TOXIC RAGE-A.J. Flick

Brad Schwartz, the doctor who hired Brian, was ambitious and possessed surgical skills few others had, but he was a troubled man. Within a year of Stidham's arrival in Tucson, the medical relationship would be severed by Schwartz's personal troubles. Stidham broke away to start his own practice, Rumors abounded within the medical community that Schwartz was an incensed and considered the departure of betrayal. His rage grew, even driving a wedge between him and his fiancee, Lordus Lopez, a

former prosecutor. Three years after Stidham moved to Tucson. His life had ended in an empty, darkened parking lot. But who would murder such a nice man in such a violent manner? Lordis, who had witnessed Schwartz's toxic rage towards his former partner, feared she knew, But would her suspicions be enough to catch the killer. The book that we're featuring this evening is Toxic Rage, A Tale of Murder in Tucson, was my special guest journalist and author AJ Flick.

Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for a greendist interview. AJ Flick, Thank you so much, Dan, thank you very much. This an incredible tale. Let's start off how you came to be in a position to write this book, Toxic Rage.

But like many other people, we were very shocked to hear that this young, talented eye surgeon who seemed to be very popular was slain. This doesn't happen every day. And about ten days later they arrested another is surgeon, Brad Schwartz, and another man, Bruce Bigger, and accused Schwartz of hiring it Bigger to kill Stidham. And at that point it became my case. And so from that point on, every court hearing, every case filing, I looked at and I reported for the Tucson Citizen.

but they know he's wounded multiple times. His car is missing, you know, the immediate thought is, you know, perhaps a carjacking. And then as they're processing the scene around midnight, the deputies said, well, we need to go to his house because, you know what if there are other victims. So they

went to Brian's house, knocked on the door loudly. The door was unlocked, but it had a chain on it so they could peek in the house looked very dark and still, and they announced themselves and there was no reply. They gained entry through a garage door and they went through the house again announcing themselves, looking for anything suspicious. It was all dark and still, and they see what

looks like double doors leading to the master bedroom. So they opened the doors and they see someone in the bed announced themselves and it's Daphne Stidham, Brian's wife, who sits up in bed and says, my husband killed. And they noticed that she didn't look to where he should have been sleeping, and next to her on the nightstand were papers that they assumed at the time were Brian's will. So immediately, almost immediately, Daphne stood and became the first suspect.

And over the course of two hours, she kept saying, you know, because at first they said, ma'am, we didn't tell you why we're here. Why do you think your husband's been killed? And then eventually they do tell her that he was found dead, but they very carefully don't say killed, and she keeps asking how is he killed?

How is he killed? And they said, you seem to know before we do, before we tell you that he's been killed, and so, and she was also very calm, except for when they broke the news that her husband was dead. She appeared very calm. They didn't she wasn't reacting like they thought they would but over the course of two hours, of course, they asked her if he had any enemies, and that's the first time that the

name Brad Schwartz was raised. That he is the only person who really had anything against Brian, and that he was a fellow is surgeon. And according to all the police reports that I saw, everybody who was there that night thought she might have had something to do with it or she did it. But from that moment on they only focused on Brad Schwartz.

Brad Schwartz could do them. But he was thinking that perhaps he could find someone to take over the pediatric part of his practice, and then he could focus on his surgeries and also maybe branch out into some lucrative cosmetic surgery. He was making, you know, more than a million dollars a year as it was, and he was looking forward to say, if I got someone, if I hired someone to take over the pediatrics, I could make

even more money branching out with these other things. And so in the course of looking around for people, Brad Schwartz placed an ad in a trade journal that Brian saw, and and and as you said earlier, Brian just fell in love with Tucson. He's from Native Texan, so he liked southwest, of course, and there's the Tucson is bounded by these mountain ranges and one of them has this

beautiful canyon called Sabino Canyon. And Brian immediately fell in love with Sabino Canyon and could picture him and his wife raising their children here, and so so he was very, very eager, even though people told him not to go to Tucson. His best friend said Brian, you don't want to go there. Tucson's a bad place. I have bad feelings. He said, no, no, I love it there. And this this man is just as you said, giving me the

king keys of the kingdom. So he was very excited to come here, and and Brad was also very excited to have him to take over that part of the practice. And and things really worked well for about a year, and then uh I brought UH. Brad's personal problems started rising to the surface. He had a very troubled marriage he had he was unfaithful to his wife on multiple occasions, and he began an affair with a county prosecutor named

Lordus Lopez while he was still married. And in the course of this uh affair, his wife found out left him, and he and Lordus were together. But Brad was also suffering from a shoulder injury that was very painful, and instead of dealing with it properly, he started self medicating, and his medicine of choice was vicodin. As a doctor, he could prescribe vicodin, so he would write prescriptions for hundreds of pills, give them to Lordus and his office manager.

