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Before I ever met Jeremy's former girlfriend, Jamie, before I knew Jamie and Jeremy had a son together named Justin, I read carefully through something she said about Jeremy in a deposition.

Good morning. It is November 28, 2005. We are here in Winter Haven, Florida, taking the statement of Jamie Nellums, N-E-L-A-M-S. She said something that, as far as I could tell,

no one had ever looked into.

He told me he had killed a taxi cab driver. He was 16, 17 at the time, and that he had gotten away with it.

So when I finally got to talk to her, I asked her about it. One of the things that we learned about from your deposition was that I think they asked if you were aware of Jeremy committing any other crimes, and he said to you, I killed a cab driver once. Can you just walk us through that? What do you remember of that moment?

Actually, we were at his grandmother's house. He had taken me to meet his grandmother out in St. Cloud somewhere, I think it was. And something had happened. Because Jeremy was yelling at this guy, and he was angry. And he, I mean, he was furious with that. I can remember him being so angry with this guy that he was yelling at, and he had his fists clenched.

Jeremy once told me about this conflict too It was between him and his mom's boyfriend Jeremy said he was accusing this boyfriend of abusing his mom

I told him if he ever touched my mom, I'd kill him And I meant that, right? I'm just telling it straight up

Jamie says she remembers that incident And Jeremy getting very angry

And he started to kind of lunge And his grandmother said something about it you need to stop, it's going to be just like with that cab driver. I think what she was saying is you're going to kill him, don't do that. And I think that's what his grandmother was afraid of, that he was going to hurt this guy. And I can remember asking him, like, what does she mean about the cab driver? And he said, he said, nothing, nothing, nothing. And he kept putting me off, putting me off. Well, it was the middle of the night. I can remember us laying down, and we were on a mattress on the floor, and I was almost asleep, and I can remember him saying, my grandma thinks I killed a cab driver. That's how he said it. My grandma thinks I killed a cab driver, and I didn't say anything. And he said, are you asleep? And I said, no. He said, did you hear me? And I said, yeah. I said, did you kill the cab driver? And he said, yeah, but it was, I got away with it. And then he wouldn't talk about it anymore.

If you've been listening since the beginning of this story, you've heard Jeremy tell.

tell me a little about this murder.

When I called a taxi to get a drive, I was just going to rob him. But when I was pointing the gun at him, I guess he just touched it, boom. You know? I know that sooner or later it's going to come back on me. You know, I just wait for it. It's a matter of time.

Jeremy is in prison for life for murdering just one person, Donald Moorhead, the man whose blood Jamie saw on Jeremy's pants. Jeremy confessed to police the next day. Then, when Kelsey and I first met him in prison, he confessed to two more murders, Leo Schofield's wife, Michelle, and a cab driver. But the state of Florida insists those two confessions are fabrications, that Jeremy is just seeking attention or manipulating me, a naive writer, who fell for his lies. And through it all, they maintain their original claims that Jeremy Scott isn't worth listening to, no matter how much evidence says otherwise. A Florida prosecutor once told me, the only chance in hell I have of one day convincing the state to overturn Leo's conviction is to show them that Jeremy is telling the truth. No one is going to reopen these murder cases unless I hand them some undeniable piece of evidence that corroborates Jeremy's confessions. So that is my mission, and Jeremy Scott has become my most constant ally, someone I believe is being more truthful and more credible than the prosecutors and sheriffs, the ones who failed to properly investigate the murders Jeremy has confessed to getting away with. That's why I asked Jeremy for his help. Dear Mr. King, he wrote me last year, I'm going to tell you the whole story. He said, I want you to understand I can be charged with this murder, and I'm okay with this. I will never get out, so I'm going to tell you.

