Transcript
00:00:12
Speaker 1: Yesterday, I went out in the afternoon, going out for my last you know time on the Red Field. It's so contained and it's so secure, it has to be right. I mean, it's a high level security institution. You can't look far without having to look to a fence, steel bar, a reinforced glass door, tall twelve foot defences covered in razor wire. There's something there that's going to remind you that you're not free, you know, you are confined.
00:00:46
Speaker 2: My mind was whirling, you know, thinking.
00:00:49
Speaker 1: About all of what ifs, the possibilities, what am I going to do? What's this going to be like? Is it really going to happen? Because I'm going to tell you something. Right up to the last minute, I was holding my breath waiting for a hammer to drop.
00:01:30
Speaker 3: You.
00:01:31
Speaker 4: You, my miness, I have to rise.
00:01:38
Speaker 5: My feel.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: Saw rose deep.
00:01:44
Speaker 4: Sorryless in this VALI tears. I want to see RelA show.
00:02:05
Speaker 3: Great rish to.
00:02:11
Speaker 2: The old day stuff.
00:02:18
Speaker 5: So I know it just.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Upsets everybody, but I.
00:02:46
Speaker 5: Saw this coming. To be honest with you, I saw this coming.
00:02:50
Speaker 6: Kelsey and I are sitting in a hotel room in Miami along with Scott Cup. Just two weeks earlier, Leo had been officially granted parole. Since then, I'd been in near constant contact with Chrissy and Scott as they coordinated plans for Leo's first day out of prison. Here's what we were expecting. Leo was scheduled to walk out of the gates at Everglade's Correctional Institution at nine am, where a crowd of family, friends and supporters would be gathered to cheer him on and witness his first steps of freedom after spending thirty six years behind bars. Leo's lawyers from years past were also planning to attend, and so was Jonathan Martin. He's the Florida Senator who spoke at Leo's parole hearing last year, and it has been in discussions with Scott Cupp about Leo's prospects for exoneration. Chrissy had planned a whole day for him. First, there would be a luncheon at the hotel where Leo would say some words and play some music. Then he'd get into a car and drive with Chrissy to see his daughter, Ashley, who had just given birth to his third grandson. Then he'd head to the Halfway House in Tampa, where he'd unpack and settle in and begin the adjustment to life outside of prison. Kelsey and I flew into Miami and headed over to the Mikasuki Hotel the night before the release. This hotel is right on the outskirts of Miami and less than a mile from where Leo would spend his final night in prison. We were feeling pretty excited as we headed to the Mikasuki Hotel, but just as we were walking up to the front desk to check in, I got a call from Chrissy.
00:04:27
Speaker 7: I feel like I didn't really get the full story of what she told you on that call.
00:04:30
Speaker 8: Actually, she basically said this is what I've heard.
00:04:34
Speaker 2: I don't know anything else. I'm on my way over.
00:04:36
Speaker 8: But they have moved the walkout time to six am, number one, number two. Only three people are going Chrissy, Dave, and Pam picking up Leo.
00:04:47
Speaker 2: No media.
00:04:48
Speaker 8: The other thing they said is, as far as we know, no Mikasuki, you can't stop there. Got to go straight to the Noah's house.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: So yeah, we.
00:04:56
Speaker 6: Don't know who issued the orders. Was it the prison overwhelmed with the logistics of a high profile release, or did this come from higher up in the Florida Department of Corrections. There was no way to know, but after that phone call from the prison, we did know that all of Chrissy's plans for Leo's release were done.
00:05:15
Speaker 9: For If they say get in the car and go straight to Naas, he better get in the car and goes straight to Naas because at this point, as upset as everybody is, if that's what they're telling him to do, better, he better do it.
00:05:33
Speaker 6: Sitting in the hotel room with Scott Kupp, we tried to figure out what to do next. We exchanged a few texts with Seth Miller, Leo's lawyer from the Innocents Project of Florida. Since he's been through this process many times.
00:05:46
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm curious, has he ever experienced this before? He just told me he's done like thirty walkouts.
00:05:52
Speaker 3: Like, what the fuck is going on?
