Muse

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Well, because I clean, I listen to a lot of podcasts to get through the day. and kind of exhausted all the good ones, like, of course, cereal, and went through all those pretty fast.

Mary West has had many jobs and worn many hats. She's in her 60s now and living in northern Florida, where, these days, she cleans houses.

I did it when the kids were in school so that I could go on field trips or go to their swim meets or whatever. I like cleaning, actually, and so I've just stayed with it. I was just Googling one day for, like, podcast set in Florida, because I really just wanted to hear about local stuff, I guess. And, you know, you came up. Like, I would even agree to do a house I didn't want to do because I'd have four hours of uninterrupted listening, you know. The part of the podcast, really, and it's still memorable, is when you played the clip of Victoria Avalon.

Mr. Scott. Yes, ma'am. My name is Victoria Avalon. I'm the prosecutor in the case.

Victoria Avalon is an assistant state attorney who questioned Jeremy Scott after he confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in a 2017 evidentiary hearing.

You're going to die behind chain link, right?

And she was questioning Jeremy.

Your grandmother's dead, right? Leave her out of this. Your grandmother's dead, right? Yes, she is. She was the only one on earth that cared about you, wasn't she? Got to answer out loud.

Yeah.

No one's sending you any money, correct? No, ma'am. You can't even afford to buy deodorant, can you? No, ma'am.

You can't even buy deodorant, can you? And I was like, man, she's just, she was harsh. I thought, man, that's awful. I just felt so bad for Jeremy. So I thought, well, I'm going to send Jeremy some money. Like $20, you know, I don't know.

Do you remember the first letter, what you said to him?

I think it was right around Christmas. and I don't know I just said he was that I thought he had done the right thing to confess what he had done I knew it had to be hard and that I felt bad because he had said he felt like he slept with ghosts that night and 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.

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 star

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy Chapter 5 Like a Little Kid When Mary first decided to write Jeremy a letter, she wasn't sure how to reach him or where he was. In order to deposit funds into an inmate's canteen, the Florida DOC has to approve you, so I helped her navigate the protocols. She sent Jeremy a letter, got approved, then deposited a little money for deodorant and toothpaste. She assumed that would be the end of that. But Jeremy wrote her back. January 31st. Christmas had passed, and it was the beginning of a new year, 2023. One day, she was picking up her mail, and there it was.

I think it's on like a half a piece of paper because he didn't have any money to buy paper. It's torn at the bottom, yeah. Go ahead and read it. Okay, so January 31st, 2023. Dear Ms. West, I just want to let you know that I received your letter and to let you know that you were approved. I've been trying to find out who you were. I even sent a letter to Mr. King, the one that did the podcast on me. I have not had anyone to write me in over 10 years now since my grandma passed away. So I kind of give up on hearing from family. I hope that you can understand my spelling and writing. I haven't wrote for so long, and it's hard writing on paper like this because it doesn't have any lines on it. Oh, and yes, I did like your Christmas card. You were the only one to send me one. Thank you. You said that you want to put some money in my account. Well, I give you my word. I will buy stamps and writing paper. If you got me off podcast, you should know what I am in prison for. I've been locked up since 1988. I was 19, and I went to prison in 1989, have been here since. I'm 53 years old now, and right now I'm on CM1 lockdown.

As soon as she started getting letters from Jeremy, Mary agreed to send me voice memos, talking me through them. What really struck me in those early letters was how surprised Jeremy was to be hearing from her.

He says, can I ask you something? I ain't never had anyone to want to help me. And now don't get me wrong. I just wanted to know. He didn't say why, but I'm guessing he meant to say why. But thank you, and I hope you are well and doing good.

Something else that stood out. it seemed like Jeremy wanted to prove to Mary that he was worthy of her time, her letters, and her attention.

In the beginning, he would send me exactly what he bought at Canteen, you know, to show me that he was spending his money wisely.

When Jeremy was a younger man in prison, his family was still writing and visiting. But then they stopped. Now, all of a sudden, he had someone new in his life, and it seemed important to him to be accountable to her.

like here's a he sent a receipt of something he said i still have four dollars i can use he said i did buy deodorant and another bar of soap and i just wanted to let you know that i use that money for the good In those early letters, Jeremy and Mary are just getting to know each other.

The third letter I got from Jeremy, we talked about football, Gardner Minshew specifically, because that is one person in football that I know about, because he's pretty hot.

At first, he's writing once a week or maybe every two weeks.

I got to say, his handwriting is really good. It slants evenly and pretty consistently to the right. It's in cursive. For somebody who never made it through high school, he doesn't have a lot of misspellings. So my thought is that he puts a lot of time and effort into his letters.

By April, Jeremy is writing all the time, sometimes every three days.

I just wanted to drop a line so that you would have a letter from me and then a little smiley face drawn on the paper.

The letters get more personal.

I hate being behind this door all day, but I'm doing everything I can to get off CM. And then he says...

Mary asks him about his family and the people he used to know on the outside.

He said, you ask if I heard from my son's mama. And I have not since my son was 12 years old. Her name was Jamie C. Allen. I learned she got married, so I don't know her last name. I still have family. They just don't write me. I don't know where they are. My own mom doesn't write me. My son, Justin M. Allen, I don't know where he is anymore. It's hard to think about them, knowing that they are my blood family and won't even let me know how the family are. I just don't know what else I can do. I wrote my Aunt Debbie...

In May, the letters ramp up even more.

He, um, talks about, he misses his grandma. He asked me one time if I could get a picture of her gravestone.

Mary wasn't able to find her gravestone, but she was able to find Arlene's obituary. It had a picture of her. Mary printed it out and sent a copy of it to Jeremy. He wrote back.

I was looking at that picture of Grandma, and I used to have the same picture. When I was in prison in Miami, they lost all my stuff. I had another picture of me, Aunt Debbie, and Grandma when they came to visit me once, and some picture of my son and others as well, but now I have none. Thank you for sending what you could and finding out what you could. Again, he asked, would I please find out is Grandma's birth date, and I'm not sure I ever did, so I'm going to follow up on that. Then he said, I also understand that you found some news about my brother.

Mary also did what she could to connect Jeremy with other family members, just like I did. The last time I checked, Royal Dean Scott was in prison himself in Alabama. Mary found his mugshot online and sent that to Jeremy as well.

That's my little brother. I would know that face anywhere! And he said he had last seen him when he was,

about 35 and he must be 52 or three now. It's clear how much these family connections mean to

Jeremy. May 16, 2023. He thanked me again for sending the obituary and he said he was looking at it again and rereading it. Thank you so much for the obituary. She was strong, never turned her back on anyone, always trying to help if she could. Sometimes we don't think about stuff that she did for us all, and I feel bad. It took me 34 years to understand what Grandma had been telling me. I will always remember the good times I had with her. If you find out anything else or get any other pictures, would you please send them? He said, you know, you're really the only person that writes me. Basically, it was just me and Mr. King that were writing him. He says, I also want you to know that I really appreciate everything you have done for me. I still find myself sometimes looking for help. Sometimes it's good to talk. I hope that you've had a great weekend. Take care, Jeremy Scott. From his letters, Mary has learned even more than I have about Jeremy's childhood.

He said that as a kid, he used to have fun in foster homes, never staying long, always getting himself in trouble. And he said, I think that I might have been in more foster homes than any other kid growing up. Some were good and some were real bad. I just wish none of this had ever happened. I never met my dad. Don't even know who he was. I asked my mom, but she would never tell me. My mom was a kid when I was born. I think she just turned 15 years old then. I was raised by my grandma and grandpa. I live with it. It does hurt. But I learned some time ago that you have no one to blame but yourself. But it still hurt. I never did grow up. Even now, I, at my age, I still feel like a kid. I'm always thinking things like a kid. Maybe there is something wrong with my head.

During the sentencing phase of the Donald Moorhead trial, when he was 19 years old, Jeremy listened to his Aunt Debbie describe him as slow, with a mind that wanders like a 9-year-old child.