They would fill them, take some for themselves and give him the rest. It wasn't too long before the DEA found out, and about a year into Brian being in Tucson, the DEA raided Brad's practice and that scared Brian, and all of a sudden he realized, you know who am I dealing with? What am I doing here? What do I do now? Brad and Lords were eventually charged in federal court with prescription drug fraud, and as part of that medical As part of that legal case, Brad was

ordered to go into rehab. And basically, by this time, though Brad had actually had surgery on his shoulder and he wasn't he didn't need to self medicate anymore, so even though technically he was not still addicted to vikdin, he agreed to go to rehab, which there's a specialized rehab in Chicago for medical people, and he expected Brad Brian to stay in Tucson to keep the business going while he was getting better and complying with all of

the conditions of the federal case. And instead, Brian decided to strike out on his own, and when word got back to Brad that Brian was handing out business cards for his own practice, he got very angry and over the phone from Chicago, he fired Brian and just ordered him off the property. Don't even sign on to the computer,

just leave. And it did. It did make Brad very angry, and he felt very betrayed by Brian's decision to keep the practice going and to go out on his own, so that when by the time Brad got back into town, he had a lot of conditions that he had to meet, going to therapy, counseling, and also having his medical privilege, his hospital privileges, and his prescription writing privileges taken away,

and so he had to rebuild his whole practice. And during this time many many people who later came forward said that they heard him talk about Brian and either wanting his reputation damaged or having him hurt, like having his hands hurt so he couldn't perform surgery, or some people said that he flat out said, do you know someone who can kill Brian for me? Or could you kill Brian for me? Those people, Okay.

was such a serious impact on his career at that time. Right, But tell us a little bit about Lordis Lopez, her background, her family before we talk about what she heard from Brad Schwartz after this event with Brian Stidham.

was a drug dealer. And and then at a certain point lord Has decides she needs to turn her life around, and she puts herself through law school and gets a law degree and goes to work for the Pima County Attorney's office, where she you know, by all accounts, she was a good prosecutor. And and yes, you would think with this kind of background she might be aware of certain things going wrong, but again, you know, not making the good decisions. She's working at the County Attorney's office.

Her her foster daughter has an eye condition that requires her to go to Brad Schwartz for treatment, right, and and that's how they met. And doctor Schwartz treated her her foster daughter's eyes and did very well. Lordus was impressed, and Brad showed an interest in her, and she was flattered that this doctor was interested in her. He apparently told her at the beginning that he was separated and

not married. She says that she did not know he was married and would not have started an affair with the married man. By the time she found out, it was probably too late for them to just write it off, and his marriage broke up and he was with lords by when during this whole federal case, when she is she's about she knows she's about to be indicted. The dea tells her that this is bad and you need

to tell your boss. She didn't. She's about to be indicted, and they say, you need to tell your boss, and she didn't, And so when it was inevitable that she was going to be indicted, the county attorney requested that she resigned. She didn't fire her, but Lords was allowed to resign and she still kept her law degree though, so she became a criminal defense attorney. And all this time she has this on and off relationship with Brad Schwartz.

It's very tumultuous and friends did not like her. Friends did not like Brad Schwartz, but they you know, she she was, she was an adult. She could if she was going to go back to him. She was going to go back to him after even a domestic violence incident that they were both charged with and so, but

they remained in there off and on relationship. And when after Brian comes to town, things seems to seemed to calm down a bunch and it was actually there was a period of time where Lordus and Brad were happy. They found a house to move in together, and they were going to get married, and that was in the spring of two thousand and four. And shortly after they moved in together and they were engaged, Lordis realized that he was cheating on her too, and so they had

a breakup. It was not it was not amicable. It was it was pretty bitter and and and also during this and then but then they still kept in touch and she always said she still loved him. When when the dea Raid came and uh, no, this was sorry, that was previous. When uh, in the fall of October. In October of two thousand and four, Uh, when Brian was killed. Uh, Lordis and Brad had still been in contact on on probably a regular basis, but not together.

