God Help Us

Summary

Bone Valley, Season 1, Episode 1: “God Help Us”

Date: September 21, 2022
Host: Gilbert King (Lava for Good Podcasts)
Theme: The wrongful conviction of Leo Schofield in his wife Michelle’s 1987 murder, and the failures of the Florida justice system.

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Overview

In this gripping first episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gilbert King introduces listeners to the tragic murder of Michelle Schofield and the controversial conviction of her husband, Leo. Through interviews, archival audio, and narrative storytelling, King retraces the early days of the case—from Leo and Michelle’s turbulent young romance, to the night Michelle goes missing, to the botched investigation that would ultimately upend Leo’s life.

Judge Scott Cupp—illicitly and at great personal risk—champions Leo’s fight for exoneration, imploring King to investigate the full story and expose errors within Florida’s notorious justice system. The episode vividly reconstructs the night of Michelle’s disappearance, centering Leo’s voice and the voices of friends and family as the search unfolds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Judge Scott Cupp’s Unlikely Advocacy

• [02:13] Judge Scott Cupp, a sitting Florida judge, breaks judicial protocol by openly vouching for Leo’s innocence and encouraging King to investigate.
  • Quote:
    • Judge Scott Cupp: “If I don’t do it, who the fuck’s gonna do it?” (02:13)
  • Insight: Cupp’s willingness to risk his position signals the extraordinary doubts over Leo’s conviction and the broader problem of wrongful convictions in Florida.

2. The Genesis of the Leo Schofield Case

• [05:18] The story starts when Judge Cupp passes King a card with Leo’s details, describing him as “not just wrongly convicted, [but] an innocent man.”
• King admits to skepticism, but Judge Cupp’s insistence and the trial transcripts draw him in.
  • Quote:
    • Judge Scott Cupp: “Read the transcripts because that’s what hooked me and that’s what should hook everyone.” (07:42)

3. Florida’s Dark History With Wrongful Convictions

• [09:49] King provides context about Florida’s high error rate in capital cases: for every three people executed since 1976, one person has been exonerated.
  • Quote:
    • Gilbert King: “For every three people executed in Florida, one person has been found innocent and released from death row.” (09:49)

4. Meeting Leo—Inside the Prison Walls

• [12:40] King and his research assistant, Kelsey Decker, visit Leo in prison.
• Kelsey describes the nerves and the intimidating security process.
• Leo is direct and clear-eyed:
  • Quote:
    • Leo Schofield: “This is the story. It is what it is. You believe it or don’t believe it, it’s up to you… I’m an innocent man. That truth transcends people’s disbelief.” (15:43)

5. Leo and Michelle’s Backgrounds and Relationship

• [16:03–30:21] King and Kelsey reconstruct Leo and Michelle’s complicated youth in Polk County, Florida.
  • Leo, a high school dropout and aspiring musician, meets Michelle through mutual friends.
  • Michelle’s unstable childhood—her parents’ divorce, her mother’s accident, and time spent in a children’s home—shapes her worldview.
  • Despite fights about Leo’s possessiveness, the two marry in a church wedding organized by their faith community.
  • The wedding day was filled with hope and youthful optimism.
  • Quote:
    • Leo Schofield: “It was one of the best days of my entire life.” (30:21)
  • Only six months later, Michelle would be dead.

6. The Night Michelle Disappears

• [33:20–44:45] The episode meticulously details February 24, 1987—the last night Leo sees Michelle.
  • Leo is waiting for Michelle to pick him up after work. She phones to say she’ll come by, but never arrives.
• Leo and his friends initially think she’s at a friend’s house; as hours pass, anxiety grows.
  • Leo makes calls to hospitals and the Sheriff’s Office, growing more frantic.
  • Quote:
    • Leo Schofield (to dispatcher): “She’s four and a half hours late coming home… I’m really worried about her. I’d like to find out something.” (37:24)
• By early morning, Leo, his family, and Michelle’s father begin searching the area. Leo’s fear turns to dread.

7. Police Response and Community Search

• [47:08] Leo and his father meet Officer Richard Katchadorian to file a missing person report. The officer finds Leo’s inability to recall Michelle’s birth year suspicious.
  • Quote:
    • Officer Katchadorian: “Why can’t your son answer those questions?... Just that question, it was like a cold knife blade in me.” (49:11)
• Police skepticism and procedural confusion frustrate Leo and his family, while friends and neighbors make flyers and comb ditches in search of Michelle.

8. The Discovery of the Mazda

• [54:04] After 48 hours, Michelle and Leo’s Mazda is found abandoned on the interstate.
  • The car, broken down and with signs of disturbance, contains evidence: a bottle smeared with blood and, crucially, fingerprints—one set would remain unidentified for 17 years.
  • The episode ends with the growing realization that Michelle is likely dead and Leo, unfairly, is coming under suspicion.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Judge Scott Cupp’s risk:

  • “I’m probably way over my skis right now… but if I don’t do it, who the fuck’s gonna do it?” — Judge Scott Cupp (02:13)

• On Leo’s innocence:

  • “This guy is innocent. God help us if we can’t get this right.” — Judge Scott Cupp (09:20)

• Leo’s candor:

  • “I was way too controlling, way too possessive, way too insecure. But I was young and didn’t have a lot to think with.” — Leo Schofield (25:55)

• Emotional Crisis:

  • “And in that moment… I started to cry in the rain because I didn’t know what to do. I knew then my wife’s in trouble and I don’t have any way to help her. Not a damn thing.” — Leo Schofield (43:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:13 — Judge Scott Cupp breaks protocol to advocate for Leo
• 07:00 — Judge Cupp urges King to read the trial transcripts
• 09:49 — Florida’s wrongful conviction statistics
• 12:40 — First prison interview with Leo
• 16:03 — Leo’s arrival in Polk County, meeting Michelle
• 22:44 — Michelle’s childhood and fractured family
• 25:49 — Leo reflects on possessiveness; decision to get married
• 30:21 — Leo and Michelle’s wedding
• 33:20 — The night Michelle disappears; timeline of events
• 37:19 — Leo calls the sheriff’s office
• 41:51 — Leo’s frustration with sheriff’s deputies
• 47:08 — Police file missing person’s report, Officer Katchadorian’s suspicion
• 54:04 — The discovery of the abandoned Mazda and pivotal evidence

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Episode Tone

• Urgent, emotional, methodical, and deeply personal.
  King uses a careful blend of empathy and investigative rigor, letting Leo’s and Michelle’s voices drive the narrative. The story is set against the broader, sobering backdrop of wrongful convictions in Florida.

