Leo Schofield Jr., the convicted murderer whose claim of innocence has gained international attention, will leave prison in less than two weeks.
The Florida Commission on Offender Review voted Wednesday to grant Schofield parole after nearly 36 years in prison. A majority of the three-member panel agreed to his release on April 30 from Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami.
A Polk County jury in 1989 convicted Schofield of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing two years earlier of his wife, Michelle Saum Schofield. Florida abolished parole in the 1980s, but inmates convicted of murder before 1994 are eligible for release after serving at least 25 years.
Schofield’s presumptive parole release date was set about a decade ago for June 2023. But the parole commission voted last May to push the date back to June 25 of this year and ordered Schofield transferred from Hardee Correctional Institution to Everglades, which operates a transitional program for inmates preparing to be released.
The commission considered Schofield’s case Wednesday morning during its monthly review of parole and conditional release requests. The panel comprises Chair Melissa Coonrod, Richard Davison and David Wyant, a former Bartow police officer.
Davison proposed keeping Schofield’s “walkout date” of June 25, but Wyant and Coonrod agreed to the earlier release date requested by Schofield’s representative, Scott Cupp, a former judge.
Schofield, 57, is expecting to enter a transitional house in the Tampa area.