Michael Schiavo has restricted who may visit his wife and when they can come, and a judge was asked recently to sort out such issues as whether the Schindlers could take photos of her before her death and what would happen to her body.
"I think a lot of the reason Michael is doing this is because of vindictiveness and maybe anger toward my family for whatever reason," said Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "It doesn't make any sense to me why he's doing this."
The Schindlers had asked Circuit Judge George Greer to allow Terri to be buried in Florida with her body intact, but the judge refused to intervene in Michael Schiavo's plans to have her cremated and interred in their native Pennsylvania.
In a court filing, the Schindlers insisted that Terri would not choose cremation.
"To Mrs. Schiavo and her nuclear family, burial without cremation is a central tenet of the Roman Catholic faith," the motion said. "They are wholly motivated by their religious belief that burial without cremation will comfort Mrs. Schiavo in death."
The family has suggested that an autopsy might confirm their claims that Michael Schiavo abused his wife before her collapse, an accusation he has repeatedly denied. It was not clear whether any autopsy would be performed, and the Pinellas County Medical Examiner's Office did not return calls seeking clarification.
The Schindlers wanted to take photographs and video of their daughter before she died, but Michael Schiavo opposed it and Greer agreed with him. The Schindlers also were unable to persuade Greer to grant their daughter a divorce so she could die with the Schindler surname.
Michael Schiavo agreed to have a priest give last rites to his wife, but when the Schindler family priest, Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, went into her room shortly before her feeding tube was removed March 18, he found another priest at her bedside, one who was brought in by the hospice at Michael Schiavo's direction.
Http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/28/schiavo.feud.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest