This is a pre paid call from an inmate at a Florida Department of Corrections institution. To accept this call, press zero to refuse this call, Hang up or press.
Thank you for using Global Telling.
Hi, Leo, how are you.
I'm doing well, Gilbert, how are you.
I'm going to add Kelsey to the call, so just hang on a second. Hey, Hey, I'm merging the calls. Okay, I think we're set. It's been about four months since the release of Bone Valley's final episode.
But I shouldn't say final because this story is far from over.
The book I'm supposed to be writing, well, I just keep putting it off instead. I'm still working on this case. I'm constantly in touch with Leo's defense team, which now officially includes the former judge Scott Cupp. I'm speaking with journalists and podcast hosts, as well as lawyers and listeners who ask me how they can help support Leo. I've even been corresponding with Jeremy Scott, who is still in solitary confinement and still eager to share more of his story with me.
But more on that another time.
Because this episode is about Leo. Leo calls me a few times a week. For months now, he's been sharing stories about how his life has changed since the release of Bone Valley. He still hasn't been able to listen to the show in full, but he's heard bits and pieces here and there. Chrissy and other members of his family have played parts of episodes for him over the phone,
and he's seen partial transcripts of episodes. But for the most part, Leo's understanding of Bone Valley has been through the interactions he's had with corrections officers and prison contractors, the family members of other inmates who approach him in the visitation park, and the many, many letters he's received from listeners. And he wants to share some of these stories and what it's meant to him with you.
You know, when this when this story was first being put together, and when the podcast first aired, and everything I think you even had had told me you were trying to prepare me for the the response that I
would get. And it was really strange because the first couple of months after the podcast was was was put out, I didn't I didn't get a single email from anybody, and so I thought, well, you know, maybe I'm too old, Maybe you know it's not that interesting to talk to me, and and and just all of a sudden, I don't I don't think it was like an episode. The final episode came out was it was nine, and I think
the ninth one really set people off. And then all of a sudden, I was getting emails every single day, thirty forty emails a day from all not just in the United States, but from Canada, Australia, from Argentina, from Ireland, got a lot from Ireland, got a lot from the UK. And these people were just responding to this stuff. And I was not.
Prepared for that at all.
I mean, and you know, I'm the kind of guy that you you I'm pretty sentimental, you know. I don't know if I should say that publicly, because you've got to be a tough guy in here, right, But I'm not really that tough and have a big heart, big soft heart. And when people write to me and they say I love you, I respond, I love you too.
What's your name? You know?
And it's just really really really crazy, and just it's it's very very exciting for me. I can't even explain how encouraging it is to have people believe in me after all these years and to know the truth finally, and to respond with the kind of love that has been really lacking in my life and in the life of my wife, my daughter for so many years. You know, we've been doing this thing until you came along, pretty
much on our own. And I have this kind of love and support from so many different parts of the world. This was absolutely overwhelming, and I can't say enough so how grateful I am for that. It's hard to respond to everybody, but if you send a note or something with it, I will respond to that, no matter how smaller, whatever it is. I try to respond to all of them to say thank you at least.
Leo's ability to respond to all of these messages is complicated by the new communication system recently put in place by the Department of Corrections. Inmates don't receive physical copies of their mail anymore. Instead, letters pass through a processing center in Tampa, where they're opened, digitally, scanned, and delivered
through tablets that the prison provides. That means Leo doesn't have the chance to hold the physical, handwritten letters from his loved ones and new supporters, and Leo's digital inbox only holds two hundred letters at a time anything beyond the two hundred most recent items is deleted, and Leo doesn't want to miss.
Any Saying thank you seems to be such an understatement. I mean, you just cannot imagine how life changing this whole thing has been for me personally. But I'd also like to say this, because I've actually thought about this, if I could connect with them in any kind of real way, I want them to know how much I connect with them as they connect to me. At the point where we're all ordinary people, and I would imagine that, you know, all of us have something that we deal
with on a daily basis. You know, mine has been this prison experience, and there are many things. I got a friend right now, it's in the NICEU. He's dealing with, you know, a health issue and his family, and we're all dealing with things. And I really want them to see me as an ordinary person, you know, just like thes And the reason why that's so important is because if they can see me as an ordinary person, then they may be able to see the God that I
believe in as being extraordinary. Because at the center of this story for me is God I serve. And I give them all the credit for making this whole thing come about bringing all these people together. And that's a very important message for me, and it will be the center of my message leaving out of here if in
one night I get the opportunity to go home. I really do appreciate this love and support that I've received from them and continue to receive from them, and it has absolutely changed my life and has given me such great strength to continue with this fight.