Do you hear my madness? Laughter hides my fears Sorrow's depths are endless In this valley of tears I wanna see your revelation I wanna know who you are I'm reaching out in desperation To the one who's holding the star To the one who's holding the stars

To the one who's holding the stars To the one who's holding the stars

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy Chapter 4 Horse and Buggy After Jeremy confessed, on tape and in writing, to killing a cab driver, I brought everything I'd learned to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office. This was a 34-year-old unsolved murder, and they said they'd look into it again. I thought the detectives there would be grateful for the leads I'd given them, but I was wrong. The Sheriff's Office blew me off. They never got back to me, and I was banging my head against the wall again. But then, one morning, after we'd made public everything we'd learned, I got an unexpected message on Facebook. It was from Buddy Shepard, the first detective to arrive at the scene of the murder. In Shepard's profile pic, he's wearing a white cowboy hat. I click the message. Mr. King, it has been brought to my attention that you might want to speak to me. I am Buddy Shepard, retired staff inspector of the Osceola County Sheriff's Office. If in fact you do, please contact me. Thank you from a big fan of all your books. I couldn't get anyone from the Sheriff's Office to give me the time of day with this case. And now, the lead detective at the center of it, says he wants to talk.

Hello. How are you? Hi, Mr. Shepard. How are you? Mr. Shepard's my daddy, and he's been dead for three years.

years now. How are you? Oh, you're so pretty. Watch out, Cujo baby. Now you get going from here. Buddy's tiny three-legged lapdog runs over to us. His name is Cujo. Cujo, right? Cujo. Definitely looks like a Cujo. Cujo baby, go to the house, honey. I was surprised Buddy Shepard wanted to talk to me. He was the detective who first tried to pin this murder on a man named Dan Odie. Dan was brought to trial for the murder twice, and after a hung jury in the first trial, he was found not guilty by a jury of his peers, but his name was still dragged through the mud. And in the first season of Bone Valley, I talked to several people who told me Detective Buddy Shepard threatened

them, like Tanya Dean. His name was Buddy Shepard. I will never, I just got chills. I'll never forget

that. She was a 15-year-old single mother at the time of the murder, and she said Shepard pushed

her to tell a false story. And I remember telling my dad, Dad, they're making me lie. They're telling me what I have to say, or they're going to take my babies. And then there was Dan Odie

himself, the man who faced the electric chair because of Shepard.

Old Buddy Shepard, he was just, he was bound and determined to frame me. He wasn't going to let it go.

So why would Buddy want to talk to me, of all people? And did I want to talk to him? Buddy had spent some time in jail for threatening a guy on his front lawn with a gun. I didn't want to be next. But in his message confirming our visit, he wrote, I hope you are well, my favorite author. Damn, this guy really knows how to turn on the southern charm. Not long after that message, Kelsey and I were with Buddy outside his trailer near Intercession City. He wanted to address the accusations against him.

I didn't step on any laws or rules of evidence or anything, but they investigated me for it.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the accusations that Buddy Shepard was threatening witnesses to frame Dan Odie. Yeah, I was going to say, they did an investigation, and like in a week, they cleared you. Yes, sir. It was hard on me because... but I wanted to keep Buddy talking. I asked him if he'd be willing to give us a tour of the crime scene to take us back to April of 1987, the night Joseph LaVere was killed. Buddy has back problems, so he gets around with a rollator, sort of a walker with wheels that you can sit down and rest if you need to. I'll get this. I'm going to put this in the back. I folded up his rollator and put it in the trunk. Buddy sat up front with me, and Kelsey sat in the back with her microphone pointed between us.

If you want to just turn right here.

Oh, okay. You want to do it that way?

Yeah. It's much easier. Restricted area.

Wow. We put that up for people to shoot at. Oh, there you go. The area just outside of Intercession City is still pretty rural. We pass through farmland and prairies with cattle grazing along the way.

So, Intercession City. Straight ahead.

The whole time Buddy was in the car, I kept wondering why he wanted to talk to me.

All these roads in here are named after my family. Really? Yeah.

I saw a Shepard Street up here. Is that you? Besides Jeremy, Buddy, Shepard, and I are probably the two people who know more about this case than anyone else alive. And I'm convinced Buddy knows things I don't, things nobody else knows. Maybe this former detective who wanted to convict Dan Odie would now reveal some key piece of information or evidence to finally prove that Jeremy Scott was the person who killed the taxi cab driver. I want him to talk.

