‘Bone Valley’s’ Leo Schofield released from a Florida prison

MIAMI, Fla. - Convicted murderer Leo Schofield has been released from prison after spending the last 35 years behind bars.

Schofield was convicted of murdering his wife in 1989, but he always claimed he was innocent.

His wife, 18-year-old Michelle Scofield, was found stabbed to death in a Polk County drainage ditch two years earlier.

The couple had only been married for six months at the time of her death and suspicion quickly grew around Leo Schofield, who was reported to be hot-tempered and argued with his wife frequently. A witness also reported seeing Leo Schofield dragging a heavy object to his car the night Michelle Schofield disappeared.

However, no physical evidence linked Schofield to the murder, according to the Innocence Project of Florida.

Leo Schofield gained international attention two years ago when he became the subject of Gilbert King's ‘Bone Valley’ podcast where he claimed another inmate, already serving a life sentence for a different Polk County murder, killed his wife.

That man, Jeremy Scott, confessed to killing Michelle Schofield during an interview with the Bone Valley podcast. He said he met Michelle Schofield at a pay phone, and she offered to give him a ride home. Instead, he led her to a secluded spot in Lakeland he liked to frequent off S.R. 33, near an old phosphate mine.

Scott said he hit on Michelle and stabbed her repeatedly when she rejected him. He said he wrapped her body in nearby plastic and dragged it to a drainage canal, placing plywood over her, so she would be protected from the snakes and alligators.

Afterward, he said he took her car and was headed to his family in Kissimmee when it broke down along I-4. Scott claimed he wiped the car down with a towel, which he threw in a dumpster, along with the knife, and abandoned her vehicle.

READ: $14M settlement approved for Tampa man who spent 37 years behind bars after wrongful conviction

Scott added that he tried to steal the stereo out of her car, and when he couldn't pry it out, he took the equalizer and the speakers.

At the time, fingerprints were not computerized, and investigators struggled to match two fingerprints found on her car.

The New York Times reports that the fingerprints were not identified until 2004 when Leo Schofield’s second wife begged a friend in law enforcement to run them again. This time, the prints matched Scott.

In the past, Scott has reportedly denied killing Michelle Schofield.

According to the New York Times, since he was put in prison, Schofield has remarried, adopted a daughter, who has since had children, earned a theology degree, and led Bible and guitar classes.

Schofield was denied parole four times, but on the 35th anniversary of his incarceration, the State’s Commission on Offender Review granted him parole.

He was released from the medium security Everglades Correctional Facility near Miami on Tuesday.

Schofield’s release is conditional as part of his parole, which includes a transition to a halfway house and for him not to contact his former wife’s family.

Schofield’s attorneys are still seeking full exoneration even with his release on parole.

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