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lavaforgood OP t1_iwmv0r6 wrote

In the writing and telling of this story, we held off on mentioning Jeremy Scott from the beginning. We wanted the story to unfold over time, in the way it has in the three decades since Leo’s conviction. But, when Gilbert and I started researching the case in 2018, Jeremy Scott’s role was already pretty clearly laid out – his fingerprints had been identified and he’d confessed. So we were aware of him from the start, and that’s a big reason the case was so intriguing. There was a man who’d claimed innocence for over three decades, and another who’d confessed in a Polk County courtroom the year prior. And yet, the State of Florida found ways to discredit them both. Really getting to the bottom of who these two men are, and their roles in this case was what really drew me in. And of course, once we met Leo, and I saw the depth of his frustration and desperation to have his story told and to have this narrative corrected – that was the moment I knew we were really on to something, and we needed to really dig in to figure out what went wrong in this case.

-K.D.

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