Gilbert King

Bone Valley

Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No

Where were you born? What did your parents do for a living? Just give us an idea of your growing up and what you remember.

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Jennifer Stone lived just two doors down from Jamie's grandma.

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When Jamie was seven, her mom married a strict and controlling ex-Navy guy. By the time she turned 17, they're divorced, and her mom gets a job as head nurse at a local hospital.

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Jamie found herself experiencing a new sense of freedom, one she'd never known before. With her stepfather out of the picture, she could finally breathe, and in that space, there's a quiet resistance to the control she'd grown up under.

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One night in April 1987, Jamie's sitting in a chair right off the dance floor. She's got thick brown hair and glasses, like a wallflower, hiding off to the side with her friend Maria when they see this teenage boy enter the club. He's tall and thin, and he moves with confidence in a quiet presence that's hard to ignore. His name is Jeremy Scott.

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Jeremy Scott told me in terrifying detail how he was the one who killed Michelle Schofield.

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And he's heading toward them.

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At the end of the night, Jeremy walked her to her car.

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Jamie's friend Maria leaned on one side of the car with her boyfriend.

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While Jeremy and Jamie settled by the driver's side.

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From what I've learned about Jeremy, Secrets seems like the last place he'd want to be. Tight supervision, no alcohol, and parents hovering just outside. So a few nights later, Jamie meets up with Jeremy at one of his usual spots, behind the Lakeland Mall.

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When I first learned about Jeremy Scott, I didn't want to know any more than I had to. Here was a man with a history of extraordinary violence. He was impulsive and volatile, attacking random citizens and teenage girls on the outside, and cellmates, guards, and nurses while locked behind bars. I'll admit, at first I saw Jeremy as sort of a monster. It was Leo, of all people, who changed my mind.

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Jeremy's hanging out with people like this guy named Rambo, a stocky 20-something who wears camo, rides a motorcycle, and who spent some time in the Polk County Jail on burglary charges.

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Jamie's childhood friend Jennifer was less than impressed with Jamie's new boyfriend.

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Jamie's spending more and more time trying to understand Jeremy's secret off-the-grid world. She wants to know more about him and the people who matter in his life.

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As we talked with Jamie, I could sense she was allowing herself to remember not just the painful truths Justin would have to confront about his father, but perhaps for the first time in decades, she was willing to think about why she'd once been drawn to Jeremy Scott.

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But Jamie also found herself doing things for Jeremy, things she never would have imagined doing before she met him. At first, it wasn't anything too bad, just sort of weird.

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It's not unlike giving blood to the Red Cross. They'd go into a harsh fluorescent lit room where people wait in long lines, trading the plasma in their blood for cash.

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It's like they live in separate worlds. While Jamie roller skates with friends, Jeremy's getting drunk in the park. While she's in school, he's breaking into houses and pawning whatever he can.

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One day, Jeremy tells Jamie he wants to take a trip a few hours north. Jeremy gets behind the wheel, even though he doesn't have a license.

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After hours of driving, they finally make it to Perry, Florida. Jeremy pulls into a gas station where his mother Linda is working.

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Leo, whose wife was murdered by this man, was able to see something in Jeremy that I couldn't.

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They make the long, quiet drive back to Polk County. From that moment on, her fear was mounting and always there.

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Sitting in that hotel room with Jamie, listening to her go back in time, I could see she was entering some of the territories she'd tried to leave behind. Things that caused her a lot of pain, and at times, probably caused Justin some pain too.

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But it was a constant battle to keep Jeremy out of her mind.

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But now, with Justin wanting to know everything, Jamie told me it was time she said it all out loud. She takes us back to 1988. She's dating Jeremy, and he disappears yet again.

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He'd hang outside Lakeland's gay bars like the Green Parrot and Fantasy 2000.

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The lesson doesn't take, and he's soon back at Lake Morton after dark, prowling for his next targets.

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I know from going through court records that robbing gay men is not what Jeremy went to prison for this time. Instead, it was for breaking into a home in Lakeland, stealing a few cameras, a VCR, and some other electronics. He was caught, convicted, and sentenced to state prison where he spent over four months until his release in May of 1988.

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Weeks after Jeremy got out of prison, Jamie remembers him disappearing again. For a while, she didn't see or hear from him. She had no idea where he was. Until one hot summer morning, when Jamie, her sisters, and her mom were getting ready to head to Disney World for the day.

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Except for this time. Jamie leaves with her mom and her sisters. They spend the entire day at the Magic Kingdom. And as they step into their ground floor apartment that night, they see him. Jeremy. Jeremy. He's outside, knocking on the sliding glass door.

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Jeremy was trying to tell me and anyone who would listen the truth, that he was the guilty one, not Leo.

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Jamie steps out into the backyard. Jeremy gives a small wave, motioning for her to follow. It's dark now. Jeremy leads her to a spot behind the townhouses, out of sight.

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By the fall of 1988, Jamie's been seeing Jeremy for about a year and a half, always on his terms. She's 18 now, and she drops out of school.

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In season one of Bone Valley, I told you the story of a man fighting to prove his innocence. This season, the story of a man trying to prove his own guilt and the unlikely collection of people who heard Jeremy confess and out of nowhere stepped forward to help him make things right.

