Stephen Schwartz was murdered in his Florida mansion in 2014. Years later, his family discovered that the doctor had a dark past of his own.

NEED TO KNOW

• Dr. Steven Schwartz, a kidney specialist, was found dead in his Florida home in May 2014.

• Police arrested his contractor, Anton Leo Stragaj, after his DNA was discovered on Steven’s body.

• However, Steven’s wife was found responsible for his death in a 2025 civil lawsuit.

Deadline has brought to light another complicated case.

An October 31 episode chronicled the decade-ago murder of Dr. Steven Schwartz, a wealthy kidney specialist who was found shot, strangled and stabbed inside his home in Tarpon Springs, Florida, according to CBS News. Although DNA evidence led police to arrest and convict his contractor, Anton Leo Stragaj, the doctor’s family strongly suspected that his wife was the real culprit.

Becky Schwartz called police to report a robbery the night of Steven’s murder in May 2014. In the weeks that followed, she began behaving erratically, showing up at neighbors’ houses without warning and canceling memorial services for her late husband.

“Everything points to her. She probably wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, but she was behind it,” Dr. Robert Patton told CBS News. 48 Hours in February 2017. When asked about the reason, he pointed to his medical partner’s estimated $30 million fortune. “Money. Money. Money. She likes money like you and I like to breathe air.”

Becky was never charged with anything related to her husband’s murder. But in March 2025, a civil court found her liable for Steven’s death in a lawsuit filed by his children, Suncoast News reported.

Stragaj spent seven years in prison before being released and deported to Albania. Becky has denied killing Steven and the local state prosecutor confirmed the investigation is still open.

Here’s everything you need to know about the murder of Dr. Steven Schwartz and why his family believes his wife was involved.

A report of theft led police to Steven’s body.

On May 28, 2014, Becky called the police to report a burglary after arriving home to find her house in disarray and valuables, including a kitchen knife, missing. But when detectives arrived at his luxurious 8,000-square-foot oceanfront home, they found Steven, 74, lying in a pool of blood in his garage. Deadline and reported Suncoast News.

An autopsy report found that he had suffered gunshot and stab wounds to the head and was stabbed in the neck, according to Bay News 9. Later reports revealed that the doctor had also been strangled.

DNA from Steven’s contractor was found on his body.

Tests found Stragaj’s DNA on several parts of Steven’s clothing. That discovery led police to arrest the Albanian contractor, who had worked for the family for years without proper legal status in the United States, in April 2015.

he said 48 Hours that he was the one who discovered Steven’s body but didn’t call the police because he was afraid of being deported.

“I had nothing against that man,” Stragaj said, noting that Steven paid him more than $100,000 a year. “I loved that man. And he provided me with work… So I didn’t hate him. I didn’t have revenge or anything.”

Stragaj claimed that Becky asked him to hire a hitman

Stragaj denied killing Steven and claimed to know who did it: Becky. The contractor alleged that the doctor’s wife had asked him to “find someone to kill Dr. Schwartz” six months before the murder.

“I think she murdered him,” Stragaj said. 48 Hoursalso stating that the only reason she found Steven’s body was because Becky had asked her to pick up her bag at her house. “She set this up. She set me up. She planned it. She planned it for a long time.”

After finding Steven, Stragaj alleged that he confronted Becky about the murder and that he saw a knife inside the bag she had asked him to bring. “I said, ‘What the hell did you do?’ “recalled the contractor. “And she said, ‘You know why I did it.'”

That conversation allegedly took place 10 hours before Becky called the police, according to Stragaj. He also said Steven’s wife threatened to deny him future jobs and money if he turned her in. He was arrested almost a year later.

Several friends and family believed Becky was involved.

It’s not just Stragaj. Steven’s loved ones also believed his wife was involved in the murder, including his son, Carter Schwartz. In 48 HoursHe alleged that Becky was transferring money from her joint bank account with Steven to accounts he couldn’t access.

When he alerted his father about this, Steven claimed that he would “take care of” it.

But he didn’t, and Carter later learned that Steven had revised his estate plan a year before his death to leave his entire fortune to Becky instead of his three children.

Although her son couldn’t understand why his father would do that, one of the doctor’s employees allegedly told police that Becky “was blackmailing Dr. Schwartz by withholding information from him that could ruin his career.”

Steven was convicted of murder in the 1960s.

Carter’s lawyers theorized that the information in question was a decades-old murder conviction that Steven had long buried in the past.

In November 1961, the then-21-year-old future doctor shot and killed dentist Dr. Victor Cook in a robbery gone wrong in New Mexico, according to CBS News.

His friend, Phillip Dyer, told him 48 Hours that Steven may have been motivated by a gambling debt when he murdered Cook. Steven was convicted of the murder and spent nine years in prison before his sentence was commuted. He earned his medical degree in Italy and kept his criminal past a secret, even from his children.

“I didn’t even find out until after he died,” Carter said. 48 Hours. “If (Becky) knew it, which I have every reason to believe she did, it’s very possible that it was something used against her.”

Becky was found civilly responsible for her husband’s death in 2025

Although Steven’s wife was never charged in connection with his murder, she was held responsible for his death in civil court. In 2016, the doctor’s children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Becky, alleging that she murdered him after he discovered she was embezzling money from her medical practice, Suncoast News and CBS News reported.

Nearly 10 years later, a judge awarded them nearly $200 million and held Becky civilly liable for Steven’s death.

After Stragaj was arrested for first-degree murder in 2015, he spent seven years in prison before pleading guilty to a charge of accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and released and deported to Albania in September 2022.

Becky has always maintained her innocence in Steven’s murder. The Pinellas State Attorney told Suncoast News the homicide investigation is still open.

Read the original article on People