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Hello, I'm Keith Morrison, and I am here today with Blaine Alexander. Hi, Blaine. How are you?
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Hi, Keith. I am great. How are you, my friend? Well, I'm fine. This is an amazing piece.
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Well, thank you. Anyway, today's episode is the death of Dr. Schwartz. It begins at Tarpon Springs, Florida, where Dr. Stephen Schwartz was un-murdered in his own home.
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Initially, it looked like a burglary a bit, but the detectives soon figured out that it was one of those that wasn't really a burglary.
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It was just meant to look like a burglary. It was a piece of all kinds of suspicions about money and betrayal and family and strange goings on in the home of Dr. Schwartz.
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And also a past that was just hard to believe. You should watch it. It's right below here on this podcast, or you can go to Peacock anytime and watch it.
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And when you have watched it, come back, because Blaine will have some things to say about it.
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And we'll also have an extra clip of her interview with Detective Lara Scarpatti.
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one of the responding officers of the crime scene. And later, Rob Buchanan, who produced this story,
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will join Blaine and take some of your comments. So welcome to this program, and let's talk Dateline.
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Blaine, what was it like doing this story? I see you got all over the place on this one.
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You know, Keith, this one was absolutely all over the place. And so in addition to, I don't think I've ever traveled this much for a story, period.
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A Dateline story, any story. So we went to Albania, of course. That was the biggest trip.
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Took a transatlantic flight over to Albania, stayed there. I was wondering, by the way, I'm interrupting you here for a moment about Albania.
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Oh, good. Please. It's a long trip over there. How long were you there? I'm really glad you asked that.
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So we spent more time traveling to and from Albania than we actually did on the ground in Albania.
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So left Atlanta Monday night, get to Albania Tuesday night, Albania time after flying, shoot all day Wednesday.
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Started at 8 a.m., went all the way through the end of the day, shot the entire day.
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Thursday, shot a few other extra elements. And then Friday, we were on a 5 a.m. flight out of there.
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And so it was a very, very fast trip to Albania. Got a chance to see the country, though, a place that I never would have thought that I would have traveled outside of being assigned to do a story there.
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This, frankly, is one of the grand things about working for Dateline or working in the business we're in,
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is that you get to go places you would never otherwise go. You know, and it was so interesting because I did not know what to expect, right?
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When you're preparing to shoot a story like this, you're, you know, interview questions, you're preparing for that,
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you're getting to know the subject matter, you're getting to know the testimony in and out.
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You don't really spend a lot of time, like, googling, like, what are things to see in Albania?
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And so I went over there very, I guess, blind, you know, in the sense of, people typically preparing for an international trip.
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But it was so interesting. I mean, this was a place that was formerly under communist rule.
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It was a very, you know, just an interesting place. And so the feel, once I got over there, kind of spoke to that.
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And I will say, in addition to Albania, we went to, and so that was the longest trip.
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But we also spent a lot of time in Florida, which is where the crime happened. We went to Texas.
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We went to Hobbs, New Mexico. So there were several other places that we went in addition to the scene of the crime for this story.
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And so there were a lot of just different elements and different places to shoot for this story.
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Well, as I say, quite a story. And in Albania, you talked to Leo. Leo confessed to a role in this.
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What was your take on him and the degree of his participation and his believability?
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Well, I'll say this. I mean, Leo certainly wanted to tell his side of the story.
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He was very adamant in that he wanted to express. I mean, he feels that Rebecca robbed him of everything.
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He had a wife. He had a son here in America. That marriage ended. He was deported, had a business, had a home, all of these types of things.
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And so he has a lot of anger towards her. You heard what he says his role is in this, that basically he was just wrapped up in all of this.
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investigators have a very different picture. Investigators believe that he actually was very much more involved in all of this.
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But there is a piece of the story that investigators believe that Leo was actually
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trying to help remove evidence from Dr. Schwartz, like trying to get the bullet.
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And so they do believe that he played a larger role in this than he is letting on.
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Of course, Leo says that's absolutely not true, that he was just roped into this,
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that he had nothing to do with what was going on. I had no idea what he would find there.
