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Tonight on Dateline. You think you can find your dentist? I think we can, yeah. She just said your father's been shot.
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A massacre. It was just a puddle of blood. This is a horrific way that he died. You're not to blame for any of this.
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This is a horrible one that has happened to you and your family. Did you have any suspects?
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It's always nearest and dearest. Ben had quite the criminal history. I'm really nervous about talking to you guys.
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There was DNA there that brought our attention to Leo. I'll be f***ing framed. Somehow I'll be framed.
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A story broke that totally stunned me. There was a very big secret that your dad had.
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Yes. He never talked to me about it. As they say, follow the money. Everything kind of started lining up.
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It's like all the bells went off. That is it. Talk about karma. A story of secrets. Suspects had them, loved ones had them, and the victim? He had a whopper.
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I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Blaine Alexander with The Death of Dr. Schwartz.
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It took love and dreams and lots of money to create this sprawling home in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
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A place to celebrate, to relax, think about the future. I would imagine with your dad obviously having a house on the water, was water special to him?
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He loved water. Yeah, it was, this was sort of his dream of a retirement home. That is, until one night when his father's wife came home from a dinner party and everything changed.
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It was May 28, 2014. Hi, my name is Rebecca Schwartz. I just walked into my house and somebody robbed my house.
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Her bedroom was a mess. Drawers pulled out, watch boxes all over the floor. My husband's watches are gone, my jewelry's gone, our cash is gone.
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Okay, can you go back outside for me? Yes, sir. Okay, I'm going to stay on the phone with you, okay?
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When were you in the house last? I left about 8.30 this morning. Okay. And my husband was still on bed reading paper, but I haven't spoken today.
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He's a physician, so I don't know where he is, actually. He's one of the hospitals, I assume.
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Okay, what color is your house? Do you know, with the outside? Well, I will tell you this. It's probably the biggest house in Carpenter.
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She wasn't kidding. The home was nearly 8,000 square feet with a tennis court, a pool, and its own dock.
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I cannot believe this. Yeah, that's unfortunate. This is crazy. As the dispatch gave more and more information, it piqued my curiosity.
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Sergeant Scott Brockhue arrived a few minutes later. One look at the big house told him it would take more manpower to check all four stories.
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So he called in the canine units. I explained to them what we had and they said, yeah, no problem.
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We'll go in. But in less than a minute. He had called to me both verbally and on the radio to come inside.
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He had one down. What does that mean? Well, unfortunately, it meant that they had a deceased person inside the house.
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Brock U found the body at the bottom of a short flight of stairs that led to the garage
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and that's where the victim's body was discovered was on the floor there it was pretty graphic could you tell what had happened well on its face it didn't appear that
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this was an accident and it was one of the few times that I actually felt like this is
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this is a little spooky there was something that just hit me that day the size of the house
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Once we found the victim, I'm like, this is really going off the rails here. This is so far from what you expected.
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Right. And just like that, the case had morphed from burglary to homicide. Or maybe it was both.
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More police arrived, including Detective John Diebel, who headed straight for the victim.
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As you looked at him, could you tell what had happened? I could see that he had had a laceration across his neck, a rather large one.
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In fact, the victim was cut multiple times. I'm noticing that there's lacerations on top of his head, small ones.
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I looked at the back of his neck and I could see where he clearly had been shot with a small caliber round.
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You see a cut on his neck, cut on his head and gunshot? Yeah. There was a lot done to this man.
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Yeah. Did this look like something that had just happened? No, you could tell by the condition of the blood that it was starting to dry.
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Some of it had already dried. So he had been there for most of the day. The investigators found the victim's ID.
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Rebecca's husband, Dr. Stephen Schwartz, wasn't working at some hospital. He was the man lying dead at the bottom of those stairs.
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Now they had to break the news to Rebecca. And she had initially thought, okay, this is a burglary and I just can't reach my husband.
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And now she's being told he's dead inside. She put her face in her hands and just started to sob.
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The next day at the police station, Rebecca was still distraught. 90% of the time, 90% of the time he leaves before me.
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I'm always, I mean, I'm usually the last one out. Because he likes to get a tub on the hospital Then I out having dinner That makes me seem like a terrible wife I don even know where my husband is
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That's not true. You're not the point for any of this situation. This is a horrible incident that has happened to you and your family.
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And at the autopsy, the medical examiner recovered portions of two .22 caliber slugs.
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armed with that information the detective started to develop a theory about the final moments of
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steven schwartz's life so this is not the actual staircase where the crime happened or the same
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house but it gives us an idea of what happened that day yes yes okay so walk me through what
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what you believe happened i believe he was at the top of the stairs when he was shot in the back of
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the neck which would have caused him to fall down the stairs he had broken his vertebrae so he was
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Paralyzed from the waist down, he couldn't move. That's when he was shot in the head, but it was more of a surface wound.
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He was still alive. Yes, he was still alive. Diebel believes the doctor was awake and helpless as the killer finished him off with that cut to the neck.
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That would have accounted for all the blood that we could see. It was a lot to take in.
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A cruel killing. A grieving widow. You think you can find you did this? I don't think we can, yeah.
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And as detectives would soon learn, a case and a family with plenty of secrets. The crime scene looks staged to make it look like a burglary gone bad.
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After he was murdered, a story broke in the papers that totally stunned me. I would have never ever in my life thought I'd run into somebody that could be this devastating to the family.
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As forensic teams combed through the palatial home of Rebecca and Stephen Schwartz,
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Dr. Schwartz's son, Carter, was half a world away. He was heading back home from a trip to Asia.
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Well, sneaking back. His father didn't know about the trip. He was always pushing me to study more and travel less.
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So I didn't tell him I was going. Typical dad. Carter is Stephen's son from a previous relationship.
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He was 24 and had just applied to medical school, ready to follow in his dad's footsteps.
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He says his father was thrilled. My dad said he would not only pay for med school, he would pay for every living expense, everything.
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It would have been the happiest check he ever wrote in his life. Carter was nervous as he awaited the acceptance letter, but his dad never had a doubt.
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And he's like, yeah, they're going to get you a letter. Just call me when it happens.
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He was in Taiwan when he got the good news. And I got the acceptance. And I tried to call him.
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He didn't answer. So I catch the flight at the connecting airport. I think it was Tokyo.
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Try to call him again. No answer. He finally arrived in the U.S. And that's when his world fell apart.
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And I remember landing, turning my phone on, and my mother calling me, bawling that my father had been shot.
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Carter was stunned. Stephen Schwartz was a good father and a great physician. For people who never had a chance to meet your dad, how would you describe him?
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I couldn't really have asked for a better father or a better mentor, seeing how kind and generous he was with his patients
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and how patient he was with nurses and just kind to everybody he came into contact with.
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Stephen Schwartz was a nephrologist, a kidney doctor with a thriving practice. He was 74 and had three kids, Carter, and two other children, a son and a daughter, from a previous marriage.
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Tell me about your dad and his interests. What did he love to do, other than, of course, practicing medicine?
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I mean, that was truly his love, was medicine. You know, he was very much into baseball.
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He loved the Rays and always wanted to go to those games. The Tampa Bay Rays. He had season tickets.
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You would have loved Dr. Schwartz. Absolutely loved him. Helen Como ran his dialysis center for years.
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He had a good sense of humor, a big heart, very caring. For example, if there was a patient or a family that was struggling financially, he would help them out.
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And he would always take his time with them, not just from a physical standpoint, but just to see how they're doing, what's going on.
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But Dr. Schwartz also had a little bit of an edge. He just had a way of making jokes about things, and not only to me, but with others.
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And one of his favorite expressions was, what do you have, s*** for brains? Police learned Stephen met Rebecca in the late 90s.
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She was divorced with two sons. They started dating, and it wouldn't be long before Rebecca was working at the clinic and then running it all together.