It was right about in here. None of this was in here.

We pull over to the side of Old Tampa Highway and park on the spot where LeVere's body was found in April 1987. That night, a nearby resident heard gunshots and called police.

And he, of course, called us. And I was at home in bed. Yeah, it was like midnight or something. Yes, sir. It was about midnight, 1 o'clock. And they called me immediately and told me to get down here, so I did. What was it like when you got here? The body was laying off the road, probably about 40 or 50 feet. we had crime

seen investigators already there and they they set up some lights and i'll never forget i'll never forget seeing that boy's eyes that that was eerie his eyes were open wow his eyes were open i could see the whites of his eyes and even his pupils and uh like that stays with you right it does it stayed with me till this day because he was like a 25 year old kid right yeah he was He was just really a kid working his butt off as a taxi cab driver. And nobody should be killed for doing their job.

Right.

Standing there on the side of the road with Buddy, it became clear. There was so much more to the story I still needed to understand. Like, who was Joseph LaVere? I wanted to know more. so i tried to track down his ex-wife janet i sent her a few messages she never responded but i had a rural address in southwestern georgia that seemed promising it would be a long drive but i had to try when i pulled up to the address i saw an above ground pool in the front yard with half a dozen kids splashing and laughing in the water. On the porch, a young woman in summer clothes stepped out, shielding her eyes from the sun. I introduced myself and explained that I was looking for Janet. She seemed wary at first, her eyes narrowing as she sized me up. The kids in the pool stopped playing, and their laughter faded as they turned to watch this stranger standing in the yard. With a thick Georgian accent, the young woman finally spoke. Janet was her mom. She's at work just up the road, she said, and even offered directions. A few minutes later, I pulled up to a small mobile home office situated along a busy stretch of road. When I walked through the door, the shopkeeper's bells chimed softly. A middle-aged woman behind a desk looked up and fixed her eyes on me. The office was quiet, and we were alone. I introduced myself gently, explaining why I had come. To say she was stunned would be an understatement. She sat in silence, staring at me for what felt like minutes. Sometimes reinvestigating a murder case that's been shelved for more than 30 years can stir up consequences I try to tread carefully around. If there's one thing I've learned following this story to its farthest edges is that some people survive by burying their most traumatic memories just to move on. And then here I come, a writer with a podcast, asking them to revisit the very past they've worked so hard to leave behind. As I explain my investigation into Joseph LaVere's death, she glanced down, her fingers moving across her phone as she sent a text, still not saying a word. I mentioned that I'd tried to call her a few years ago, and she responded bluntly. She'd blocked me. I assured her that I could answer any questions she might have about the case. A few minutes later, the bells jingled again as another woman walked in. Her name was Joy, Janet's sister. After receiving Janet's text, she'd Googled me and decided I seemed legitimate.

With Joy's reassurance, Janet's demeanor softened. She relaxed and eventually agreed to speak with me. What was it like when I walked through this door?

I believe my mind. It shocked me. Devastating. I just, just shocked.

I explained to Janet that I wanted to understand more about Joseph, about who he was before he was killed. Did he really? I've never seen a picture of him. I've been looking forever. I can't find a single picture.

Well, you know, I only had one picture of him. He didn't like pictures taken. Yeah. He looked, he had dark, JB had dark hair, skinny.

JB. I didn't know that Joseph LaVere went by JB.

A lot of hair, black hair. Thick. Thick, very thick.

Yeah.

He's handsome. Yeah, I mean, I married him. Of course he was handsome. He loved martial arts. He had ninja suits, the nunchucks, the stars, the sword. That was his stuff. I mean, that's what he was majorly into. Yeah, we were like, we were his best friends, you know, and then we got married. And right away, we were having a baby very quickly after we got married. He loved to fish, too. Oh.

Yes, J.B. loved to fish.

Janet tells me she and J.B. went fishing the day before their son was born.

Oh, yes. I was nine months pregnant, was out there fishing and freezing cold because Chris was born in December. And we're out there fishing. I said, what happens if I go and labor? They said, well, you got to wait until we finish fishing. And we laughed about it. And then, of course, I went and labored the next day for 18 long hours.