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But again, you saw it in the episode. I mean, he lied a number of times. He swore up and down that he had nothing to do with it, that he didn't know about it,
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and then came back and said, well, okay, I actually was there that day, right? And so there is certainly investigators look at that and say, well, you've lied, you've
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lied, you've lied. Why should we believe you now? And Leo's telling. I mean, he was a very strong, full-throated defendant for himself, really wanting to
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to tell his side of the story and say, you know, all these things that are being said about me are untrue.
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Here's my truth. You know, whatever Leo did or didn't do, it remains a kind of a fascination even now, I guess.
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He clearly wanted to talk, listen to him tell his story. He told it with verve and like, you got to believe me.
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He did. But I don't know, people change their, you know, people have this. And I'm sure you've discovered this through your whole life, but especially in this business.
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People develop a way of kind of not exactly editing but just sort of becoming comfortable with a story about something they did or didn do that isn maybe exactly correct But they kind of persuaded themselves it correct over the years and sort of become more comfortable with the telling of it as the time passes
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So that they can sit there in front of you, they can tell you a thing which is half true, a quarter true, not true at all,
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and look as if it's absolutely true and they believe it with their whole heart. And they probably do.
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It's a funny thing about people. Well, the thing is, I asked Leo. One of the things that I asked him is, I mean, he swore up and down he had nothing to do with this, that Rebecca roped him into all of this. He sat in jail awaiting trial for a good amount of time for several years and then finally pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact. And I asked him, if he truly had nothing to do with this, why take a plea deal? Why say that you were in fact an accessory after the fact? Why plead to this?
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And he said because he had been looking at, he had been there for such a long time.
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And this was an option for him to finally get out of there to avoid what would have been a much harsher sentence had he stood trial and been convicted.
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And so that was what ultimately led him to take the plea deal. But it was something that he really struggled with because he says that he didn't want to admit to doing something that he said he had no involvement in.
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I should say, too, that there was a far cry between what he was originally charged with, murder, and accessory after the fact, right?
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That's true. And that was something that we also took to law enforcement as well, because Leo's thing was they didn't have anything on me.
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Otherwise, why would they have let me plead to this? So there were certainly a lot of ways to look at the plea deal that he ultimately took.
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And police officers will take what they can get. I mean, sometimes you can't prove a thing, so you take whatever the best thing that is offered.
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You sat there and you asked him straight out, did you kill the doctor? What did you expect he was going to say?
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I knew he would say no. I didn't know how he would say it. I didn't know how it would come out.
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So I did know that, yes, he was going to deny it, of course. I didn't think that I was going to get an unexpected confession from him.
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I wondered what it would look like. I didn't know if he was going to be angry. I didn't know if he was going to say calmly, absolutely not.
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I wanted to see how we would react, honestly. I mean, I think, you know, sometimes it's more in the reaction than it is in the yes, no, or the answer of the question, right?
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Yeah, that's true. That's true. So talk a bit about this hidden past. How did that come up?
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And what did you think when you heard about that? Now, that was, I mean, in a story full of twists, that had to have been the biggest twist, right?
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I mean, there is no way that anyone could look at this beloved doctor, would give money out of his pocket, help patients pay their medical bills, anything like that, and think that 50 years prior, he was a murderer.
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And there were a number of things about that that just stood out to me. One, the fact that we still couldn't figure out, try as we did, couldn't figure out why exactly he needed that money.
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What was the deal with the money? Why did he really resort to such a thing to get that type of money?
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We don't know why he was pardoned, why the governor gave him a full pardon. And then he was able to go about and go on and continue his life.
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And so I think that was just stunning in and of itself. But this was something that when we talked to all of the people who loved him, as you heard in the episode, I mean, even his own son was shocked, right?
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To find out a thing like that about someone you loved so much, I can't imagine what that would be like for them.
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While still grieving his death, right? So you're in the middle of grieving this person that you love, and then you have to kind of come to grips with this question.
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I asked him a number of things about it, and he said, I really wish that I could have talked to him about that.
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I wish that this is something that we could have discussed. He said, because he did have a number of questions.