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14 years after they met, they got married. Family friends told detectives Rebecca catered to Stephen's every need, and it all seemed to work.
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He had a helpmate at home and at the office. Not every couple can work together.
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It sounds like they both just kind of found a lane where they excelled and were able to do that in the practice.
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Yeah, for sure. You know, Dr. Schwartz wanted to concentrate on taking care of his patients.
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Becky was financially motivated, and she was all about, you know, kind of making decisions.
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Eventually, this man, Kyle Smithy, took over the clinic's day-to-day operations, but Rebecca still helped out.
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What was her working relationship life with Rebecca? We got along well. We spent a good amount of time together outside of the clinic as well.
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She would often invite Kyle to join her for drinks and dinner. just one of the most fun people to be around and so engaging and just kind of she had this real unique ability when talking to you to really make you feel like seen and heard and just an energy about her that she wanted to quite frankly be around
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She was 20 years younger than her husband, but Carter says his father had his own kind of youthful energy.
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He remembers reading a story about his dad after he was gone. The one that I think would have brought him joy was the article that said a 50-year-old man was found dead.
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I kind of laugh now thinking my 74-year-old father would have loved being described as the 50-year-old man.
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As detectives learned more about Stephen Schwartz, they had a hard time finding anyone who had it out for him.
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Dr. Schwartz couldn't find one person to say a bad word about him. Just nothing but good things.
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Good doctor, cared about his patients. half the time he wouldn't even charge people a kindly doctor killed in the worst possible way
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maybe his wife would help solve the mystery no i'm not okay the day after the murder the crime scene offered investigators a wealth of information
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nation. Stephen's exact time of death was difficult to pinpoint, but his clothes suggested
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he was killed that morning. He was dressed in a suit, had a kind of a light yellow shirt on,
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but no tie. Sounds like he looked like somebody who was going to work. He was going to work.
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While investigators continued to search every inch of that house, detectives were trying to find out what Rebecca knew.
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The questions I have for a couple of them maybe seem a little unnecessary or even invasive.
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She talked about the good times with her late husband. How long have you guys been married?
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We actually got married in 2010, but we've been together since 1996. Took me a while.
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And mentioned a past failed marriage. I got burned. We were married 10 years, and when that didn't work out, it was kind of like, wow, you know.
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But then Schwartz is awesome. He's 20 years older than me, but he kind of grounds me.
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My best bud. Yeah. That's the way you refer to me. We're the best friends. She was, for the most part, calm as she answered questions about her whereabouts that day.
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What I'm trying to do now is just establish everybody's routine for the day. Rebecca repeated what she said on her 911 call,
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that when she left the house around 8.30, Stephen was still in bed reading the paper.
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She added he was scheduled to start his hospital rounds later that morning. Her day started with errands.
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I stopped at Publix. She said she also went to the cleaners and the gas station before heading to work.
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And she was able to provide receipts from every place where she went. I probably left around six-ish.
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after work rebecca hosted a birthday party for their good friend and handyman a guy named leo straw guy i stopped at total wine and got birthday gifts you know for leo
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she said she didn't really worry when her husband was a no-show at the party did you just assume he
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got busy got tied up if he's able to he'll call me right then if he's with a patient or
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whatever the thing is, you know, if he's busy, on the phone, whatever it is. He kind of forgets about me and doesn't call me back.
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And I mean, it happens more times probably than not. She seemed to be looking forward to the future and a long vacation they were planning.
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Our whole life went down to what we were doing on this six-month cruise around the world.
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It's making him retire, finally. Keep saying, you know, you gotta retire. We got it. We got the stuff we got to do.
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The doctor certainly could have retired. Between his booming practice and dozens of rental homes he owned,
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Stephen Schwartz was worth millions. So it was no surprise he had an elaborate security system.
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Back at the house, that was one of the first things investigators noticed. Of course, you can see the surveillance cameras on all corners of the house.
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And you noticed that immediately? Oh, absolutely. You're thinking optimistically, like, OK, we should have video.
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This should help us kind of bring this to a close pretty quickly. Yes. So you all start to search the house looking for the footage.
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What do you find? Well, the DVR was was missing. The DVR that connected to the security system.
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So no video at all. A setback, certainly, but also a clue because that video recording equipment was hidden away in a small closet above the garage.
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What does that tell you? It's an inside job. Someone within the family, known to the family, it's been to the house before, knew where that monitor, knew where the DVR was.
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And knew their dogs. Rebecca said they'd been closed inside the bedroom all day, the same bedroom where the burglary happened.
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The supposed burglars went into the room where the two very large dogs were and had no issues with these dogs.
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One of them was a Brazilian mast of over 100 pounds. I mean, these are not friendly dogs to people who don't know them.
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And when Detective Diebel looked around the bedroom, he thought something else was off.
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There was several drawers in the bedroom that were pulled out but it didn look like anything had been gone through in these drawers And the drawers were pulled out evenly And then the boxes there some jewelry boxes watch boxes laying in the floor of the master closet and it just looked like someone just
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dropped them the crime scene looked staged to make it look like a like a burglary gone bad
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the police told rebecca their theory that the killer wasn't a stranger but someone who knew
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the family and the house quite well i'm saying someone that you know that that dog knows
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came in that house today. They came in for a reason to possibly take some stuff and then something else happened.
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You understand what I'm saying? That's what we're trying to find out here today.
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You think you can find your dentist? I think we can, yeah. Investigators were looking for someone close to the family
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and someone who had spent a lot of time at the house. It sounds like his fingerprints are literally all over the crime scene.
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Right. Detectives were just a few days into the murder investigation of Dr. Stephen Schwartz when they caught their first big break,
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a match on some of the fingerprints they'd found at the crime scene. They belonged to Rebecca's oldest son, 33-year-old Eric Nichols, whose prints were on file because he had previously been arrested for driving with a suspended license.
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Eric lived near Portage, Wisconsin, owned a Verizon store there. He was married with a baby on the way.
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His fingerprints come back to the areas that were processed by the crime scene technicians.
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Including a door to the garage close to Stephen Schwartz's body. The door appeared to have been forced open.
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His prints were there. His prints were upstairs in the monitor where the DVR was.
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And also his prints were on some of the jewelry boxes in the master bedroom. So the forensic evidence comes back.
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And points right at him as being the number one suspect now. So I get a team of detectives and we go up to Wisconsin to interview Eric.
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We watched it through the store. We did this unannounced. So I just need, we're talking to all the family members.
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Oh, yeah. It's a murder case. Yeah. I'm saying I'll fully cooperate with any DNA or whatever.
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When was the last time you wrote the house? I flew home to my grandfather's birthday party.
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I flew down April 6th, and then I drove back on like the 8th. So I'm sure I was at the house at some point in time between those days.
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That was almost two months before the murder, and Eric said he hadn't been to Florida since.
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Did you confront him and say, sir, we have your fingerprints all over this crime scene?
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I did ask him, would you find fingerprints in the monitor room? And he goes, yeah, you might, because I've been up there before, so my prints could be there.
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Could they be on the door? Well, I did take out the trash back in April. My fingerprints could be there.
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I said, what about on your mom's jewelry box? No, absolutely not. my principal should not be there. So I'm thinking, well, yeah, well, they are.
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They are. So we were going to maybe do a second interview, but we started doing our background. He had gone to the doctors with his wife. She was pregnant at the time,
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and we were able to give him an alibi through the doctor and through video that showed his
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coming and goings at the Verizon store, both the day before and the day of the homicide.
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So he was absolutely in Wisconsin. He was in Wisconsin. Does that kind of take the wind out of your investigative sails?
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It does. It does. But you just keep plugging away, just following up on leads. Over the course of those kind of first few days after the doctor's murder ballpark, how many people would you say that you interviewed?
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We talked to, I don't know, had to be at least 50 people, co-workers, you know, other family members, neighbors.