Janet and JB had a son together, a boy named Christopher. Their marriage ended when Christopher was just two, but they remained friends.

And he was a cab driver. Had only been for a few months. Had been working there long.

Janet's last conversation with JB was about making plans to get together the next day.

And so we was talking about going down to the park, and I told him I would make sandwiches. and we'd just go down there and have a picnic and let Chris play on the swings and stuff. And I said, you know, what do you think? And he said, that's a good idea. He said, let's do that. And he said he wanted to talk to me about something.

But J.B. went to his shift that night and never made it home.

We got a call like at 3 o'clock in the morning that he had been killed. And then I had to tell Chris that his daddy went to live with Jesus. But, you know, he's two. I said, he went to live with Jesus now. We're not going to see him no more because, you know, trying not to cry. You know, he's going to live with Jesus. And he looked at me, sat there a minute. He looked at me, he said, well, how'd he get there? And I looked at him and I said, a horse and buggy. He said, a horse and buggy? I said, yeah. He jumped down and as hard as he could run to the other end of the house hollering for my brother-in-law, Uncle Danny, Uncle Danny, Uncle Danny. And he said, what, son? He said, my daddy went to live with Jesus. And you know how he got there? No. Or a horse and buggy. And he was happy because his daddy rode a horse and buggy.

At his funeral, Janet learned what J.B. had wanted to talk to her about.

My best friend at the time said that he was going to tell me that he loved me and he wanted us to get back together. I was like, are you sure? And she said, yes, he's called me and told me, you know, that that's what he wanted to talk to you about.

But Janet would never have that conversation with the father of their son.

You know, he was only two, and he loved his daddy. And he never had that daddy. You know, he never had him all his life. Bad enough, he got shot three times. And then just left the lay there, and then nobody ever got to pay. It's like his life didn't matter.

It was Buddy Shepard's job to find out who killed J.B. A week after the murder, he had his suspect.

We had a chalkboard, and we wrote down anybody's name that could have done this. We put Dan Odie at the top of it. Dan Odie was 6'3", and weighed 210, 220. and I mean a big, raw-boned cow man. Not big muscles, but everything was just as tight as it could be in his arms and his chest. We were investigating Dan Odie right from the very beginning. We had the arrest warrant. We didn't tell anybody about it, and we come down here and started following Dan around. Dan was in a pickup truck. We started following him, and he knew we were behind him, but he wouldn't come into Osceola County. And so I blocked him off, and I came out with a shotgun on him, and we put him on the ground and arrested him.

Yeah, we saw that picture in the Orlando Sentinel. Did you? Yeah, he's, like, laid out on the ground. Yeah. Looking at all the case files, I could never figure out why Buddy Shepard set his sights on Dan Odie for this murder. Buddy just tells me that's where his investigation led him. What Buddy Shepard didn't know was that at the very moment he began investigating who killed JB, Jeremy Scott was hiding in an abandoned house just a few blocks away from the crashed taxi, waiting for Buddy's dogs to sniff him out. Jeremy told me this, and from what Buddy tells me, it sounds like police dogs had picked up Jeremy's scent from a... baseball cap that was left behind in the taxi. We had two dogs at the time. They did track him to the abandoned house, but they lost him there. Tried to run a track from the taxi cab, even gave the dog the hat to smell, but there'd been so many people running the streets and everything and the dog got misdirected.

Okay. So the dog thought that whoever did this went to the abandoned house? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir.

The dogs got close, but they lost his scent. Jeremy and I went over this, too.

I talked to the lead detective for that taxi cab thing.

Yeah.