And Lord Is remembered, you know, up until this point, she had not said anything to anybody, But when she finds out that Brian has been killed, she remembers all the times during the dea Raid and afterward when Brad felt this resentment toward Brian. She remembered all the times that he threatened violence, that he wanted Brian hurt or his reputation damaged or even killed. And and that's when she starts confiding in some of her friends and saying, what do I do When they say, Lord, does she

have to talk to someone? And she doesn't immediately And then but right, oh, go ahead, something.

has five thousand dollars. And soon after that, Danny asks if he could take the kids to Nebraska, and Lord just decides against it. Then they find out that Danny Lopez is killed in Nebraska in a police shootout, and he has a photocopied picture of Brian's Stidham in his wallet, and there's you know, for what you know, especially what prosecutors later said, there's no reason for him to have

a picture of Brian Stidham and his wallet. And did Brad Schwartz pay him five thousand dollars give him Brian's picture and tell him to kill him. But we'll never know m but Lad was putting this all together in her head in the days after Brian was found slain.

might abuse people wrongfully. At the same time, he is telling other people and as I mentioned Danny Lopez and that idea that he may have tried to recruit him for something nefarious, there are other people that and he's having relationships. So tell us about some of these other relationships, how they come about, and what is the kind of information that he imparts to these people. It seems pretty quick into a relationship.

who didn't who met him either in his practice. There was one who went to his practice and he learned that she had gang ties, and so he asked her, well, what about these gang ties? Do you know somebody who

could have someone killed? Or maybe you know someone Brad was interested in dating, you know, do you know, can you can you take these these these child pictures and and my own children and put them in Brian Brian's office so that people would find them and think that he's into child pornography and his reputation would be damaged, or somebody who can you know, bash his fingers so

he can't perform anymore. And all these people, and yet none of these people and Lord is primarily when when this man is saying this to them, nobody thinks he's serious. Brian also, or Brad rather also has this infatuation with the Sopranos and the Italian mafia, and so a lot of people passed this off as you know, he's just talking crap. Nobody does these things. He's a doctor, he's

you know, an Ivy League doctor. People just don't go around doing things these rumors also got back to Brian, and he even confronted a mutual friend of theirs and said, you know, I'm hearing that, you know, Brad saying bad things about me and he might even want me killed. And the other doctor says, that's ridiculous. Nobody's gonna do that. You know, just just maintain it's okay. You know, what are you gonna do. The cops can't do anything. He

hasn't done anything. You're just gonna go to the cops and say, I've heard these rumors. So everybody dismissed these rumors. Everybody did.

they have her in contact because she's now single. Like I'd mentioned this in the third engagement, he's offering her a ring. What does he say to her about his hate rich for Brian.

life has been shattered because of this one person. And so, like many many people before her, Lisa Goldberg hears these stories about Brian and sees this this anger toward him to blame Brian for everything that's going wrong with Brad's life.

He was in this bad car accident and he's in a lot of pain, and so he starts self medicating and he tries, it would seem like he tries to get away from the bad elements in his life by coming out to Arizona. Apparently he had a friend up in Scottsdale, and that's how he first came to Arizona. And and most of what has gone wrong criminal wise in Bruce Bigger's life is getting into fights most time, getting beat not or beating someone up, getting in trouble

for things like that. And on one occasion when he's in Tucson, he's in a bad fight and the cops are called and and Bruce Bigger's his one eye is so badly damaged that he gets referred to Brad Schwartz for for treatment for his his eye injury. And and

that's that's how we know. Even Lisa Goldberg and other people had different stories about they that they said they heard from Brad Schwartz from the official records, we know that Bruce Bigger saw Brad Schwartz as a patient at the beginning, right, you.

they're going out to dinner that night. And and in the meantime when she's at his apartment, she sees signs that he's looking for other women on on websites, so that causes a bit of a tiff when he comes home. So, so he comes home and they get ready to go out to dinner, and they go to this restaurant that uh Brad favors, and and then all of a sudden, you know, Brad's getting these calls and asks her, Oh, I have a friend you mind if this friend joins me,

joins us, and so so she she agrees, uh. This This this person is brought to the restaurant in a taxi, appears a bit disheveled and a bit odd. Lisa's told that this man, Bruce was in in uh addiction treatment in an a That's how he met Brad. That's how

