A surprise guest showed up on stage Saturday night at LkldNow’s “Candid Conversation with Gilbert King” event: Leo Schofield, the central figure in King’s acclaimed true-crime podcast, “Bone Valley.”
The podcast presses the case for exoneration of Schofield, a former Lakeland resident who is out on parole after serving 35 years in Florida prisons; he was convicted – wrongly so, the podcast asserts – in the 1987 murder of his then-18-year-old wife, Michelle, near State Road 33 north of Lakeland.
Schofield rode his motorcycle Saturday from a transitional residence Tampa to the Polk Theatre, where he had intended to sit unrecognized in the audience and listen to King. But King was tipped off that Schofield would be there; toward the end of the event, he invited Schofield to the stage to answer questions from members of the audience.
Schofield was relaxed and confident when speaking to the crowd of more than 200 about his life since leaving prison last April, regrets that as a young husband he focused more on playing music than his wife, and the fact that he last came to the Polk Theatre more than 40 years ago to see “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” as a teen. He has consistently maintained his innocence since his arrest in June 1988, approximately 15 months after his wife was murdered.
The event was part of LkldNow’s annual winter drive to raise funds to preserve the non-profit news organization’s coverage of Lakeland. It focused on King, who won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for his book “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.” He was interviewed on stage by Trinity Laurino, LkldNow’s executive director.
Here are photos of the event from photographer Aaron Duff:
On stage
Click on any image to launch a slideshow with larger photos.
Off the stage
latest news
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