00:05:55
Speaker 8: You know, Jonathan Martin was supposed to be here when Leo got out, and now at six am, its kind of hard for him to leave at three thirty to get from Fort Myers or where the hell he's coming from.
00:06:04
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of.
00:06:05
Speaker 6: Stuff that's The prison has set these last minute conditions for Leo's release.
00:06:09
Speaker 2: And it's final.
00:06:10
Speaker 6: It seems like just one more reminder that walking through that gate might look like freedom, but parole is still basically prison without bars.
00:06:19
Speaker 8: We have records, we'll see who is it.
00:06:22
Speaker 10: Dave and Pam, Leo's family from Massachusetts, find their way to Gilbert's hotel room, where everyone seems to be congregating. It's nice to see them at least. This is a long and complicated story, but since you haven't really heard their voices before, here's some quick backstory to get you caught up. The woman Leo called mom growing up is really his stepmother. Cheryl married Leo's dad when Leo was a toddler, and she raised him. It was never hidden from Leo that his biological mother was out there, but he had never met her until twenty eighteen. That's when Leo, with Chrissy's health, finally reconnected with his birth mother. Sandy. I can't imagine that it's already nerve racking to reach out to a biological parent who you've been separated from since you were three, But reaching out to a biological parent and saying you're convicted of killing your wife and you're innocent, I could see how that might not go over well, but actually she quickly embraced Leo, and along with Sandy, came Dave and Pam. Sandy referred to her husband, Dave as the love of her life, and Pam is the half sister Leo never knew existed. Sandy, Dave, and Pam traveled down from Massachusetts to visit Leo frequently. They had a couple years of family reunions in the Hardy Correctional Visitation Park, and then Sandy passed away in April of twenty twenty. Since then, Dave and Pam have truly become Leo's family, so much so that Dave has legally adopted Leo, his deceased wife's adult son, and Pam and Leo are lovingly referred to as the twins because although they've spent a lifetime apart, they have so much in common, and their shared sense of humor means they are almost always laughing in each other's presence. So that's Dave and Pam.
00:08:11
Speaker 11: And Chrissy was saying that only the three of us can pick him up and talk tomorrow morning and take him away. They won't way what the hell the object was to have something here? And then take him to Fort Myers so he can see Ashley, his grandchildren. They said to him, you can have a target on your back because of the notoriety and everything out there. They're going to be watching it. Be careful, absolutely everything by the book, steady on. Whatever you need us to do will do. So stay focused, get all of the rules they forgive you.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: That's our focus.
00:08:56
Speaker 10: I'm glad you two are at least included with the.
00:09:01
Speaker 2: But how sad is it that I'm the one that can go.
00:09:05
Speaker 7: It makes me feel bad just because that's me, and I really want to see him walk.
00:09:10
Speaker 8: Out of that door, like that's totally what I want to do.
00:09:13
Speaker 10: But we wanted to see him walk out too. It's a moment we've been imagining for five years. But there's no time to think about that now. Plans are still shifting and it's getting late. There is one thing that hasn't changed. The vehicle that Leo will ride in to leave prison property Dave's black Tesla.
00:09:34
Speaker 11: I wanted him to ride in my car. I didn't want him to ride in some rental car from home mother. I want him to ride in my car. My daughter's written in my car. My grandkids are written in my com My son in law's written my car and I want my car.
00:09:53
Speaker 10: We don't even know what Leo knows at this point about the change in plans. The prison had already taken away as tablets, so we can't get in touch with him. All we could do was hope that he'd be able to make a phone call. We meet up with Chrissy in her hotel room and watch the sunset from her balcony. Leo would take his first steps outside the barbed wire gate before the sun would rise again. We set our alarms for four am and try to get some sleep.
00:11:00
Speaker 2: Quarter to three mm quarter three, I was awake.
00:11:03
Speaker 5: I didn't sleep two hours.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense to get up, now, you know what I mean, Cause I'm locked in this eight by ten cell, my roommates sleeping, and uh, I said, now I'm gonna just lay here for a minute.
00:11:14
Speaker 12: And I lay there and let.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: My mind just burn out, you know, think about everything I was gonna do. And then like quarter after three, I said, man, get out of bed, just get.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: Out of bed.
00:11:24
Speaker 1: And I slowly, you know, got ready, and uh, I was already dressed in my blues, brushed my teeth. Four o'clock, my door rolled open. I knew why it was open, and the sage came and and uh. I came out carry my little blue bag and all that had in it was my Bible and the Koran and UH some journals.
00:11:48
Speaker 3: And uh.
00:11:48
Speaker 1: They brought me to the front and they put me in a holding cell by myself at four o'clock in the morning. And I knew I was gonna be sitting there a while because I'm not leaving till six. My wife was giving permission to bring my clothes no earlier than five forty five, So now I'm gonna be sitting there and just sitting there from four to five forty five. I had my Bible with me, so that was good. And I sat in this little cell, locked in a cage, and just prayed and waited.
00:12:36
Speaker 13: All right, I'm about to head downstairs. It's five point fifteen in the morning, and today is the day Leo's gonna walk out of prison. We're not gonna be able to see it, but it's still gonna happen, and that's the good thing.
00:13:00
Speaker 6: We head outside. It's been raining since we got up.
00:13:05
Speaker 10: For Leo's gonna be released in the dark and in the rain.
00:13:10
Speaker 6: We see Chrissy with Dave and Pam packing up the car with all the food that was supposed to be spread out in a buffet for guests. She's also packed a bag with clothes for Leo to change into since he'll have to leave his prison blues behind.
00:13:24
Speaker 14: So we're on away. We're gonna go get him.
00:13:26
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, I can't wait.
00:13:32
Speaker 6: Once Chrissy, Dave, and Pam load up and take off, we jump in the car and are right behind them.
00:13:43
Speaker 5: That's them over there right there.
00:13:46
Speaker 12: Yeah.
00:13:50
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, don't.
00:13:51
Speaker 5: Get like I'm not.
00:13:57
Speaker 6: The drive lasts all of two minutes.
00:13:59
Speaker 5: We want.
00:14:00
Speaker 6: Dave, Pam and Chrissy drive onto prison grounds in the Tesla and I pull over and flip the hazards on.
00:14:06
Speaker 15: So we turn into the prison property and get around a curve and there's like three or four cars with their lights on and a barricade. So they all come running to these officers and they are on walkie talkies and they come to the door and they say, we roll down the window and they take our driver's license and check our names, and then they ask for his clothes. And I had him in a bag next to me, so we open the window and give them the clothes, and I hear on the walkie talkie Majors taking the clothes, taking the clothes, and then comes back to us and is following the major.
00:14:44
Speaker 6: We're parked on the side of the road across from the prison entrance. The shoulder isn't wide enough to keep us out of the lane while cars fly past us.
00:14:53
Speaker 5: I don't know if there's a fucking spot.
00:14:57
Speaker 13: I mean used to have like three feet over there. God, it's really just.
00:15:05
Speaker 10: Fully dark out.
00:15:08
Speaker 13: I mean, like, how much are we into the lane?
00:15:12
Speaker 2: A little bit?
00:15:16
Speaker 5: So fucking depressing like this, you.
00:15:20
Speaker 13: Can't believe they're making do it this way? What did the headlights of a tesla look like?
00:15:31
Speaker 5: I don't know.
00:15:34
Speaker 6: The night before, we all decided that even if we couldn't witness those first steps of freedom, we still wanted to be as close as we could to the moment. More cars filled with friends and family members line up behind us. We're all peering through the dark waiting for the outline of the black tesla to appear.
00:15:52
Speaker 1: And time went by like that, and before I knew it, and they bought the clothes to me. I changed out of everything, and.
00:15:59
Speaker 15: Then we go to another checkpoint and there's another guard gate, and officers come and they check our driver's license, they check the trunk, and then they say go to the front pavilion where we normally go for a visit.
00:16:14
Speaker 2: No, I was able to go out the gate.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: No inmates for any reason walk to that gate because that's the front gate. And so went through there and then they took me directly out.
