The killing itself was perpetuated by her 18-year-old friend Kyle Hulbert, who had a history of mental illness; 21-year-old Michael Pfohl and 19-year-old Katherine Inglis were accessories to the crime.
[1] The case made national headlines due to Schwartz's prominence in the scientific community and for claims that his murder was related to role-playing games and the occult.
In 1978, he was co-author with Margaret Dayhoff of a key paper in Science providing the first experimental evidence of Lynn Margulis' theory of the symbiogenetic origin of cellular mitochondria and chloroplasts.
[4] On December 8, 2001, Michael Pfohl, accompanied by his girlfriend Katherine Inglis, drove Kyle Hulbert to Schwartz's Leesburg, Virginia, farmhouse.
Police identified Pfohl as the owner of a car that called a tow truck for assistance near the house around the time of the murder and brought him and his girlfriend Inglis in for an interrogation.
"[2] However, Patrick, testifying for the prosecution, stated that Clara spoke increasingly about killing Schwartz and had researched herbal poisons in order to make his death appear natural.