And he told me that they had the dogs out, and the dogs, like, lost the scent at an abandoned house. Like, they were that close

See, you know, the railroad track's right there Yeah You know, I walk on the railroad track The steel part Right? You know, once the train comes And you're sent, it's going to be gone

I never heard that before

Yeah, I didn't think it would work But it did work

All these years later Jeremy Scott is still waiting For the police to hold him accountable

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I wrote a letter to Jeremy saying, I know it must be difficult to replay these memories from so many years ago and then write them down in a letter. I can't imagine how that must feel, trying to tell people all of this when they won't believe you. I just wanted you to know that I'm listening, and I'm grateful to hear from you. Jeremy wrote back with a letter unlike anything I'd ever read. I'm going to tell you the whole story, he wrote. I want you to understand I can be charged with this murder, and I'm okay with this. I will never get out, so I'm going to tell you. What followed was a stream of details that could not possibly have come from somebody who just read about this case in the news. I'm going to read to you what he wrote. Dear Mr. King,

I might can't remember every little thing, okay? And what I tell you is true. He explains he'd broken into a cop's house and stole a .357 Magnum pistol he found in a closet. I got a ride to Kissimmee. It was after 11.30 p.m. I was walking around. I really didn't know what to do. Then I thought about showing the gun at someone and ask for their money like on TV. But there were too many people around. Then I saw a taxi cab. Jeremy writes that he got the number and called. When a cab come to pick me up, I told him that I wanted to go to Intercession City. I know this place better than most. I lived there when I was little. I told him I live on Old Dixie Highway, so it's real dark out there at night. Once we passed the last house, I pulled the gun out. When he saw what I had, I told him to keep driving. Once I know there ain't any home close by, I told him to pull over, to turn the car off, and leave the lights on. Then we got out. I asked him where does he keep the money. That's when he told me there ain't any, because he just came on and I was the first person he picked up. JB was lying to Jeremy. His shift was just about to end, and he'd hidden $154 in a folded map tucked inside the glove compartment. Outside, the night was pitch black, the round headlights of the 1977 Dodge sedan casting faint light along Old Tampa Highway. JB was staring down the barrel of a .357 Magnum. and this is the part of the letter where Jeremy describes the murder I was pointing the gun at him I had the damn thing pulled back and waved it at him then all I remember was hearing this loud boom I look at him and it seems that he was coming and I shot him again then once more I'm sure that I shot that gun three times It was crazy. I ran to the car and turned it around and was going real fast until I got to the stop sign. I turned and went over the tracks, then turned real fast right. I was going fast, and I couldn't stop it. Then I hit a car, and it hit another, I think. But once I hit that car, I turned the wheel real fast, and I hit a pole. I remember trying to get out fast. I got the gun and case. As I was getting out, I heard and saw two people.

Jeremy writes that he knew one of them, someone named John, and he says he yelled at them, told them the car was going to blow, then took off over the tracks. In his letter to me, Jeremy included a hand-drawn map of the streets of Intercession City, carefully sketching the exact route he took in the stolen taxicab after the murder. He wrote, Look at this map. It will show you the truth. With arrows and lines, Jeremy illustrated how the taxi ricocheted off a parked car before crashing into a light pole. He accurately labeled the streets and even drew figures to represent the witnesses he saw approaching the scene. He also sketched a path to show the direction he fled afterward. Nearly every detail matched police reports and witness depositions. His account went beyond anything that had ever been revealed in the media coverage of the case. At the end of his letter, Jeremy wrote, I really want to thank you for helping me because I feel it's the right thing to do. That's why I told you the whole story. Seems that people listen to you. It turns out that's not always the case. By the time I'd gotten Jeremy's confession, verified his connection to Intercession City and how he was able to corroborate details from the murder of J.B. LeVere that were never made public, I was feeling incredibly optimistic. There was no possible way law enforcement could ignore this new evidence. I took what I had to the Orlando Sentinel, and they

