's date of birth? And he was distant. One of the things I did ask was, did you have any marital discourse? Are there any issues that you hit her? You know, has there been domestic violence of any kind? And it was all nos. And that's, Mr. Schofield did all the answering on that too. I asked the boy if he had anything to do with the disappearance of his wife. And the father got a little annoyed with me. They're in the lobby. Not angry, but annoyed. Thought I was being rude. After asking some more questions, Officer Cachadorian determines that the place where Michelle was last seen does not fall within the Lakeland Police Department's jurisdiction. So he'd need to pass the information over to the Polk County Sheriff's Office. And I remember going back in and letting them know that I needed to handle this fast. I need to get a deputy right away out to their house. I suspected some form of foul play. It's now late in the afternoon on February 25th, about 18 hours since Michelle went missing. Something is definitely very wrong. If Michelle is off having a good time somewhere, who is she with? A search party starts to take shape. Parents, both families, friends, they drive the streets around Cumbie and expand into other parts of Lakeland. They make missing person flyers with details about the Mazda and photos of Michelle that they post around town. And then as the search party develops over the next three days, we're all looking around in the ditches and all that stuff. Her father's with me and all that. And I had this distinct thought. I was standing in the back with pickup truck. And we got this sunbeam light in the middle of the night on Power Plant Road and we're looking in the ditch. And it just dawned on me. What are we looking for? We expected to be playing cards in the ditch somewhere. I'm just sitting here waiting to be found. And it just struck me that something is drastically wrong. While shining lights into ditches on the side of the road, Leo's mind went to a very dark place, to a particularly gruesome murder in Florida that had horrified the nation in the early 1980s. They were just doing the Adam Walsh thing, remember that? I remembered. I was attending the University of South Florida in Tampa at the time, about a half hour west of Lakeland. Adam Walsh was a six-year-old boy who'd been abducted in 1981 from a department store in South Florida. After a couple weeks of searching, the boy's severed head was found in a drainage canal near Yeehaw Junction, about 20 miles east of Polk County. Everyone in Florida knew about Adam Walsh. The brutal nature of the crime made international headlines, and Adam's father, John Walsh, became a public figure advocating for victims of violent crimes. He later launched the long-running television show, America's Most Wanted. That was big news in Florida. And I'm from Massachusetts. I grew up in a project. I don't know if we were isolated or not, but I don't remember stories like that when I was a kid. You come down here to Florida, and it's like an everyday occurrence. Somebody's getting butchered, and it's horrifying to hear that stuff on the news. And I did say, "I hope we don't find her in water," like Adam Walsh was. And I said that only because it dawned on me when we were looking in these drainage ditches and all this other stuff, that, "What do we expect to find?" Another day goes by, constant searching around Lakeland, looking in ditches and woods. Michelle has been missing for 48 hours. Finally, there's a break. One of Leo's friends is on his way home from work when he spots what he thinks is Leo and Michelle's Mazda. It's parked on the shoulder of I-4, just a few miles east of Lakeland. He doesn't think much of it, but then he stops at Sparky's gas station on Cumbie Road. He sees a flyer with Michelle's picture, and he realizes something is wrong. He calls Leo's parents and says he thinks he saw the Mazda abandoned on the side of the highway. The car is found, but Michelle is not. The orange Mazda would be towed to a crime lab in Orlando and processed for evidence by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, a mechanic who analyzed the car would note that something called the flywheel had come apart, causing the Mazda to break down. It also appeared that the stereo had been tampered with. A lab tech would find a bottle of downy fabric softener in the back, smeared with blood. And, most crucially, two sets of fingerprints were lifted from inside the vehicle. The owner of those prints would not be identified for 17 years. Bone Valley is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company number one. Our executive producers are Jason Flom and Kevin Wordis. Kara Cornhaber is our senior producer. Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Roxandra Guidi 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 LeBob and the Truth. It was written by Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hardy Correctional Institution. 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 lavaforgood.com/ Two rich young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve, and a spectacular new home. But little by little... They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of want nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to "Hell in Heaven" on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Karen in Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime, comedy, and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you. Watch this. We have to think of something to say after "Welcome" every week, and we're doing it. Every week for 10 years. Almost 10 years. 10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to "My Favorite Murder" on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. On this podcast in cells, we unpack an emerging mindset. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't be in the other. A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge. This is In Cells. Listen to season one of In Cells on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.