Brad and this man met. But the man also asks for a beer, and she's thinking that's not something somebody who's in treatment should be asking for, and he doesn't have any money on him, and and then, probably much to her dismay, after the dinner, Brad says that he needs to find Bruce a place to stay. And so they're driving around Tucson looking for a hotel for this man Bruce and Lisa. Here's these things that sound kind of odd. Brad asks the man, how di does scrubs

work out for you? Oh? Yeah, that was great, And she also reports that this was the man that she had seen earlier at his practice and that he had he had some knives on his bicycle and and odd things like that that weren't adding up to her and making it very suspicious. But eventually, after going to a couple of hotels, they find one that has a vacancy, and Brad takes Bruce into the hotel, checks him in, and pays for the room, and then he and Lisa go off to enjoy the rest of their evening.

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killed or hurt or injured. And so then yes, they started looking at at Brad Schwartz, trying to deduce his movements that day, and and and just slowly piecing it together. And eventually one of those people who came together and actually pulled a lot of the pieces of the puzzles

together for them was lord Aslopez. And she finally went to first her friends at the Sheriff's apartment, because being a prosecutor, she knew many of them, and she went to the lead detective, Jill Murphy, and said, I, you know, I think Brad might have had something to do with this. At the same time, Brad was calling her after he was arrested, well this was after he was arrested and calling her and saying, help me, help me. I had nothing to do with this. And from the first moment

that Brian was found killed, Brad told her. He went to her and he said, I had nothing to do with this. I had nothing to do with this. I'm innocent, Believe me. I didn't have anything to do with Brian being hurt. And she was very conflict about all this, and her friends, you know, some of her friends still in the prosecutor's office, saying, lord is you have to

go to police, you have to tell them. And so they start piecing together, and especially once Lisa Goldberg comes into the picture and says, I'm dating this man who used to work with this man who was killed, and these strange things happened on the day he was killed. And once she comes into the picture and she actually the sheriff's apartment tries to get her to to wear a wire and too and to call him and and

try to get him to say something incriminating. At the same time, Lisa Goldberg, for whatever reason, whatever Brad Schwartz has about him, Lisa Goldberg actually you know it, go through with it and basically tips them off. But anyway, there but all of these pieces are starting to come together, and the detectives look into this Bruce Bigger, who they didn't know at first what his real name was, but eventually they conclude that it's it's Bruce Bigger and he

has something to do with it. They get the surveillance tape from the hotel that they eventually went to where where Brad checked uh Bruce into the hotel, and and at the same time, they have surveillance tape of Brad the next day going into a bank and making a ten thousand dollars withdraw And then they they they they're tracing brad steps, they're tracing Bruce's steps, and and they find these people who had been in touch with Bigger in the days after the murder, who report seeing him

with a wad of money. So they pieced together the hotel, Brad paying for the hotel, going to the bank. Then all of a sudden, even though they do not have any any eyewitness or surveillance account of Brad giving Bigger the money, certainly inferences Brad withdrawals ten thousand dollars. All of a sudden, Bruce Bigger is seen with a load of money and treating his friends to a Las Vegas vacation. So it's all starting to come together for them, and

then that's when they make the arrest. There was a lot of pressure on the Peina County Sheriff to find the person who killed Brian Stoodham because the whole town was upset. We have drive by shootings, we have gang you know, gang fights and things like that. You know that you're used to hearing about. But to have a young popular is surgeon and stabbed to death in the parking lot of his medical complex in midtown Tuson, not even a bad neighborhood, very unusual to have that happen.

So there was a lot of pressure, and so ten days after Brian was found slain, Brad Schwartz and Bruce Bigger were arrested and charged with his murder.

he's trying to get information on on the case. And and Lieutenant Hunt is aware of this, and and and you know, it's almost this and Lieutenant Hunt eventually loses his uh, his his license to practice, not practice law, but to be a law enforcement officer because of this, and it and in relaying information to Brad or through this this woman that they both know who is dating Lieutenant Hunt, and so so so so Brad is is very interested in in trying to find out how the

investigation is going, not so much about, you know, trying to heal from the trauma of Brian's death or or anything like that, but just very interested in trying to figure out what is going on with the case. And and you know, presumably who's going to be arrested for it and charged or if anybody. So so there's a lot of you know, there's so many interweavings at this

time with this case. And and and certainly you would think at one point that that Brad would be aware that they're looking at him, but seeing that he's never

actually talked about this. We don't know what he was thinking at the time, but but this is just what we know from other people coming in and and the p McKenny Sheriff's department being aware that there was somebody on the inside who seems to be giving information to the people that they're trying to question to find out what what happened and who killed Brian.

