A convicted murderer has confessed to the stabbing death of a Polk County woman, 28 years after the woman's husband was sentenced to life in the case, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Jeremy Lynn Scott told the attorney for Leo Schofield during a July 29 prison phone call that "he was sorry," according to a motion filed in Polk Circuit Court.
Michelle Saum Schofield left her waitressing job on Feb. 24, 1987. Her father-in-law discovered her body -- stabbed dozens of times -- on Feb. 27 in a canal seven miles away.
Schofield was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in 1988. He did not enter a plea of not guilty because "I couldn't bring myself to say I did something I didn't do," he told the Tampa Bay Times in 2007.
The prosecution's case focused on a witness who testified she heard screaming from the Schofields' trailer and saw Leo carry a "heavy object" outside. The couple's string of domestic disputes also became an issue in the trial.
The defense raised questions about unidentified fingerprints on her car that did not belong to her husband. Schofield was convicted of first-degree murder.
Years later in 2004, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement tested the prints that were on her car and found a match: Jeremy Lynn Scott.
Schofield's attorney, J. Andrew Crawford of St. Petersburg, sent Scott -- who has a violent criminal record -- a letter asking if he had any more information. Scott had testified in the trial that he took the stereo from Michelle Schofield's Mazda, a reason for the fingerprints.
Scott then told Crawford that the night he had asked Michelle Schofield for a ride, and then stabbed her to death.