They always said, even in court, that I had the mind of a nine-year-old. He does say that when he looks back that he can see how stupid he was, and he never did things the right way until it was too late. He did say ever since he was seven or eight years old, he always felt like something was wrong with him in the head. and that he always felt like people were putting him down or making fun of him and that it hurts real bad. That's one of the reasons that he doesn't go to any groups or anger management classes. He said he did try those and it didn't work, and all it did was get him in more trouble. So now he just tries to work out his problems in his head. I'm sorry for my dog barking in the background. I have two dogs that don't get along. I had told him about, I was dog-sitting one of my cleaning clients, three Rottweilers, and he said he was familiar with them, and he liked having dogs when he was a kid. And he put a little smiley face, which he doesn't do very often. He jumps around a lot. Then he says, oh, I really want to get an education, and education is printed in all caps.

Jeremy was barely literate when he was sent to death row, and it sounds like that's where he finally tried to learn.

He mentioned the old man who taught him to read when he was on death row from 89 to 93. and he said, an old man was teaching me and if school could teach me the way he did, I could have been a new person. I can't remember his full name. I always called him Mr. Jackson. He was good at helping not just me, but others as well. He is a black man, about 65 years of age, maybe 68, and he didn't care what color your skin was. I never saw him again. I heard he got off death row. Someone told me that he had died. But he says that may not be true because he heard rumors that he himself, Jeremy, had died in 2002. I had ordered him a GED study book, and he said that should really be fun because I suck at everything. I only went to the sixth grade, and I never got past it. math, I don't know at all. I mean, I can add, and that's about all I've ever learned. The next letter, he said that he got the three books I sent, and he said, I don't know that I can do this. It looks really hard, but I'm going to try. He says, remember, I told you that I only went to the sixth grade. He said, really, I only went to the fourth grade, but they moved him up to the sixth because of his age. I sent him a math book on top of that, and I had, I sent him one that was fourth and fifth grade math, and I felt bad doing it because it looks like a kid's book, and I didn't want him to feel embarrassed. I don't know what the other prisoners see. or, you know, if they make fun of them for things like that. You know, when I'm more reflective about what is going on here, about me and Jeremy writing letters, I kind of think, like, Mary, you're insane because here you are talking to basically a mass murderer and worrying about whether he's going to feel bad because you sent him a fairly childish kind of book. So who knows? Truthfully, I just don't think about it too much. I just write the letters, you know, as if he's any other person in my life, maybe like a brother or something. Anyway, so he says he can't do the math, and I guess he's going to have to just read it real slow and dry real hard and maybe something will come to him.

Between the GED books Mary sends and the paperback novels that I send him, it still sounds like he can't get enough to read.

Mary, you told me that Mr. King is going to mail me the Game of Thrones 3, 4, and 5. Does he know how to order the books from the bookstore? or you might have to let him know. The next letter I got was dated May 9, 2003, and inside on the very front he had written in big letters, it said, Happy Mother's Day, Mary.

Sometimes Jeremy's letters are just a stream of consciousness, what it's like to spend day after day in prison.

He said that the last two or three days it's been raining real hard, and it was cool for a while. I was just thinking about summer and when it gets here, it will be really hot. The bad thing is we have to wear our blues all day from 7 a.m. to 4 30 p.m. I just wet my blue shirt and then put it back on and sit under the window and try to stay cool. He says he washes his own shirt and pants because if he turns them in, they never come back clean and they often just give you another pair and they don't always fit the same. So he washes them himself and that way he knows they are clean. Then he writes, I try to write a letter like most people do, but when I'm done and reread what I just wrote, it never sounds right. I just don't want you to think that I ain't trying. he says he felt pretty good right now it's not as hot and he's clean he's going to clean his floor and he said he takes off his blues and will lay right under his window and the rain comes in just a little bit and hits him in the face and feels good and cool he said i did this last night and then went to sleep. Hope everything is good, and you are well, and don't work so hard.

By summer, Jeremy and Mary are also talking on the phone.