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Final Thoughts

Episode 1 of Bone Valley sets the stage for a meticulous, human investigation into a wrongful conviction. The stakes are clear, with real people’s lives and justice in the balance. King, with the help of Judge Cupp and first-hand accounts from Leo, delivers a story that is not only about the Schofield case, but about profound faults in the American legal system—a story of grief, error, and the dogged pursuit of truth.

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Next Episode: The investigation deepens as new suspects and overlooked evidence come to light, challenging the official narrative and raising the stakes for Leo’s fight to prove his innocence.

Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you.

[Gilbert King]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Kelsey Decker]

Almost 10 years. 10 years.

[Gilbert King]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gilbert King]

Goodbye.

[Sheryl McCollum]

On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset.

[Gilbert King]

I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

[Gilbert King]

Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is Incels. Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. Now, this ain't just any old podcast, honey. We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Come be a part of my Zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gilbert King]

You've been around the system for a long time. Could you ever imagine the day where you'd sit at a table with a microphone and vouch for a man who says he's not guilty?

[Judge Scott Cupp]

No. In fact, I've stated many times I'm probably way over my skis right now. Technically, I'm not supposed to be doing this, but it's like, if I don't do it, who the fuck's gonna do it?

[Gilbert King]

This is Judge Scott Kupp. He isn't supposed to make any public comments on pending cases at all. Florida's code of judicial conduct prohibits it. And yet that's exactly what he's doing to me, a writer. This could cost him not only a seat on the 20th Circuit Court, he could even be disbarred.

[Leo Schofield]

I can't.

[Judge Scott Cupp]

I just can't let it go.

[Gilbert King]

The first time I met Judge Scott cup was in 2018, when I was invited to speak at a conference about my book, Devil in the Grove. It's the story of four young black men in central Florida who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in 1949. A young Thurgood Marshall represented them at trial decades before he became the first black justice on the U.S. supreme Court. I spent five years investigating this story. And when Devil in the Grove won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013, it brought renewed attention, outrage, and even political action to the case. In late 2021, I was in the courtroom when the state of Florida formally dismissed all charges against the young men known as the Groveland Four. Their families patiently waited for full exonerations, and after 72 years, they finally had justice.

[Leo Schofield]

If you know something that's right, stand up for it.

[Gilbert King]

Be persistent.

[Leo Schofield]

And stand fat footed on God's promises. Let him work his plan. I don't care if it takes 72 years, it might take 80 years. He did it for me and he'll.

Do it for you.

[Gilbert King]

I talk about Florida's notorious legal history a lot in my book presentations, like the one I did for a group of judges in Naples, Florida back in August of 2018. I didn't know him yet, but Judge Cupp was in the audience. He'd seen my name, Gilbert King on the program.

[Judge Scott Cupp]

I actually thought you were a comic.

[Gilbert King]

He had me confused with the comedian Gilbert Gottfried.

[Judge Scott Cupp]

I glanced at the name and I was like, oh, this is. But then for whatever reason, I decided to stay. And all the seats in the back for people who wanna, like, quietly duck out and not be seen, those were taken. I remember being off to the side, up in the front. And then it quickly became apparent you weren't a comic. And your presentation was obviously extremely powerful. And all I could think about was, I got to get this guy on Leo. And I just pulled my card out and wrote whatever I wrote on the back.

[Gilbert King]

After my talk, I was signing books and the judge handed me his business card. On the back, he'd written the name Leo Scofield and his Florida Department of corrections number, 115760. He also wrote, quote, not just wrongfully convicted, he's an innocent man. When I turned the card over, I saw the name Judge Scott Cup. He nodded and told me to call him sometime. I held onto the card for a few days. I was unsure about whether or not to call. I hate disappointing People by telling them I can't pursue a story. But at the same time, I'd never gotten a tip from a judge before. So sitting in my office in Brooklyn one afternoon, I pick up the phone. It's the end of the day. And I'm immediately put through to Judge Cup. When I tell him who I am, his voice takes on a sense of urgency. He brushes off my small talk and gets right into it. He starts telling me about Leo's story. How in February 1987, when Leo Scofield was 21 years old, his 18 year old wife Michelle was killed. Two years later, Leo was convicted of her murder. That was over 30 years ago. Leo claimed he was innocent from day one and he still maintains his innocence. And here's the other thing Judge Cupp wanted me to know. Seventeen years after Michelle's murder, newly discovered forensic evidence from the crime scene pointed to a new suspect. But the state of Florida quickly shut down the investigation.

[Judge Scott Cupp]

You or somebody like you is Leo's last shot at having any semblance of a life. I not only want Leo free, I want the public to accept and believe in his innocence and that he was wrongfully convicted.

[Gilbert King]

I'm definitely intrigued. But I tell the judge I'm working on another book that I need to finish. I tell him it could be a while before I can start looking into the Scofield case. I can feel his disappointment through the phone. Before I hang up, though, he asks a favor. Just read the trial transcripts. Don't take my word for it.

[Judge Scott Cupp]

Read the transcripts because that's what hooked me and that's what should hook everyone.

