Bradley Schwartz: Short-Sighted Ophthalmologist

One Eye Surgeon Murders Another
(“Office Visit,” Forensic Files)

Like many of the criminals featured on Forensic Files, the men who murdered  Dr. Brian Stidham obviously didn’t watch the show often enough.

For one, they didn’t know that phone contact between conspirators in the moments right before or after a murder is the kind of evidence that makes a county prosecutor’s job worth the commute.

Touching base. Dr. Bradley Schwartz, an ophthalmologist just out of drug rehab, did take some other precautions, however. He made sure he was out in public, eating at a restaurant around the time that a hired thug was stabbing Stidham to death in a parking lot in Tucson, Arizona.

The dinner alibi might have worked if not for what happened during the meal. Schwartz, who blamed his former colleague Stidham for the downfall of his medical practice, took a phone call from hitman Bruce Bigger.

And as if establishing an electronic trail to Bigger on the night of the murder weren’t enough, he had Bigger come to the restaurant and sit down at his table briefly to confirm that the crime had happened.

Victim overkilled. For this week, I checked around for an epilogue on Schwartz and Bigger. But first, here’s a recap of “Office Visit,” the Forensic Files episode about the case, along with information from internet research:

On October 5, 2004, a concerned passerby called 911 after finding a gravely injured man sprawled out on the blacktop.

Brian Stidham, age 37, had been stabbed 15 to 17 times (accounts vary) and his car was stolen, but police noted he still had his wallet with cash inside. They spotted a partly eaten slice of pizza on the ground.

Spouse’s house. Stidham was an ophthalmic surgeon; he specialized in treating children. Stidham had just finished giving a lecture to some University of Arizona medical students at the time of the attack.

When police showed up at Stidham’s house to deliver the tragic news to his wife, Daphne, she behaved in a strange way. They had to break into the house when she didn’t answer the door, and then her first words were to ask whether her husband had been “shot.”

Most viewers were probably hoping for a spouse-on-spouse murder drama, but the investigation led another way. Police ultimately chalked up Daphne Stidham’s reaction to the fact that she had taken sleeping pills that night and was disoriented.

Vehicular evidence. She mentioned that her husband had an enemy, Dr. Bradley Schwartz, a fellow ophthalmologist.

The next day, detectives found Brian Stidham’s car abandoned in an apartment building parking lot, with his blood on the inside of the door. They theorized that just after Stidham placed his pizza on the top of the car and unlocked the door, the attacker sprang into action.

The killer drove off in Stidham’s 1992 Lexus to make it look like a murder-carjacking scenario, authorities believed. But a carjacking didn’t make sense because of the extent of Stidham’s injuries. Thieves generally don’t hang around long enough to overkill their victims.

Self-destructive surgeon. Investigators routinely study any changes that happen in a victim’s life around the time of a homicide, so they took note that the Harvard Medical School graduate had recently left his position at Arizona Specialty Eye Care.

When Stidham joined the practice, he didn’t know that the Drug Enforcement Agency was investigating Schwartz, a senior partner who had recruited him for the job in 2001.

Schwartz was a prescription drug addict using the practice to illegally obtain Vicodin and Ritalin for himself.

The drug problem wasn’t the only turmoil in Schwartz’s life. He had ruined his marriage by way of affairs, some of them with mothers of his juvenile patients at the practice. There were malpractice suits pending against him. And he was allegedly a shoplifter.

Free but debilitated. The DEA raided Arizona Specialty Eye Care in December 2001, and Schwartz was ultimately indicted on 77 counts of prescription drug fraud. The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners suspended his medical license and made him undergo drug therapy in 2002.

Meanwhile, the happily married, clean-living Stidham started over with a new practice. He took many of the patients from Arizona Specialty Eye Care with him.

Once Schwartz, 39, completed drug therapy and regained his medical license, instead of being grateful for getting a second chance, he stewed.