00:16:32
Speaker 15: So the car stops and I jump out and I run up to this pavilion area. It's like a covered area and there's two wardens and suits and they're standing there and I was kind of We're just kind of chit chatting, casual conversation, you know, like just trying to be polite, and it's still raining, and the intensity is just building for me, building, building building.
00:16:56
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I guess so they're gonna let me go open front gate. And I went through it. It was incredible.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:17:06
Speaker 15: Yeah, And next thing I know, in the rain, in the dark, the wardens turned around and there he was, and I saw him in his clothes and his little blue bag, and he just walked really fast to me and we just like like the intensity of that hug was magical, like we did it, We did it, we did it.
00:17:32
Speaker 1: So Chrissy was like hugging and crying, and the hugging was a great hug and all I'm like, okay, let's go.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: Can we hug somewhere else please? You know what I mean.
00:17:40
Speaker 1: These people got guns and I want to go, and I want to say, you know what's going fee.
00:17:45
Speaker 12: I want to change my mind.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: You know, I'm in jeans now and we're not going back to those. As tighter as these are than those I was wearing. I'm not putting those back on, never again. And then the door closes and.
00:18:02
Speaker 2: It was just quiet, just quiet. Prisons are utterly noisy places.
00:18:10
Speaker 1: They echo people yelling and screaming, laughing, whatever, and it's constant noise, you know.
00:18:18
Speaker 2: And it's all day, every day.
00:18:20
Speaker 1: And I've got in that car and uh, you know, it's very very quiet. And then started moving and it was still quiet, like the car doesn't make any noise. I mean, it doesn't sound like anything and needs to have like some guy n I was waiting for him. We just started moving.
00:18:34
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the hell, Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker 14: It comes head lighters.
00:18:47
Speaker 16: It's it's a fan with blinkers on. M m no, it's that does look like a tesla, though.
00:19:02
Speaker 10: Oh I think that's them?
00:19:04
Speaker 13: Is that them?
00:19:07
Speaker 6: A car comes out and takes a left. We're not sure it's them. It's so dark out. I try to follow them on No, no, no, it's not.
00:19:16
Speaker 5: I got a two traffic first.
00:19:21
Speaker 10: Decline.
00:19:25
Speaker 13: But what are you doing?
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Okay?
00:19:29
Speaker 10: I mean I hope I was them.
00:19:32
Speaker 13: It looks like a toss summer.
00:19:36
Speaker 6: Oh, by what you said, I can't imagine what Leo's thinking. If that is him up ahead. My heart is pounding trying to catch up. Something about this moment feels more like an escape than a walk out. I just want to get as far away from this prison as fast as possible.
00:20:00
Speaker 10: I mean, let me text proceed. I don't know if she's gonna apply.
00:20:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I'm driving down the road a little bit, and I said, I think there's some people following us, and that.
00:20:14
Speaker 6: Looks like a Massachusetts Plight Dinner's get closer.
00:20:17
Speaker 1: Because I'm power they're gonna follow us all the way to the Tampa okay.
00:20:23
Speaker 10: Kursy said, yes, okay, oh my god, We're gonna car behind Leo.
00:20:28
Speaker 1: And the rain's letting up a little and when she told me it was was you guys.
00:20:32
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, okay, that that made me feel a lot better.
00:20:36
Speaker 6: Lea must be freaked out in that car. It's like all it is is a big computer screen.
00:20:41
Speaker 2: There's no but you know, like.
00:20:43
Speaker 10: Knobs or I mean, I'm freaked out by it. So I spend thirty six years in persons.
00:20:50
Speaker 6: I can't believe he's up there. We head west as the sun rises behind us. We drive out of the rain. As our little caravan cuts across the Tammiami Trail led by the black Tesla with Leo inside.
00:21:05
Speaker 15: The rain stopped and the day brightened as we were driving, and the sun came out, and the rains just stopped and we started to breathe. So it was the most magical moment of my life.
00:21:27
Speaker 6: About twenty miles down the road, the tesla's left turn signal starts blinking in front of us. Chrissy says she needs to pull over for a bathroom stop, and we all stopped too, and everyone gets out. The back door of the tesla swings open, and suddenly there's Leo standing in street clothes in a parking lot miles from prison. No handcuffs, no barbed wire, no guards in sight. It may not be the walkout from the main gate that everyone was imagining, but he's here.