[Gilbert King]

So that's what I do. I sit down in front of the computer and start reading trial transcripts that he sends me. Typed up pages of everything that was said in the courtroom during Leo's trial. There are thousands of pages and I can't stop reading. The state's theory of the crime makes no sense to me. There's nothing that resembles a real search for truth and justice. And even though I already know the jury's verdict, I'm still shocked that the trial ends with Leo's conviction. I'm also completely hooked. I get back to Judge cup with a ton of questions and his answers only confirm what a shit show this case is. I start thinking that maybe I can take a short break from writing my book. Spend some time down in Florida doing research for a feature story on this case. But the more I looked into it, the more obsessed I became. There seemed to be so much more to this story. And that short break from my book, it wasn't so short. I would end up spending the next three and a half years of my life doing what Judge Cupp was hoping I'd do. A thorough investigation into the Leo Schofield case. Something that the state of Florida never did. So I packed my files, my computer, and even my dog Maisie into the car and made the long drive south from Brooklyn. I needed to go back to Central Florida, a place I can never seem to get away from. And the whole drive down, I can't shake what Judge Cupp keeps telling me about Leo Schofield.

[Judge Scott Cupp]

This guy is innocent. God help us if we can't get this right.

[Gilbert King]

In this valley of tears I wanna see a revelation I wanna know who you are I'm reaching out in desperation to the one who's holding the star to the one who's bone Valley Chapter 1 God help us. There are so many stories of wrongful convictions from around the country where innocent people spend decades in prison for crimes they are later exonerated for. And there's no other state like Florida when it comes to getting it wrong. Since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Florida has executed 99 people. But the state also has the highest rate of error in capital cases. Over that same period, 30 defendants sentenced to death were found to be wrongfully convicted. That means that for every three people executed in Florida, one person has been found innocent and and released from death row. Usually I write stories about Florida's brutal history of wrongful convictions from the pre civil rights era. So most of the people involved have died a long time ago. There's no one to interview, just documents and case files to pour over. But this time it's different. The people at the heart of this case are still alive. And as I was about to find out, they were willing to talk. The transcripts and documents could show that Leah was wrongfully convicted. But they couldn't reveal what truly happened to Michelle Schofield back in 1987 or why the State of Florida would shut down the investigation. So I want to talk to Leo. I've interviewed men who were in the clan back in the day and I've spoken to convicted murderers as well as men who were exonerated after serving time. But I'd never been to a prison before and I was bringing along a research assistant. This was new to her too.

[Kelsey Decker]

I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know, like, where would we be sitting to talk to this guy? Are there going to be Guards around. Is he going to be handcuffed? Am I going to feel safe? I wasn't sure.

[Gilbert King]

This is Kelsey Decker. I had just hired her to help me research my new book before I decided to pivot to Leo's case. So Kelsey scanned and read all of Leo's legal files, and then she was hooked, too. Before long, she knew Leo's case even better than I did. But Kelsey was also fresh out of college. She'd never done any investigative work before, let alone gone inside a prison to interview a man convicted of murdering his young wife. Neither of us knew quite what she was signing up for or how long we'd end up working on this story together. But In March of 2019, I asked her to fly down to Florida, and we made the drive to Hardy Correctional to meet Leo Schofield. Good morning. Good morning. How are you?

[Kelsey Decker]

Good.

[Karen Kilgariff]

How about yourself?

[Gilbert King]

Very good.

[Kelsey Decker]

We got there, you know, we had to leave phones in the car. I think the only thing we brought in was the recorder. And we had to bring our driver's license, like, photo IDs in.

[Leo Schofield]

And do you currently possess any contraband such as cell phones, firearms, ammunition devices, knives, narcotics?

[Kelsey Decker]

Went in there, take off shoes, belts, empty pockets, put everything through the scanner, have to walk through the body metal detector, get the pat down. I'm still not entirely sure why they do this, but they have to inspect, like, the bottom of your feet.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The boots are your shoes, sir.

[Kelsey Decker]

So we give them our IDs, and they give us these little, like, body alarms. And you have to put the little loop on that through your belt and have it, you know, at your waist, and there's just one button on it, and it basically, you know, if you are in trouble, it sends an alert to the correction officers. I'm like, what? What the situation? Am I going to find myself in where I might need to press this button? I mean, I was absolutely nervous.

[Gilbert King]

A corrections officer leads us through a series of heavy doors until we make it to a little room with a round table and a couple of chairs. The officer who guides us here leaves the room, and then we just sit and wait until they bring Leo in. We're in an administrative building, and there are officers and staff chatting outside in the hallways. You might be able to hear them throughout our interviews with Leo.

[Leo Schofield]

Let me thank both of you for your time.

[Gilbert King]

You don't have to thank us for anything.

[Kelsey Decker]

And, you know, close the door, and we're in there alone with them. And he sat down and thanked us. And I think we just, you know, we Just got into it.

[Leo Schofield]

Listen, this is the story. It is what it is. You believe it or don't believe it, it's up to you. It will not change the fact that I'm an innocent man. That truth transcends people's disbelief, you know, I don't need you to believe in me to make it true.

[Gilbert King]

So here's what we learn about Leo. He's a teenager in the early 1980s when his family moves from Fall River, Massachusetts to Lakeland, a city in Polk County, Florida. I know what that's like. I moved from New York to central Florida around the same time to attend college in Tampa. I used to drive from Tampa to Orlando a lot and I'd go through Polk county and it was just that. A place to pass through real country with farmland, cattle, citrus groves and its biggest city. Lakeland was sort of the poor stepchild that sat between Tampa and Orlando. While I was driving i4, I'd hear radio ads for heavy metal concerts at the Lakeland Civic Center. Bands like AC DC Black Sabbath and Judas Priest played there a lot in the 1980s. When Leo moves to Polk County, Florida from Massachusetts, he has a thick New England accent that immediately sets him apart. This isn't the Florida you see on postcards with art deco hotels, pictures, pink flamingos and white sand beaches. This is central Florida and Polk county is unmistakably the South.

[Leo Schofield]

And you know, down here they're wearing alligator shirts and all that other stuff and I'm wearing a rock and roll shirt, ripped up jeans and a jean vest with all these army pins on it. They don't get any of that, you know what I mean? And I don't get any of the cowboy hat stuff.

[Gilbert King]

He never feels like he fits in. So he drops out of school and starts doing odd jobs with his father. In 1985, he meets a girl named Michelle Somme who lives nearby in Lakeland. He's 19 and she's 16. Tell me about the first time that you saw Michelle. Very first time you caught a glance at her.

[Leo Schofield]

I'll never forget that. She was my best friend's girlfriend. My best friend at the time was a kid named Manny Traveller Cola. And I was giving him guitar lessons and I happened to go over in his house and walked in his bedroom. The first time I ever saw Michelle, she was sitting on his bed and it was just instant lightning. That was the first time I met her. I'll never ever forget that.

[Gilbert King]

But Michelle was with Manny. So Leo was casually seeing other girls while he chased his true passion.

[Leo Schofield]

My Pursuit was music. I have been grooming myself for the rock and roll thing all my life. It's the only thing I ever knew. I mean, I've been playing guitar since I was 7 years old.

[Gilbert King]

When Leo first meets Michelle, he's in a heavy metal band called Rhino.

[Leo Schofield]

Ryno was an acronym, it was spelled R Y N O. It's almost an embarrassment. But it stood for Rocky Nuts Off. And I actually did not care for that as a band name. But I didn't have a lot of decision making over that. And we were just a little club band, a little party band.

[Gilbert King]

Leo was Rhino's lead guitarist and then there was Dave Collins.

[Dave Collins]

Girls like Leo a lot cause he was, he was, looked like a rock star, you know, and long hair. He acted like that. Yeah, on the stage and all.

[Gilbert King]

Dave played bass. He was one of Leo's good friends. And Leo used to spend a lot of weekends at his house. Kelsey and I sat down with him and his wife Liz in their home in Lakeland.

[Dave Collins]

He was a good guitarist and a little high strung at times. You know, there's a thing about guitarists and bands. Most of them are kind of hard to get along with.

[Gilbert King]

Dave tells us about this one time when Rhino played a show on a flatbed trailer in the woods for free beer. Leo was seeing this other girl at the time and she lifted her top.

[Dave Collins]

Flashing another guy and Leo got mad and took his guitar and threw it into bonfire and then he ran off into the woods. We ran off and finally found him and brought him back. Somebody went and grabbed that guitar out of the fire before it got too bad of shape. I remember he played that for quite a while. It's got like burnt in certain places and stuff like that. But you know he was, he was young and he had a temper. He did have a temper but you know there were certain people that didn't like him. But I think it's mainly because the girls liked him most of the time. To be honest.

[Gilbert King]

I've seen pictures of Leo at the time. His hair is jet black and long in a style that screamed 1980s hard rock. And with his overbite I think he looks like a young Freddie Mercury, lead singer from Queen. While Leo's out there pursuing his rock star dreams, his best friend Manny gets into some trouble and ends up in a juvenile detention facility in South Florida.

[Leo Schofield]

Not long after Manny had went to prison. I was at home in my parents house and I got a call when my mom said it's for you and, and, and I'm talking to her on the phone and she's just talking to me like I know, but I can't recognize her voice. But I'm not trying to give that up, you know, so I'm just listening until I can figure it out. And you know, when she mentioned Manny, I finally figured out while this is Michelle. Unbelievable.

[Gilbert King]

Michelle found Leo's number in Manny's address book. They talk for a while, then Leo invites Michelle to come see his band.

[Leo Schofield]

She was just feeling, you know, sad and lonely over Manny being gone. And I said, well, if you can make it over to where we're playing, I'll. I'll take you home afterward. And I did. And I don't think we spent minutes apart after that.

[Gilbert King]

Michelle breaks it off with Manny and over the next few months, Leo gets to know Michelle and he gets to know her family too. Michelle was the middle child and only daughter at first. She has a pretty traditional childhood in Lakeland. She and her brothers would play in their treehouse in the backyard, and on weekends she'd go to the roller rink with her friends. But then came the difficult years. Her parents divorce and shortly after, her mother's in a car crash. She suffers significant brain damage and returns to Texas to be cared for by her family. Michelle and her two brothers stay in Florida with their father, David Somm. But a house fire leaves them homeless for a period of time. From there, Michelle and her brothers move into a children's home in Lakeland. They live there for a few years until their dad finishes rebuilding the family home. By the time Michelle starts dating Leo, she's 17 years old and her single dad is putting in long hours at a local phosphate mine.

[Leo Schofield]

Michelle comes from a broken home and a good family, but still a broken family with a lot of challenges. Even at that age. When we, we met and she was young, she had a lot of free reign.

[Sheryl McCollum]

She would come over to our house and of course we were partying, but we were older, we were of age.

[Gilbert King]

This is Liz Collins and she's still married to Dave Rhino's bass player and Leo's good friend at the time. She didn't drink over there, but she would spend the night over there with Leo at our house before we would go to bed. I said, michelle, does your mom and.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Dad know you're here?

[Gilbert King]

Oh, they don't care where I go.

[Sheryl McCollum]

And so I never could understand that, you know, why they gave her so.

[Gilbert King]

Much freedom like that. By this time, Leo moved out of his parents house and was living on his own. And soon after Michelle meets Leo, she moves in with him. They bounce between a few different apartments with a variety of roommates until another couple offers up a second bedroom in their single wide trailer. The the mobile home is in North Lakeland near a part of town called Cumbee Settlement. The neighborhood is mostly quiet with old growth live oak trees draped in Spanish moss. Their trailer is about a mile off Cumbee Road, which is a little less peaceful. From what I gather from interviews I've done, it seems like Cumbee was a mostly white, low income, high crime area. Michelle, like Leo, also dropped out of high school and she gets a job on Combi Road working as a waitress at Tom's Restaurant. A drive in diner serving burgers and Southern comfort food. Leo trades in his motorcycle and gets an orange Mazda station wagon. He's focused on his music, but painting houses to pay the bills. Living with another couple in a small trailer was difficult for everyone and at times things became tense. One fight in particular keeps coming up over and over.

