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TONIGHT:

Greta van Susteren

October 28, 2003

GRETA: Last night, Michael Schiavo broke his silence to make his case for ending his wife’s life and made some shocking accusations against Terri’s family. He said about Terri’s father, “No, because he’s always wanted the money. He always wanted money out of this. He even testified in the first trial he was angry that he didn’t get any money.

Joining us to respond is Terri’s brother Bobby Schindler. He’s joined by the Schindler family attorney, Pat Anderson. Bobby, your brother-in-law says it’s about money. Basically, your father wants the money, that’s why he doesn’t want the feeding tube removed from your sister. What’s your response?

BOBBY SCHINDLER: Well, it’s totally false, Greta. Interestingly enough, back in 1992 Michael was suing a doctor in a malpractice trial, and he was asking up to 20 million dollars to take care of Terri for the rest of his life and the rest of her life. Shortly after the malpractice money came in, in January of 1993, it was just six months later when Michael attempted to withhold antibiotics. Terri would have died from an infection she had from a urinary tract infection. She would have died, and Michael would have inherited close to a million dollars at that time. So, this notion or this accusation that my parents were in it for money is just absolutely false and just wrong.

PAT ANDERSON: Greta, the parents want to keep Terri alive. They want to keep Terri alive. It’s obvious they’re not fighting to kill her. They’re fighting to keep her alive and get her better. It has nothing to do with money for them.

GRETA: So, what’s with this money…Pat, is there….I mean, I don’t even know where the money is. I mean, I know there was a malpractice lawsuit, a successful one, but a lot of money has gone into paying for this poor woman’s medical care. Is there any money to be fighting over?

ANDERSON: Oh, no, no, no, no. No, the money has not gone for that purpose. The money’s gone into lawyer’s pockets. George Felos has received $357,000 of Terri’s money. Debbie Bushnell has received about another $90,000. All told, way more than half of the money that that jury awarded for Terri’s care has been spent on attorney’s fees and costs.

GRETA: But is there any left to fight about? How about that? Pat, that’s really my question.

ANDERSON: No. No.

GRETA: All right. Bobby, how would you describe your sister’s marriage up until the day that she went into the hospital? What was her marriage like with her husband?

SCHINDLER: Well, it was deteriorating, Greta. I mean, Terri and I had conversations prior to her collapsing that evening when she was coming to me seeking a divorce from Michael. At the time I was only in my early 20’s, and other than just listening to her, I really didn’t have much to offer as far as how to go about getting a divorce. She was extremely unhappy.

GRETA: Pat, what Michael said last night is that Terri was bulimic, and that when you constantly throw up you lose a lot of potassium, and the suggestion was that what put her into cardiac arrest was a very low potassium. True or false, and whether or not she was bulimic and this may have created a potassium deficiency?

ANDERSON: Well, the doctors I’ve consulted, and maybe Dr. Biden can shed some light on this, is that her potassium was below normal, but her blood glucose was quite elevated, so there is some speculation in the doctors I’ve consulted is that the paramedics were running a glucose solution on her before she got to the hospital, which altered her blood chemistry to that extent. The bulimia is just a theory.

GRETA: All right, and we’ll still keep digging into that. Bobby, do you ever talk to your brother-in-law? You ever have any conversations with him in the last six months or so?

SCHINDLER: No, not in the last six months. The last time I had contact with Michael is just prior to the original trial in January of 2000, and I asked him if he’d like to talk about the upcoming trial, and at the time he told me that any conversations that we would have would be through his attorney.

GRETA: And your parents, have they…I mean, has it ever been any sort of effort for all of you to sit in the room? I mean, obviously this would become a very public and disturbing problem. Any chance that even all of you sit down and somehow work this out in Terri’s best interests? Bobby?

SCHINDLER: I would love…that would be wonderful if we could do something to work this out and we can get guardianship back of Terri. All we want to do is take her home and take care of her. We just want Michael to take care of his family, and we want to take care of Terri.

ANDERSON: You know, he has an infant daughter, and he needs to concentrate on it.

GRETA: All right, Pat, Bobby. Thank you both very much.