death and you know, even with with also again Lisa Goldberg telling Lisa, you know, I didn't do this and you're my alibi, and all of this making everyone even more suspicious that he's doing it. You know, if you have nothing to do with something, you don't have to try to talk people into believing that you had nothing

to do with it. Right, So all of these suspicions and just the way that Brad is acting and trying to set up himself as being first of all being the wronged party and then having absolutely nothing to do with it despite everything that he's told everybody about how he wants to see Brian Stidham hurt.

they're both arrested. What do they get from warrant in terms of Brad's apartment, if anything, and what information do they have after interviews with both of these gentlemen.

doing that day? Just have to ask and so they can have something later to come back with them and say, you know, you lied about this, you lied about that. They never did that with Brad Schwartz or Bruce Bigger, and so they actually by the time they arrested Brad, the first thing that he wanted to do was call a lawyer, and and he called He called first, he called Lords and said Lords, Lordus, you're my friend, you're

my lawyer. You have to help me. And of course lordas is you know, not telling him, but if certainly I'm the one who turned you in. And then he eventually calls another lawyer who helped him through his his legal troubles in federal court and dealing with the medical board to get his license back, because by this time, that's another strange twist. By this time in his life, Brad Schwartz was two months away from getting his full

medical privileges back. He'd complied with everything the court's and told him to do, and so he had most of his privileges back. The only thing that he didn't have was he couldn't write prescriptions for very strong drugs like vik it in and so so that's a very odd case too, because maybe two years prior he was out of a job, he didn't have his practice and everything.

But but as as prosecutors would say, this is you know, this toxic rage was building within him, so that even at this point where he's almost got everything back, he's well on his way to making a million dollars a year again, just like before. And that's when Brian gets killed. So so so yes, instead of going to and again I think probably this is a reflection of the pressure that was on the sheriff's apartment that they decide, Okay, we've got enough evidence, we've got enough people, let's go

and arrest them. And yet they have. They don't have a murder weapon, they don't have a paper trail that leads directly from Brad Schwartz to Bruce Bigger, but they have these these chain of events that they can use to say Brad Schwartz was the one who had the vendetta against Brian Sinnam and all of these people say so, and then Bruce Bigger comes into the picture, and then on the night of the murder, they're seen together. On the day after the murder, there's a withdrawal from a bank.

There's all of a sudden, Yeah, Bigger's scene with this money. So they kind of connect the dots with these disinformation because neither Brad nor Bruce were talked to before they were arrested, and neither one of them would talk afterwards, except Bigger would just tell a TV station that he's innocent, he didn't have anything to do with it. So they never got any kind of official statement from them before or we really don't know, you know, the direct story from either one of them.

And yet then they find out that it was Schwartz who was actually trying to get these inmates to back them up, and so they were discredited and not believable definitely in court. So yes, they did try different ways, and you know, certainly try to get Schwartz and Bigger implicated somehow, but there's no direct implication from anyone, no credible source that either one of them ever had a jail house confession or anything like that.

and also in her life too so. But yet, as you said, she still felt very strongly for him, had very strong feelings for him, and especially in the days after Brian was found killed, and then especially after he was arrested, and she knows a lot of it is he was arrested on the basis of what she told the Sheriff's department about statements that he'd made to her, and how she tried to calm him down, and just when she thought he was calmed down enough that that

all of a sudden, it would erupt again and and she would see that rage, and and it, you know, it tore them apart, and and you know, basically ruined in large part both of their lives. In in the months before Brian's death, and so for her to actually then realize that he had made these statements to her, and and and that perhaps this and this guilt came

upon her too. Is had she said anything, If she had said anything months before, you know, could something have happened, could someone have interceded, you know, could they have calmed him down? Or again, you know, just or as you know, Brian Wentz said to his friend if if, if he's confronted about it, will make him even more angry. And so she never knew along with that, knowing him as well as she did, would it have helped or would

it have hurt more? And so so so when she's talking to police, she's very conflicted, and she shows that and and she's actually, you know, at this point, showing signs that she she knows that she needs to do the right thing and tell them everything about what she's heard Brad say about Brian Stidham. And uh, sorry, what was the other part of your question.