decided to do a front-page feature story about my investigation. They even reached out to the sheriff's office in advance for a comment, and the sheriff responded with this. Thank you for your patience as we gathered the facts. Following the meeting with Mr. King in 2021, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office did re-examine the LeVere homicide case. After a careful review, we did not find any facts to substantiate the claim that Jeremy Scott was the killer. We believe, based on the evidence, Daniel Odie is and was the correct suspect. When I read their response, I was stunned and furious. And the more I read, the worse it got. The Osceola sheriff publicly smeared Dan's name once again, calling him a murderer who had gotten off on a technicality. Let's be clear. Dan Odie was acquitted because a jury of his peers found him not guilty of murder. There's nothing technical about that. Now this had turned into something I couldn't walk away from. I had waited, trusted, and expected officials to take action, to dig deeper for the truth. The Osceola County Sheriff's Office might have decided to ignore Jeremy's confession and the evidence I'd gathered, but that didn't mean I was going to let it go. There were still untapped paths in my investigation, and now I knew exactly where I had to go. When the sheriff's office wouldn't act, I turned to the prosecutors. Ah, shit. That's terrible. I'm going to park this again. I just parked in a really shitty

spot. Oh, my God. It's one of those days. One of those days. How are you feeling about this, Kelsey? Do you feel confident? I was already awake when my alarm went off this morning. I was just already laying in bed thinking about it. This one I actually have

a good feeling about. I reached out to the Ninth Circuit State Attorney's Office, knowing that they had the authority to conduct their own investigation into who killed JB. I managed to arrange a meeting with Chief Assistant State Attorney Ryan Williams and two investigators from his office. He said, just text, send me a text message when you are downstairs. I'll come to escort you in. They agreed to meet with me and Kelsey on a federal holiday, no less. Because we were closed, I will also be dressed more casual than usual. Please feel free to be casual. Too late, dude. Should I take off my jacket then? We walk toward the office and mentally prepare for what should be an important meeting. We should do a selfie in front of the courthouse for later.

I don't think we need to do a selfie.

All right. Okay. We'll do it later. After we're victorious. I guess we can walk over there. Coming down. They didn't allow us to record the meeting, but it was clear from the start that ASA Ryan Williams and his team were taking this seriously. Kelsey turned on the recorder again when we stepped outside. When we were presenting to them, they were curious, asking a ton of questions, really good questions. But unless they find some physical evidence from a legal standpoint, it's going to be difficult for them to go forward.

They made a promise to us to look, which is much more than we got last time.

Yeah, and I believe them. I really do feel like they were engaged and they were, they were, they want to do this. They just need that physical evidence. And I thought that was a much more realist. This could be the turning point that finally sets the record straight about J.B.'s murder. We know, you know, what are the odds that Jeremy Scott confesses to a murder of a taxi cab when he's not in prison, when it's a town he used to live in, and when he can draw a map showing his exact movements that match every witness. I mean, that's the kind of thing that, you know, from a storytelling point, I'm convinced. But they need physical evidence in order to go forward. and that's where we are. A few weeks later, I get an update. Okay, this is a letter from Ryan Williams from December 19th, 2023. Good afternoon, Mr. King. I hope this email finds you well and in the midst of a pleasant holiday season. I wanted again to reach out on this case and homicide we discussed back in September. Williams wrote that one of his investigators searched for the physical evidence from the case at both the sheriff's office and the county clerk. After several efforts, we obtained an answer and paperwork indicating that the physical evidence associated with the case was returned to the sheriff's office and was destroyed by them in 2009. I have no reason to believe this destruction was improper in any way, but the bottom line is that it no longer exists to be tested.

The Osceola County Sheriff's Office destroyed all the physical evidence from the Joseph B. LeVere homicide. All of it. I know that there had been a hat, hair samples, a bullet, 22 fingerprints on the car. Jeremy Scott left fingerprints at the other three murders he confessed to. Now there's no way to know if the prints left behind were his. Williams was telling me that the sheriff destroyed all of it.

Well, I mean, honestly, this sucks, but I'm also kind of like, that gives us more flexibility, you know?

We can go to everybody now.

Yeah, we don't have to hold off or be polite because the state's looking into it because they're obviously not.

So, I mean, I just feel like there's more to do here. I'm not stopping. All right.

Okay. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.