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and they talked to rebecca's other son 28 year old ben nichols who lived in florida near his mom
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and stepdad who would want to hurt this guy nobody man nobody didn't have any enemies i mean he
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wouldn't hurt anybody you know what i mean he's a good doctor he's a good man good husband ben
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worked on some of the schwartz's properties and had a landscaping business but detective diebel
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had learned something else about him. He had actually broken into a previous residence, Dr. Swartz.
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About five years before the murder, he stole his mother's jewelry and Stephen's watches,
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then pawned them. You orchestrated some kind of a burglary at your mom's house? Yeah, I was all f***ed up on pills, man.
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So he had actually broken into the house to steal items to support his drug habit.
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But not for the last couple years. he seemed to be doing better. He kind of straightened himself out?
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Straightened himself out. Yeah. Did you get any time for that, or probation, or did you drug court?
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Oh, yeah, man. I went to a drug program. I was on probation. And it seemed Stephen had always embraced him.
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I've been in a lot of trouble, and the guy has never raised his voice to me one time.
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I've never heard him raise his voice to my mom. I've never heard him raise his voice, period.
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Ben said, on the morning of the murder, he was laying flooring in another county.
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So you were telling me that you left your house approximately, you said between 7.30 and 8.30 a.m.?
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Yeah. Okay. And you were in Pasco County at your wife's brother's house? In the afternoon, he worked on his landscaping business.
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He was pretty forthright in the information that he gave. He also had a receipt of where he rented some lot of equipment for the day.
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They spoke to people who worked with him and confirmed his story. And at the crime scene, his prints were nowhere to be found.
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Did you ever rule him out completely? No, no. There's always ways around because we can never tell when a doctor actually died.
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So he was still on your radar. Right. Police learned a lot about Ben and Eric and how close they were to their mom, Rebecca.
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I knew Eric and Ben much better than I knew Carter because they were in the clinic more often.
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When we would go and have happy hour or something like that, Eric and Becky were very close, very close.
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But Ben's problems often put him on the outs. We'd go through these kind of phases where he was sort of ostracized.
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And after a period of time, you know, he'd be back around. But if Rebecca was conflicted about her youngest son, the same could not be said about another man in her life.
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A kind of surrogate son. You became close with the Schwartzes pretty quickly. Yeah, very, very close.
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police were convinced the killer was someone close to steven and rebecca they had looked at
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rebecca's two sons and they soon learned about another man who was close to her and knew the
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family and the house well leo straw guy how did leo come to be on your radar in the sense of someone
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to talk to? Well, he had been in the house several times. He worked with them. So he was well known
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both for Rebecca and Dr. Schwartz. The handyman. He didn't like to be called ever, yeah.
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What did he like to be called? Well, he, because we referred to him as handyman and he would tell
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me, I'm not a handyman. He does construction. The house that Dr. Schwartz and Rebecca lived in,
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he had helped remodel. And they had like 30 other properties that he would maintain and
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remodel and take care of. It had been a long journey from Leo's home country of Albania to Tarpon Springs, Florida.
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How did you come to live in Florida? Well, I left my country when I was a little kid. I was 14 years old when I left. I went
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to Greece. Then I went all over Europe, a little bit in Canada. Then in the beginning of 2000,
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I was in Detroit. He lived there with his cousin. One cold winter day, he decided he was ready to
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see a warmer part of America. I tell him, man, I just bought a convertible car. Let's drive to
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Florida. And as soon as I reached that bridge in Tampa Bay, I told my cousin, listen, I'm going to
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live in Florida. I'm never, never going back to Michigan. Leo started working, odd jobs at first,
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then remodeling houses. And eventually, Rebecca Schwartz hired him to help maintain their many
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rental homes. Tell me your first impressions of Rebecca. What did you first think of her when you
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met her? She's a great lady, very wild. Wild? Yeah, very wild. Like, okay, let's do this now.
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We'll buy 30 houses in one week. So very spontaneous. Yeah, let's do this. Let's grow the business.
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Rebecca was also generous. She bought Leo and his wife a house and a truck. She started calling me son or like I would go to every occasion party or, you know, they had.
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So you became close with the Schwartzes pretty quickly. Yeah, very, very close. Whatever the label, handyman, contractor, surrogate son.
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Have a seat right there. About two weeks after the murder, Detective Diebel asked Leo to come in for a chat.
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How long have you known the Swartz? Probably four years or something. Four years? All right.
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Maybe a little more, but close four years, I think. How did you get to know them?
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Through a costume of mine. Leo said he wanted to help police any way he could. He was very friendly, very cooperative, wouldn't hold anything back.
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Who do you think is involved? Who do you think did it? It's really hard. I mean, to be honest, we're all scratching our head.
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Like the detectives, Leo thought it had to be someone close to Dr. Schwartz. Somebody who knows me, who knows them.
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I know somebody who knows us. probably shaved my head every day. And whoever did this needs to be arrested and put in jail for the rest of her life.
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Wouldn't you say so? Oh, my God. Arrested? Like death penalty right away. Yeah. It should.
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It should. I mean, not him. Come on. Not him. It was done for money. Get the money.
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Don't do this. And Leo said he would never harm the doctor. or he really lied to you
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he lied to you he lied to you he lied to you because you were a hard worker oh my god
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he loved me that guy he took care of my everything my family I mean basically he supported my family
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and not pain him you know yeah he was a very giving and kind guy every time I saw him
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he'd sit down hey Leo sit down because I have a problem with my knee and all the time
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he grabs my knee and fix it. They asked Leo the same question they'd asked everyone.
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Where was he on the day of the murder? At home, Leo said, then at a work site. And what time did you get there that day?
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Maybe nine, close to nine, nine something maybe. And so he said that he was working on a house all day
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and was nowhere near the Schwartz home And that night he was the birthday boy at that party Rebecca hosted for him He turned 37 They got a little birthday cake
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They brought some gifts. Just your basic birthday dinner. Yeah, just simple. Police were able to verify his story.
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Leo answered their questions and gave a DNA sample. As you talked to him, did he seem to wonder why he was there?
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No, no. He just knows that we're doing our job, talking to everybody involved. Investigators were hitting a wall. Months went by with few answers.
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Then new information came out. It would change everything they thought they knew about the doctor.
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What he did, it was horrific. Was Dr. Schwartz's murder payback for something that happened decades before?
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Seven months after the murder, Helen Como was reading the newspaper when she saw a jaw-dropping headline about her boss, Dr. Schwartz.
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After he was murdered, a story broke in the papers that totally stunned me. Shocking doesn't even begin to describe it.
00:31:28
The article focused on a different murder 50 years earlier in Hobbs, New Mexico.
00:31:37
Home to a remarkable sculpture dedicated to people who served in the military. People like Victor Cook, a local dentist who served in the Army in World War II.
00:31:49
James Cecil knew him well. In your 93 years, Mr. Cecil, you've seen a lot of things.
00:31:55
I've seen a whole lot. But what happened to Dr. Cook? Will you ever forget that?
00:32:00
Oh, no, I'll never forget it. It's just been sort of part of my life. He went to Baylor.
00:32:07
Susan Nutting is Dr. Cook's niece. This is his dental class. Yes. Oh, my goodness.
00:32:13
He's right here. Uncle Doc, right there. Susan says her uncle was a generous man and known to carry a lot of cash.
00:32:22
If someone needed some money, he'd give it to them. But he'd pull out this money.
00:32:27
He would pull it out, and anyone who was standing around could see it's a lot of money he's got there.
00:32:35
Someone had their eyes on that money. It was November 21, 1961. In the middle of the day, a 21-year-old college student walked into the doctor's office.
00:32:47
He was carrying a .25 caliber Beretta. And that's when Uncle Doc turned around and he saw this gun on him.
00:32:55
And he told him, put that thing away and go home. Cook told him, he said, I'm not giving you my money.