[Leo Schofield]

In the past, our arguments were usually about the car.

[Gilbert King]

Leo and Michelle shared the Mazda. Sometimes Michelle would use it to go visit friends and Leo would never hear from her.

[Leo Schofield]

She didn't have a license, so I couldn't have her on my insurance and she'd already been stopped once by a cop. Thankfully, they let her go. She was close to home.

[Gilbert King]

Leo and Michelle didn't have a phone at their trailer, but Leo begged her to stop somewhere and get a message to him if she was going to be out with the car.

[Leo Schofield]

I would always tell her, you're not my daughter, so you want to go pick up your friends and do this and do that. I don't have any issues with that. My issue is, is that if I'm expecting you here and you're not going to be here for two more hours, you need to call and tell me, you know, so I'm not worried. So we always had these fights about the car because she wouldn't do it and she'd show up late and I'd be furious, you know, like, why don't you get it? You know, like we go through these stupid, ridiculous arguments. She come in and she's giddy and smiling. She's had a great day. She's driving. She loved driving the car. And me like a moron. I'm furious because she's late.

[Gilbert King]

Leo was worried about her safety, but he also admits he was possessive.

[Leo Schofield]

She was a great catch for me, even the rock star wannabe, you know, I just never had a girlfriend like Michelle. Michelle. And she was absolutely everything. And so I didn't want to lose Michelle and I felt like I had to control everything. But that is my greatest regret with Michelle. I was way too controlling, way too possessive, way too insecure. But I was young and didn't have a lot to think with.

[Gilbert King]

The arguments continue, but Leo wants things to get better. So when Leo starts doing some work painting houses for a man named Bob Good, he turns to him for relationship advice. Bob introduces him to the Southside assembly of God, a church not far from where Leo and Michelle were living. The young couple meets with the pastor there who finds out that Leo and Michelle are not just boyfriend and girlfriend, they are living together. He tells Leo and Michelle that they are living in sin. They need to get married.

[Leo Schofield]

That wasn't really on my radar immediately, but it wasn't not on my radar either. There was no doubt in my mind that I could spend the rest of my life with Michelle. The question I had was, could she spend the rest of her life with me? You know, I didn't know if that was going to be something that she'd want to do, but I know that I wanted to be with her forever. And I went out to a field that her dad was working in that he owned, and he was out there digging post holes or something. I can't imagine what he was thinking. I mean, I was literally sweating when I went out there. And quite the old fashioned way. I just came out and I asked him, I said, can I marry your daughter? Can I have your daughter's hand in marriage? And for the life of me, I don't know why he said yes, but he did. And so when he said yes, I almost didn't know what to say to that. I'm like, okay, well, bye.

[Gilbert King]

Good.

[Leo Schofield]

Let you know how it goes.

[Gilbert King]

Michelle says yes and they start thinking about a wedding. Money was tight, but the churchgoers were determined to see the marriage happen and sooner rather than later.

[Sheryl McCollum]

So another couple and Dale and I put together a wedding and a reception for them.

[Gilbert King]

On one of our trips to Polk County, Kelsey went to a Sunday service at the church and met the Grinsteads, who knew Leo and Michelle back in the day.

[Sheryl McCollum]

It was a very traditional wedding ceremony. You know, love, honor and obey, sickness and health. Just very traditional, honey.

[Gilbert King]

Leo's parents attend the ceremony along with Michelle's dad and her mom even makes the trip from Texas. Dave and Liz Collins are there along with other congregants who want to welcome Leo and Michelle into the church.

[Leo Schofield]

I remember it like it happened yesterday. I remember seeing my bride coming in the church, you know, that that was just amazing to me. And I had the thought when I was standing there waiting for her that I'm actually marrying this girl. I was just amazed that this girl's coming down the aisle and she's going to marry me.

[Gilbert King]

Leo and Michelle Schofield are pronounced husband and wife.

[Leo Schofield]

They don't tell you how to kiss the bride. So when that time came, brother Waldron saying, okay, that's enough. I want this. This is how I normally kiss her. And even she kind of giggled at that.

[Gilbert King]

There's a photo from the reception. Leo and Michelle standing next to a multi layered wedding cake. They borrowed their outfits from another recently married couple at the church. Michelle's in a lacy white dress with flowers in her hair. Leo's wearing a white tuxedo with a black bow tie. They look so happy, holding hands, laughing and smiling, smiling at people off camera. A young couple whose lives are just beginning together. On August 29, 1986, Pastor Tom Waldron had accomplished what he'd set out to do. Preside over the wedding of Leo and Michelle so that they would no longer be living in sin.

[Leo Schofield]

It was one of the best days of my entire life.

[Gilbert King]

Just six months later, Pastor Waldron would preside over Michelle's funeral service. Hi, I'm Jason Flom, CEO and founder of Lava for Good podcast. 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 a 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 lavaforgood.com survey and participate today. Thank you for your support. 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 broken criminal justice system. Weldon Angelos is one of those change makers. At the age of 23, Weldon was arrested for a first time offense of selling weed to a confidential informant. At the time, he was a budding musician, spending time with artists like Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Pink and Nas. His entire life was ahead of him when he was sentenced to a mandatory 55 years in federal prison without the possibility of early Release. After serving 13 years, a bipartisan effort led to him getting officially pardoned. Upon his release, he founded the Weldon Project, a non profit working to create better outcomes for those still in prison that funds social change and provides financial aid for all those who are still serving time for cannabis related offenses. Weldon Angelos is one of the many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to drive solutions in education, health care, poverty and criminal justice. To learn more about the War on Drugs, listen to the War on Drugs Podcast Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the evening of February 24, 1987. Leo and Michelle have been married for about half a year. After work, Leo is hanging out at his friend Buddy Anderson's house, waiting for band practice to start. Leo's also waiting for Michelle to call. She took the Mazda to Tom's restaurant for her waitressing shift. She clocks off around 8pm and Leo told her he'd be at Buddy's. But it's after 8 and she still hasn't called.

[Dave Collins]

I went over there for practice, rode over there on my motorcycle.

[Gilbert King]

This is Dave, the bass player.

[Dave Collins]

We're getting ready to practice and. And all of a sudden Leo seemed to be very distraught and I don't think he said anything to me. It was Buddy that I talked to, as I recall, and I said, what's going on?

[Gilbert King]

Buddy tells Dave that Michelle hasn't shown up yet.

[Dave Collins]

And for me it was like just irritating because stuff like that, they'd had fights before and she ran off of their girlfriends and stuff like that. And I'm thinking it's just the same thing, you know. So I took time out of my schedule to come all the way over here and now we're not going to practice because of this foolishness.

[Gilbert King]

Finally, at 9:45pm the phone rings at Buddy's house. It's Michelle.

[Leo Schofield]

So the one time, the one time she calls, the only time she ever called, and she was going to be, she was already late, but she called to tell me.

[Gilbert King]

She tells Leo that after work she went back to their trailer to do housework. She fed their dogs and folded the laundry that she did earlier in the day at her father's place. There's no phone in their trailer. So she drove back to the gas station across the street from Tom's restaurant to call Leo from the payphone there. She tells him she made $13 in tips and and was excited about that. She says she put $3 of gas in the Mazda and bought a Coke.

[Leo Schofield]

And it was a good conversation. I even asked her, I said, now was that so hard?

[Gilbert King]

Right?

[Leo Schofield]

So now we don't have to have a fight and all that. Everything's Good. I know you're okay.

[Gilbert King]

Leo's about to head over to his other friend Vince's house, which is basically just down the street from Buddy's.

[Leo Schofield]

So I tell her to pick me up at Vince's house. We have that agreement. The last thing we say is I love you. There's no way Michelle's not on her way.

[Gilbert King]

Fifteen minutes pass, then a half hour. It's only about eight miles away. But Michelle has yet to show up at Vince's house.

[Leo Schofield]

And so when she's not there at 10 o', clock, 10:30. Now I'm starting to get worried. First thoughts? Maybe she got stopped by a cop again or whatever.

[Gilbert King]

Minutes turn into hours. Still no Michelle.

[Leo Schofield]

I think it was like 11:30. I called my father, he's in bed. I talked to my mom and my mom gets my dad up out of bed. He says she's probably just out doing whatever. Wait a little while. She's not back in a little bit, call me back. So at midnight. This is one of them times I'm just not gonna forget because these big grandfather clock and it's bonging midnight. And I call and tell my dad, she's not here. You need to come get me. Something's wrong. Michelle was less than 15 minutes away from where she was supposed to come and pick me up. She made a phone call to us, to me at 9:45 in Anderson's house. And no later than 10 o' clock, she should be there. So by midnight, when my father comes and finally gets me, I'm not thinking anything good.

[Gilbert King]

They figure there's only two ways Michelle could have driven from the gas station where she called Leo to Vince's house. So Leo and his dad drive both routes. No sign of Michelle or the Mazda anywhere. They go back to Leo's trailer to see if she's there.

[Leo Schofield]

I went to the house. Lights are off, the car's not there. I don't stop because obviously she's not there. I had my dad drive by one of her best friend's house. Maybe the car is there, it's not there. Lights are off, she's not there.

[Gilbert King]

They go back to Vince's, she's not there. So Leo's dad waits in the driveway while Leo goes inside to make some phone calls. He's calling hospitals in the area to see if there have been any serious car accidents, but there's nothing. Then Leo makes one more call. Polk County Sheriff's Office, operator 53. Can I help you?

[Leo Schofield]

At the time that I'm calling, it's 12:43 in the morning.

Yes. I need to talk to somebody about finding my wife. She's four and a half hours late coming home from work and she only lives 10 minutes away from her job. And I was wondering if maybe she got picked up or not. I'm really worried about her. I'd like to find out something.

[Gilbert King]

The Sheriff's department connects Leo to the jail so he can ask them if Michelle is being held there.

[Leo Schofield]

And when I'm on the phone with the sheriff's department, Vince is sitting on the couch and he's looking at me and I can see the look in his face. He's not feeling good about it either. By then we're all knowing something's not right.

[Gilbert King]

Leo's being recorded by the sheriff's office and you can hear him talking to Vince while he waits on. Hold on.

[Leo Schofield]

Doubt versus this. She'd be just fucking around. Sometimes he is. God help her, because I can't afford the fucking Morris. About this kind of, you know, the slightest little problems tripped me out. I don't know why, but they just do. And I hate this feeling. Hate it. She was on her way here. That's why I'm tripping out, man. It's not like her to do it. Hello, sir? Yeah, I'm sorry, we don't have her. Oh, man. Could you put me back to the sheriff's missing person? Okay, hold on. Okay, what's your last name? Michelle Schofield. Okay, how old do I. Eighteen. Okay, how old is she? Five foot six, light 105 pounds. Hair light brown. How do you know what she had on? Well, she was coming home from work. From what? More than likely. She had red pants with a red and white striped shirt. What kind of clothes? She is a Mazda GLC 81. Okay, what color is that? The color orange with black stripes.

[Gilbert King]

After the call, Leo goes back outside, gets in his dad's pickup and they drive to his parents trailer. It's about 1:30am his dad says he's not feeling well and goes to bed. Leo tries reaching anyone he can think of that might know where Michelle is. He even calls her grandmother Agnes, who lives nearby. No sign of Michelle. He calls the sheriff again and says he gets the same dispatcher.

[Leo Schofield]

The woman told me, and I'll never forget this, she said, Mr. Schofield, Michelle is 18 years old. If we find her, the only thing we can do is suggest that she gets in touch with you. And I'm like, you don't understand. We didn't have an argument. Something's wrong. She's by herself. Something's wrong.

