NEED TO KNOW
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Kidney specialist Dr. Steven Schwartz was found dead in his Florida home in May 2014
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Police arrested his contractor, Anton Leo Stragaj, after his DNA was discovered on Steven’s body
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However, Steven’s wife was found responsible for his death in a 2025 civil suit
Dateline has brought another complicated case to light.
An Oct. 31 episode chronicled the decade-old murder of Dr. Steven Schwartz, a wealthy kidney specialist who was found shot, strangled and stabbed inside his Tarpon Springs, Fla., home, per CBS News. Though DNA evidence led police to arrest and convict his contractor, Anton Leo Stragaj, the doctor’s family had strong suspicions that his wife was the real culprit.
Becky Schwartz called the police to report a robbery on the night of Steven’s murder in May 2014. In the weeks that followed, she began behaving erratically, showing up at neighbors’ houses unannounced and canceling memorial services for her late husband.
“It all points to her. She probably wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, but she was behind it all,” Dr. Robert Patton told CBS News’ 48 Hours in February 2017. When asked about the motive, he pointed to his medical partner’s estimated $30 million fortune. “Money. Money. Money. She is into money like you and I are into breathing air.”
Becky was never charged with anything related to her husband’s murder. But in March 2025, a civil court found her responsible 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 attorney confirmed that the investigation is still open.
Here’s everything to know about the murder of Dr. Steven Schwartz, and why his family thinks his wife was involved.
A robbery report led police to Steven’s body
Courtesy of Dateline NBC
Detective Diebel.
On May 28, 2014, Becky called the police to report a robbery after coming home to find their house was in disarray, along with missing valuables — including a kitchen knife. But when detectives arrived at their lavish, 8,000-square-foot waterfront home, they found 74-year-old Steven lying in a pool of blood in their garage, Dateline and Suncoast News reported.
An autopsy report found that he had suffered gunshot and stab wounds to the head and was stabbed in the neck, per Bay News 9. Later reports revealed that the doctor had also been strangled.
DNA from Steven’s contractor was found on his body
NBC
“The Death of Dr. Schwartz” Dateline episode.
Testing found Stragaj’s DNA on multiple 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 U.S., in April 2015.
He told 48 Hours that he was the one who discovered Steven’s body but he didn’t call the police because he was afraid of being deported.
“I had nothing against the man,” Stragaj said, noting that Steven paid him over $100,000 a year. “I loved the man. And he provided work for me … So I had no hate for him. I had no revenge or nothing.”
Stragaj claimed Becky asked him to hire a hitman
Stragaj denied killing Steven — and claimed to know who did: 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 told 48 Hours, also claiming that the only reason he found Steven’s body was because Becky had asked him to pick up her purse from their home. “She staged this. 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 purse she had asked him to fetch. “I said, ‘What the hell did you do?’ ” the contractor recalled. “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 that Steven’s wife threatened to withhold future work and money from him if he turned her in. He was arrested nearly a year later.
Multiple friends and family members believed Becky was involved
Courtesy of Dateline NBC
Carter Schwartz.
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 Hours, he alleged that Becky was transferring money from her joint bank account with Steven to accounts that he couldn’t access.
When he alerted his father about this, Steven claimed 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 rather than his three children.
Though his son couldn’t fathom why his father would do that, one of the doctor’s employees reportedly told police that Becky “was blackmailing Dr. Schwartz by withholding information that could ruin his career.”
Steven was convicted of murder in the 1960s
Carter’s attorneys theorized that the information in question was a decades-old murder conviction 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 48 Hours that Steven may have been motivated by gambling debt when he murdered Cook. Steven was convicted of the killing 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 know about it until after his death,” Carter told 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 found civilly responsible for her husband’s death in 2025
Though Steven’s wife was never charged in relation to his murder, she was held responsible for his death in a civil court. In 2016, the doctor’s children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Becky, claiming that she murdered him after he discovered she was embezzling money from his medical practice, Suncoast News and CBS News reported.
Almost 10 years later, a judge awarded them nearly $200 million and deemed Becky civilly responsible for Steven’s death.
After Stragaj was arrested for first-degree murder in 2015, he spent seven years in prison before pleading guilty to one count of accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and was 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 that the homicide investigation is still open.
Read the original article on People