00:33:02
He pushed him back and said, turn around. He said, no, I'm not turning around. And my uncle evidently told him, he said, no, I want to be facing you when you shoot me.
00:33:13
And they got in a scuffle and the gun went off and it hit him. The blood was coming out of his head.
00:33:20
Uncle Doc fell. The shooter pushed him under his desk. And then he took his billfold and left out the back door.
00:33:30
Dr. Cook was dead, robbed of $400. dollars. Who killed Dr. Cook? What was his name? Stephen Schwartz. We found out it was a man named
00:33:41
Stephen Schwartz. Stephen Schwartz. The man who became a beloved doctor, who also gave money to
00:33:50
those in need, was a murderer. While he did confess, it was never clear why he needed the money.
00:33:57
he's sentenced to life in prison. But a decade later, 1971, he's released on parole.
00:34:06
What did you think? Well, how could this be? How could he already be out? Who came up with this idea, you know?
00:34:15
For reasons unknown, the governor of New Mexico granted Stephen Schwartz a full pardon.
00:34:22
He moved to Italy, earned his medical degree, then came back to the U.S. to start his practice.
00:34:29
Helen Como had always wondered about that career path. I would read the degrees that were on his office wall,
00:34:37
and I was kind of curious as to why he became a doctor so late in life. He even kept his own son in the dark.
00:34:47
There was a very big secret that your dad had. Yes. And now you're faced with learning this.
00:34:53
I am. I remember the phone call. My mother told me about it, and it's going to come out, and you're going to find out.
00:34:58
You know, he did what he did. He never talked to me about it. This is your dad, loving, generous, loving you.
00:35:06
But on the other hand, he's a murderer. How do you wrap your mind around those two things as a son?
00:35:15
It's difficult. It's something that I wish him and I could have talked about, but I don't think it was in his nature.
00:35:22
When news of Dr. Schwartz's murder made its way back to Susan Nutting, she didn't know how to feel about the fact that her uncle's killer met the same fate.
00:35:33
Talk about karma. I hope he had become a good person. So I don't want to say I'm glad he was murdered.
00:35:44
I don't want to say that. I don't feel that. But still, you look at that. Yeah. And you feel that that's karma.
00:35:52
Yeah. They say what goes around comes around sometimes Now police wanted to know was Dr Schwartz murder an act of revenge for a decades crime
00:36:05
As soon as I heard that, it's like all the bells went off. It was like, that is it.
00:36:12
so the secret was out the late steven schwartz was himself a convicted killer and people just
00:36:31
had to wonder there had been something floated that oh this is this is connected to his new
00:36:37
Mexico thing when he was a young man. As soon as I heard that, it's like all the bells went off.
00:36:44
It was like, that is it. It was rather shocking because they know that he committed a murder did
00:36:53
not seem to be in his character. You know, with your investigative hat on, you hear this, that he
00:36:59
committed a murder years ago. Are you thinking maybe this is in some way connected? Maybe it's
00:37:06
Someone coming back to seek retribution. Right. I pretty much ruled that out right away.
00:37:12
What had been like 50 years ago. So it had been a long time ago. His character now was unapproached.
00:37:19
You know, it was impeccable. Almost like this was a completely different man from back then.
00:37:23
Definitely somebody turned their life around. Once investigators were sure there was no connection to that decades-old crime,
00:37:31
the search for a killer continued. They interviewed dozens of people and were eventually able to clear Rebecca's son, Ben.
00:37:40
And fortunately, they had taken DNA from everyone they could think of. Fortunate because a lab tech spotted something in a crime scene photo that seemed, at first, kind of innocuous.
00:37:53
Well, he noticed that the doctor's shirt he was worn was crumpled around the chest area.
00:38:02
As if someone had grabbed it. He goes, let's do some touch DNA there and see what we come up with.
00:38:08
They also swabbed his pants pocket, where Stephen usually carried a wad of cash.
00:38:14
Almost a year after the murder, those DNA results came back. They got a match. It wasn't perfect, but it was awfully close to one person.
00:38:25
That person was Leo Straugeye. His touch DNA was on the shirt and on that right pocket.
00:38:32
Sorry, it's kind of just Leo. They arrested Leo, and he swore, insisted he was innocent.
00:38:39
I've been f***ing framed. Somehow, I've been framed. I don't know how. You guys are supposed to figure it out.
00:38:45
Well, we believe we did figure it out. We found your DNA on part of the crime scene that you had to be there and touch that area and have been involved with this doctor's death.
00:39:00
okay there's no freaking way it's my dna and his buddy there is no way in hell my dna will be in
00:39:07
his buddy this went on for an hour and a half they took a break and when they came back leo
00:39:14
had a new story to tell and the star of that story was his dear friend rebecca she came to
00:39:21
my house that day early in the morning leo said it was the day of the murder what time do you
00:39:26
remember? Well, I don't know. It was 6.30, 7. I don't know. It was very early. She said,
00:39:34
I need you to do me a favor. She said, I need you to do me a favor. Yes. She said,
00:39:39
I had an argument to Steven and I left my bag over there. I need you to go to pick up my bag,
00:39:46
please. Leo said he did as he was asked. But when he got to the house, he found Dr. Schwartz
00:39:52
lying in a pool of blood. When I see his face, I saw blood. I grabbed and shaked him, okay?
00:39:59
I saw more blood. Why did you grab onto him? Just to see if he's okay. I mean, Jesus Christ.
00:40:08
He's a doctor's voice. He wasn't my doctor for years and years and years. And he was the best man I know.
00:40:14
He was the best man I know. He didn't go touch anything else on his person, go into any of his pockets.
00:40:22
right no no hell no i wouldn't go in his pockets leo said he saw a leather bag on the kitchen counter
00:40:29
open it up see some jewelry boxes in the end and a knife knife yeah it was a knife in there
00:40:38
at that time did you think rebecca was involved in something of course why did you think that
00:40:43
because she sent me purposely she sent me right there he said he grabbed the bag and sped back
00:40:50
to Rebecca. I just pulled in and started screaming right away, cussing out. Why did you do this? Why
00:40:55
you put me through this? What the hell did you do? Why did you kill Dr. Schwartz? What is she saying?
00:41:03
Is she just looking at you? At first saying nothing. And then she started like, you know why I did it,
00:41:09
and started screaming. She said, you know why I did it? Yeah, you know why I did it.
00:41:13
Leo said he didn't call the police because he was afraid of being deported. Plus, Rebecca owed him tens of thousands of dollars from an investment they'd made together.
00:41:24
And she said, if you say a word, you're never going to see house, money or nothing.
00:41:30
I'm thinking also immigration told me any involvement with the police, we're going to deport you right away.
00:41:36
The biggest mistake of my life is not calling the police that day. Did you go to any other parts of the house?
00:41:44
No, I didn't. No, not one step. Leo said his day got even worse, ending at that birthday party that night hosted by Rebecca.
00:41:54
You were sitting there at that dinner and you knew that a person that you loved that had given you and your family an opportunity was lying dead at the bottom of stairs
00:42:07
And you still pushed through that celebration. How did you sit through that? It was painful.
00:42:15
It was really painful. How was she acting that night? She was tipsy. She was loose, like always.
00:42:22
Did she seem stressed? Upset? Not at all. And this is the last time I ever saw her again.
00:42:29
During your interrogation, police asked you if you had any knowledge of the murder, if you had been there.
00:42:34
And you swore on your mother's life you weren't at the house. You swore on your child's life that you knew nothing about it.
00:42:40
And that was not true. That was a lie. Well, I know that. Are you telling me the truth right now?
00:42:47
I am. I am telling the truth. Now I have no reason to lie about it. You didn't force me to give this interview.
00:42:54
Nobody forced me. I want to ask you directly, Leo. Did you kill Dr. Stephen Schwartz?