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Jamie thought she was finally rid of Jeremy and all the chaos, the violence, and the abuse. But two weeks later, he's back. This time, with blood on his pants and a stolen car. He wants Jamie to get in. And by now, Jamie knows the consequences of telling Jeremy no. Next time...

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Our executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Werdes. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Jackie Pauly and Hannah Beal are our producers. Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Mary Ann McCune is our editor. Fact-checking by Dania Suleiman. Jeff Clyburn is our head of marketing and operations. Our social media director is Ismadi Gouardrama.

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Our social media manager is Sarah Gibbons. And our art director is Andrew Nelson. Additional research and production by Kelsey Decker. Additional sound recording by James Johnson. Bone Valley is written and produced by me, Gilbert King. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and threads at lavaforgood.com.

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Jeremy Scott confessed, and the state of Florida doesn't believe him. These are the stories of the people who do.

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Bone Valley Season 2. Jeremy. Chapter 1. You told me no. One morning, in the fall of 2022, I woke up to a flood of text messages, a missed call, and a voicemail that came in at 1 a.m.

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Jeremy's son wanted to talk to me.

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I texted him back right away, and we started chatting. His messages felt urgent. He'd just finished listening to his father confess to murder. Justin wrote, Sorry for getting excited and talking so much. I've never had a chance to talk about my dad, and I'm 34. Hello? Hey, Justin. Hey, how's it going? It's Gilbert. How are you?

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I'm doing good. I'm so sorry I missed you last night. I know it was late. I was asleep the whole time I woke up this morning.

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Yeah, I could imagine. One of the first of a long list of things Justin wants to talk about is actually not his dad. It's Leo. Justin has listened to our podcast, done all these sleepless calculations, and he's come to this conclusion.

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If Jeremy had gone to jail instead of Leo, Justin would have never been conceived.

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While we're on the phone, I realize Justin is with his own son.

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Oh, sweet. Two years old?

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He tells me he's raising his son with his girlfriend, Arielle, who also has three young daughters from a prior relationship. That's how I look at it.

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This is why his voicemail came in so late at night. He's incredibly busy. He works the night shift as a supermarket manager, and during the day he's taking care of the kids while Arielle's at work.

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Justin tells me he feels immense guilt about Leo Schofield.

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In the podcast, he heard his dad trying to tell the truth about Michelle's murder to help absolve Leo. It was the first time he ever heard his dad speak.

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Justin told me, growing up, his mom never spoke about his dad at all. Nothing bad, nothing good, just nothing. But when he was around other family members, he'd catch bits and pieces.

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Yeah. As we talk, I get the sense that overnight, Justin has embarked on a delicate and complicated mission to find out everything he can about his dad, however difficult, and to see if any of what he learns can bolster his dad's confession and help Leo. A big part of that mission is getting his mom, Jamie, to talk to me.

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Among the texts he sent me were screenshots of a Facebook conversation he had with her. He tells her he just finished listening to the podcast and he floods the chat box between them with questions about Jeremy's murders, whether or not Jeremy really loved her, if he tried to kill her. She answers his questions and she tells him that his dad only saw him once.

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Something unexpected happened after I told you the story of a man convicted of murdering his own wife.

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I already knew something about Justin's mom, Jamie Nellems. She was Jeremy's girlfriend around the time of Michelle Schofield's murder. While I was investigating Jeremy's crimes, I saw her name in police reports. So Kelsey and I tried to talk to her years ago. She even agreed to meet us for lunch at a nearby restaurant in Polk County. She texted me that she was on her way.

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We waited and waited, but Jamie never showed up, and I never heard from her again. But now, after hearing his dad talk for the very first time, Justin was asking Jamie to talk to me. In the messages to his mom, he talked about hearing Jeremy's voice. He wrote, he sounded alone and afraid, always on guard, trust issues, weirded me out how alike we are.

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He wanted to know if she heard the podcast too. She says, I haven't. I'm sorry, hon. I can't bring myself to hear his voice again. He says, I understand fully. And when he tells her, I'm trying to contact Gilbert King now and see what happens, she says, he tried to contact me a while back. I wouldn't talk to him. I just couldn't do it.

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Later on, she says, my psych doctor thinks I should tell my story to Gilbert King if it would be therapeutic. Justin urges me to contact her again. He says she wants to talk now.

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Kelsey and I rent a hotel room for our interview with Jamie.

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Kelsey has arranged the room simply. Three chairs, a table in the middle, and two microphones set up.

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If you haven't heard season one of Bone Valley, you might want to go back and listen. It's the story of Leo Schofield, who spent 36 years in prison for a crime he swears he did not commit.

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She's dressed in jeans and a blouse, her short brown hair showing just a hint of gray. She's visibly nervous as we settle around the table. I wanted to start slowly, assuming she might have a hard time opening up. But as she spoke, I realized that this was going to be different from the Jamie I'd come to know through depositions and courtroom transcripts.

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In those formal settings, she was responding to lawyers focused solely on the facts. Here, it became clear she was responding to Justin. She was determined to give him the answers he'd always wanted about his father's life and her own.

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After investigating his case for years, I'm convinced he's telling the truth. Because I also met the one man who says he knows for sure that Leo is innocent.