Fatal Fantasy | 1. Overkill

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1:00Every human being fantasizes, day dreams, lies in bed at night, drifts off during the day while at work or school, perhaps envisioning a different version of reality. They might peer into the crystal ball of their future and see themselves hitting the lotto, having children becoming a professional athlete, getting that girl or guy they've always wanted, or perhaps carrying out a diabolical murder in the most brutal ways imaginable. In fact is, some fantasize about unicorns dancing in fluffy pink clouds while others imagine that person they despise dying a slow, miserable death. This is the story of both with the fantasy aspect of it all gone

2:04horrifically and fatally wrong. You know, I can't force anybody to to believe what I have to say. I am stating truth. That's it. I don't care how it makes me look. I don't care what it does to buy reputation. Dr. Schwartz deserves the truth, he deserves the truth, his family deserves the truth. Dr. Robert Bob Schwartz hasn't shown up for work. It's the 10th of December, 2001. His coworker Terry said it was unlike him to miss a meeting and not come to work. The renowned scientist, a pioneer in DNA research would have let someone know if he wasn't coming in.

3:06Dr. Schwartz is not answering his phone, so his boss, who happens to know one of the neighbors, calls and asks the neighbor to go over and check things out. Schwartz's driveway was under construction. To get to the house, you had to walk. When the neighbor arrived, he found another neighbor standing outside. He'd asked him if he'd seen Dr. Schwartz. No, the guy said, and he'd been there since 730 that morning. So the two men had down the driveway. They see Dr. Schwartz's vehicle parked in its usual spot, over by the stables where he keeps his horses. The house is made of field stone and cement, across between the Hobbit and a revolutionary war colonial. It was a home that was in a very rural area. It was out away from most of the neighbors.

4:07The closest neighbor was probably about a quarter of a mile away. They go around to the back of the house, where there's a door into the kitchen. Inside now, everything has this awfully and eerily quiet vibe to it. The neighbor senses right away that something is off. There's a sour, steely, metallic smell mixed with the feeling of something even more alarming, death. He takes one step into the kitchen, and there is Dr. Schwartz. And upon his entry, he found a very gruesome and disturbing scene. Dr. Schwartz was located in the kitchen, face down on the kitchen floor, in a pool of blood, and had numerous wounds that were visible.

5:10Now, Dr. Schwartz's neighbor is no forensic expert, but even to him, it's clear this wasn't some kind of robbery. There's no forced entry. Whoever had murdered Dr. Robert Schwartz, walked into the house without resistance, as if someone invited them in. Investigators from the Loudon County, Virginia Sheriff's Office, secure the crime scene and begin taking stock of the gruesome attack. Blood is everywhere. On the floor, walls, countertops smeared along the wooden floor. As a working true crime journalist for over 25 years, I have written about and studied hundreds of crime scenes, and I can tell you that the brutality of this murder went beyond a crime of passion. Schwartz had one arm sticking out, his eyes wide open like a doll,

6:12a large pool of blood around his head and torso, and there are even droplets of cooked blood inside a frying pan on the stove. Here's one of the investigators involved early on, detective Greg Locke. Dr. Schwartz suffered over 30 stab wounds. Some of the stab wounds penetrated through his body and actually into the hardwood floor, indicating that he had been stabbed numerous times after he had fallen to the floor. In total, Schwartz was stabbed 31 times, 31 times. Delving into this case years ago, interviewing over 50 people for a book I was working on, I had so many questions about the crime scene alone. Clearly, Dr. Schwartz's murder was fueled by an enormous amount of rage,

7:16and yet looking deeper into it, I began to wonder if something far more sinister was going on here. And then, combing through crime scene photographs, I come to an obvious, premeditated, carefully executed incision on the back of Schwartz's neck. A large X carved deliberately and clearly visible by what appears to be the tip of a large blade. Crime scene investigators on scene flip Dr. Schwartz over and find a series of wounds on his chest and stomach, wounds in the shape of what appears to be a five-pointed star, a satanic pentagram, and all my years of true crime reporting, I have never seen anything as barbaric and bizarre as the murder of Robert Schwartz. Digging deeper over the years, this story became something I would