00:43:02
Actually, no. Did you have anything to do with trying to cover up his murder? No.
00:43:09
The only thing, like I said, grabbed that bag and didn't call the police. That was the only thing I had to do with that murder.
00:43:19
Police still didn't think Leo was telling them everything. Maybe Rebecca had shot her husband, but they believed he was involved,
00:43:27
that he had staged the burglary because Rebecca had threatened to cut him off financially.
00:43:33
He wasn't worried about the doctor that he supposedly loved and cared for. He was worried about getting his money.
00:43:38
And you think that was his motivation? That's his motivation for the actual committing the murder.
00:43:42
I think he went there thinking that the doctor was already dead, but when he got there, the doctor did see him.
00:43:48
Now he's got to cover his tracks. He can let the doctor live. Diebel also thought Leo was the one who delivered that fatal slash to the doctor's neck.
00:43:59
They charged him with first-degree murder. After they were done with Leo, police let his wife come into the room.
00:44:05
Okay, you need to make that right now. I know you didn't kill him. I know you did not kill him.
00:44:12
That I know, but I need to know if you have that. Did they make you clean up? Did she have something on you?
00:44:22
Tell me the truth. Honey, tell me. Honey, tell me. Did she make you clean up or something?
00:44:30
You need to tell me her truth. We need to make sure I've divorced the present. She, of course, is Rebecca.
00:44:39
And as it turned out, since the very beginning, Rebecca had been at the top of nearly everyone's suspect list.
00:44:47
I think that she's the one with means, motive and opportunity to have done this.
00:45:08
For Carter Schwartz, it's impossible to look at this stunning house and feel anything but sadness.
00:45:15
You know, obviously knowing what happened there makes it difficult to come back.
00:45:20
On the Anclode River in front of his dad's old home, Carter talked about his father's murder and the man accused of killing him, Leo Straughi.
00:45:29
You said that you believe that police partially got it right. In that he was involved somewhat.
00:45:35
I'm not saying he was without blame in any of this, but certainly the lion's share of blame and the actual act itself of taking my father's life, I don't think rests on Leo's shoulders.
00:45:48
Carter believes someone else either killed his dad, orchestrated the murder, or both.
00:45:55
That person, he says, was his stepmother, Rebecca. I think that she's the one with means, motive and opportunity to have done this.
00:46:05
In Carter's mind, it came down to one reason, money. Rebecca knew she would inherit every dime of her husband's millions.
00:46:14
She got so greedy and so sure of herself that she was taking just immense sums of money.
00:46:21
And I think my father had finally gotten wise to it. I think that he was finally fed up with being played for the fool.
00:46:31
He says Rebecca was secretly spending a fortune on her two sons, Ben and Eric, paying for their lavish weddings and buying them homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:46:42
She was telling my father, oh, they got a mortgage, they got all this, they got this.
00:46:47
And I remember my father's comment was, they couldn't have a mortgage, they don't have two nickels to rub together.
00:46:52
So about a year before his dad's death, Carter and his wife did their own investigation.
00:46:58
We had gone to the online property appraiser, which is all public record. We typed in the addresses.
00:47:05
And sure enough, they were in her children's name with no mortgage and free and clear titles.
00:47:11
And we showed my dad that. You've got literal receipts showing him this. Yes. And then that's when he says, I have business to take care of at home.
00:47:20
Never told me what he did about it. Never told me anything. Carter pleaded with his dad to get a financial expert and figure out what was going on.
00:47:29
He refused to hire a forensic accountant. He said, I'm not throwing good money after bad.
00:47:33
So he said, why waste the time trying to chase it down? Right. And at this point, it's very clear he knows something is going on.
00:47:39
I told him, I said, Dad, you got to leave. He didn't give me an answer one way or another.
00:47:44
So you told him you got to divorce this woman. detective diebel discovered that along with buying her son's homes and paying for their weddings
00:47:53
rebecca had given her sons hundreds of thousands of dollars more to start their own businesses there was a
00:48:00
Out of moving the money around of the doctors, not to Carter, to Rebecca's two sons.
00:48:08
When you say moving money, what do you mean? Kind of under the radar, without the doctor's knowledge.
00:48:13
She funded a Verizon cell phone shop in Portage, Wisconsin, for her first son, a brewery for Ben, and some other businesses that had failed.
00:48:25
It was a stark contrast to how Carter says Rebecca treated him over the years. Between the two of you, there was never loving stepmother vibes.
00:48:39
After his father's murder, Carter says Rebecca cut him off financially, like when he asked for some help to pay for med school.
00:48:47
I had gotten the acceptance letter to med school the day he died. And you have, whatever it was, 10 days, two weeks, something to go down and give him a check to hold your spot.
00:48:55
$1,500. I sent her a text and I said, hey, they need a deposit. Can you help me?
00:49:01
And the reply back was, you need to get a job. I don't know what we're doing. So she refused to give you the money?
00:49:07
Refused to give me $1,500 to hold my spot at med school. This is terrible, but she'd always refer to Carter as the bastard.
00:49:14
And she'd come in and say, the bastard. There was a time when Kyle Smithy liked Rebecca Schwartz.
00:49:20
But as the years went by, his opinion changed as he watched her verbally attack Stephen's son and then Stephen himself in the worst possible way.
00:49:30
One of her kind of go to lines was always, I could just kill him. I could just kill him. And just the look on her face and just how frustrated and she just like would physically, you know, kind of alter and just so angry.
00:49:44
What was she mad about? It could be anything from, you know, having handed out money to patients to, you know, having written a small check to Carter.
00:49:56
That's why on the very night the doctor was murdered, Kyle believed Rebecca was involved.
00:50:02
I call and she answers. And she sounds tired. I said, Becky, what's what's going on?
00:50:11
And she says, well, they can't confirm it's him. They won't let me in the house, but we know it's him.
00:50:19
Kyle had an immediate sinking feeling. She finally did it. She finally did it. Yeah.
00:50:25
You felt that she was the one who had killed him. Yeah, just, you know, everything kind of started lining up.
00:50:32
Helen Como also wasn't surprised. She thought at times Rebecca could be evil. When I heard that he was murdered, nobody else came to mind.
00:50:43
I didn't even so much as think, gosh, did a burglar break in? Nothing else came to mind other than Becky.
00:50:54
It's something Detective Diebel heard over and over again. Just confirmed my suspicions all the more.
00:51:02
She's involved in this murder. She murdered him. But suspicions are not evidence.
00:51:08
Tried everything that I could. had more witnesses come forward, but nothing was enough.
00:51:14
There was a lot of hearsay, nothing that I could bring it forward to the state attorney for prosecution.
00:51:19
The biggest issue was Leo. Even though he had implicated Rebecca, police didn't think he would be a strong witness.
00:51:27
He's not credible. He's not a credible witness because he lied so much. Carter and his family were convinced Rebecca was getting away with murder.
00:51:35
So they took the only step they felt they could and filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against her.
00:51:42
Have you ever worked on a case quite like this? This one takes the cake. In 2015, the year after the murder, Will Florin and Tommy Robig agreed to represent the family.
00:51:54
Police had investigated this and said there's not enough to bring criminal charges against her.
00:52:00
What made you think that you could win in a court of law? We worked hard on the case. We worked the details of the case.
00:52:08
I think we came to the conclusion she learned about that we could prove it. How does she, in your telling, become someone who kills her husband?
00:52:15
Greed, selfishness, narcissism. Mess out. They would spend years building a case against Rebecca.
00:52:26
Meanwhile, she had built a new life with new friends and a new profession. What kind of doctor did she tell you she was?
00:52:34
nephrologist. While Leo Straughi sat in jail, Rebecca Schwartz had already left Florida
00:52:52
for a fresh start in Lodi, Wisconsin. A small town flanked by farms and picturesque fields.