Leo has also failed to shift in his interactions, not just with people on the outside, but also within the prison walls.
Listen, officers, their job is not to be our friends, know and for the most part, most of these very professional they they they you know, there's a demarcated line between you know, inmates and staff, and that's the nature of prison, and you know, and some of them are are overally not friendly, so they make sure that line is very demarcated.
And you know, I don't have any issues with that. I'm not here to make friends either.
But there was one in particular, and he has always been straight, narrow, and you know, very hard, and he had he had heard the podcast and he had approached me and said he was listening to it, and his whole demeanor, his whole attitude of how he looked at me, how he treated me, was totally different than what it
was prior to that. I mean, I have yet to hear anybody that's been opposed to me, or you know, even neutral, if they if they listened to the part cast that come away, you know, very convinced and angry that the system is what it is. There's an officer walked by me yesterday and I guess he's new to the podcast. He said, Hey, I've been listening to that podcast about you. And I said really, because you know,
I don't really know him really well. But I said what you think and he said, I think you didn't do it. He just kept going yeah, and uh.
You know, you get a lot of things like.
That, you know, the sentiment is pretty strong. I think one of the most moving ones for me was it's always the moms to get me right. But there was this one in particular.
She didn't know me.
She asked her son if she could meet me or say something to me.
You know, she's never spoken to you before, so she just came up.
I was holding my youngest grandson, who is you know, a serious chick magnet. You know, he's a real cute little boy, and I figured she was coming up to see him because they all do, and and she was coming up with a smile on her face. And when she got up to me, she didn't say anything immediately. Know, it's kind of an awkward moment. She would just pause like she couldn't say and I could see she was trying to.
Gather her thoughts.
She put her on hand on my shoulder and then she said, I'm gonna cry. And then I realized she was there to see me. And I gave my grandson to him to his mother, and I said, come here, and I gave her a big hug and she just tugged me and she said, I love you, And it just choked me up as well. And she said I listened to the podcast, and I said, well, thank you for taking the time doing that. She said, I hope, I so hope this ends well for you now.
Of course I thanked her, and that.
Was just one but the response from anybody who's listened to it been incredible.
But there's another part of this experience that's new to LEO. News about Bone Valley has spread throughout the prison population, and for the first time, everyone who he's incarcerated with seems to know what he's in for.
It's a little bit of challenge me too, by the way, because if you can imagine, we don't live our lives and here telling each other why we're here, I mean, it wouldn't work out really well for some of these guys who you know, made some incredible bad decisions in their in their lives and affective lives of others. So we don't walk around telling each other about our cases, and so it's a little bit unnerving. But when they
hear the whole sort of one, they hear everything. What happens is they can put in a lot of hopes in my success because their hope is is that you know, when I leave here, I will speak on their behalf for people who are in similar situations. And there are some there is a lot of good people in here. A lot of these guys are just men who've made bad mistakes and would never do it again. Now they're paying for it with their lives. You know, I live here with broken men. They're already broken.
We're all broken.
And what we learn is that that's not that's it's not a condition that's exclusive to prisoners. These people come from the free world. We came in here broken. I'm not an advocate for criminality, but i am an advocate for redemption, for forgiveness, for restoration, and that being for the victims as well. And so you know, it's a very naughty situation. But you know, I'm carrying a great burden for these guys, so it's not just about me with them too.
Hi, I'm Jason Flamm, 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 the 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
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Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community that partners with America's boldest change makers to tackle the root causes of our country's biggest problems, including the failed war on drugs that has criminalized addiction, fueled over incarceration, and shattered communities.
At eleven years old.
Scott Strode drank his first beer. At fifteen, Scott went to a mental health facility because of suicidal thoughts, where he tried cocaine. Like many others who experience addiction, Scott was using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain he was trying to numb childhood trauma. In his early twenties, Scott was invited into a boxing gym by a friend.
That's where he.
Discos, however, the healing power of sport and community that helped propel him towards sobriety. In two thousand and six, Scott founded The Phoenix, a free, sober active community that uses the transformative power of sport to help people treat and heal from addiction and imagine new possibilities for their lives through fitness. The program restores compassion to a system that has long relied on locking people up to solve
the addiction crisis. Scott Strode is one of many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to drive solutions in education, healthcare, poverty.
And criminal justice.
To learn more, about addiction and the War on Drugs.
Listen to the War.
On Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. As the days, weeks, and months pass, there are certain dates that reopen unhealed wounds. February twenty fourth was the anniversary of Michelle's death, thirty six years since she was killed. This anniversary is always a difficult day for Leo. I'm just wondering what gets you through these dark times?
You know, is it faith? Is it music? What is it that holds you together?
You know, that's a really really good question, and it's a very important answer. The very simple answer is that my faith in the God that has got me this far is what gets me through each and.
Every one of those days.
And it's not just the February twenty fourth day. It's her birthday on the summer eight and our wedding day. But February's is the worst because of what it represents. And this time it was somehow more difficult. I was in a very saddened state.
It was really tough.
On the day of the anniversary, Leo has sent a picture of Michelle's grave. The headstone was a ridge inscribed with her married name Michelle Schofield, but after Leo was convicted of her murder, the stone was replaced with one bearing her maiden name, Michelle Salm.
My sister had found a picture somewhere and sent it to me, and I noticed that my name was taken off of the headstrong by her dad. I totally understand his sentiment and his feeling, but I didn't deserve that dishonor I don't want to, you know, art him in any kind of way. It's just it adds to the to the feeling of sadness that I had on that day.
These anniversaries are just part of the stress that Leo is dealing with. On top of the pressures of his life in prison. He was having trouble sleeping, and all of the stress seemed to catch up with him.
A few days before we spoke.
I was at work, was working with my boss and pushing a tool card and I really didn't have any wanning. Apparently my blood pressure was high and somehow my heart got out a rhythm and.
When I felt it.
Come on, you know, it caused me to hitch my breathing, and so I asked my boss to give me a minute.
I put my head down.
I was trying to catch my breath and I couldn't get that rhythm right, and I ended up falling on the ground, apparently. And the only thing that I remember about being on the ground, because I was laying there and looking up, I had like tunnel vision, and I had this sound like it was a jet plane in my ears. I was laying there and I could see the sky and I couldn't really see anything around me except the sky in front of me, and it was
just a position I was in. It was the clear sky and clouds, and it was very, very sublime for me because I was seeing a fast expanse without looking through a fence or a raisor fire or bars or steel doors or you know, you take that from Brandon, because you know, we're always looking horizontally here, right, and you look up a lot, and so having that.
View was very surreal for me.
It was it was very comforting.
Leo told me that as he was lying there looking up at the blue sky and white clouds, there was a brief moment when he didn't know where he was. He didn't know if he was dead or alive, imprisoned or free, And.
Wow, that was pretty great for me, and that's the only thing I remember about being on the Brown.
Have you been able to listen to that final episode?
Now?
Unfortunately I don't get too. I mean, I've heard some of it over the phone with Christy Sharonck with me, and I've heard thoughts of it, and you know, I know some of the things that it was about.
We told Leo some of what we learned from our interview with Jeremy Scott, just bits and pieces. It's hard for Leo to hear these details, but through family, Leo was able to hear some more. And there was one part that really stuck with him, Jeremy's insistence that he told the prosecutor John Aguero all the way back in two thousand and five that he was responsible for Michelle's murder. This was a full decade before Jeremy confessed over the phone to Leo's defense attorney.
That is one segment of it that I actually did get to hear that they had played for me over the phone. And I'm going to tell you my initial reaction at that moment, because I didn't know that until then.
I was very angry.
I was very.
Angry because it became obvious to me that.
My life, my wife's life, my wife today, Chrissy Ashley, my family, Michelle, her family, none of that.
Mattered to that man.
And had he done the right thing at that point, I'd have been willing to stand there and shake his hand and say, you know, we move on from this. Just just do the right thing, because anybody can make a mistake. And I've never been vindictive about that. I've never been bitter about it. I'm still not bitter about it. But at that moment, I was extremely angry because he
didn't do the right thing. He covered it up, and I went years longer trying to fight this case and lost at these appeals, and so it was very It was very devastating for me. And ironically enough, I was more angry with John Girl than I was with Jeremy. I think Jeremy was was more just at that point than he was than Guirrel was. I've since, by the way I've had I've had to let that go to John Guerrero is dead. If I can just say this really quick about mister gurrel Uh. He was always like
a nemesis for me for a little while. I think I probably was for him as well.
Leo told me about one time decades ago at a post conviction hearing when he spotted John Aguero in the courtroom.
And mister Gurrel stood up and shook my lawyer's hand and read it him. He looked at me and he asked me how I was doing, and he was as sincereous you could be as asking that. I mean, he was cordial to me, and I think I think for me the years after that, he became somebody I really wanted to prove this case too. You know, it wasn't somebody I hated. I've never hated John Guirrew.