8:22have never suspected, something hard to fathom. Taking me into a world of live action roleplay, dark and twisted fantasies, mythical worlds some believed were real, and even the creepy, sadistic underground world of vampires. Because she was frantic, and you need to tell me what exactly happened when the police showed up. She goes, they said he was under arrest for the murder of somebody. I told you guys something horrible was going to happen, and something horrible was coming, and nobody wanted to listen. I told you something was coming, but all you guys told me was it was all in my head. And look what happened. My name is M. William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist and the New York Times best-selling author of dozens of true crime books. From Sony, music, entertainment, and M. William Phelps,

9:30LLC, you are listening to Fatal Fantasy. This is episode one, Overkill. Can't get enough of the story of Margot Freshwater. Do you need more than the episodes can provide? Real quick, we just launched a free true crime newsletter and community page to go along with our binge shows, including The Crimes of Margot Freshwater. And you can access it at the link in our episode description or at patreon.com slash the bench. You'll get behind the scenes reporting, case updates, and a chance to chat with one of the show's creators and other fans. The newsletter comes out twice a month. It's totally free, and it's where the story continues. I'll see you there.

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11:40Just to the northwest of Washington, DC, Loudon County is not a place investigators were a custom to getting called out to a homicide scene. In a county of nearly 400,000 people, there had been only five homicides that year leading up to December 10th. Loudon County Sheriff's Office detective Greg Locke had yet to be involved in a murder investigation. That is, before he took the call to head out to Dr. Schwartz's house, his boss had warned him that this homicide was unlike any other the Loudon County Sheriff's Office had seen in as long as anyone could recall. I was actually in the leadership class for the Sheriff's Office, and I received the notification to respond to the scene of the homicide. As I stood on the street facing Dr. Schwartz's

12:45property, an eerie sense of how his killer or killers descended upon his house, washed over me. The property is set far back away from the road. At night, with the lights on in the house, it would be easy to watch anyone inside without them knowing. Heather Greenfield is a local associated press reporter who covered the case extensively. I reached out to her back when I began writing my book about the case to get a better lay of the land. This is one of the most affluent communities in the country, the most affluent counties, and so people live, it's just these beautiful rolling hills and farms and people that have succeeded in Washington, whether it's in politics or IT or in his case science. They buy their dream

13:48house out in the outskirts of Leesburg and that's indeed what he had done. Dr. Schwartz and his wife Joan had settled in Leesburg in the early 80s and raised their three children there. And I think that people were just shocked that something like this could happen, and it's just one of the safest suburbs, fantastic schools, beautiful scenery, and it was just shocking. And he wasn't just a scientist. He was famous. Well, Dr. Schwartz was a renowned scientist, specializing in biometrics and DNA research, and for the 15 years before his death at age 57, he had been one of the leading members of a team that was working on DNA sequencing. Detective Greg Locke is tall and thin, sports brown hair, a thin mustache to match, and presents the overall look of a television detective smooth and laid back.

14:55On that day, December 10, 2001, when the Loud and County Sheriff's Office arrived on scene, Locke had been on the job for only a few months. I was primarily assigned to robbery homicide, but worked all types of crimes, including sexual assaults, child cases. The only thing in particular really that stood out in my mind inside the house were the indentations in the floor of the kitchen where the body was found. Schwartz's killer had stabbed him through his torso entirely, lodging the blade into the floor, leaving gouge marks in the wood. That's volcanic rage, and it speaks to the personality of Schwartz's killer. I guess at that point was just the question mark of why. We were still at that

15:56point trying to determine why this had happened to a prominent scientist who appeared not to have any disagreements or problems with any friends, neighbors, colleagues, so if we were still trying to very much put the puzzle together. Victimology becomes the number one focus. If you think of the victim as the bullseye on a target, those closest to him are the first ring around the bullseye, and you need to speak with them first. Family is obviously number one, but that would go along with making the death notification. So Locke reached out to Dr Schwartz's employer and those he worked with. He was well liked by his co-workers. In fact, there was one of the things that they said, you know, he was always on time, always punctual. Schwartz had worked on early DNA sequencing that could actually help solve his own murder. Back in 1978, Schwartz co-authored a white paper

17:03with Margaret Dayoff, science which had set the stage for identifying individuals by their DNA. So if Schwartz's killer had left his or her DNA at the scene with no obvious witnesses to the murder, this research he had done to prove individuality would help law enforcement prove who had killed him by narrowing down a potential suspect pool to one person. When I was standing along the road, leading down into the Schwartz residence, it occurred to me that the road itself then, a dead end, for anyone driving down it, they either lived there, had been invited there, or might have gotten lost and wound up on the road inadvertently. It's not one of those roads you just pass by or stumble upon. Detective Vincent D. Benadetto had been with the Loudon County Sheriff's Office for 15 years when the Schwartz investigation began.