Okay, so it's August, well, shit, it's September 12th, but my phone call with Jeremy, the last one I had was August 15th of 2024. Anyway, so I was not expecting a call from Jeremy because I had not written him in a while. He said that he was fine, that he gets two times a week, he gets to go outside for an hour. But he said the cell was small. It was about eight feet long and seven feet wide. And he said he is able to shake hands with the cellmates next door to him. But that right now he has no neighbors on either side of him, which sometimes he likes because it's quieter, but sometimes, you know, you miss the interaction. And the operator was saying, you know, our time was running out. So that's how we ended it.

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This is Simone Boyce from The Bright Side, a Hello Sunshine podcast. When my son started playing games online, I thought the biggest worry would be screen time. But then I realized it's not just fun and games out there. There are scams, viruses, even people trying to steal his info before he's old enough for social media. I'll be honest, I felt overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start, and the last thing I wanted was to download five different apps I'd forget to use. Then a friend told me about Microsoft Defender. Now I've got one app that covers my devices. It scans for viruses, blocks phishing scams, and even watches for threats to our personal info. And the best part? It doesn't make me feel like I have to be a tech expert. With Defender, I finally feel like I've got backup online, so I can stop worrying about hackers and go back to worrying about the everyday stuff, like whether he ate enough veggies today. To learn more, visit Microsoft365.com slash Defender.

We went from normal life, healthy child to acute lymphoblastic leukemia or B-cell, ALL. The St. Jude team came up to get CJ via ambulance. It was a little bit of a scary drive. There was a time where the storms were really heavy. Shortly after that, I noticed a rainbow. It meant that there was hope. We were driving into hope. St. Jude gave us a hope that we didn't know was possible. I truly can't even imagine not having St. Jude in our lives. I knew that it was really bad and I had a lot of questions, but I knew that everything was gonna be okay. St. Jude saved everything that matters to us. I don't know that we'd have CJ without them. I am beyond grateful. My hopes are I could work with St. Jude To have hope is to have St. Jude. To have hope is to have your child healthy, and we have that because of St. Jude.

You can help kids fight childhood cancer. Please become a St. Jude Partner in Hope today by visiting musicgives.org.

Man, I just, I wonder what that's like for Jeremy, just to know that somebody's gonna be checking in. And I feel like that has to be significant for him.

Probably, but it might be a, I don't know, not everybody wants to be, you know, micromanaged by a mother.

Do you ever feel that, like you're just...

Yeah, I do. I worry about him. It's like a parental thing. I'll ask him, is he brushing his teeth and taking vitamins and all that, you know? You know, has he been to a dentist or does he need glasses?

In my calls with him, Jeremy always asked for updates on Leo's case. And when I let him know that Leo had a big hearing coming up that could lead to his release, he wrote to Mary about it.

Mr. King told me that Leo's parole hearing is next week and he is going to be there. I hope things turn out good for Leo.

Jeremy will never see the day where he's actually paroled. But he tells Mary how much it means to him for Leo to be released from prison.

You know, of his own accord, he said that he had heard that Leo had been married and he was sure hoping they would let him out soon and that he did everything he could think of to help him. But Polk County, it's just really bad. And he said it's hard to undo or right a wrong. And, you know, that's pretty profound coming from Jeremy, but also true. life is so fucked up now look at leo they really didn't want to even hear leo's case no matter how much we try they just they won't even listen when will people just say stop let's look at this

in the spring of 2024 leo was finally released from prison mary talked to jeremy on the phone

not long after oh i guess this is from that call he said he met leo's former roommate and he said he can't remember his name but the man was coming around doing some kind of education thing with the prison and he said he had been leo's roommate for seven years and he thought that was really cool and he you know asked the guy to tell leo that he wished him well and all that and i i feel like i'm getting chills as i even say this because he's a murderer but um you know i really think He cares about Leo and

And he seems very sincere when he says stuff like that. Like, he was really impressed. He was talking to somebody who actually knew Leo. I just really get the feeling, though, he cares about Leo. And that's just, I don't know. I'm not even stoned or drinking, but maybe I should be. Anyway. I hate the way this has turned out and wish it had never happened like this. I hope someday I will come face to face with Leo so I can look at him and say, I'm sorry for what I did. yes i still don't sleep good at night and have bad dreams but not as bad as they were once i have learned to deal with it i just wish none of this had ever happened

jeremy's not just concerned for leo he also shows a lot of concern for mary

who is being treated for cancer he thanks me for writing ask about my health And I have to say that in my letters, I sound like my grandparents talking about my pneumonia and my bursitis and arthritis, and I really need to jazz up my topics just a little bit.