I believe that.
We need UH prosecutors. Unfortunately, we need the judiciary, we need the DC.
We need these.
Systems in place to protect people and to hold the other this accountable who commit violence crime. But for me, mister Guirrel represented somebody I wanted to prove this case or I really wanted to prove this case, and I felt like someday it would happen and we would both be all right with it. And then when I heard he died in Morocco, that was that was kind of sad for me because part of the goal is not going
to be able to be fulfilled. But you know, now I have Victoria Avalon and Brian Haas, and you know I want to prove to them too, but they don't have the history with me that I had with mister Guirrel. And so for me, it's never been about bitterness and never been about hatred and proving somebody wrong. It was just about proving me innocent, if that makes any sense.
Leo's legal team is still debating strategies to legally prove Leo's innocence, but in the meantime, Leo has another opportunity for parole. We'll go into that process in more depth in another follow up episode once we have more details, but for now, what we do know is that on March fifteenth, Leo will receive a visit from an investigator
with the Florida Commission on a fender review. This person will show up at Hardy CI and spend some time talking to Leo about his record and his hopes for parole. The Commission will then promptly set a date for Leo's hearing. Leo won't be able to attend that hearing, but his attorneys will make their case for his parole, and once again the panel of three commissioners will publicly make their.
Decision, and.
You know, hopefully that we'll have people there to support and we'll make our case.
You get very very.
Little time to make your case, and historically the pro Commission has not been very favorable to me.
They could decide to grant him parole so that he can eventually be home with his family, but then again, he's never apologized for the crime he was convicted of, which the state is pointed to as the reason that Leo shouldn't be paroled.
I don't know how you can expect someone to apologize for something that they did not do. And that's just a fact that I have to deal with because pro Commission does you know, I don't think they require it. I think they expect it, and you know, and I guess at some level they should. I try to understand their perspective of it. The thing is, though, is that
who qualifies that? I mean, why is it that somebody can go up before them and say I'm really sorry and somehow that makes them more amicable to making a decision to parole them than someone who has stood on his innocence for the entire time from the trial, all the way through thirty five years, I gained nothing by standing on a claim of innocence unless I actually possess it.
Because most of the inmates that I have that talk to me today, because they come from the point of view of being guilty, and they jump at a chance to get out of prison. They think it's because of my pride that I won't just say I'm sorry for the pro you know, just say it. What do you care? What do they you know? What does it matter? Just say you're sorry and proll out. Well, you know, I understand their perspective, I really do. But I'm not guilty. And it's not just about me. It's about my wife,
and she deserves better justice than this. I know that that's not a sentiment that's felt across the board and the people who have opposed me case, but it is an actual fact. She deserves better than this. She deserves justice. She deserves to have the truth come out. She doesn't deserve to have her husband falsely accused, convicted and thrown away and the real killer go free. She doesn't deserve that.
She was worthy of real justice.
And I have to stand on that. And you know this is not this is not you know, saying I'm sorry.
For stealing a candy bar. I didn't steal.
This is this is standing up for what's right. And I simply cannot live with myself labeled as a murderer. I just cannot do it.
I'm not going to do it.
So, you know, and you would think that after all this time, you know, I've had the opportunity to take deals to go home. I could have taken a deal before a trial even started that would have sent me home thirty two years ago, Gilbert thirty two years ago.
Leo's talking about how, just before he went to trial in nineteen eighty nine, the state offered him the opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second degree murder. If Leo had taken the deal, there would have been no trial and no threat of the death penalty.
Think about that. So, despite what John A.
Guirrell tells the jury about you know, how vicious I am and all of other stuff, they were willing to let me go thirty two years ago without telling the jury a single word.
And that's a fact of the case. It's public record.
Can you just talk about that briefly, Leo, and what that would have meant to you in terms of sentencing.
Okay, well what.
That would have meant at that time I was under a guideline sentence, and it would have been a twelve to seventeen year guideline sentence, And that sounds like a lot of time, but it's really not because they they wouldn't have been able to give me more than twelve years, because they wouldn't have had any reason to aggravate. I have no prior felonies, and on twelve years, I got a third off automatically, so that's four off of that.
That leaves eight.
