Dateline has revealed another difficult case.
According to CBS News, an episode on October 31 focused on the decade-old murder of Dr. Steven Schwartz, a wealthy kidney specialist who was discovered shot, strangled, and stabbed inside his Tarpon Springs, Fla., home. Although DNA evidence led authorities to capture and jail his contractor, Anton Leo Stragaj, the doctor’s family suspected his wife was the true culprit.
Becky Schwartz contacted the cops to report a robbery on the night of Steven’s death, May 2014. In the weeks that followed, she began acting strangely, showing up uninvited at neighbors’ houses and canceling memorial ceremonies for her deceased husband.
“It everything points towards her. “She probably wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, but she was behind it all,” said Dr. Robert Patton on CBS News’ 48 Hours in February 2017. When asked about the motive, he cited his medical partner’s estimated $30 million fortune. “Money. Money. Money.” She cares about money in the same way that you and I care about breathing air.”
Becky was never charged with anything connected to her husband’s murder. However, in March 2025, a civil court ruled her liable for Steven’s death in a case filed by his children, according to Suncoast News.
Stragaj served seven years in prison before being freed and deported to Albania. Becky has denied killing Steven, and the local state attorney acknowledged that the investigation is ongoing.
Here is all you need to know about Dr. Steven Schwartz’s murder, including why his family believes his wife was involved.
Police discovered Steven’s body after receiving a robbery report.
On May 28, 2014, Becky phoned the police to report a robbery after returning home to discover their house in disarray and valuables gone, including a kitchen knife. However, when officers arrived at their luxurious, 8,000-square-foot waterfront property, they discovered Steven, 74, lying in a pool of blood in their garage, according to Dateline and Suncoast News.
According to Bay News 9, an autopsy revealed that he had gunshot and stab wounds to the head, as well as being stabbed in the neck. Later reports indicated that the doctor had also been strangled.
DNA from Steven’s contractor was discovered on his body.
Stragaj’s DNA was discovered on several pieces of Steven’s clothing. In April 2015, police arrested the Albanian contractor, who had been working for the family without valid legal status in the United States for years.
He told 48 Hours that he discovered Steven’s body but did not contact the police because he was frightened of being deported.
“I had nothing against the man,” Stragaj explained, noting that Steven paid him more than $100,000 every year. “I adored the dude. He gave work for me. So I had no hatred toward him. I had no vengeance or anything.”
Stragaj claimed: Becky asked him to hire a kill men.
Stragaj denied killing Steven, but claimed to know who did: Becky. The contractor claimed that the doctor’s wife had requested him to “find someone to kill Dr. Schwartz” six months before the murder.
“I think she murdered him,” Stragaj told 48 Hours, adding that the only reason he discovered Steven’s body was because Becky had requested that he pick up her purse from their home. “She staged it. She set me up. She had planned it. “She had planned it for a long time.”
After discovering Steven, Stragaj claimed that he questioned Becky about the murder and discovered a knife in the handbag she had instructed him to retrieve. “I said, ‘What the hell did you do?'” the contractor remembered. “And she said, ‘You know why I did it.'”
Stragaj claims that chat occurred 10 hours before Becky called the police. He also said Steven’s wife threatened to withhold future work and money from him if he reported her in. He was apprehended about a year later.
Several friends and family members suspected Becky was involved.
It’s not only Stragaj. Steven’s family, especially his son Carter Schwartz, felt his wife was complicit in the murder. In 48 Hours, he claimed that Becky was transferring funds from her joint bank account with Steven to accounts he could not access.
When Steven informed his father about this, he said he would “take care” of it.
But he didn’t, and Carter eventually discovered that Steven had changed his estate plan a year before his death, leaving his entire fortune to Becky rather than his three children.
Though his son couldn’t understand why his father would do so, one of the doctor’s workers allegedly told police that Becky “was blackmailing Dr. Schwartz by withholding information that could ruin his career.”
Steven was convicted of murder in the 1960s. According to Carter’s counsel, the material in question may be a decades-old conviction that Steven had forgotten.
According to CBS News, in November 1961, the then-21-year-old future doctor shot and killed dentist Dr. Victor Cook during a botched heist in New Mexico.
His friend, Phillip Dyer, told 48 Hours that Steven’s motive for murdering Cook could have been gambling debt. Steven was convicted of the killing and served nine years in prison before having his sentence modified. He received his medical degree in Italy and kept his criminal history hidden, even from his children.
“I didn’t even know about it until after his death,” Carter explained to 48 Hours. “If [Becky] knew — which I have every reason to believe she did — that’s entirely possible that was something used against him.”
Becky was held civilly accountable for the death of her husband in 2025.
Steven’s wife was never prosecuted with his murder, but she was deemed civilly accountable for his death. The doctor’s children sued Becky for wrongful death in 2016, claiming she murdered him when he realized she was embezzling money from his medical practice, according to Suncoast News and CBS News.
Almost a decade later, a judge awarded them nearly $200 million and found Becky civilly responsible for Steven’s death.
Stragaj was arrested for first-degree murder in 2015 and served seven years in prison before pleading guilty to one count of accessory after the fact. He was condemned to eight years in prison, but was freed and deported to Albania in September 2022.
Becky has consistently maintained her innocence in Steven’s death. The Pinellas state attorney told Suncoast News that the homicide investigation is still ongoing.