00:53:01
A great choice if you need to just get away. Maybe that's what Rebecca was thinking when she moved there a few months after the murder.
00:53:11
What was her personality like? She seemed very bubbly and she seemed genuine and concerned, you know, thoughtful.
00:53:19
Sue Mashick first met Rebecca at her son's home. She said, well, I had to get out of Florida.
00:53:24
She said, after my husband was murdered, all the docs were asking me to cover their shifts at the hospital, and I just couldn't take it anymore.
00:53:34
Rebecca told her, and others, she was a doctor. Had been for decades. So she says this, and you know nothing about her, nothing about her background.
00:53:43
No, and I believed what I was being told, you know, that's what she said. What kind of doctor did she tell you she was?
00:53:49
Nephrologist. A kidney doctor, just like Steven. She wasn of course but Sue believed her and was impressed It wasn long before Rebecca became close to her entire family including her son and daughter You around your son his family for a while
00:54:06
Did you think that she was getting too close too fast to your son and his family?
00:54:10
Yes, I did after a while, yes. All her fears came to a head one day at her grandson's football game.
00:54:18
She spotted Rebecca and her son Aaron alone. I turned around to say something, and she was consoling him, holding his hand and looking up at him, and just, it was something that I knew was kind of over the top.
00:54:33
You see them together at the game, you're thinking, that's not right. Your mama's radar was going off about Rebecca.
00:54:39
Right. Did that just make it sound even louder? Oh, yes, for sure. And this mama's intuition was spot on.
00:54:47
Ten months later, Aaron told his mom he was divorcing his wife. And it wasn't long before Aaron revealed he was in love with Rebecca.
00:54:57
Rebecca is 15 years older than Aaron. As a mom, how did that age gap hit you? Oh, I didn't think it would be a good thing by any means.
00:55:07
Then came 2018. Two years later, the couple invited Aaron's parents to a Cinco de Mayo party, supposedly.
00:55:15
They came walking out and she had a very fancy full dress on and he had like a tux suit on.
00:55:22
I thought, wait a minute, this is not a Cinco de Mayo, you know, and they got married.
00:55:28
A new tag. Here are the happy newlyweds. That's perfect. I like it. I love it. And the surprises kept coming.
00:55:39
The family initially thought Rebecca had only been married once before to Dr. Schwartz.
00:55:45
Aaron later told his mom he found out Rebecca had actually had three previous husbands.
00:55:52
She said, well, I was just so embarrassed. I didn't want to have to tell you that.
00:55:57
Life was good for the couple. With the help of Rebecca's money, they lived in a beautiful home on Lake Wisconsin,
00:56:04
bought a small plane, and went on exotic vacations. Like a trip the entire family, including Sue, took to Alaska.
00:56:13
First class, of course. We're in the air, and they're announcing that they need a nurse or a doctor.
00:56:20
Could they please come back to coach? There was a medical emergency. A medical emergency.
00:56:24
And I looked over at her, and she just kept sitting there. After about the third time that I'm looking over at her, she gets up and goes to the back, and she's treating somebody back there.
00:56:35
Treating someone? Treating someone. The passenger was fine. It wasn't a medical emergency after all.
00:56:42
Eventually, though, the truth caught up with Rebecca. I had a friend who was considering going into dialysis because he was in kidney failure.
00:56:53
So Sue asked Rebecca to give that friend medical advice. And after about five minutes, I discovered I knew more about kidneys than she did.
00:57:01
It became apparent very quickly that she did not have a medical degree or a specialty in kidneys.
00:57:07
Her son is the one that finally let that out of the bag. He said, Mom's no doctor, you know, and I thought, oh, really?
00:57:14
Even after learning the truth, Erin stayed with her. That is, until the letter was delivered.
00:57:21
How did you hear about the letter? All my neighbors, people were coming and telling us.
00:57:28
I'm just curious, how did they even describe the letter? Frightening. The one says, I don't know if I should read it or burn it.
00:57:34
She said, I don't know what to do with this thing. About five years into their marriage, the couple's relationship blew up.
00:57:41
Rebecca caught Aaron cheating. That's when she wrote a blistering two-page letter, seemingly, to everyone.
00:57:49
She went to the neighbors and taped it onto their garage doors and such, all the neighbors in their neighborhood.
00:57:56
Included in the packet, her petition for divorce, graphic sexual details, and a picture of her husband's alleged lover.
00:58:04
Plus, plenty of unkind words like these. I will always wonder why I wasn't good enough,
00:58:11
and Erin chose a white trash, ugly 50-year-old who looks like she had been road hard and put away wet for 35 years
00:58:18
with teeth out of Jurassic Park that has literally nothing over me. The letter landed in mailboxes all over town.
00:58:29
We counted here at least 60-some people that she sent that letter to. What did you think when you read that?
00:58:35
I thought she's flipping crazy. Aaron told us Rebecca closed him out of their joint bank accounts,
00:58:43
transferred ownership of their multiple homes to her sons, and then locked him out.
00:58:48
He's now living with his mother. I want people to know that there are people like her in this world.
00:58:56
I would have never, ever in my life thought I'd run into somebody that could be this devastating to the family.
00:59:03
It wasn't long after those divorce papers were filed that the phone rang at Florin and Robig.
00:59:10
You get a phone call completely out of the blue. Unexpected, out of the blue. Who was it?
00:59:16
Aaron Maschick. Rebecca's husband said he was ready to turn the tables on his soon-to-be ex-wife,
00:59:23
and he was willing to testify against her at trial. But before that could happen, Rebecca would find herself in the hot seat.
00:59:31
Ms. Schwartz, will you please raise your right hand? Long before Rebecca's cushy new life with her younger husband went up in flames in Wisconsin,
00:59:53
something was happening in Florida Attorneys Will Florin and Tommy Robig had been building a case against her A legal battle that would take years Their goal Claw back every dollar of the doctor vast wealth that Rebecca now controlled
01:00:10
What was his net worth after he died? North of $30 million. It's a very strong estate.
01:00:17
He had a very successful dialysis clinic that he sold for a lot of money. millions and millions of dollars.
01:00:27
They owe them 40 or so rental properties. Madam Corey Porter, if you could please swear on the development.
01:00:34
Because this was a civil case, Rebecca had to sit for a deposition. Can you tell us your name, please?
01:00:40
Rebecca Schwartz. So in 2016, for the first time, she faced the Schwartz family attorneys.
01:00:46
You were present, were you not, in the home at the time of Dr. Schwartz's murder
01:00:51
and took part in the murder of Dr. Schwartz. Did you not, Fogg? I reassert my rights under Article 1, Section 9 of the Florida Constitution.
01:01:03
Only she didn't answer any of their questions. Well, I got about 75 pleas against self-incrimination
01:01:12
as a reason for not answering a question. She just took the fifth. Over and over and over again.
01:01:18
Even so, it gave Florin the chance to ask Rebecca, This. You have been convicted of a felony, have you not?
01:01:29
I reassert my rights under Article 1, Section 9 of the Florida Constitution. Rebecca was a convicted felon.
01:01:36
In the early 90s, she went to work for Mothers Against Drunk Driving up in North Florida.
01:01:42
And the reason is because she lost a two-year-old son to a drunk driver. After becoming president of that local MAD chapter, Rebecca embezzled more than $7,000 from the charity.
01:01:55
She was arrested, pled guilty, was put on probation for four counts of stealing from Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
01:02:04
What type of person steals money from Mothers Against Drunk Driving? Exactly. Someone without conscience that doesn't care, that's narcissistic and wants whatever they want at all costs.
01:02:19
As they prepared for trial, attorney Sean Cummings spent many hours trying to track down Rebecca's fortune, money the firm believed she was hiding.
01:02:29
We always suspected that she was moving the assets to keep us off the trail. She created a number of limited liability companies or LLCs.