00:22:00
Speaker 7: He's out.
00:22:03
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
00:22:06
Speaker 5: H m hmm, hey buddy, mm hmm.
00:22:13
Speaker 3: H. Here come the boys.
00:22:27
Speaker 4: Hey, hey, hi, Hey buddy, Hey buddy.
00:22:35
Speaker 7: Come here, buddy, Hollo are you buddy?
00:22:40
Speaker 2: Don't you made it?
00:22:46
Speaker 10: I want to meet the new one.
00:22:48
Speaker 17: Yeah, you got your little Holly Davidson jacket on.
00:22:53
Speaker 2: Yeah that's nice.
00:22:57
Speaker 3: Oh.
00:22:58
Speaker 6: Leo's family and friends gather around him, hugging and taking photos. But it's a quick stop. Leo was anxious to get back on the road and get to Tampa.
00:23:09
Speaker 18: Buddy, okay, all right, Yeah, you know, I'm still still fearing us as hell. Yeah yeah, I'm not sure what I feel, to be honest, I just you know, I think once you get there and get settled exactly, thinks it'd be better.
00:23:29
Speaker 6: Right now, back on the road, we continue to follow Leo to Noah's house, where he's required to check in.
00:23:35
Speaker 12: By the end of the day.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of in shock that I'm in this car.
00:23:43
Speaker 2: Test me.
00:23:44
Speaker 19: Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking it's count time right now.
00:23:55
Speaker 14: That's pretty though, isn't it.
00:23:58
Speaker 19: You have no idea. You know, it's you know, it's crazy. And I imagined this for a long time, many years. I thought about this is being able to look out at the horizon and be able to see far without having to look through fence or or raise a wire or you.
00:24:17
Speaker 12: Know anything like that. That's just amazing.
00:24:23
Speaker 1: There was a time where we were driving across a bridge.
00:24:27
Speaker 12: The water has sew me on the boat. Wow, that is crazy how far you can see.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: Just to be able to see that far, that far and not have to look through anything, it was absolutely extraordinary that it was amazing and and it made my heart race, keep waiting to wake up from a dream that would not be real, that would really suck.
00:25:11
Speaker 10: The drive from the prison to the halfway house is a little over four hours. Inside our car we spend time listening to podcasts, of course, but within the tesla, Leo was learning how to work his first smartphone.
00:25:23
Speaker 14: And then there's should be a gallery for your pictures.
00:25:27
Speaker 15: So Lee had bottom a phone and before he got the phone, before he got out of prison, he's like, I don't I don't know why you people are on the phone all the time, and I'm just gonna have a phone attached to the wall like I always did. And I'm like, no, no, no, You're gonna have a phone and it has everything in it. We had pre programmed his phone numbers and some apps.
00:25:49
Speaker 14: There's your camera, okay.
00:25:52
Speaker 15: So when I gave it to him, he was it was definitely foreign to him, and so it was super fun just to show.
00:26:01
Speaker 14: Them know what to do.
00:26:03
Speaker 12: What a snapchat?
00:26:06
Speaker 14: That's an dumbass social you can you can send little snaps picture or a little text and then it goes to the other person and then it's erased after thirty.
00:26:18
Speaker 16: Somethings or something.
00:26:20
Speaker 15: I told him, I said, you use that phone for everything. I said, when you want to go to the gym, you gotta beep, when you go to buy stuff, you beep on here.
00:26:27
Speaker 12: Can you put Google Earth on it?
00:26:29
Speaker 2: There?
00:26:32
Speaker 5: I love that.
00:26:34
Speaker 10: It probably goes without saying. But a lot has changed in those thirty six years Leo spent locked up.
00:26:41
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:42
Speaker 14: I was looking at the pictures we took and I'm like, we're old compared to well, compared to I.
00:26:51
Speaker 12: Can't see what I look old.
00:26:53
Speaker 14: I look gold.
00:26:55
Speaker 1: And then the other thing, this is crazy. We don't have mirrors in the prison. I don't have mirrors.
00:27:02
Speaker 12: We have these.
00:27:03
Speaker 1: Little pieces of shiny plastic that you can buy out of the canteen if you want them. They gotta They got a stainless steel thing that's bolted to the to the concrete.
00:27:13
Speaker 2: But I mean it's as reflective as a hubcap. Mm you know what I mean?
00:27:18
Speaker 12: Literally, I mean you.
00:27:20
Speaker 1: Might see a shadow of yourself in it. You're not gonna shave it. And so they sell these little shiny plastic things that have y, you know, some type of uh adhesive silver thing that and it's better than the hub cap y, but it still doesn't show a true reflection. And so when you see yourself in the mirror after thirty six years, it's shocking. It's literally shocking because the m the little plastic thing is softens you know, lines and you know, blemishes and all that. You don't really see it in that cause it's not true reflection. And so you see how I look, And I said, oh damn, I god old.
00:27:58
Speaker 12: Remember what I told you when we first met.
00:28:03
Speaker 3: It was a long.
00:28:06
Speaker 14: Road.
00:28:10
Speaker 19: Yeah, well I didn't even know be this long. You don't expect justice to be this slow. But we didn't even know half of what was actually going on.
00:28:24
Speaker 14: Yeah, we had to do the time to find the truth. I guess.
00:28:30
Speaker 12: One thing we can definitely say is and has been meaningful.
00:28:43
Speaker 2: You know.
00:28:43
Speaker 19: I'm kind of vine absorbing the fact that it it's over for me.
00:28:49
Speaker 2: You know, I'm.
00:28:51
Speaker 12: At least that part of it.
00:29:00
Speaker 3: H m hmm.
00:29:15
Speaker 1: And then the experience. We stopped at the Bird King. I need to use the bathroom.
00:29:21
Speaker 12: Are we going in?
00:29:23
Speaker 3: Okay?
00:29:26
Speaker 16: Yeah?
00:29:27
Speaker 3: M this is very very weird.
00:29:32
Speaker 12: Do I look like a prisoner?
00:29:35
Speaker 3: I don't love for sure?
00:29:37
Speaker 12: Should we get one of those hats?
00:29:40
Speaker 8: Lot of time?
00:29:41
Speaker 2: No, thank you? Oh, it's will be in here.
00:29:47
Speaker 14: So this is the venue and you choose what you.
00:29:49
Speaker 13: Would like and then you go up there.
00:29:51
Speaker 20: Let me just get a whap on the cheese. I look obvious for sure, A little fun. I'm freaking scared.
00:30:06
Speaker 5: To death here.
00:30:13
Speaker 1: He had a chicken sandwich and she had some other little thing of wrap. And the girl said thirty something dollars and exchange.
00:30:19
Speaker 21: I'm like, Holy Mother of God, is it to come with a back massage or something that's crazy?
00:30:32
Speaker 2: Thirty thirty something dollars? I said, a whopper, whopper, one whopper with cheese. That's it. Just cheese. What else is on there? Gold? Thirty something dollars. That's crazy, unbelievable.
00:31:07
Speaker 6: By early afternoon, we pull up behind the tesla at Noah's community outreach, the Halfway House, where Leah will spend the next year. Right yeah, Leah and Pam walk into the office when he needs to check.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: In, I just walk in.
00:31:24
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm not used to this.
00:31:30
Speaker 2: Okay. Hey, hey man, I am so scared.
00:31:34
Speaker 12: I don't even know what to do.
00:31:35
Speaker 4: Don't be scared.
00:31:36
Speaker 2: Don't be scared.
00:31:37
Speaker 19: I'm a sister.
00:31:37
Speaker 14: I'm just to be scared.
00:31:41
Speaker 10: Uh huh.
00:31:41
Speaker 2: We'll be here tomorrow, baby, Yeah, don't be scared.
00:31:45
Speaker 13: You did the right place.
00:31:46
Speaker 14: Come on, it's okay, it's okay.
00:31:48
Speaker 2: Come on.
00:31:52
Speaker 16: You.
00:31:53
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am.
00:31:55
Speaker 17: That's all that matters right now, and we're here to help you. Okay, thank you.