will become clear. But the problem was that the prosecutor. Now, this case had to be taken out of the Pema County Attorney's Office's hands because of Lords Lopez. She was a pemain of prosecutor. So since she is involved in this case, they had to give it to Panell County. But they gave it to a former Pima County attorney who was, you know, a hardline attorney prosecutor, and it was clear through the hearings leading up to the trial

that she and Schwartz just hated each other. It was very obvious from Schwartz's reactions to things she said in court, and he actually ended up not testifying because they were afraid that his anger toward the prosecutor would hurt him more than his answers to certain things like the things that Lisa Goldberg said, and he actually told me a few of those that actually sounds plausible that you know,

he could. He had an answer about the scrubs, He had an answer about knives that she said, that bigger head on his bike, and things like that, and so so it was anticipated for a long time to actually finally hear what Brad Schwartz had to say about everything,

but eventually they decide not to do it. But they have this parade of people, we called them the cast of characters, so many that we had to we did this whole display in the paper about who was who, from lords to all the women, the girlfriends, to the office workers and people like that who came in and testified that, you know, I was I drew bred Schwartz's blood for his you know, regular drug tests, and he asks me if my boyfriend can have Brian Stidam killed

and all this, and it's just it's mind boggling. It was really mind boggling and fascinating, and it drew national press.

They had forty eight hours there in twenty twenty and shows like that that we're looking at this case because it was just first of all that you know, the victim was this young popular eye surgeon, then that they charged this other eye surgeon with hiring a most unlikely hit man, and then you have all of these people coming in and time after time saying he told me he wanted to have him killed, but I didn't believe him.

He told me that he wanted to have his reputation damage, but I didn't believe him, or I didn't want to do it, or you know, several people said I just needed money from him, and I just said what I needed to until he gave me some money, and then I went away and I ignored his calls, and and it was just an unbelievable parade of people coming in and you know, you're just sitting there thinking, had someone

spoken up, would Brian Sidham still be alive. And then on top of all that, the main accuser, of course, that the witness that everybody wanted to see was lord As Lopez and it wasn't by any means any kind of dramatic kind of Perry Mason moment where she stands up and points her finger at him, but very very damaging that it's her her testimony that really wraps everything up for the prosecutors and cements it and kind of rings in everybody's ears that this woman who loved him

and loved him enough to marry him and become a joined the Jewish faith for him and heard him say all these things and never did anything, and that she had this information that tied it all together and pointed the finger figures really squarely at her former fiance.

no defensive wounds is he knew the killer. But in this case, there's no no reason to suggest that that Brian Sidham knew Bruce Bigger at all, but it is it is very curious at the time that they think Brian Sidham was killed, which he had set the alarm for his office at seven twenty six, and that's the last movement we see of him. You know, we know that he did. His body isn't found till ten ten thirty, but that's the last movement we can see from him.

That parking lot at that time was very dark, not good lighting, and and it was deserted. There were just a few cars there for you know, there was a doctor working late and everything, but very still not a lot of traffic going by that time of day for this complex. So so a darkened parking lot and Brian had his driver's door open. We know that because of the blood spatter, and so you know at the time Bruce Bigger did not look like and you know, he

looked bad. He had a bashed in face from his car crash, and he was a drug addict and he looked bad and his mugshot, he joked in court later he could do anything to get rid of that mud shot. So the thing being that rivest him allowed this person to walk up to him, stab him multiple times with no putting up, no fight, not jumping in his car, closing the door to get away from attack, but instead walking toward his office. And that's where his body was felt.