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He can't square that type of past with the father that he knew and loved. Yeah, I mean, just the idea that that kind of redemption is not only possible,
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but here's a perfect example of how that happened, that a person rebuilt his life after a thing like that
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and was able to become a respected doctor and such a generous and kind person. And then you wonder, okay, does that come out of that lesson
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and that particular redemption, or was he going to be like that anyway and he just got waylaid by the side of the road for a little while?
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So you want to know these things. You know what it made me think, Keith? It made me wonder if that sort of redemption were available across the board.
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What could someone's life look like if they were able to kind of pay their price, do their thing, and then carry on with their life and perhaps have their own chance at redemption?
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Because that is such a stunning turnaround. If you look at just that snapshot in time, you're thinking, this is a kid.
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He's up to no good. He's a cold-blooded killer. He walked into this dentist's office in the middle of the day, demanded his money, and then shot him square in the head.
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You shouldn't be out among people anymore, right? People could certainly look at that and think that's the case.
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And then yet, look what he did with his life afterward. And so I wonder, if other people had the chance to do that, is that something?
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Could we see more redemption stories like that? Who knows? who knows so we're going to take a break and when we come back we'll hear some of blaine's
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conversation with detective lara scarpatti who was the patrol officer at the time
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of the murder and she was one of the first on the scene but here's some of your interview in a minute
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it was a story where you kind of got the sense early on okay i think i'm you know who's and you
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know this looks a little suspicious in and you want to point at a certain person but then it takes
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such a long strange trip before it gets to the final destination i also wondered why he didn see through his wife sooner than he did you know he was somebody who worked a lot He was somebody who spent a lot of time at the office at the hospital
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And so, you know, kind of the picture that we got of him was he was somebody who really buried himself in his work.
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I think the other part of that is that his past also really kind of informed how he dealt with people going forward.
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And so this is something that his son told me. He said he believes that his father was such a forgiving person and so willing to give other people second, third, fourth, fifth chances that he would be more forgiving of behavior.
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And Carter said he does believe that that, you know, is what led to him continuing in his relationship with his wife.
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How soon after she married him did she begin to use him as far as you could tell?
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So I think that, and we should say that, of course, Rebecca declined any interview with us.
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But everything she has said is that there's a loving marriage. They built the practice together.
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They built everything together. And so she was entitled to this money as well. But from everybody that we talked to, there was a pattern of issues with them when it came to money.
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There was actually a bump in their relationship earlier where they'd been together
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broke up for a bit because of some sort of behavior that was along those lines. And then, you know, we're told that he gave her a second chance and they continued with
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their relationship there on and ultimately got married. I was interested, too, in the relationship with the sons, her sons, his son.
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There was a very big difference between how Rebecca Schwartz acted toward Carter Schwartz,
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Stephen Schwartz's son, and her own sons, according to Carter. And a lot of that was kind of underscored by money, right?
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I mean, it was very clear that there was no, I can't even say the warm and loving stepmother-stepson relationship, but it was more, I mean, there was no relationship between the two of them.
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But I think the biggest way to illustrate that is financially, how the two sons, two biological sons versus the stepson were treated.
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I think the thing that struck me the most was Carter's story about how he just needed $1,000 to secure his spot in med school.
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This is right after his father was killed. And Rebecca refused to give it to him.
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Says you need to get a job and you need to figure it out on your own. And this is after, you know, we learn later in the story, she has spent untold hundreds of thousands of dollars on cars, businesses, I mean, houses, weddings and stuff for her own two boys.
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People that we spoke to who worked in the office, who kind of knew, you know, the Schwartzes.
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Because, you know, Rebecca, in their telling, was motivated by money. That they saw that anything that even they gave to Carter was taking away from what she could have, is what they told us.
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And so that certainly contributed to that relationship. I'm sure. I suppose they probably didn't have any big happy family dinners together, all of them.
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Certainly not. Certainly not. She was never charged with murder, criminally. you talked to the detective about that
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what was your sense of what his strange question to ask about a detective but what his how he felt about
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all of that and the fact that he couldn't proceed with the criminal charge this is so unlike many of our
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Dateline episodes right Keith because usually they end with a criminal conviction or
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a criminal trial that ends in an acquittal neither of those happened here She has never been, and it's important to just state this plainly, she's never been charged.