18:09D. Benadetto's expertise is documents following the paper trail of murders and financial crimes, and almost immediately as he begins thinking about the crime scene, D. Benadetto's thoughts go toward motives. Certainly was quite gruesome, probably the most gruesome crime scenes I've looked at from Loudon County, and it seemed pretty obvious he was stabbed many, many times after he had died. Rage is not usually a motiveless crime. Then something comes up. The pathologist confirms by late into the night of the 10th. That Dr. Schwartz had actually been murdered on Saturday, December 8th, probably in the evening. So Schwartz had been dead for two days before his body was discovered. And the pathologist reveals something else. The weapon.

19:11They are now almost certain, was not a knife, but a sharp, slightly curved object, definitely similar, but with a much longer blade. This changes the game for investigators. Now they need to look back and focus on two days before Schwartz's body was found, which can often complicate matters. Effectively, your killer is now. Two days ahead of you. I've been trying to simplify my wardrobe lately, not some dramatic throw everything out kind of way, but just being more intentional, fewer pieces, better quality, things I actually want to wear over and over again. And that is where Quince has been amazing. They have premium fabrics, thoughtful design, and everyday essentials that feel effortless and dependable, even as the seasons change.

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23:21He's a good guy. Yeah, he's a lot. He could be a quirky. There could be quirky aspects of him sometimes, but he was basically well loved and very likeable. At 57 years old, Dr. Robert Schwartz was one of the most respected scientists in his field. He had founded the Virginia Biotechnology Association and been at the Center for Innovative Technology, CIT, since the company started in 1986. A handsome guy in a Leslie Nielsen sort of way with a bit of middle-aged weight around his belly. Schwartz's co-workers, family, and friends told me the guy was serious about life and work, but also had a soft humor aside to him as well. In other words, the polar opposite of a man you'd think was hated enough by someone to want to stab him 31 times inside his own home.

24:24Terry Woodsworth retired today, first met Dr. Schwartz in 1986. He didn't talk about himself a lot. He really didn't. He was focused on what was going on and all that business kind of guy and stuff, but he also had a sense of humor and I began to sense that as we've had Mielsen stuff together. Schwartz was the oldest of seven siblings. A sister later lamented, Schwartz was a, quote, remarkable older brother who always had a gentle touch. Working alongside him for over a decade, Terry got to know Dr. Schwartz on a more personal level. During that time, Schwartz's wife, Joan had become ill, was lung cancer. It changed him. Before Joan got sick, he was more outgoing and social, but as she became sicker and he had to face the fact that he'd soon be a widower. He retreated more into himself and became quieter.

25:29I knew that that was just a real tragic time when he, when she was ill and he was trying to take care of her and then basically woke up one morning and she was gone. You know, that was, that was tough. Joan Schwartz's death crushed the guy. Their kids were in their late teens in early 20s at the time and raising them now fell squarely on his shoulders. Even when Joan was alive, the family had a share of rocky times. But once she was gone, Clara, the youngest took it the hardest. Her mother had been bipolar as I understand it and quite erratic at times and she was close to her mother. That's Dr. Catherine Ramsland, a forensic psychologist who has written about this case. She's talking about Clara Schwartz who actually found her mother's body and then mother dies when she's in, I guess, 10th grade and she's

26:32bereft and her older brother and sister go off to college leaving her isolated in the stone house with her father who is very different from her and has expectations of her that she doesn't want to live up to. Dr. Schwartz, a single father, struggled with how to deal with Clara and get her through high school. They lived together then on the farm where there was plenty to do and he expected her as most parents would to step up. He still cares about her. I mean, the he always was concerned. She wasn't taking care of the horses and that was the responsibility that would show that she could do things but she wasn't doing it. Dr. Schwartz's coworker Terry says as Dr. Schwartz's kids grew older, he opened up about how proud he was of Jesse, the oldest, Michelle, the middle child and even the youngest Clara. I knew about Jesse going to NC State,