They can see where the blood is and where he parked his car are usually and and his body is found as if he's walking toward his office and just collapses. So it's so it's very odd that that that this is how it's done. Uh. They they never found the murder weapon. It was kind of curious that they actually they took jurors to the crime scene, and the jurors were looking all around so they could orient themselves in. And one of the jurors even asked, did you guys

look on the roof for a knife? And the Sheriff's department said no, So who knows where was the knife? Getcarded along the way, you know, when they traced Bruce Bigger's path, what they say is Bruce Bigger's path away from the murder scene and then back to Schwartz. Certainly nothing was found in dumpsters. Brian Stidham's car was found days later, several days later, but other than the blood spatter,

they didn't find anything. There was a very minute piece of DNA on a knob that in in the first trial, prosecutors presented as very very low odds that it was anything but Bruce Bigger. But then the defense came back and said no, they could be Bruce Bigger or a million other people. So the DNA evidence was was basically a wash. So it wasn't it wasn't convincing to convict them. It was all the dots that prosecutors laid out to present to jurors that that made them say, yes, yes,

he hired him. They they had contacts and then they rendezvoued and then the next day the money drop was made. So so that's that's how you know that the cases were wrapped up, certainly, and still both of them, both of them always insisting they didn't do it. And I had some I had some contact with Schwartz in the mail. We had some correspondence because after the trial, I you know, as a reporter, you know you're not going to talk

to them before the trial. But but I asked to interview him, and his lawyer said, well, write the questions down. I'll give him to him first. He said no, wouldn't answer them.

And and I was very surprised when I was doing the updating for this book, looking at the appeals, because both men are still actively in their appeals, that there's one big twist that I was not expecting and which I don't want to say is what it is, because people have to read the book. But for a case that is just almost unbelievable. You can't make this stuff up kind of thing. The latest twist is just outrageous.

never verified her movements that day. And and but they you know, they were focused on Brad Schwartz, certainly, and at one point the uh, the lead detective, because I was just it's just me, you know, when I when I when I get a murder case or something or anything, I want to get inside someone's head. So this whole time, I'm thinking, I want to get inside Stidham's head, I

want to get inside Schwartz's head. I want to get inside Bigger's head, and I want to figure out how all these lives came together and ended so disastrously for all of them. And so so as part of that, I'm really curious because you never you never get to hear the defense side until the trial. You hear all of the States case, and you never get to hear the defense side till trial. And in this case, we

have no statements to go on or anything. And she came up to me and she said, you don't still believe that Schwartz is innocent and all this, And I said, I'm not saying that, but you had a first suspect, Daphne stood him, and you know, how is she cleared? And her response was basically, well, if you knew her, you know she couldn't do something like this. And I thought, is that how you rule out murder suspects? You know, there's a lot of things to me that don't fit.

I mean, of course, Schwartz and Bigger and the juries convicted them, but there's still so many things in case that don't fit. If Bruce Bigger had access to a gun, was the plan really to go to the parking lot and stab him to death? And then why did Brian have no defensive wounds if a stranger was stabbing him to death? There was It wasn't like there was one fatal wound and then the rest were post mortem or anything like that. You know, there were a couple of wounds.

I believe that that would have caused death, but not it would have wouldn't have taken him down right away. Obviously it didn't because he walked away from the car. And there's just a lot of things that are just very strange about this case. And you know, and just you know, poor doctor Stidham that he lost his life for whatever reason, you know, uh, bred Schwartz basically put a finger at Daphney Stidham. So so that's that's his explanation for that. He says Brian was having an affair.

Daphne found out about it, she certainly would have had time to, you know, go there, kill him, come back, wait for the cops. And we'll never know because they never you know, explored that that part of it. But that's what Brad Schwartz says.

I don't think they perceived him as a threat. Now if he had been you know, yeah, you know, maybe it was because he was a doctor, I don't know, but but it didn't seem odd to me that that was anything too unusual for them to do, because they did have to free up his hands so he could call whoever he wanted to call, his lawyer, Lords and uh and Mike Picoretta, who was his other lawyer at

the time. But it didn't strike me as as favoring him because at the same time, the sheriff decided to call, you know, make a purp call, call all the media to say, you know, come take a picture of the guy that we arrested for Brian stid OF's death. So, yeah, that kind of thing. I wouldn't I don't think is showing too much favoritism. And of course we don't know what would have happened because they never he didn't want to talk to them and so they didn't question him.

That we didn't see any kind of you know, special handling of that kind of thing. So I don't think he got special treatment, and he might have even gotten you know, if it had been anyone else, would would the cops have actually gone to him and talked to him before they arrested him and gotten a statement at

least that they could use later against him. That always seems kind of odd to me that they never talked to him, and so yeah, maybe things were I don't think it worked in his favor though, anything that they did.

Can you tell us if there's a Facebook page or your website or how the people might take a look at this work or anything else that you might do.