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She's never been arrested. She's never been criminally charged in any way. However, in speaking with the detective who worked on this for a long time, he absolutely believes that she was involved.
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In speaking with the first detective on the scene, who you heard in the story, he absolutely believed that she was involved.
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and speaking with the detective who talked to her that night at the scene. She absolutely believed that Rebecca Schwartz was involved.
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She was shot in silhouette because she works undercover now, but she certainly wanted to speak out,
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but that's why we only see her in shadow at her hands. And in this clip, she's describing an odd moment that happened.
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When you get there, were you one of the first officers on the scene? I was one of the first to arrive, yeah. I exit my patrol vehicle and make my way over to make
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contact with the complainant. Okay. And who was that? That was Rebecca Schwartz. Rebecca was very
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bubbly that night, so she immediately approached me, began to tell me that she had arrived home,
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that she had not been home since earlier that morning. Did she seem nervous? Did she seem upset?
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In the traditional sense, nervous, no. I mean, of course, some people can react very differently to stress. She did not seem, in the traditional sense, nervous.
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At some point, there's a call that comes over the radio. What was that call? While units are searching in the home, they do advise over the main radio channel that there was a deceased person located within the home.
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They found a body. Did she hear that call? No, she did not. I was wearing an earpiece that night, so that's not something that she could hear.
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At some point, she calls her son Ben, and he comes to the house. Yes. Ben had some very strange behaviors. I mean, obviously, Rebecca's behaviors were not
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typical of what you would see. Ben's were not either, which was also quite notable.
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Um, he was very, very nervous, very concerned with the amount of law enforcement presence,
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um and had you know um had some concerns And at one point he you know was like can I speak to you And you know kind of abruptly asked her to you know go into private and to you know
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a few steps away from our location and speak with his mother. Okay. And she says something at that moment.
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She kind of did a, like a laugh almost, kind of like a sound that was like, you know, and says, there's probably a body in there, you know, or there's probably a dead body
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in there. She said that about her house. It is my very strong belief that it was her.
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At that point, they were kind of taking a few steps away from me and both of their backs
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were positioned, like their backs were facing me. But she says it like almost kind of with a
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giggle? Yes. Yes. Saying that she thinks there's a body inside. Yes. There is something to the effect of, you know, there's probably a dead body inside.
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What did you think when you heard that? Notable for sure. Very, you know, very strange.
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So she had a pretty good indication right off the bat that there was something hinky going on in there. Yeah. She said that she walked away from the scene that night thinking
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that Rebecca Schwartz had something to do with it. So the verdict was what, $200 million of the jury
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awarded the family, which was its version, I guess, of saying, yeah, we think something happened here.
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Absolutely. The attorneys for the Schwartz family now say that they're having to go through this
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process of trying to track down that money, right? They say that they figure out where some of the
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assets are, but they're trying to figure out the LLCs, figure out these different ways that they
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can get it back. And for Carter, I mean, talking to him after the verdict, when we did our interview,
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it was shortly after that verdict. And he said, listen, the dollar amount doesn't matter.
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Number one, I just want my dad back. But it did feel good in some ways to have a jury at least say,
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even not criminally, but say that they believe that she was responsible. Does it feel like justice to him? Does it feel like he got the answer he needed to get?
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I think he believes that they're partially there. Yeah. Is there a chance she could still be charged criminally?
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you know we asked harpoon springs they say that the case is closed if there is new evidence
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for anybody pointing to anybody's guilt then the investigation could be reopened
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depending on what new evidence may arise well we shall see anyway it's fascinating and it was
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fascinating to watch and then in the end his son becomes a doctor too same kind of doctor
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it does it does you know it was it was it was fascinating to talk to carter schwartz and i
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I am grateful to him for really opening up in the way that he did because it's very clear that he idolized his father.
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He thinks about the fact that were his father still here, they could be practicing side by side.
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He said that his father was the type of person who would not retire. He certainly could have retired.
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He was financially well off enough that he could have just hung up his white coat and been good.
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But he really loved what he did. And so he says, I didn't see my dad retiring. He's somebody who would have kept doing this thing for quite some time.
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And so he feels that if his father weren't killed, they would be practicing together.