00:32:00
Speaker 4: Here, it's the Parker Sister.
00:32:01
Speaker 2: Okay. My name is Leo Scofield. Is my sister, Pamela.
00:32:05
Speaker 16: But you're going to the new house?
00:32:09
Speaker 3: Is good?
00:32:17
Speaker 6: Leo shown to the house, one that's newly built where a bed has been reserved for him.
00:32:23
Speaker 15: I love let me tell you the new house off the chain.
00:32:25
Speaker 2: I love it.
00:32:26
Speaker 17: But we have eight ministry houses, and we just finished building that one.
00:32:31
Speaker 10: I mean it's brand okay.
00:32:34
Speaker 6: But first he stopped by some familiar faces.
00:32:37
Speaker 2: There's Greg right there.
00:32:40
Speaker 18: There's my buddy Greg.
00:32:42
Speaker 20: You know all these guys.
00:32:43
Speaker 12: There's Jimmy right here.
00:32:45
Speaker 2: What's happening? My sister family, what's happening right?
00:32:53
Speaker 6: Most of the guys here are also recent graduates of the Everglade CI Corrections Transition Program. Leo spent a total of ten months there, and in that time, thirty nine men were released on parole. Today, with Leo walking out, he's the fortieth.
00:33:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
00:33:21
Speaker 6: Leo moves his stuff into his new home, which is clean, freshly painted, and sparse.
00:33:27
Speaker 17: All this stuff pop.
00:33:29
Speaker 6: Now that Leo is here and checked in, he's finally able to breathe, and he begins to reflect on his new surroundings and new existence.
00:33:40
Speaker 1: No, I think I was out of my element until we got here. You know, I needed to get here. What is strange to me?
00:33:50
Speaker 6: Leo spins around in his seat to knock on the dry wall behind him.
00:33:54
Speaker 1: I could probably run through that with no problem, for real. I mean, I sign it. See, I've been in a concrete and steel block, right, solid unit for thirty six years, and you're not getting through that, you know what I mean. You feel it, you can just the sound of your voice inside something like that.
00:34:16
Speaker 2: The way it's so enclosed and encased.
00:34:19
Speaker 1: You know, inside those cells, there's a sense of security. You know, you have a sense of safety in that as compared to this, because if I can break through it, who can break in it? You know? And nobody's breaking in money see one, two or one cell. You're not coming through that door. If the door is locked, you're not coming through unless it gets open. You know, you can run and crash into it all you want, you know, you're.
00:34:42
Speaker 2: Not coming in.
00:34:43
Speaker 1: The walls are solid concrete, they're not even blocked, they're just slabs. The single unit, I mean, the whole fabricated that way. And so there's a sense of am I secure? Am I safe?
00:35:00
Speaker 7: You know?
00:35:00
Speaker 1: So I don't feel secure. I'm outside my element right now, and so you know, that's when all you guys go, you know what I mean, And I gotta be by myself.
00:35:15
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna have a lot of time.
00:35:16
Speaker 6: Tonight, after seeing what will be his new home for the next year, we all head over to the airbnb that David rented right down the block. It's still about a half hour too early to check in, so we all gather on the back porch. Leo pulls his new guitar out of.
00:35:33
Speaker 5: The case to inspect it.
00:35:35
Speaker 3: This thing up real quick.
00:35:37
Speaker 6: For weeks, Leo had been anticipating the opportunity to say a few words of gratitude and share some stories after his release.
00:35:45
Speaker 10: Can maybe the.
00:35:49
Speaker 2: Super song.
00:36:11
Speaker 6: We're a smaller group than what would have been back at the hotel, but Leo still wanted to play something, even if it was just for a few people he was close to years ago. On one of our first visits to Hardy, Leo told us about the days and weeks after Michelle was killed, how he never really had the chance to properly grieve her death and the loss of the future they'd imagined together. Almost immediately he was a suspect having to fight for his own life, and once he was locked up, he told us, showing grief, sadness, fear, anything else than anger really could make him a target and put him in danger. And anyway he was young, had already struggled to express his emotions in a healthy way even before all that, but playing music helped. I couldn't tell you what I was feeling, he told us, but I could sing it. I could play it through the guitar, and before his arrest in nineteen eighty eight, he'd written a song for Michelle Sunset Mickey.