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ASA Ryan Williams encouraged me to keep investigating and told me to reach out if I uncovered anything significant. I try everything I can think of. I tracked down John, the witness that Jeremy recognized as he was getting out of the crash taxi. John grew up with Jeremy in Intercession City. At trial, he testified that it was Dan Odie he saw getting out of the cab. I get John on the phone and he remembered all of it. When I tell him that Jeremy is in prison today for a different murder, and he confessed to being the one who killed the cab driver, John says, I gotta go, and hangs up the phone. He doesn't say, no, it was Dan Odie. He says, I gotta go. Click. After that, I went to his house three times, hoping he would change his mind and agree to talk to me. Every time I showed up, I saw his brother standing outside. I'm Gilbert King. He called me a persistent motherfucker, but in a nice way. My brother's still not talking to you, he told me. He's not? All right, I understand.

This was one of those times when I wished I had the power to subpoena witnesses. Still, there was one piece of evidence, probably the most important in the entire case. It had been destroyed by the sheriff's office, but I believe there was a way to link it to Jeremy and to the murder of J.B. LeVere. Jeremy told me that after he killed J.B., he got behind the wheel of the cab, drove it a mile away, and crashed it into a utility pole. When Buddy Shepard arrived at the scene in 1987, he saw the crashed cab empty after the murderer had gotten out and run away.

And he come barreling down through here. He was, needless to say, he was hauling Bud.

Former detective Buddy Shepard took us to that spot.

So what did you see when you pull up the, like, the car's right in there somewhere, right? Yes, sir. The front end of it was demolished pretty well. When I looked inside, the door was left open on the driver's seat. And I looked in and saw the cap. A black cap left behind by J.B.'s murderer. I want to see. Golly, Ned, I'm working from memory. Yeah, I know. It was a rebel flag on the front of it, a battle flag. And a skull. And a skull, yes, sir. Yes, sir. And that was the cap. It was dark-colored and everything else. It got knocked off of him, and he didn't grab it.

Jeremy mentions the hat in a letter he wrote me. The hat was given to him by his cousin, Jason. He says, I didn't know that I forgot my hat my cousin gave me. The hat was black. We wore so many hats growing up. As kids, we always thought they were cool hats. If the hat were still around, the state attorney's office could test the sweatband for DNA or compare the hairs found inside with Jeremy's. But since the Osceola County Sheriff's Office destroyed it, that's no longer an option. Buddy used to work at the Sheriff's Office and says he knows the guy responsible for destroying the evidence.

One thing I'm really upset about this whole mess, Wiley Black had that evidence destroyed.

We saw that. Major Wiley Black supervised the Homicide and Violent Crimes Unit at the time the evidence was destroyed.

It is very upsetting to me he had no right to do that. You don't get rid of evidence. You don't get rid of reports. You don't get rid of any of that on a murder for 50 years. Fifty? Fifty years as I remember it.

While the sheriff's office may have eliminated the physical evidence, a clear photograph of the hat still exists in the case files. I've always wondered if someone in Jeremy's family might have a photo of either Jeremy or his cousin Jason wearing that baseball hat. I wrote to Jeremy about it, and he got back to me right away. He wrote, You asked me if I had pictures. No, I don't, but I'm sure there's some out there. Grandma had some, but when she passed away, I don't know who would have got them all. She always save all of them. But Aunt Debbie, Judy, or Mama might have some. I don't really know. I tried to track down Jason Scott, who, according to Jeremy, gave him a black baseball cap. Jason passed away years ago, but I'd been texting with Jason's brother, Joshua. I wanted to show him a picture of the hat in person to see his reaction, but we couldn't make it work. Finally, I decided to text him a photo of the hat instead. Long shot, I wrote, but does this hat look familiar? A few hours later, Joshua replied, Yes, I recognize that cap, he wrote. Jeremy and his brother Dean fought over that cap, but my mom always told us that cap wasn't fit to wear. The next time Jeremy called me, I mentioned that I'd spoken with his cousin Joshua. I wanted to see if Jeremy could confirm what Joshua had said about the hat, that he and his brother Royal Dean had fought over it.

Yeah. When I came out of prison, my brother had it. And that was a hat Jason gave me before I went to prison. The first time, when I got out, my brother had it. And I took it back, right? And we had a big argument about it, you know? Yeah.