I got day to day the jail time, that's two hundred and sixty two days. It's almost another year, so now you're down into seven and then I'm getting twenty days a month gain time to this day. That doesn't apply to a life sentence, so you're cutting it more than in half. So I would not have done more than three and a half years on the twelve but taking a deal of a second degree, and instead of taking that, I faced the death penalty because that's what
I was facing. Now here's something else in Nates will tell you there's nobody and here, nobody in here that knows that they were caught guilty in trial facing the death penalty, that would not take three and a half years, and try to beat the death penalty on a case like this. No one would have done that, no one, no one in their right mind. And you could call me a lot of things back then. You can call me a lot of things now, but you cannot call
me stupid, not stupid. I had told my attorney, and I don't care if they offer me five minutes probation and they say that I can do it on the way to the airport to go back from Massachusetts, I am not taking to any deals, and I was scared to death. I didn't say.
That with courage of being brave. I said it out.
Of simple fact that I cannot.
There's no choice in this for me.
Still, I could understand if Leo felt pressure to apologize, to feign remorse so that he'd be granted parole. But for Leo this has never been an option. To apologize for killing his wife would mean he'd be lying, and that would eliminate the possibility of real justice for Michelle, and that he would never do, not in nineteen eighty seven and not today, not even for the chance to be released tomorrow.
You know.
It's this dangling parrot that's before me always, and I want it.
I want it really bad.
I want to go home. I want to take care of my wife and kid. I want to I want to take care of my life. I want to go out there and be able to live a little bit, you know, and make my mistakes and do my good deeds and all that stuff.
And I want that really bad.
But I don't want it enough that I'm going to sacrifice who I am as a person, in the integrity that I have. And it's not because I'm a saint, it's not because I'm some great guy. It's simply because I did not do it. That's it. There's no other reason behind refusing to do those things. I don't want to make the Commission angry with me. I don't want to fight against Bryan Haws or Jerry Hill or Victoria Avon. I don't want to drag them through any you know,
mud puddles. I have nothing to do with that. I don't want anything to do with that. I just cannot take the deal. I did not commit the crime.
I've seen you preach in your sermons and I've seen you talk about hope, and I'm just wondering, do you have hope right now for this next parole hearing?
Yeah, I do.
I have great hope.
The narrative of my life has been changed, and Michelle's truth is now very widely known across the world, and knowing that they finally know the truth is everything to me because that has to be ninety percent of what my mission has always been for thirty five years. Ninety percent of my fight has been about getting justice for her. Really doesn't matter who in the state acknowledges that or not. People are acknowledging it, and that's justice for Michelle.
Now.
Now I can rest with that now. The other ten percent was hoping that I could somehow get myself back home to take care of the family that I'm in love with now, and you know, I'm still hopeful for that to happen. But the main part of this goal that I have is complete. People know in the past I haven't had that. So yeah, I do have a.
Lot of hope.
And I don't know what the Commission knows.
I really don't. I don't know them.
I know, like I understand all that Victoria Avalon knows she's been part of this case, and so she knows my claim and she knows who I am. And you know, I'm not sure what she thinks about it, And even more cloudy is what the Commission thinks about But they're all human beings, and so this is a chance for all of them, all of them to come out. We can all come out of this in a really good place. We can all come out of this ahead, and it
will never come back in their face. Victoria Avalon would never be embarrassed for coming away saying this wasn't right. It'll never come back to her because I.
Didn't do it.
I keep saying that. It's just a fact. I'm not after money, I'm not after fame. I don't need an apology for me. I'm not asking for any of that. All I'm asking for is justice with Michelle and my freedom. And so, yeah, I have a lot of hope because now the story has been told, and it's been told in a very very big way, and it's been told very comprehensively. So I have a lot of hope because I think I think these people who will supporting me now are not going to take no for an answer.
On this, and if the answer becomes no, I think a lot of people are going to want to know why.
If Leo's denied parole in this his fourth attempt, so many of you will want to know why. There's a level of scrutiny now that the state cannot escape. I don't know if there's really a way to make things right at this point. In a few months, in June, it'll be thirty five years since Leo's known a day of freedom. Many of those years were spent in hopeless isolation, with Leo pleading for someone, anyone to listen and believe
that he's an innocent man. Now there are people all around the world who have heard his story and believe in his innocence, people who are waiting and watching to see what happens next, and that is what gives him hope.
And please make sure to thank all those supporters because that means a lot. I really I'm appreciative of the opportunity to tell them thank you personally, because that's everything to me. They totally have changed my life. I cannot say enough. And hopefully we come to a good end in the story, and what a celebration that will be, you know, it's time.
I mean, it just is. It's just time.