00:37:27
Speaker 5: He called it.
00:37:29
Speaker 6: The title references the nickname he'd had for Michelle a lifetime ago. The lyrics, he thinks now, are juvenile, but they reflect who he was at the time, a young man, immature with his world turned upside down.
00:37:56
Speaker 2: Sunset and nicky.
00:37:59
Speaker 3: Where here are you now?
00:38:04
Speaker 1: I can hear your life and in my heart somehow.
00:38:11
Speaker 2: I miss you in the morning and I love of.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: You and night.
00:38:18
Speaker 22: You are too young to die and a justingbody. And now that you're going on, my life hain't been the same.
00:38:32
Speaker 23: I still hear your calling, I can calling out my name alive and well her.
00:38:42
Speaker 2: But where are you now? You will always be either time after time.
00:38:54
Speaker 17: But will soon be together with a love died last, broken, hearts mended, and troubles put to the past.
00:39:08
Speaker 2: So think of me always wherever you maybe.
00:39:15
Speaker 22: And look to the future, because it's me you will see me Sunset, the sunset, making.
00:39:36
Speaker 24: The sunset sunset mager, sunset magging.
00:40:00
Speaker 6: He told us that he'd sat at her graveside all those years ago before he ever set foot in a jail or prison, and played the song for her. Leo never forgot the words. He said he'd tried playing it a few times in prison, but it was too painful and he wasn't sure he could make it all the way through. We weren't sure we'd.
00:40:23
Speaker 2: Ever hear it.
00:40:56
Speaker 10: Leos said recently that he was feeling conflicted about parole. He was worried it meant he was giving in settling for parole when he deserves exoneration. I've had my own moments of internal conflict about this, not about parole itself, but about celebrating before the fight is over. But this moment, seeing Leo openly grieving his wife thirty seven years later, while comforted by a family who drove halfway across the country to be here for him during this enormous life transition, this moment made me feel the magnitude of what has changed. To be able to kiss your wife and not be watched by a guard, to be able to visit with family and not have them subjected to a pat down, to be able to call a friend and not be announced by the facility you're locked up in, to open a drawer first thing in the morning, and make a choice about what you want to wear that day, to play with your grandchildren, and not be confined to a single patch of grass to be able to measure t I'm on your own terms, not by the prison count, and us it outside at the end of the evening, watching the color of the sky change as the sun vanishes beneath the horizon, allowing yourself to finally grieve after thirty six years.
00:42:15
Speaker 7: Finally, thank you, I love you, guys, Thank you thanks for sharing that with Yeah Yeah.
00:42:48
Speaker 6: Bone Valley is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Our executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wurdis. Cara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Brit Spangler is our sound designer, Roxandra Guidy is our editor, and our researcher and producer is Kelsey Decker. Sunset Mickey was written and performed by Leo Schofield. Our theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars was written by Kevin Herrick and Leo Schofield and performed in this episode by Lee Bob in The Truth and Leo Schofield. Bone Valley Halfway Home was written by Kelsey Decker and produced by me Gilbert King.
00:43:34
Speaker 5: Do you hear my mindness?
00:43:39
Speaker 12: Laughter hides my views? Sorrow's depths are endless?
00:43:50
Speaker 25: In Miss Bally of DearS, I wanna see relation.
00:44:00
Speaker 3: I want to know live.
00:44:04
Speaker 2: A be ching out and desperation.
00:44:10
Speaker 23: To the one who's holding the stars, to the one news holding the stars, to one whose holding the star.
00:44:34
Speaker 5: Till you know who my brooming?
00:44:40
Speaker 12: Will you touch me? Can you see my longing to be free from the dog.
00:44:55
Speaker 26: I want to see your relation die long, no reaching gall and desperation to the one brooms.
00:45:12
Speaker 25: Holding the stars took one booms.
00:45:17
Speaker 2: Holding the star.
00:45:20
Speaker 25: Took one booms holding the star, turn one loose.
00:45:27
Speaker 2: Holding the star took one booms holding the star