I'm still holding out hope that the family might find a picture of Jeremy or even his cousin Jason wearing that hat. I told Buddy Shepard more than once that I believed he went after the wrong man in Dan Odie and that I was convinced Jeremy Scott had killed J.B. LeVere. After showing him all the evidence I'd uncovered,

covered. I just wanted to know if any of it had made a difference to him. Did you know who Jeremy

Scott was? Because he lived in Intercession City for some time. I knew of him. I don't know if I've ever seen him or spoke to him or nothing. I just knew him as a kid. Yeah. I thought when I showed you this and that, I thought you were going to say you could consider Jeremy Scott a suspect. Yes, I do. You do? Yeah, I do. Jeremy Scott could have done it. Yeah. There's no doubt in my mind

he could have done it. Even Buddy Shepard, the detective who led the original investigation, acknowledges that Jeremy Scott should now be considered a suspect in the murder of J.B. LeVere. And yet, I remain the only person who has ever questioned Jeremy Scott about this crime. When Kelsey and I visited Dan Odie in 2019, he eagerly supported our investigation. I promised him I'd return with everything I uncovered. I had hoped that, with all the police and court records in hand, and Jeremy helping to piece together each detail, Dan's name could finally be cleared, and that the clarity and consistency of Jeremy's memories would solidify the truth behind not just his confession to J.B. Laverre's murder, but to Michelle Schofield's murder as well. Now, with all the evidence destroyed, it feels like any chance of giving Dan the piece he deserves has been stolen for good. And here's what infuriates me most. To protect the narrative that they targeted the right men in Dan Odie and Leo Schofield, the state is asking the public to swallow a lie that Jeremy Scott's confessions are just stories, not evidence. I can only assume these lawmen and prosecutors would rather bury the truth that admit their case was built on a lie at the cost of two innocent lives and any semblance of justice. I dredged all of this back up in an effort to set the record straight and to find something closer to true justice. Instead, it's mostly brought more turmoil for people like JB's ex-wife.

I mean, it's like opening a wound that, or that box that you close up and put on the shelf and just leave it there. You know, you don't want to go through those emotions. You don't want to live that ever again.

This is one of the painful, unintended consequences of digging into these old cases. Back in 2019, when we interviewed Dan Odie I promised him I'd come back with everything I'd learned in my investigation There were so many times over the years when I thought I'd finally be able to bring him good news that his name had been officially cleared in the murder of J.B. LeVere But with the sheriff's office destroying the evidence and dragging his name through the mud again in the Orlando Sentinel article, that closure may never come. This wasn't a call I wanted to make. I was afraid all of this would create even more pain for Dan.

And I just really always wanted to be able to come back to you and say, all right, this is it. This is who did it, and there's going to be charges, and your name will be officially cleared. And I just sort of wanted to say I'm sorry that I didn't get there.

I don't know. When I got that paper, I broke down, man. I told myself, I thank that guy so much for taking the time to do what he did. At least now I got some closure. You know, I can show people this paper. Look, I did not do this. No matter what you think, I did not kill this guy. It meant a lot to me.

Well, I'll definitely be getting back to you with any updates that I can find because I'm not quitting on it.

I sure thank you, buddy. You're in my heart and you're in my life. I appreciate what you did for me.

I feel the same, Dan. Thank you so much.

All right, buddy. You have a good day.

You too, buddy. Take care.

Maybe, just maybe, reopening questions about the past can also lead to something more than heartbreak.

That was just wanting to help a downtrodden person, really. I didn't have any plans to keep writing him like that, you know.

Do you remember the first letter that Jeremy sent to you?

Well, I have it.

Oh. Right here. Let me see. That's next time. own

Alley is a production of Lava for Good Podcast in association with Signal Company No. 1. Our executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wirtis. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Jackie Pauley and Hannah Beal are our producers. Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Marianne McCune is our editor. Fact-checking by Dania Suleiman. Jeff Clyburn is our head of marketing and operations. Our social media director is Ismari Guardrama 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 Lava for Good

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