Michelle Schofield | |
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Born | Michelle Saum 1968or1969 |
Died | February 1987 | (aged 18)
Cause of death | Stab wounds |
Body discovered | Bone Valley, Florida, U.S. |
Leo Schofield | |
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Born | December 9, 1965 |
Criminal status | Paroled (2024) |
Conviction(s) | 25 years to life |
Criminal penalty | Murder |
Michelle Saum Schofield (born 1968or1969) was an American woman who lived in Central Florida with her husband Leo Schofield. She did not return home from her job at a restaurant in Lakeland on February 24, 1987. Her body was found three days later in a canal in Bone Valley. She had been stabbed multiple times. Leo was convicted of her murder in 1988 and was in prison for thirty-six years; however, he has always maintained his innocence.
A podcast about the murder called Bone Valley, created by writer Gilbert King for Lava for Good, was released in late 2022. The case was also featured on an episode of ABC's 20/20 called Last seen in Lakeland that aired on September 23, 2022. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Leo Schofield was denied parole in May 2023, with another review scheduled for March 2024. [5] At the 2024 parole hearing, Leo Schofield was granted parole and released on April 30. [6]
Mark David Chapman is an American man who murdered English musician John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of The Dakota, his apartment building on the Upper West Side, Chapman fired five shots at the musician from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver. Lennon was hit four times from the back. He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Chapman remained at the scene following the shooting and made no attempt to flee or resist arrest.
Pamela Ann Smart is an American woman who was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to murder, and witness tampering in the death of her husband, Greggory Smart, in 1990. Smart, then aged 22, had conspired with her underaged boyfriend, then 15-year-old William "Billy" Flynn, and three of his friends to have Greggory (24) murdered in Derry, New Hampshire. She is currently serving a life sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison in Westchester County, New York.
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a women's prison in the town of Bedford, New York, is the only maximum security New York State women's prison. The prison previously opened under the name Westfield State Farm in 1901. It lies just outside the hamlet and census-designated place Bedford Hills, New York.
Susan Denise Atkins was an American convicted murderer who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family". Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Known within the Manson family as Sadie, Sadie Glutz, Sadie Mae Glutz or Sexy Sadie, Atkins was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the Tate murders in 1969. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences issued prior to 1972. Atkins was incarcerated until her death in 2009. At the time of her death, she was California's longest-serving female inmate, long since surpassed by fellow Manson family members Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.
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Paul Charles Denyer is an Australian serial killer currently serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of three young women in Melbourne, in 1993. Denyer became known in the media as the Frankston Serial Killer as his crimes occurred in the neighbouring suburbs of Frankston.
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Valley State Prison (VSP), previously the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), is an American state prison in Chowchilla, California. It is across the road from Central California Women's Facility. It was formerly a prison for women.
Elyse Marie Pahler was a 15-year-old Arroyo Grande High School freshman who was murdered on July 22, 1995 by three teenage boys, Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt, and Joseph Fiorella.
Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) is a California State Prison for men. It was opened in June 1987, and covers 866 acres (350 ha) located in Ione, California. The prison has a staff of 1,242 and an annual operating budget of $157 million.
Elizabeth Diane Downs is an American woman who murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children near Springfield, Oregon, on May 19, 1983. Following the crimes, she made claims to police that a man had attempted to carjack her and had shot the children. She was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. She briefly escaped in 1987, but was quickly recaptured. Downs has been repeatedly denied parole and psychiatrists have diagnosed her with narcissistic, histrionic, and antisocial personality disorders, with one labelling her as a "deviant sociopath".
Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips is an American man who was convicted of murder as a child. In November 1998, when he was 14 years old, Phillips killed Madelyn Rae Clifton, his 8-year-old friend and neighbor. The following year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Phillips stated that he killed Clifton to stop her from crying after she was accidentally struck with a baseball while they were playing, and that he feared punishment from his abusive father. Although elements of Phillips's story are disputed, officials who were involved in his prosecution have subsequently expressed contrition over the severity of his sentence. In 2017, Phillips was re-sentenced to life in prison on appeal, but he has been eligible for re-sentencing as of 2023.
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is a Palestinian-Jordanian man who was convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy Sr., a younger brother of American president John F. Kennedy and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 1968 United States presidential election. On June 5, 1968, Sirhan shot and mortally wounded Robert Kennedy, who died the next day. The circumstances surrounding the attack, which took place five years after his brother's assassination, have led to numerous conspiracy theories.
David Lynn Harris was an American orthodontist who owned a chain of offices along with his wife, Clara Suarez Harris. The chain was particularly successful, and the couple was able to afford an upscale home and lifestyle in Friendswood, Texas. On July 24, 2002, Clara Harris confronted her husband in a hotel parking lot over an extramarital affair, then struck and ran over him with her Mercedes-Benz sedan, killing him in an act of mariticide. She was convicted of sudden passion and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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Gilbert King is an American writer and photographer, known best as the author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (2012), which won the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the writer, producer, and co-host of Bone Valley, the award-winning narrative podcast based on the Leo Schofield case, and released in 2022 by Lava For Good. King's previous book was The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South (2008) and his most recent is Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found (2018).