27:37he was very proud of him, Michelle at JMU. He was very proud of her work because he was interested in some similar things as he was. Clara, I think he talked about that it was really hard when Joan died. It was hard on him. I mean, gosh, he's ending up being a single dad. He adored his kids and would light up when talking about them. It always seemed to go back to Joan's death in Schwartz having to raise them alone. He strove to get the best out of them all and being an overachiever himself expected it. I think he was respected by people because he did know where he stood. He was not going to suffer fools gladly. In all of the investigations I have been involved in, you have to consider the victims chosen career path especially when someone has high visibility within what is a high profile company. We saw this recently with the health

28:39care CEO murdered on the streets of New York. So a question came up, was Dr Schwartz targeted? After all, he knew big players within the scientific world hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake. Had he been involved in research or something else that could have gotten him killed? Bob was at the second level down from the head of CIT. So he was one level down from that by the time he was killed. He was at the point where he was interacting with university relationships and overseeing that technology growth and development for the whole state. Detective Locke was not ruling any possibility out. There was some information that was coming out through the media that this might have been some bigger conspiracy. We had to focus on the evidence we were presented and work with that evidence to determine what had happened. Locke's next point of evidence gathering was

29:42the grim task of attending the autopsy and seeing what unusual details of the crime the post mortem revealed. It was very obvious Dr Schwartz endured a very vicious attack. He had multiple wounds on his hands and arms as well as over 40 lacerations, incisions to his body. So Schwartz fought with his attacker, which meant there was going to be DNA. With over 700 autopsy under her belt, Dr Carolyn Revercom noticed immediately after she started her cursory inspection of Schwartz's body that he had suffered two stab wounds to his neck that went entirely through one side of his body and out the other side. She counted 27 stab wounds to his torso along with several additional stab wounds, some superficial, some penetrating the skin and

30:47intramore, others all the way through his body. Just as they had thought back at the crime scene, many of those stab wounds going all the way through Schwartz's body were inflicted when he was not moving and did not have blood pressure. Revercom confirmed. This was significant. Schwartz's killer repeatedly stabbed the guy when they didn't have to. So Schwartz was on the floor, face down, not moving, his killer standing over him, jabbing the weapon into him over and over in a sordid, murderous frenzy. Overkill. The pathologist then saw a possible pattern. There were three particular wounds in a group on Schwartz's upper left back, very close in space that appeared to be in the shape of a three leaf clover. The suggestion was that these three wounds had a ritualistic sensibility about them or were inflicted for a purpose other than to cause pain and death.

31:53Then one other point Revercom made was the weapon. She believed Schwartz was murdered with some sort of long, thin sword, more pirate-like than Conan the Barbarian. It occurred to me that Schwartz's killer had entered into some sort of blackout rage, meaning there seemed to be a disassociation with the crime on some level. I have investigated several of these murders and the psychological framing is always the same. The killer's intent jumps from murder to complete annihilation or interesting here punishment. Locke was certain the wounds inflicted post-mortem were personal. Still, the working theory was that a dark, fantastical individual or group, perhaps practicing witchcraft or satanism was involved.

32:56One major fact investigators confirmed is that Schwartz had been interrupted. It appeared from the forensic investigation that Dr. Schwartz was in the process of cooking dinner when someone came to the house. There were no signs of forced entry as if he possibly there knew someone who allowed into the home or they gained entry without force. Now they have a general timeline. Evening somewhere near 7 or 8 p.m. on Saturday, December 8th. Some of the investigators are detailed to other assignments that may consist of locating surveillance cameras, talking to any other business or homeowners that might be in the area to try to obtain information of whether someone saw something recently in proximity to

34:00the incident. In this particular case being in such a rural area, there were no other homes close by. There were no cameras and there really was not a significant number of homes for us to go to to talk to people. Detective Di Benedetto is back at home base digging through finances and the paper trail to see if any patterns or information jump out. Was Schwartz in financial trouble? Did he somehow get himself involved in a bit of shady business that could have led to his murder? Could he himself be part of a satanic group nobody knew about? If there is one thing I have learned about murder investigations of this nature, include every possibility until you can exclude it. So Di Benedetto began combing through Dr. Schwartz's credit card receipts and bank statements over the previous week to see if that information