The suspension had cost him around $750,000, according to an October 4, 2005, Arizona Daily Star story, and he resented Stidham’s defection.

Eye on one suspect. According to prosecutor Sylvia Lafferty, Schwartz, who once earned $100,000 a month, made about $118,000 annually after his suspension.

Schwartz had lost his hospital privileges and could no longer write prescriptions freely for patients.

In the days after the homicide, a number of Schwartz’s friends and colleagues and even his own wife said they suspected Schwartz had something to do with Stidham’s death.

Popularity begrudged. He had plenty of reason to envy Stidham, who was known for his kindness, upbeat personality, and dedication to patients. As the Arizona Daily Star recounted on November 4, 2004, just days after the murder:

“‘[Stidham] probably checked on my daughter seven times a day when she was in Tucson Medical Center,’ said Kristy Ross, whose toddler daughter, Castilleja, was hospitalized two years ago for a sudden eye infection. ‘There were seven doctors who worked with her, but I only remember Dr. Stidham,’ she said.”

Schwartz, who once had been “the top Tucson ophthalmologist” — and lived in a $580,000 house with his wife and three kids in the gated Paloma Canyon development — had discussed fantasies such as planting child pornography on Stidham’s computer or harming him with acid, Schwartz’s girlfriends told investigators. (His defense attorney would later say that Schwartz was only talking that way in an effort to impress the women.)

But at some point, he decided on murder instead.

Simple but stupid plan. Schwartz hired Ronald Bruce Bigger, a 39-year-old patient who was the son of a retired police officer.

For a guy who could perform delicate surgeries to reroute intraocular fluids, Schwartz didn’t come up with a particularly artful murder plan.

All investigators had to do was follow short paths from points A to B to C. They found evidence of two phone calls between Schwartz and Bigger near the time of the attack, then discovered Bigger’s DNA in the murder victim’s car.

Witnesses said they had noticed Bigger, an unemployed parolee, flashing a big roll of bills after the murder. Investigators found that Schwartz had recently cashed a check for $10,000.

Oddball exchange. Schwartz’s girlfriend Lisa Goldberg told police about how a “Bruce” had shown up during their dinner the night of the murder and given Schwartz information in what sounded like coded lingo.

Prosecutors prevail. While the authorities investigated a case against Schwartz, the community paid tribute to his victim with the Dr. Brian Stidham Children’s Memorial Walk in Sabino Canyon on November 4, 2004.

Local papers published many accounts of Stidham’s compassion.

The trial, which started in February 2006, was a media sensation far beyond Tucson. Court TV covered the proceedings, and CBS produced a 48 Hours Mystery episode called “An Eye for an Eye” about the case.

By springtime, both culprits had been convicted.

As usual, the brawn received a harsher punishment than the brain, with Bigger getting life for first-degree murder and Schwartz ending up with a minimum of 25 years for conspiracy to commit murder.

If Schwartz’s sentence seems a little light, don’t worry: Prison has been no country club.

Incarceration blues. On September 27, 2008, it was Schwartz’s turn to fall prey to a surprise attack. Schwartz had just left a creative writing class and was heading to the bathroom when a fellow inmate assaulted the former ophthalmic surgeon, leaving him with facial injuries including two broken eye sockets.

Bigger, who is inmate number 219577 in the Arizona State Prison Complex in Safford, has not adjusted well to prison life either. The Arizona Department of Corrections notes 14 disciplinary incidents, including disorderly conduct, threatening and intimidating, and harassment.

As for Daphne Stidham, she received $2.29 million from Pima County to settle claims that some local officials had prior knowledge of the murder plan but didn’t act properly to prevent it. One of the officials, Lourdes Lopez, was a former girlfriend of Bradley Schwartz.

Daphne Stidham could also take comfort in the many tributes to her husband, including a scrapbook that patients and their parents created to memorialize Brian Stidham so that his two small children would one day “know the impact their father had.”

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

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Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime.