Leo Schofield paroled; now the public work of exoneration intensifies

SAO spokesman complains it's "the media's" fault no one who isn't a current Brian Haas or former Jerry Hill employee or reporter friend of the late John Aguero even pretends to think Leo is guilty.

Michelle Saum Schofield was very brutally murdered with a knife, stabbed all over her body more than 20 times, in 1987. It’s a horrible killing. A person capable of that level of insane, murderous mutilation should never be free to walk among women — or anyone else.

Michelle’s husband at the time, Leo Schofield, has never wavered in asserting his innocence, despite Jerry Hill’s unpunished lie to the contrary in 2020. Never in the nearly 40 years since the killing, through all the pressures and punishments he received as a result of his prosecution for the murder, has Leo broken in that assertion of innocence.

The question that yields the most definitive answer

So let me ask you a question, dear reader, especially if you’re a Polk County resident, based on some “ifs”:

If Polk Sheriff Grady Judd (who led investigations for the PCSO at the time of Leo’s arrest), State Attorney Brian Haas, former State Attorney Jerry Hill, and Hill’s former employee circuit judges who kept Leo in prison actually believed Leo did it …

If Grady and Jerry, arguably the mouthiest two Florida law enforcement officers of their generation, actually believed Leo did it …

If Grady and Jerry and Brian actually believed Leo Schofield was an unrepentant butcherer of a woman about to be released into society on parole without taking any responsibility for it …

Do any of you who know them at all by their public personas think they would have meekly, publicly acquiesced to the Commission on Offender Review’s decision to release Leo? Or would they have held screaming joint press conferences for weeks?

Do you think they would have let Bone Valley’s Gilbert King defeat them — with only whiniest of whines from Brian Haas spokesman Jake Orr about how “the media” made them do it?

No, Jake.

Your garbage case and garbage public morality made you — and Jerry and Brian — do it. Not “the media,” which has far, far more often covered for and/or abetted you in the last 35 years. (See Suzie Schottelkotte.)

Trust me on this: in your shoes, Jake, if I believed in this conviction for this horrible crime for which the defendant has never acknowledged guilt, I would have fought to the bitter, bitter end with every tool available to me. But you’re not me.

And Leo Schofield didn’t do this crime.

You, Jerry, Brian, Grady and all your shamefully self-protective house judges and prosecutors who should know better are your own best evidence of that.

When you’re used to “the media” being Suzie Schottelkotte, any skeptical question probably feels unfair

This article is a bit of place holder for deeper dives to come, as I have time.

But speaking of media, compare and contrast the articles on Leo’s parole that ran in The Ledger (Gary White) and LakelandNow (Suzie Schottelkotte).

Two very, very different agendas on one factual story, in which life, death, crime, and punishment are the massive human stakes.

Which one reads a serious, actual 2024 update of the full status of the case? And which one reads like a rehashed argument for the conviction? And I would bet a lot of money that LakelandNow’s editors had to ratchet back Suzie’s aggressive advocacy for the conviction and its perpetrators, which has played out in public over decades.

Here’s just one example of that advocacy — which ran at a crucial time in the Schofield case, too — in a profile of lead Schofield prosecutor John Aguero:

The full article is pretty amazing.

Here’s the key excerpt, right at the start, especially for those of you who know the Schofield case and Aguero’s generally sleazy behavior and likely invention of an immunity offer than never existed for Jeremy Scott, for which fellow prosecutors say Aguero should have been fired. Note the part in bold:

Assistant State Attorney John Aguero has sent 13 defendants to Florida's death row in the 19 years he's been prosecuting first-degree murder cases in Polk County.

Among his more notable victories: George Trepal, who poisoned his Alturas neighbors, cop killer Robert Norris and most recently Tavares Wright, convicted in a violent crime spree that left two cousins dead.

State Attorney Jerry Hill said there's a reason he's assigned Aguero, 53, to cases like the Serrano trial, where there's no confession, eyewitness or murder weapon.

Aguero, he said, is a master at arguing cases based on circumstantial evidence.

"John completely understands the questions that are going through jurors' minds when they don't have a confession or an eyewitness," Hill said. "He anticipates those questions and he can tie the pieces together as good as anyone I've seen.

"He doesn't leave any gaps, so he doesn't leave room for reasonable doubt," Hill said.

I’ve reached out a few times to Suzie to ask general and specific questions about her coverage of the Schofield case. I specifically asked her if she considered Schofield prosecutor John Aguero a friend before his death. She refused to answer or engage, beyond a perfunctory bit of I stand by my reporting blah blah blah.

Given all that, I can understand why simply telling an honest, factual story about the Schofield case, when prosecutors are accustomed to Suzie’s 35-ish years of unskeptical local cheerleading for them, can feel like an unfair attack.

Suzie spoiled them.

Anyway, I’m issuing a public invitation, right hear and now, to Jake, Brian, Grady, Jerry, the house judges, Suzie, and Suzie’s long-time boss Skip Perez, retired Ledger executive editor (who was my also my boss):

Let’s talk about the Schofield case in a public forum.

Perhaps LakelandNow could host the forum. They often host public forums on issues of public importance in Lakeland. This seems like a perfect candidate.

Everyone can publicly articulate why none of the overwhelming evidence or confessions of Jeremy Scott should ever be brought in front of a Polk County jury — why they have all worked so hard to deny the people of Polk County the chance to correct our terrible error.

Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers is not “the media,” Jake

Finally, I’d just like to remind Jake Orr that Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, former prosecutor and chair of the Florida Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee, is not part of “the media.”

When he says this, it’s not “the media” talking; it’s “the people,” through their representative:

Everything that I’ve seen about this case turns my stomach. I don’t know why Leo Schofield wasn’t released years ago when he went before this board.

You have the opportunity to release him immediately. He wasn’t released last time because he wasn’t remorseful. You cannot be remorseful for something you did not do. It’s not your job to consider guilt or innocence, but if you are going to consider whether someone is remorseful and whether they should be released today or should have been released years ago, you have to at least crack the transcript, wonder why the fingerprints of a serial killer were inside Michelle’s car and were never tested and never presented to the jury in Polk County over 30 years ago. I was 5-years-old of when Leo Schofield started doing time for this murder.

I stand by the criminal justice system here in the state of Florida. We’re one of the best on the planet. But there’s a whole lot of doubt right now about how good we are. You guys have the chance today to restore credibility to a system that thousands of people know an injustice happened and is continuing every single second that Leo Schofield is behind bars.

Gilbert King has never made a public statement that ferocious about the conduct of the office Jake Orr represents. Funny that Jake and Jerry and Brian lack the moral courage of their convictions to publicly attack or challenge Martin. Again, it tells you much about how little they believe their own bullshit.

And within days, Leo Schofield will no longer be behind bars. But he’s still consigned to history as the convicted butcherer of his wife. So if you think you’ve put this behind you, Jake, Jerry, Brian, etc., think again.

Exoneration is coming.