No One Can Hurt Him Anymore. Scott Cupp
I believe he’s on her side. You know, as far as taking control of A.J.
Restivo: Did she mention about how he would treat A.J.?
Mason: No. No. Not that I—
Restivo: Anything else come to mind, Connie?
Mason: The abuse, I say, would be from her.
Restivo: Excuse me?
Mason: I’m saying the abuse—I could tell it was being done by her. So, whatever she said about her husband, it didn’t hit me like he was [abusing A.J.]. I thought she had a good husband because they had their home and a pool. I figured she had someone taking care of her family.
Restivo: Anything else come to mind?
Mason: I just think she held him under there.
Restivo: You think she held him under the water?
Mason: I do.
Restivo: Why do you get that feeling?
Mason: It just hit me in the gut when I seen it on TV.
Early in the afternoon on Wednesday, May 5, Detective Waites met with Ilene Logan (A.J.’s natural mother) and Patsy (A.J.’s half sister) at their home in Fort Lauderdale. Ilene told him that her ex-husband David Schwarz had been given temporary custody of both Patsy and A.J. because of an abusive situation that had occurred with another ex-husband. She said Patsy was the victim of the abuse and claimed that A.J. had not been abused. David had been given temporary custody, with the court intending for both A.J. and Patsy to be returned to her.
She had since regained custody of Patsy and claimed that three weeks before her son’s death, she had asked a judge for an emergency hearing to get A.J. back, but the request was denied.
Patsy told the detective that while she was living with David and Jessica, A.J. was fed only bread and water and sometimes was forced to eat bread off the floor. If he didn’t clean the garage “good enough,” he was not allowed to eat at all.
When he cleaned the kitty litter box, if he didn’t do it right, “his face would be put into the litter box.” He also had to clean dog feces from the backyard using his hands, but he was allowed to wear gloves.
Patsy told him about other incidents, including ones in which Jessica struck both her and A.J. She explained that she lived with Jessica and David from November 1990 until February 1992—when HRS removed her from their home. Arrangements were later made for Patsy to give a sworn statement in front of a court reporter—with Ilene present.
Later that day, Waites served a subpoena on the custodian of records for Indian Pines Elementary School for school records pertaining to Andrew J. Schwarz. The records showed that A.J. was just below normal in IQ testing. The principal of the school advised him that A.J. did not qualify for special learning disability classes, as had been requested by his stepmother.
Chris Calloway returned to Triphammer Road that afternoon to interview more neighbors. There he talked to an older woman, Shirley Leiter, who told him that every Thursday morning for the past year she had seen A.J. collecting aluminum cans from yellow recycling bins that the residents of the Concept Homes area put out in front of their homes for collection. The last time she saw A.J. was on April 29 when he stopped by her house to pick up additional cans that she had saved for him.
A.J. told her that he had been up since 4:45 that morning and that he was hungry. He couldn’t go home and eat unless he had “a whole bunch of cans,” and his stepmother would “put him in jail” if he didn’t bring enough of them home.
Leiter had given him three doughnuts.
She had become very concerned after talking to him and, about 8:00 that morning, called the CPT. She was referred to a 1-800 number. She spoke to a man named Dave Davis, who told her to call Palm Beach County Truancy. Instead, she called the Indian Pines Elementary School and spoke to a lady whom she believed to be the principal. The woman told Leiter that the school would be taking care of the problem.
Three days later, A.J.’s body was found floating in the aboveground swimming pool.
Detective Calloway next talked to Ronald Pincus Sr., the father of the young man who had seen A.J. walking his dog in the wee hours of the night. Pincus Sr. told the detective that he had heard Jessica Schwarz verbally abuse A.J. on many occasions. The weekend before A.J.’s death—on Saturday—he heard A.J. saying, in a loud voice, “I have a big mouth. I get people in trouble. I’ll never do it again.” The boy was standing in front of his own house, but Pincus Sr. could hear him inside his home.
A.J. had been repeating the phrase for two hours when Pincus Sr. left at eleven o’clock in the morning. When he returned four hours later, A.J. was still standing there, repeating the same phrase, and continued until five o’clock in the evening.
He had also heard Jessica call the boy “Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Pincus Sr.’s twelve-year-old stepdaughter, Jennifer Sullivan, told the detective that she had been in the Schwarz home at least ten times since January 1993. One of the times she was over there, she had heard Jessica tell A.J. that he was to be home by 2:10, and if he didn’t make it home by then, she would “tie him up with duct tape, throw him in the road, and run him over.”
On two different occasions, she had seen Jessica strike A.J. About a month earlier, she had been over there playing in Lauren’s room and heard Jessica say, “Come here, young man.” Jennifer walked out into the living room and saw Jessica strike A.J. on the side of the face and he went into his room and cried. When she saw him later, his eye was red.
In January of that year, she was playing in the pool in the backyard of the Schwarz home. She looked into the kitchen area of the house after she heard A.J. cry out, “Don’t do this! Please don’t!” She saw Jessica strike A.J. in the eye three times with her hand. When she later talked to A.J. about it, he told her not to tell anybody or he would get in trouble.
During Scott Cupp’s time in Live Oak—the seat of Florida’s Third Judicial Circuit—he prosecuted a case against Luz and Guillermo Hernandez, charging them with criminal responsibility in the death of their four-year-old daughter, Sonia. Sonia had suffered from birth with severe brain disorders that left her unable to sit up, nearly deaf, blind, incontinent, vegetative, and prone to fevers and infections. She died of pneumonia in 1990. The problem was that her parents hadn’t taken her to see a doctor for the two years prior to her death.
The prosecution alleged that the reason they didn’t was because they had joined the End Timers, a religious cult led by Charles Meade. The End Timers espoused faith healing instead of doctors. The cult, Meade, and the manslaughter/ child neglect case against the Hernandezes captured the attention of the Miami Herald, ABC’s 20/20, and the fledgling Court TV, which covered the trial live.
The trial brought Dr. Joseph Burton to town. The chief medical examiner for several counties in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, he specialized in pediatric pathology.
Largely because of him, the jury compromised and found the couple guilty of the medical neglect charge—but acquitted them on the manslaughter charge. The doctor convinced everyone that the child was well cared for by the parents and, in retrospect, Cupp felt that the jurors made the right decision. Little did he realize that one year later, their paths would cross again. But this time, if everything worked out the way he planned, Cupp would be asking him direct questions—instead of cross-examining him.
What Scott Cupp remembered most about Dr. Burton—from when he took the witness stand in Live Oak—was his presence and his demeanor. It was as much how he said things as it was what he said. He had an open, warm approachable manner, and Cupp couldn’t help but like him.
His credentials were outstanding and he had a reputation for testifying for defense attorneys—as well as prosecutors. That told Cupp that he was brave. If he came to an opinion in a case, he wasn’t afraid to say it—regardless of whom it helped or hurt.
After the Benz fiasco, Cupp felt as if all eyes were on him. Everyone involved in the investigation of A.J.’s