35:04might tell a story. It is going to Ruby Tuesdays a place where I'd eaten many times and I went to get the credit card receipt from what I guess would have been his last meal. It just gave me kind of a chilled feeling to hold this and realize that you know here he was normal guy doing normal things, having a meal out and he did not know that in a few hours he would be dead. For Greg Locke, after leaving the autopsy, like any old school police investigator, he next focused on the most obvious. Dr. Schwartz's friends, family, colleagues and neighbors. I contacted the supervisor on the scene and asked if they wanted me to go ahead and start canvassing neighborhood and in that particular area the residences were very far apart so the two closest houses which were approximately an eighth on a quarter of a mile away is where I started my canvassing.

36:07The chances that anyone in the neighborhood had seen anything were slim with the house being secluded set so far back into the woods. So the first house that I stopped at there were two individuals home, husband and wife and they stated that on Saturday night that a male knocked on their door and they answered the door and were speaking with him and basically indicated that he and some of his friends had gotten stuck in the mud right up the road and wanted to know if he could use their phone. Being good neighbors and decent people, the couple invited the young guy in. During the conversation he stated that he was really not that familiar with the area, did they know of a record service that could come to them out. They did have a record service in mind and actually made the call for him and had the record service respond to pull the car out of the mud. And did they describe who these people were? They said that there were three people there,

37:15there were two males and a female and that one of the individuals did most of the speaking and they were not familiar with the area. Anyone who murdered Schwartz would not have visited a neighbor and called the tow truck to pull them out of being stuck in the mud. But perhaps these people had seen something, perhaps they were witnesses and didn't even know it. When I spoke to the neighbors near Dr. Schwartz's house, they really didn't detect anything out of the ordinary speaking to this individual. He seemed very polite and cordial toward them and gave them no reason to be suspicious of any improper activity. Could these young strangers have possibly seen someone at the Schwartz residence? What investigators do know is that a man was violently killed in his own home as he was cooking a meal for himself on a rainy Saturday night that he'd probably

38:18let the killer into his house and had little idea of the horrible fury that would imminently come down upon him that the crime scene was offering precious few clues as to who the killer was and that around the same time as this vicious deed occurred, three young adults were stuck in their stationary vehicle just down the road waiting for a tow truck to drag them out of their muddy confinement. As I thought about all of this, something key, happy face killer Jasperson once told me years before rang in my ears. There are no coincidences in murder, only connections. Next time on Fatal Fantasy, investigators deliver the death notification to Dr. Schwartz's family and the search for the three youngsters stuck in the mud produces a major lead.

39:23She seemed to take a pause for a second and then she didn't look up, she didn't gas, she didn't, all she said in a quiet voice was how before the first big break in the case comes in. So it certainly appeared from the images that were obtained from the ATM that we now had persons of interest. And a shocking piece of evidence is discovered. Did you recall what you guys found it? It was wrapped up in a cloth in a closet. Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of Fatal Fantasy ad free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple

40:23podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple, head to GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the first of every month. Check out the binge channel page on Apple podcasts or GetTheBinge.com to learn more. Fatal Fantasy is a production by Sony Music Entertainment and M. William Phelps LLC written and executive produced by me. From Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch and Catherine St. Louis. And our production manager is Samantha Allison. Jeremy Adair is my senior producer and script consultant and Matt Russell, my sound engineer. I use epidemic sound

41:23for music and SFX. Sabrina. Karen. I have been listening to a new show from the binge called Fatal Fantasy. I am obsessed. Wait, I need to know more. Tell me everything. Okay, well, so it's very shocking. It's just like ultra weird crime story of a murder for a higher plot that yeah, wait for it, leverage the dynamics of the underworld and underworld being a medieval fantasy game. Wait, so it's live action role playing Gone Wrong? Horribly wrong. And you can binge all episodes now. Oh, man, that sounds so good. I know what I'm doing on my drive home today. Search for Fatal Fantasy and subscribe to the binge podcast channel on Apple podcasts or at GetTheBinge.com. And then, once you're done, you can listen to one of the over 60 true crime and investigative podcasts,

42:26a part of the channel while you wait for the next month's drop. I really need to know what happens. Selfishly, you do so that we can talk about it. So whenever you listen, search for Fatal Fantasy and hit subscribe to the binge to get all episodes all at once. Add free. Add free.