She shares her own health updates with him and how her chemotherapy treatments can leave her feeling exhausted. She shares a lot with him, actually.

I must have had car trouble and mentioned it because he said something about get your car fixed because you don't want to be driving down the road in the middle of anywhere and it not work. Get it fixed.

And sometimes, in Jeremy's letters back, you can hear his anguish when he thinks about losing this connection with her.

I didn't write him back right away, evidently, because he said, I'm glad to hear from you. I thought you just stopped writing me. I should have known better than that. You ate like most people. I'm sorry for thinking that you would. What I did was wrong. I took a life. And for that, I will never get out. Almost 35 years in here. This is my home. I have to learn to live with it. I just hope that you don't feel that way about me. I can't stop you or blame you for not wanting to write me people really don't know me at all I have tried to tell people about me but they always look down at me as a killer would you please do me a favor I'm not saying you will but if you do stop writing please write and tell me one day I don't like talking about this kind of stuff though all these years people just up and stop writing even though they said they wouldn't I don't blame anyone my family or friends they all have their own life now out there and their own families I just wanted to say this, it's been on my mind all week.

It was around this time that I gave Jeremy some exciting news about his family.

Dear Mary, Mr. King told me something that it about knocked me out.

This is Simone Boyce from The Bright Side, a Hello Sunshine podcast. When my son started playing games online, I thought the biggest worry would be screen time. But then I realized it's not just fun and games out there. There are scams, viruses, even people trying to steal his info before he's old enough for social media. I'll be honest, I felt overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start, and the last thing I wanted was to download five different apps I'd forget to use. Then a friend told me about Microsoft Defender. Now I've got one app that covers my devices. It scans for viruses, blocks phishing scams, and even watches for threats to our personal info. And the best part? It doesn't make me feel like I have to be a tech expert. With Defender, I finally feel like I've got backup online, so I can stop worrying about hackers and go back to worrying about the everyday stuff, like whether he ate enough veggies today. To learn more, visit Microsoft365.com slash Defender.

We went from normal life, healthy child to acute lymphoblastic leukemia. or BSL, A-L-L. The St. Jude team came up to get CJ via ambulance. It was a little bit of a scary drive. There was a time where the storms were really heavy. Shortly after that, I noticed a rainbow. It meant that there was hope. We were driving into hope. St. Jude gave us a hope that we didn't know was possible. I truly can't even imagine not having St. Jude in our lives. I knew that it was really bad, and I had a lot of questions, but I knew that everything was going to be okay. St. Jude saved everything that matters to us. I don't know that we'd have CJ without them. I am beyond grateful. My hopes are I could work with St. Jude. To have hope is to have St. Jude. To have hope is to have your child healthy, and we have that because of St. Jude.

You can help kids fight childhood cancer. Please become a St. Jude Partner in Hope today by visiting musicgives.org.

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dear mary mr king told me something that it about knocked me out he told me that he talked to my son justin and he said that justin listened to the podcast and he wants to write me i have lived for this day to come. I haven't wrote him since he was 12 or 13. I never understand why or what happened. I really thought that I would never hear from him again. I can't wait to hear from him. So much to say to him. Mary, I'm just full of it right now. When Mr. King told me that he talked to my son, I just lost it. I follow his birthday every year, March 5th from 1989. I don't even know what he looks like, how tall he is, how long his hair might be, if it's straight. I go to bed asking Justin to forgive me for my sins and for not being there for him. All these years later, my son wants to write and talk with me. I'm sorry, Mary, I just don't understand this feeling I'm going through. I just needed someone to talk with, and you are my only friend. He said, I'm acting like a little kid. Sorry, I will write again. I hope things are good there and well for you. Take care, Jeremy.

Justin is all Jeremy wants to talk and write about.