[Gilbert King]

With his dad in bed, Leo convinces his mother Cheryl to go back out with him to look for Michelle. They drive by another friend's house looking for the Mazda. At around 2:30am they pull into David Psalms house. That's Michelle's father and Leo wakes him up. Michelle's younger brother Jesse hears the conversation and also gets out of bed.

[Jesse Somme]

Just heard a bunch of commotion and stuff and I was just startled and I got up and I'm like, you know, what's going on?

[Gilbert King]

Jesse says his dad picked up the shotgun he kept by his bed.

[Kelsey Decker]

He grabbed the shotgun.

[Jesse Somme]

Well you know, he's, he don't know what's going on. Somebody banging on the front door, dude, that's what he does, right? I mean he's old school. And the first thing I hear is like Leo talking to my dad. And then he's, you know, he's out of breath and he's panicked and he's like, you know, like we don't know where Michelle is, you know, like, like, you know, I've called everywhere and da, da, da. And I was like man, why would you be so overly concerned about her being out at 2:00am like, you know, she's 18 years old, man. Like that's kind of the norm, you know what I mean? And just the people that she hung out with and stuff like that, they'd hang, you know, they wouldn't be partying or anything all night, but they would just stay up late, you know, I mean that's kind of what you do when you're 18 years old. So I couldn't understand why the urgency of it and why he would physically show up at that hour.

[Gilbert King]

And how was, how was your dad reacting to what he was saying?

[Jesse Somme]

He was just trying to absorb the information that he was being told.

[Gilbert King]

David starts getting dressed to go out on his own to look for his daughter. Leo and his mom leave the Psalms house around 2:45am and while driving around Cumby Road they spot two patrol cars parked at a gas station. Leo approaches them.

[Leo Schofield]

That night I literally stopped and talked to three deputy sheriffs that were in two cars, two separate cars and they didn't even have anything on a report that I already made. I mean that was really frustrating. I mean how many reports do I need to make before you people do something?

[Gilbert King]

Leo and his mom returned to Leo's parents trailer. She's tired and goes to bed.

[Leo Schofield]

It got to be after four. I was at my parents house, it.

[Gilbert King]

Started to rain he looks outside the window of his parents trailer. They live off a big highway, 98 north. And he's looking across the street to a parking lot.

[Leo Schofield]

And it was a flashing light, like a beacon light. And Gilbert I'm holding on to anything. I'm doing a chicken bone wish thing at this point. Anything. I'm looking for anything. And anything's a possibility.

[Gilbert King]

He thinks for a moment. Doesn't really make any sense, but maybe this flashing light is a tow truck. Maybe they have the Mazda.

[Leo Schofield]

So I grab my dad's jacket, I go off and I walk across the street in 98. And I get over to the store and it's a light drizzle.

[Gilbert King]

He makes it over to the parking lot, but it's not a tow truck, it's just a street sweeper driving around the lot.

[Leo Schofield]

And in that moment, right at that moment right there, I started to cry in the rain because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. And I knew then my wife's in trouble and I don't have any way to help her. Not a damn thing. And it was so frustrating. So I walked up to Buddy's house, which was a good little walk. I mean they all lived within the same mountain. When you're walking, you know, in the rain, it was like a friggin eternity to get there. And I banged on his window when I finally got there and he came and he let me in. I begged him, please take me out, something's wrong. He said, just wait till the morning. Just wait. We can't do nothing now. Just wait. And I did not want to wait. But I had nothing else that I could do. But I was beyond worried. I was miserable. I didn't even think of sleeping. I didn't think of eating. I didn't think of changing my clothes, I didn't think of taking a shower. My next thought, my next objective was getting somebody get in a car and let's go find Michelle.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia. And we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you.

[Gilbert King]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Kelsey Decker]

Almost 10 years.

[Gilbert King]

10 years.

[Leo Schofield]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My Favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Goodbye I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Karen Kilgariff]

In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos.

[Gilbert King]

It was just me naked.

[Kelsey Decker]

Well, not me, but me with someone.

[Gilbert King]

Else'S body parts on my body parts.

[Kelsey Decker]

That looked exactly like my own.

[Jesse Somme]

I wanted to throw up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the Internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography.

[Gilbert King]

This should be illegal, but what is this?

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levittown, a new podcast from.

[Gilbert King]

Iheart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gilbert King]

At daybreak, Leo walks back to his parents trailer. There's still no word from Michelle, so he and his dad go down to the Lakeland Police Department, where they meet a rookie officer, Richard Katchadorian.

[Richard Katchadorian]

Hang on a second. Sure. Hey, do me a favor. Just intercept him a minute. Let him know I'm on the phone with that gentleman from New York of all night. Skilbert.

[Gilbert King]

Kelsey and I were able to track him down by phone in Lakeland, where he does private security at a local university. We talked to him while he was on duty in his patrol car.

[Richard Katchadorian]

If you need to go, we can call you back. It's not a problem. No, don't worry about it. I'm in. All right.

[Gilbert King]

We'd gotten a copy of Katchadourian's police report from that morning and emailed it to him to refresh his memory, but he said he didn't need it.

[Richard Katchadorian]

Can you tell us where you were, what you remember, back on February 25th with Leo Schofield and his father came to the Lakeland Police department back in 1987. I can envision it right now. I was working the station duty office desk. I stepped out of the booth, the little office there, and went into the hall and engaged them in conversation. And at first it seemed like just a. And I hate using the word typical, but it just seemed like just another missing person's information. And I was trying to take it apart as I was listening to. Because a lot of times, you know, when you get a missing person, they're not really missing, you know, they're just unaccounted for, for whatever reason. And I was taking the information, asking what I considered standardized questioning about where you last saw her, you know, what does she do for a living, you know, blah, blah, blah. And Mr. Scofield, the father, was doing all the talking. The way I remember it, almost all of it. I'd ask the question, and the father would answer. And when I got down to the date of birth, Mr. Scofield gave me her date of birth. And I said, why can't your son answer those questions? How do you know this and he doesn't? For whatever reason, that. Just that question, it was like a cold knife blade in me. I just couldn't understand why the boy couldn't provide me his wife's date of birth.

[Gilbert King]

Leo had the same issue the night before. On his 12:43am call to the sheriff's dispatcher. He knew his wife's birthday. It's December 8, the day before his own birthday. He knew her age, too, but on the call, he just had trouble remembering the year Michelle was born.

[Leo Schofield]

18. What's her name? I'm thinking I'm 12, 8. I don't remember the year. He's 18. 60, 60. 68. 68. I don't know. Okay.

[Gilbert King]

He's stumbling on the birthday again with Katchadorian, and the rookie officer finds this suspicious.

[Richard Katchadorian]

He was distant. I tried to engage him. I think I said something to him about, can you look at me? I mean, look at me, you know, what's your wife's date of birth? Why is your father answering that question? Why aren't you? How come you don't know your own wife's date of birth? And he was distant. One of the things I did ask him, I said, do you have any marital discourse? Are there any issues? Did you hit her? Has there been domestic violence of any kind? And it was all nosy. And that's. Mr. Schofield did all the answering on that, too. I asked the boy if he had anything to do with the disappearance of his. Of his Wife and the father got a little annoyed with me there in the lobby. Not angry, but annoyed. Thought I was being rude.

[Gilbert King]

After asking some more questions, Officer Katchadourian determines that the place where Michelle was last seen does not fall within the Lakeland Police Department's jurisdiction. So he'd need to pass the information over to the Polk County Sheriff's office.

[Richard Katchadorian]

And I remember going back in and letting them know that I needed to handle this fat. I need to get a deputy right away out to their house. I suspected some form of foul play.

[Gilbert King]

It's now late in the afternoon on February 25, about 18 hours since Michelle went missing. Something is definitely very wrong. If Michelle is off having a good time somewhere, who is she with? A search party starts to take shape. Parents, both families, friends, they drive the streets around Cumby and expand into other parts of Lakeland. They make missing person flyers with details about the Mazda and photos of Michelle that they post around town.

[Leo Schofield]

And then as the search party develops over the next three days, we're all looking around in the ditches and all that stuff. Her father's with me and all that. And I had this distinct thought I was standing in the back of a pickup truck and we got this sunbeam light in the middle of the night on Power Plant Road and we're looking in a ditch. And it just dawned on me, what.

[Gilbert King]

Are we looking for?

[Leo Schofield]

We expect her to be playing cards in a ditch somewhere, just sitting here waiting to be found. And it just struck me that something is, is drastically wrong.

[Gilbert King]

While shining lights into ditches on the side of the road, Leo's mind went to a very dark place, to a particularly gruesome murder in Florida that had horrified the nation in the early 1980s.

[Leo Schofield]

They were just doing the Adam Walsh thing, right? Remember that?

[Gilbert King]

I remembered I was attending the University of South Florida in Tampa at the time, about a half hour west of Lakeland. Adam Walsh was a six year old boy who'd been abducted in 1981 from a department store in South Florida. After a couple weeks of searching, the boy's severed head was found in a drainage canal near Yeehaw Junction, about 20 miles east of Polk County. Everyone in Florida knew about Adam Walsh. The brutal nature of the crime made international headlines and Adam's father, John Walsh, became a public figure advocating for victims of violent crimes. He later launched the long running television show America's Most Wanted.

[Leo Schofield]

That was big news in Florida. And I'm from Massachusetts. I grew up in a project. I don't know if we were isolated or not. But I don't remember stories like that. When I was a kid, you come down here to Florida and it's like an everyday occurrence and somebody's getting butchered and it's horrifying to hear that stuff on the news. And I did say, I hope we don't find her in water like Adam Walsh was. And I said that only because it dawned on me when we're looking in these drainage ditches and all this other stuff that what do we expect to find?

[Gilbert King]

Another day goes by, constant searching around Lakeland, looking in ditches and woods. Michelle has been missing for 48 hours. Finally, there's a break. One of Leo's friends is on his way home from work when he spots what he thinks is Leo and Michelle's Mazda. It's parked on the shoulder of i4 just a few miles east of Lakeland. He doesn't think much of it, but then he stops at Sparky's gas station on Cumby Road. He sees a flyer with Michelle's picture and he realizes something is wrong. He calls Leo's parents and says he thinks he saw the Mazda abandoned on the side of the highway. The car is found, but Michelle is not. The orange Mazda would be towed to a crime lab in Orlando and processed for evidence by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. A mechanic who analyzed the car would note that something called the flywheel had come apart, causing the Mazda to break down. It also appeared that the stereo had been tampered with. A lab tech was find a bottle of Downy fabric softener in the back smeared with blood. And most crucially, two sets of fingerprints were lifted from inside the vehicle. The owner of those prints would not be identified for 17 years. Bone Valley is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal company Number One. Our executive producers are Jason Flom and Kevin Werdes. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Roxandra Guidi is our editor. Fact checking by Maximum Anderson. Our producer and researcher is Kelsey Decker. Our theme song, the One who's Holding the Stars is performed by Lee Bob and the Truth. It was written by Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick in Florida's Hardy Correctional Institution. Bone Valley is written and produced by me, Gilbert King. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at. Lava for Good. To see photos and documents from our investigation and exclusive behind the scenes content, visit lavaforgood.com hey, it's Karen and Georgia.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you. Watch this. We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Kelsey Decker]

Almost 10 years.

[Karen Kilgariff]

10 years.

[Gilbert King]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gilbert King]

Goodbye.

[Sheryl McCollum]

On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset.

[Gilbert King]

I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Against women at a deadly tipping point.

[Gilbert King]

Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is Incels. Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. Now, this ain't just any podcast, honey. We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Come be a part of my Zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.