M. William Phelps

Heather Greenfield is a local Associated Press reporter who covered the case extensively.

I reached out to her back when I began writing my book about the case to get a better lay of the land.

Dr. Schwartz and his wife, Joan, had settled in Leesburg in the early 80s and raised their three children there.

And he wasn't just a scientist.

He was famous.

Detective Greg Locke is tall and thin, sports brown hair, a thin mustache to match, and presents the overall look of a television detective, smooth and laid back.

On that day, December 10th, 2001, when the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office arrived on scene, Locke had been on the job for only a few months.

Schwartz's killer had stabbed him through his torso entirely, lodging the blade into the floor, leaving gouge marks in the wood.

That's volcanic rage, and it speaks to the personality of Schwartz's killer.

victimology becomes the number one focus.

If you think of the victim as the bullseye on a target, those closest to him are the first ring around the bullseye, and you need to speak with them first.

Family is obviously number one, but that would go along with making the death notification.

So Locke reached out to Dr. Schwartz's employer and those he worked with.

Schwartz had worked on early DNA sequencing that could actually help solve his own murder.

Back in 1978, Schwartz co-authored a white paper with Margaret Dayaw, science which had set the stage for identifying individuals by their DNA.

So if Schwartz's killer had left his or her DNA at the scene with no obvious witnesses to the murder, this research he had done to prove individuality would help law enforcement prove who had killed him by narrowing down a potential suspect pool to one person.

When I was standing along the road leading down into the Schwartz residence, it occurred to me that the road itself then, a dead end, for anyone driving down it, they either lived there, had been invited there, or might have gotten lost and wound up on the road inadvertently.

It's not one of those roads you just pass by or stumble upon.

Detective Vincent D. Benedetto had been with the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office for 15 years when the Schwartz investigation began.

D. Benedetto's expertise is documents, following the paper trail of murders and financial crimes.