TUCSON, Ariz. — He never saw his killer, and the assault was over before there was time to fight back.

Dr. Brian Stidham was stabbed more than 15 times and his skull fractured from a "blitz attack" that lasted 30 to 90 seconds as he was getting into his car, an expert witness for the prosecution testified Thursday afternoon in the first-degree murder trial of Dr. Bradley Schwartz.

"A blitz attack, by definition, would be sudden and by surprise," Tom Bevel, a forensic consultant from Oklahoma, told lead prosecutor Sylvia Lafferty.

"Is that like saying the victim didn't see it coming?" Lafferty asked, to which Bevel responded, "Yes, that would be accurate."

Story continues

advertisement

Schwartz, 41, is accused of hiring his patient Ronald "Bruce" Bigger to kill Stidham, a 37-year-old father of two. Prosecutors say Schwartz was driven by jealousy and anger because he believed Stidham, also a pediatric ophthalmologist who once worked at the defendant's clinic, was taking patients and business away while he was in rehab for an addiction to prescription pills.

Bigger and Schwartz are being tried separately, although both are charged with first-degree murder and first-degree conspiracy to commit murder.

Schwartz's defense team contends that Stidham was killed by someone other than Bigger, possibly a known carjacker who is currently in prison but was free at the time of the murder.

For about three hours Thursday and Friday, Bevel gave jurors a lesson on the nuts and bolts of contract killing, blood spatter patterns and carjacking.

But while he was able to tell jurors his opinions about the blood patterns in Stidham's car and his thoughts about the attack that took his life, Judge Nanette Warner allowed him to speak only in general terms about the characteristics of contract "hits" and carjackings.

In pretrial hearings, Bevel characterized Bigger as an "amateurish" killer who left several clues at the scene. Though Warner's ruling prevented him from specifically telling jurors that Bigger was an inexperienced hit man and Schwartz a naïve contractor, there was no mistaking the comparison.

Bevel testified that, if you want to "take care of someone," there are two kinds of contract killers you can hire: the professional or the amateur.

"The mob knows who the professionals are. If you are not involved with the mob somehow, you're going to have to go about it in any way you can, which is typically asking different people."

The description matched perfectly with the prosecution's portrait of Schwartz as a desperate and out-of-control man who allegedly solicited patients and girlfriends to kill Stidham.

On cross-examination, Bevel conceded to Schwartz's attorney, Brick Storts, that he has investigated just five contract killings, two professional and three amateur.

Three other witnesses who were at the medical plaza the day of Stidham's murder testified Thursday and Friday that they saw a man hanging around the parking lot in either light blue or dark blue scrubs just hours before the slaying.

Prosecutors contend Bigger was hanging around the plaza in the hours before the murder dressed in scrubs to fit in.

But the three witnesses, ranging from a medical student to a receptionist for an allergist, all offered different descriptions of the man, and none was able to identify him as Bigger when investigators showed them photos of the alleged killer.

The prosecution is expected to call Schwartz's ex-wife, several of his girlfriends and a medical examiner to the stand next week. The trial is expected to last from six to eight weeks and Court TV Extra is streaming it live on the Web.