M. William Phelps

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, a 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.

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.

And 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

In 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 have never suspected, something hard to fathom, taking me into a world of live-action role-playing, dark and twisted fantasies, mythical worlds some believed were real, and even the creepy, sadistic, underground world

of vampires.

My name is M. William Phelps.

I'm an investigative journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of dozens of true crime books.

From Sony Music Entertainment and M. William Phelps, LLC, you are listening to Fatal Fantasy.

This is episode one.