01:02:38
Normally, one way to protect assets from lawsuits. This begins video number one in the deposition of Rebecca A. Schwartz.
01:02:46
By 2024, seven years after her last deposition, the attorneys got a judge's order compelling her to testify.
01:02:54
It allowed us to force Rebecca Schwartz to provide testimony about her finances.
01:03:00
This time, she couldn't claim the fifth. Ms. Schwartz, will you please raise your right hand?
01:03:04
Under oath, Rebecca painted a surprising financial picture. What do you estimate your current total net worth to be?
01:03:15
Well, let's see. About $10,000. $10,000. She later added she also had some furniture and a car worth an additional $15,000.
01:03:29
When she told me her assets were $10,000, I mean, I just knew it wasn't true. I knew that she had millions in property and boats and condos and businesses.
01:03:43
Rebecca testified she transferred almost everything she owned into trusts that were now controlled by her two sons, Ben and Eric.
01:03:51
She said they gave her an allowance to live. They give me $500 a month. How do they give you that $500 a month?
01:03:59
Benjamin hands me $500. dollars. Her sons were also brought in for depositions. This begins video number one in the
01:04:08
deposition of Benjamin Nichols. But when asked about the different LLCs under his control,
01:04:15
Ben often gave the same answer. He didn't know much about them. You know, I trust you guys,
01:04:21
lawyers and stuff like that. So if you guys put something in front of me, I just sign it.
01:04:25
So I don't know exactly what it is that I'm signing or why I'm signing it. But there was one
01:04:29
LLC Ben did seem more familiar with. It was titled GFYCS and AM. Who came up with that name for that LLC?
01:04:40
My wife and I. Okay. And when the two of you came up with it, did you discuss what GFYCS
01:04:46
and AM stands for? Yeah. Do you want me to say it on record? I do. No, I'm not going to.
01:04:55
Does it stand for GoP yourself, Carter Schwartz, and Aaron Maschick? yes it does go f yourself carter schwartz and aaron maschuk which is the uh soon-to-be ex-husband
01:05:07
wonders never cease and at this point uh there's nothing that would be surprising of this family
01:05:13
just the name of that llc there are there some pieces of this just seems so beyond belief i think
01:05:21
there's a level of invincibility and hubris that just exceeds any rational explanation.
01:05:31
And why would you call that company yourself Carter Schwartz and Aaron Maschick?
01:05:36
For obvious reasons. I need you to explain to me what the reason is. Well, I'm in this mess because of Aaron Maschick.
01:05:44
And Carter Schwartz? He's also behind it. All right. And when you say you're in this mess, what do you mean?
01:05:49
I'm sitting here talking to you in a deposition. And Rebecca other son Eric said he also didn know much about the assets under his control Do you have any documentation or lists or anything that you keep so that you know what assets that you own or don own
01:06:09
No. Let me ask it this way. If you died tomorrow and your wife needed to figure out
01:06:14
which property was left to her and her children, how would she do it? Don't know.
01:06:20
Does that worry you? It does now. I think the purpose of taking assets out of your own name and moving in someone else is it would make it more difficult in her mind, at least, for us to try to get those assets back and put them where they belong, which was with Dr. Schwartz's children.
01:06:36
While Rebecca's sons supported their mother, her daughter-in-law would be a very different story.
01:06:43
Would it be a fair statement then that you've come to the conclusion that your mother-in-law, Becky, is evil?
01:06:50
Yes. So as all this is happening, I mean, you're digesting this live in this deposition room.
01:06:56
What are you thinking? There's my star witness. Only one person was ever criminally charged in Stephen Schwartz's murder.
01:07:17
Leo Straugei. Six years after his arrest, prosecutors offered him a deal. He pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact.
01:07:27
They've seen all the evidence and they've seen everything. They knew I was not the guy who killed Dr. Schwartz.
01:07:36
In 2022, he was released from prison and deported back to his homeland of Albania.
01:07:41
Did you ever think that you would end up here in Albania because of what happened in Florida?
01:07:47
Yeah, I knew I would come back. I knew I would come back one day. Leo started a new life, but the old grudges still linger.
01:07:57
How would you describe Rebecca Schwartz today? Evil. Evil. I'll take her life in a heartbeat.
01:08:06
And I won't regret it. You say that. You'd admit that. She took everything I had.
01:08:10
If you were face to face with her today. I'll take her life in a heartbeat. I'll say it in any way.
01:08:15
I'm not afraid. She destroyed me. Whether or not Leo's threat is believable, he's not allowed to return to the U.S. until 2032.
01:08:28
Back in Florida, the wrongful death civil lawsuit against Rebecca began in February 2025.
01:08:35
For me and for our family, this isn't about money. This is about justice. And unfortunately, the civil trial was the avenue available to us, despite what we may want.
01:08:45
The trial started off with a win for the defense. The judge ruled jurors wouldn't hear that Rebecca stole money from Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
01:08:55
Roham Kansari is her attorney. We did have to litigate that issue at length, but we were successful in keeping it out.
01:09:02
The plaintiffs knew they faced other challenges. What do you need to prove to the jury to win this civil case?
01:09:09
Well, obviously we need to prove that she caused the death of Dr. Steven Schwartz.
01:09:15
prove she participated or killed him herself. If they won, they could seek monetary damages,
01:09:22
potentially stripping Rebecca of everything she owned. If you are the murderer, you cannot profit by that behavior.
01:09:29
The plaintiff's theory? Rebecca killed her husband because he was about to end their marriage
01:09:35
and cut her off from his money. Dr. Schwartz had made it known that he was going to divorce her,
01:09:41
and had that happened, she would be destitute. One of the witnesses called to testify was a neighbor of the Schwartzes.
01:09:50
I was to the left of them. April Cox told jurors about an argument she witnessed a few weeks before the murder.
01:09:56
This is the audio from her deposition. Dr. Schwartz was in the living area and he either received a phone call or email or something that disturbed him.
01:10:06
And she went to speak with him and then she came into the kitchen and she goes, please don't tell Dr. Schwartz that I bought Eric a business in Wisconsin.
01:10:16
Rebecca had given her son Eric money to open that Verizon store. The plaintiffs argued it may have been the final straw for her husband.
01:10:25
Don't tell him about the Verizon store. And so conversations must be happening, obviously, behind the scenes where he is unhappy.
01:10:34
And this is escalating. And it's a drumbeat. And it's coming. and then it ends at the bottom of those stairs.
01:10:41
And while the murder weapons, a knife and gun, were never found, Kyle Smithy's deposition was played in court.
01:10:48
And he testified about Rebecca bragging about knowing how to shoot. Did she own a gun?
01:10:54
She told me repeatedly that she owned a gun. Did you ever see her gun? I never saw her gun.
01:11:02
She specifically referenced that it was a Saturday night special. A Saturday night special or a small caliber gun like the one used to kill Dr. Schwartz.
01:11:13
We know she had a .22 because she's shown it to people. She carried it. She bragged about having it.
01:11:22
They also showed jurors Leo's deposition taken while he was in jail. He stuck to his story that Rebecca had set him up.
01:11:30
She can't hold him. I went to my driveway and I went to the window, over the window,
01:11:37
and she said, I need you to go to my house and get my purse. Then came bombshell testimony from Rebecca's fourth husband, Aaron Maschick.
01:11:48
After Rebecca filed for divorce and sent that letter around, he offered to testify for the plaintiffs.
01:11:55
One of the statements that she made for me was... During his deposition, which jurors saw...
01:12:00
He admitted that he and Rebecca purposely moved assets to protect them in case she lost this lawsuit.
01:12:07
What was the purpose behind setting up those LLCs? Rebecca wanted to hide any assets from the civil case.
01:12:17
Has Rebecca Mashick, formerly known as Schwartz, made any statement to you ever regarding her potential involvement in the death of Dr. Schwartz and having gotten away with her involvement in that?
01:12:33
Yes. And what did she say to you in that regard? She said a couple of different things.
01:12:39
I've gotten away with this before. I can get away with it again. that was, I believe, in reference to the murder of her prior husband.
01:12:51
He also said that might have been a reference to moving assets to keep them from him.
01:12:57
But perhaps the most surprising testimony came from Rebecca's daughter-in-law, Dana Nichols, Ben's wife at the time.
01:13:05
When Dana testified at the trial in the courtroom that day, it was electric. Her testimony was similar to what she said in this deposition.
01:13:15
She and Ben worked for Rebecca and lived in a house she bought for them. But Dana said her mother-in-law could be vindictive.
01:13:23
Like the time Dana invited the wrong person to her own baby shower. She got mad at my baby shower because I invited my other mother-in-law, Ben's stepmom.
01:13:37
And she doesn't like her. and so she fired us and threatened to take away our house and our health insurance
01:13:49
when I was eight months pregnant. The couple were later rehired, but Dana said that and other experiences convinced her
01:13:58
Rebecca could be ruthless. She had no doubt her mother-in-law had something to do with the killing.
01:14:05
When was it that you first suspected that she was involved in the murder of Dr. Schwartz?
01:14:15
The night that it happened. Were you able to talk to anybody that night about the concerns?
01:14:23
No, because I was scared. In fact, you told your friends, at least one of them, that you're afraid of Becky Schwartz because you fear for your daughter.
01:14:32
For your daughter's safety. Yes. Yes? Yes. What is it about Becky Schwartz that makes a nice young lady like you afraid for the safety of her daughter Because she only cares about herself And she doesn care who she will hurt or has hurt
01:14:58
To protect herself. In her deposition, Dana read an email she sent to a friend and gave similar testimony at trial.
01:15:08
I want justice for Dr. Schwartz and Becky to pay for all the wrong and evil things she has done.
01:15:13
And she doesn't deserve to be living it up and enjoying life. Would it be a fair statement then that you've come to the conclusion that your mother-in-law Becky is evil?
01:15:25
Yes. It's pretty striking. Yeah. From your own family. From your own family. It was devastating testimony.
01:15:33
But the defense was about to reframe the entire case, arguing the real killer had already been caught.
01:15:41
The only physical evidence that was there showed that Leo Straga was involved. For more than a decade, Rebecca had been domed by allegations she was responsible for her husband's death,
01:16:05
even though she was never criminally charged. Now, as part of a civil suit, her defense insisted she was innocent.
01:16:15
Rebecca's attorney, Roham Kansari. Where were some of the holes in the plaintiff's case?
01:16:19
The lack of physical evidence. They had no physical evidence tying my client to the murder.
01:16:24
There was no murder weapon that was retrieved. What's more, he said, someone else had already admitted to playing a role.
01:16:32
The only physical evidence that was there showed that Leo Straga was involved. Not only was Leo's DNA found on Dr. Schwartz's clothing,
01:16:41
he also admitted he didn't tell police the truth. No, I swear, I swear, I swear, I swear.
01:16:49
No, I wasn't involved. He initially lied to law enforcement about being in the house altogether.
01:16:55
And then later when they confronted him with it, he was ultimately charged with murder.
01:16:58
The plaintiffs in this case have said Leo had no motive, that he was working for Dr. Schwartz, he was making a good living,
01:17:05
And that essentially his life stood to get worse with Dr. Schwartz, not in the picture.
01:17:11
So why would he want to kill Dr. Schwartz? I don't necessarily know what his motive was, but I do know that the only physical evidence that was on the scene tied him to being there and having his hands or any other DNA in his pants pockets.
01:17:28
As for Rebecca's alleged motive, her attorney said there was no evidence to show her husband was planning to leave her.
01:17:36
You think their marriage was going to keep going I not saying it wasn rocky but to just jump to the conclusion that it was on the cusp of a divorce and that what led to this murder I think is a big jump
01:17:49
Kansari also said there was a reasonable explanation for Rebecca and her sons moving assets around after the doctor's death.
01:17:57
It was to keep them away from her fourth husband, Aaron Mashek. After Aaron got caught cheating on my mom is when, you know, we decided that we, you know, my brother and I, you know, we all sat down and decided that we should probably protect her.
01:18:12
You moved all those assets out of your control into someone else's control to prevent Mr. Masek from getting them.
01:18:19
Prevent for him laying clang to them. Yes, sir. The defense called only one witness, a medical salesperson who visited the doctor's office.
01:18:29
She testified she saw a loving relationship between Rebecca and her husband. The one witness you did call, why did you feel that testimony was important?
01:18:38
I felt that the jury needed to hear that there was somebody out there that felt that she was a good person and that she is a good person.
01:18:45
If there were multiple witnesses on the plaintiff's side who said terrible things about Rebecca's character,
01:18:52
Why should the jury believe one person who says positive things about her versus the many who lined up to say negative things about her?
01:19:01
Well, the focus should be on whether she committed the murder or not. I went to great lengths to say you don't have to like her just because she said all these things and essentially did all these bad things doesn't mean that she killed her husband.
01:19:15
So you were trying to draw a line that even if she is a bad person, not the greatest individual, that doesn't make her a murderer.
01:19:22
Correct. And juries need to set their feelings aside. He also reminded jurors that she was on trial for her husband's killing, not for alleged financial misconduct.
01:19:33
Finally, it was in the jury's hands. Unlike a criminal case, in a civil trial, the bar is lower for jurors to find against the defendant.
01:19:43
Now the jury has the case. How are you feeling? Strong. Good. Yeah, we proved our case.
01:19:51
After two and a half hours of deliberations, they reached a verdict. She was found liable for likely being involved in the murder, and the family was awarded quite a large sum.
01:20:05
The jury found Rebecca Schwartz liable for intentionally killing or participating in her husband's death.
01:20:13
The court system guarantees you a chance of justice. It doesn't guarantee you justice.
01:20:19
It doesn't happen all the time. When it happens, it's glorious. As for the amount of money jurors awarded Carter and his family They listed out different line items Well this is how much we believe you lost in support
01:20:38
This is how much is pain and suffering. This is how much the estate is. And in total, it was just shy of $200 million.
01:20:46
$200 million. It's hitting her in the pocketbook. And that has got to be devastating for someone that is so greedy.
01:20:57
You hear the verdict. You hear the dollar amount. What did you think? They were sure of themselves.
01:21:02
We're going to go get it. And they're well on their way. The attorneys know they'll never collect the full $200 million.
01:21:11
But so far, Florin says, they've frozen about $6 to $10 million in Rebecca's assets.
01:21:17
And they're looking for more, including money from a yacht that Aaron Maschick sold in violation of a judge's order.
01:21:24
Rebecca now lives back in Florida. Following the advice of her lawyer, she declined our request for an interview.
01:21:34
For more than a decade, the criminal investigation into Stephen Schwartz's murder remained open and unsolved.
01:21:41
But in May of 2025, two months after the civil verdict, Detective Diebel retired and the Tarpon Springs Police officially closed its case.
01:21:52
The police chief says it could be reopened if new evidence is discovered. I mean, you've looked at Rebecca any number of possible ways.
01:22:01
She's never been arrested, never been charged. Could it be because she's innocent that she didn't do this?
01:22:09
I don't think so. I know so. She's involved. As for Carter, he's now Dr. Schwartz, a nephrologist, just like his dad.
01:22:21
He says while their family is grateful for the civil judgment, money, any amount, only goes so far.
01:22:28
Finally, the latest development in getting this verdict at this trial is a step towards justice.
01:22:36
But she is still walking around. She is still free. And I would trade every dime to see true justice served.
01:22:50
That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast.
01:22:56
Blaine Alexander and Keith Morrison will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode,
01:23:01
available Wednesday in the Dateline feed, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central.
01:23:10
I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night. you