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And he feels that he was robbed of that opportunity as well. That's pretty sad, isn't it?
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Yeah. All right. I must go. But shortly, you're going to be joined by Rob Buchanan.
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He's going to jump in for me. And Rob and Blaine will answer some of your questions from social media.
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Can't wait. Keep this as a joy. Thank you. Guys, welcome back. Keith had to jump, but I am now, of course, joined by super producer Rob Buchanan.
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Yes, super producer indeed. Because by my count, how many different locations did we have for this story, Rob?
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A whole lot. Ten different cities, states, countries. We did. We did. And yeah, we went halfway around the world for this story.
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We went on a boat. I mean, there were a lot of different things happening. A lot of moving parts.
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But I think that certainly in talking to people after they watched the episode and on social media, the story itself took as many different twists and turns as we did to cover the story.
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So let's jump into some of these social media questions. There are a lot, and some of them are just statements.
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So let's just jump in. At Rayford 512 says, couldn't she get in trouble for impersonating a doctor?
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Okay, so I'm not an expert, but if she had tried to treat someone or practice, she would have, yes.
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But she was just telling people. Besides the incident on the airplane, it was just she was telling friends and her husband's family that she was a doctor.
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Right. You know, this is something that we heard from a lot of people. And the question of why she never faced criminal charges, this is from Pat S. Dumas.
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I don't understand why Rebecca couldn't be tried in criminal court. Why? Yeah. Yeah.
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Well, you know, according to the police, they just never felt, and our lead detective, Detective Diebel, never felt that he had the evidence to bring to the prosecutors to say, I think we can prosecute this case.
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And, you know, the bar in civil cases is lower for, you're not convicted but found liable than it is in a criminal case.
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So it is the preponderance of evidence if there are punitive damages, which is what the plaintiffs were requesting in this.
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Punitive damages are to punish the defendant. And certainly a $200 million verdict, I think the jury was sending a message.
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Rob, you actually had an encounter with her in a courtroom on a completely different matter.
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That was an interesting story in and of itself. Yes, we actually covered one of the divorce hearings with Aaron Mashak, her fourth husband.
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And we had a camera there. Of course, we got the court's permission. We can't go in without that.
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And she took the stand and she asked, Who are these people? Now, I cleared it with-
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Referring to you, by the way. Yes, me and the cameraman. So there was a little break afterwards.
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And I just went out and I saw her in the hallway. And I went to just put my hand out to introduce myself because she didn't know who we were.
00:24:14
The judge did tell her who we were at Dateline. But I got as far as putting my hand out.
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And she said something along the lines like, don't you dare. And I felt if she could shoot missiles out of her eyes, I would have been dead.
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She would have leveled you. She was not happy to meet me. I had no interest in meeting me, which was fine.
00:24:38
A couple of people wanted to know about Dr. Schwartz and his money. Kim Dalton said this on Instagram.
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It seems weird that Dr. Schwartz left nothing to his son and everything to Rebecca.
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Many years to hopefully get what Carter deserves. And Pat Dumas made the same kind of observation.
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The father didn't leave his son anything in the will. Okay, so it's a little complicated and a reason we didn't include it in the report.
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But more or less, all of his assets were in a trust. So that wouldn't necessarily go through probate and a will.
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As I understand from Carter, the deal was that after both of them passed away, then the money would be spread among the various children from both sides.
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There's a whole nother story about that trust that we didn't get into. As Blaine, you know, there is so much to this story that we were never unable to put on,
00:25:34
even with a two-hour program. But there's a lot more to this story. To give a shout out to my co-producer, me, Jorgensen.
00:25:41
Both of us came up with more acts as we call them than we could put on the program There so much Speaking of there being so much that we couldn dive into I wish we could have gone more into
00:25:53
Dr. Cook and everything that happened in Hobbs, New Mexico. That was only one section of our story.
00:25:57
We actually got a comment from someone who is related to Dr. Victor Cook, Anna Ratten, who said, my husband's family is related to Dr. Cook. I'm more curious about his
00:26:07
part of the story. Yeah. I mean, I heard actually from Suzanne Nutting after our program aired,
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who we interviewed, who's Dr. Cook's niece, wishing for the same. The primary focus of this
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program was on Dr. Schwartz. So I think we brought a little bit of flavor, a little nugget
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of who Dr. Cook was, remembering that he passed away in 1961. And as I told Suzanne, I said,
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millions of people got to know a little bit about your uncle that didn't know about him before.
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Hopefully we were able to do enough to honor a man because he also seemed like a dear, caring person.
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Rob, to expand on that, I think that I'm just very grateful that Suzanne spoke to us and that we also heard from James Cecil because I do feel like hearing from people who were impacted by that crime and by his murder was so, so important to also hear from that grieving side.
00:27:03
We have a couple of audio questions. Let's listen to some of those. Sure. Hi, this is Stephanie calling from Colorado Springs. I'm wondering if the civil judgment against Rebecca can be used as evidence in a future criminal trial. Thanks.
00:27:17
Good question, Stephanie. Good question. Good question. Certainly anything that came out in court, people under oath, can certainly be used in
00:27:28
the criminal trial. And I would assume that one reason Rebecca defense attorney didn want her to testify in the civil trial because it could be used against her So yes the answer to that is yes
00:27:41
When we heard her repeatedly taking the fifth in those first set of depositions.
00:27:45
But the other piece of it, too, is that it's such a fine line that her attorney has to walk because, yes, he wants to mount a strong defense of her here, but also not saying anything that could possibly tip the scales or be potentially incriminating to bring charges on the criminal side as well.
00:28:02
Right. And we know that the police said that, yes, the case is closed now. But if there is any new evidence that comes forward about anybody, they could reopen the investigation.
00:28:13
There is no statute of limitations on murder. So, yeah. We have another audio question. Let's listen. This one is from Vanessa.
00:28:20
Absolutely. Hi, Talking Dateline. I just want to know, why do so many things happen in Florida?
00:28:27
I'm watching a story about Dr. Schwartz. I watched something about the Adelson family last week with Dennis Murphy.
00:28:36
What is in the water in Florida? And again, my name is Vanessa. Thank you so much.
00:28:42
Talking Dateline. I love the show. Bye. Well, Rob, as our part-time Florida man, I'm going to let you take that question.
00:28:48
I like that question. I happen to be in Florida at the moment. So interesting. Yes, there are three states.
00:28:56
our boss, Liz Cole at one point, tasked someone to figure out where the most stories happened.
00:29:04
And in the top three, okay, here's our quiz. The top three at that time were Florida, California, and Texas.
00:29:11
So for whatever reason, whatever's going in the water in those days, things like this happen.
00:29:17
But also they're very large populations. So you going to get more stories and cases where you have more people Yeah Very interesting Well this one was certainly all over the place And Rob we talked about so much that essentially ended up on the cutting room floor but also a number
00:29:32
of conversations that were had, the encounters that you had, conversations we had that never
00:29:37
made it into the story. I do want to bring up one, though. You actually spoke with one of
00:29:41
Rebecca's biological sons, Ben Nichols. Yes. I had several conversations with Ben,
00:29:47
And Ben told me he's more or less estranged from his mom. He answered virtually every question I asked except for one.
00:29:56
Do you think your mom was involved? And I expected an absolute no to that. And he said, I don't know how I would answer that question, which I found quite surprising.
00:30:09
And in itself, it says something. Sure. Well, Rob, this one was quite an episode.
00:30:17
I mean, this was our first Dateline episode together, my friend, and it was certainly a memorable one.
00:30:22
Yes, it was. And it was great working with you. You're fantastic, and I appreciate it, and certainly a great addition to Dateline.
00:30:30
You were so kind. Thank you. It was so much fun working with you. This was great.
00:30:34
I hope we do many more. Absolutely. See you next time. All right. Well, that is it for talking Dateline this week.
00:30:41
Thanks so much to all of you for listening. If there's a case that you want us to cover or if you have a question for our team, you can always reach out anytime on social at Dateline NBC.
00:30:51
You can also leave us a voicemail. Yes, on a real telephone. That number is 212-413-5252.
00:30:58
Or you can send us a voice memo in a DM. And of course, we will see you every Friday for an all new Dateline on NBC.