Oh, he had started talking to Mr. King about Justin. And he said, the way Mr. King talks, he sounds like a smart young man. I guess I will find out soon.

He can't stop thinking and wondering about his son and this family he knows so little about.

Dear Mary, it was good to talk with you. Evidently, we had a phone call. He said he got an email from Mr. King and Miss Kelsey saying they were in Florida and that they had met Justin, my son, and his son, Val.

You got to count slow. One. You ready? Yeah.

He is two years old. That makes me a grandpa. I didn't even know that Justin had kids. He listens to the podcast twice, Mr. King said. I hope it doesn't stop him from writing to me. Mr. King said that he wants to visit me, and he also wants to meet some of my family. I never thought I would be a grandpa. I hope someday that I will meet both my son and grandson. Mr. King told me that he was watching Justin play with his son at the playground. He said Justin is a dedicated father. Justin has a girlfriend who has three daughters of her own, so he is doing good. I'm so glad that he never fell down that bad, dark road that I did. I wish things weren't like this. I really want to know him. I mean, everything. I'm going to be waiting for him to write me.

Oh, you found me! You're too clever.

I can't be happier, thank you. Okay, that's it for this time.

Hearing how excited Jeremy is about Justin makes me realize just how much he's missed his son's entire life. 35 years. Jeremy has never had to navigate a relationship like this. and I don't know if he has the tools to do it.

What if he overwhelms Justin? What if he drives him away? What if, in trying so hard to hold on, he ends up making things even worse for himself?

Well, Mr. King is still in touch with my son, so I guess he's trying to put what he wants to say on paper. I know it's hard for him. He's going to write. I will be writing. I'm still working on a letter to him. So I know it's hard.

I was hearing from both Jeremy and Justin that they were writing and rewriting drafts of letters to each other. Justin was unsure of how to find the right words for a father he'd never known. And Jeremy wasn't sure how to talk to his son he'd never held in his arms.

I tried to do what you told me about writing my son. It's harder than I thought. I'm still working on it. I don't know anything about him. I don't want to lose him, not after all these years. I'm going to keep at it, okay? I hope that I get a letter tonight from you or anyone. It feels good to hear from someone. Well, I just wanted to talk to you again. I hope to hear from you soon. Get your car fixed in capital letters and parentheses and then a smiley face. Take care. Jeremy L. Scott.

With Mary's help, Jeremy is trying to be his best self, hoping Justin will recognize his effort and honesty.

So you know that there's no possibility that Jeremy is really going to ever get out of prison.

Oh, right. And he knows it, too.

Yeah. I mean, what do you envision the rest of his life could look like?

Well, I think it would be, well, I would like to see him get a visit, a visit from his son. that would be like a big high point of his life.

Finally, Jeremy managed to write his letter to Justin.

He might not write me at all. I hope that he does. I ain't mad if he doesn't. He has a life to live out there. I'm just going over things in my head that's all and he says I hate that sometimes I just get this feeling sometimes I try not to let it get me down I'm going to put my Game of Thrones down for a while and try to read these others about the dogs and then he says take care of Jeremy Scott and then later there's a P.S. and he says you're going to make me cry all over again old yeller and he did tell me later in a phone call that he did, in fact, cry because, you know, it's Old Yeller, and it's a really good story.

Jeremy sent his letter for Justin to me so I could deliver it in person. He asked me to give you this. Is this, like, his handwriting, or is it worse than this? That's his. Everything is his handwriting. that's next time Bone Valley is a production of Lava for Good Podcast in association with Signal Company Number One our executive producers are Jason Flom Jeff Kempler and Kevin Werdes Cara 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 Ismadi 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.

This is Simone Boyce from The Bright Side, a Hello Sunshine podcast. Being a mom today isn't just about bike helmets and broccoli anymore. The digital stuff is what really worries me. Like, could my kid's info be stolen before he even gets his first report card? Or what if a game download hides a virus? That's scary. That's why I use Microsoft Defender, one app across my devices.

It scans for viruses, flags phishing scams, and even watches for threats to our personal info. It feels like having a bodyguard for my family online, so I can actually sleep at night. To learn more, visit Microsoft365.com slash Defender.

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