‘Bone Valley’ Podcast Subject Denied Parole Again in Wife’s Murder

“Thank you to everyone who tuned in or followed along, and who continues to support Leo and his fight for Justice,” Lava For Good, the podcast’s production company, said in a tweet. “We are heartbroken at today’s decision, but we will continue to do everything we can until Leo is finally free, where he should be.”

In 1987, the body of Ms. Schofield, who was 18, was discovered in a drainage canal in Lakeland, Fla., with 26 stab wounds. Suspicion quickly grew around Mr. Schofield, her husband of just six months. At the trial, prosecutors called 21 witnesses, who portrayed Mr. Schofield as hotheaded and abusive. A neighbor said she had seen him on the night of the murder, moving a large object from his home that could have been a body. The state argued that Mr. Schofield had time to murder his wife and that he had set up a false alibi about being with his parents that night.

But there was never any physical evidence linking Mr. Schofield to the crime.

Investigators struggled to match a set of fingerprints found in the Schofields’ car to either Mr. Schofield or his wife. Because fingerprints were not computerized in 1987, matching the two fingerprints that investigators lifted from the car required comparing them side by side against known prints.

The fingerprints went unidentified until 2004, when Mr. Schofield’s second wife, a social worker whom he met in a life-skills class in prison, implored a friend in law enforcement to run them one more time. There was a match: Jeremy Scott, who was already serving a life sentence for robbing and beating a man to death.

Mr. Scott confessed to the murder of Ms. Schofield a number of times, including in a detailed interview for “Bone Valley.” Speaking from prison, Mr. Scott detailed how he came across Ms. Schofield at a pay phone. She offered him a ride home, but instead, Mr. Scott directed her to a secluded spot he frequented, near the drainage canal. Mr. Scott said he came onto her. She rejected him, and he began to stab her repeatedly, he said.