Posted on 03/20/2005 6:06:29 PM PST by Former Military Chick
He's been vilified on Web sites and talk shows. He's been called a wife-abuser, an adulterer, a money-grubbing murderer.
Death threats have been left in his mailbox.
Throngs of protesters have waved signs and chanted outside his house in Clearwater, Fla., and they have gathered again.
Sometimes, even Michael Schiavo's friends have wondered why, in the face of all that, he didn't just walk away.
It would have been easier for him to relinquish guardianship of his severely incapacitated wife, Terri, to her parents.
So why not give it up, leave Terri's feeding tube in, let her parents care for her? After all, he is living with another woman now and they have two children.
"Because he's sticking by what he promised," Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said in a recent interview. "He wants to honor the last thing he can give to her."
Physicians have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and will never improve. Michael Schiavo has said his wife told him she would not want to live like this.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, formerly of Huntingdon Valley, say she is responsive and can be helped. They say that, as a Catholic, she would choose life at all costs.
On Friday, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which has been in place for all but two brief stretches of time since she collapsed in 1990, was removed. It could be brief this time as well. The House is expected today to consider a Senate bill that would allow Schiavo's parents to take their case to federal court.
Throughout the protracted legal battle, the Schindlers have made their religious views, their personal anguish, and their mistrust of Michael Schiavo a public cause.
Intensely private, according to his family and friends, Michael Schiavo has rarely spoken publicly about the matter, out of respect for his wife's privacy. Through his brother, he declined to be interviewed for this story.
However, in recent days he has gone on national TV to reiterate that Terri would not have wanted to live like this and criticize politicians for getting involved in a deeply personal matter.
His brother and friends also have decided that it's time to speak up. The mudslinging, they said, has become too ugly, too nasty.
"I have a friend who I think has been maligned," said Russ Hyden of Gainesville, Fla.
"We're tired of it. We're done. It's time people know who he is," said Scott Schiavo, who lives in Levittown near where the brothers were raised.
The thing is, even if Michael Schiavo wins the final court battle, and Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed, he really hasn't won at all, Scott said.
"He's already lost," he said. "He's already lost Terri."
Social with friends, but reclusive
His brother and friends describe Michael Schiavo as social within his circle of friends, but otherwise almost reclusive. Except for the No Trespassing sign on his front lawn and the armed guards he's occasionally hired to protect his home, he's tried to grasp whatever shreds of normalcy he can.
His friends don't see the demon that protesters who have hurled insults at him do.
Wilma Mackay, a 65-year-old retiree from Palm Harbor, Fla., who watched her husband and brother die of cancer, sees a man who is "the epitome of loyalty."
Bonnie Rowley of Largo, Fla., a friend for about a decade, sees someone who "stands strong on what he believes in, and that is Terri Schiavo. If I needed a health-care advocate, he'd be my first choice. I know he'd be there till the end, and he'd give it one hell of a fight."
Michael Schiavo, 41, was the youngest of five boys. Six-foot-seven, athletic and model-handsome, he met Terri Schindler at Bucks County Community College in 1982.
She had graduated from Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, he from Woodrow Wilson High School in Bristol Township.
Married two years later, they moved to Florida, where, early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, Michael Schiavo has testified, he awoke to the sound of a thud and found Terri on the floor in the hallway, unconscious.
They had been married a little over five years.
He has spent three times as long - the last 15 years - first trying to bring her back, then trying to let her go, his friends and brother say.
In the beginning, they say, Schiavo was relentless in his search for his wife's cure. She underwent various therapies.
He rented a house large enough for him and Terri's parents, who had moved to the area.
He made sure she was dressed every day. He applied her makeup and dabbed on perfume, Rowley said.
He went to school to become a nurse, "because he wanted to take care of Terri," Scott said. "He swore that he could get Terri better... . One doctor said: 'Mike, you know what? There's nothing else we can do. The next time Terri gets sick, why don't you just let nature take its course?' And Mike wouldn't do it."
Death and defining moments
Many of the defining moments of Michael Schiavo's life have revolved around death.
In 1988, his grandmother was hospitalized with a serious illness. She had signed a "do not resuscitate" order, Scott Schiavo said, but when she worsened in the middle of the night, no one looked at her records.
"It took them I don't know how long to get her breathing again. They stuck a ventilator down her throat." To little avail. "She was brain-dead," Scott Schiavo recalled.
All the family could do was wait until medications that kept her heart beating wore off. It took a day and a half, he said.
After the funeral, the family went to the Buck Hotel in Feasterville. Scott and Terri were sitting next to each other at a large table, where the conversation turned to how upset their grandmother would have been at her final hours.
Terri turned to him, Scott Schiavo said, "and she said, 'Not me, no way, I don't want that.' She says, 'If I'm ever like that, oh, don't let me. Pull that tube out of me.' " Scott Schiavo said he testified about the incident in 2000.
Several years after Terri collapsed, Michael Schiavo's mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Eventually, medical complications required the removal of her feeding tube, Scott said. "It's not like we said: 'Turn it off.' "
She was kept "peaceful and out of pain" until she died, Scott said.
Then their father died.
Eventually, Scott said, his brother realized he would have to let Terri go, too.
The Schindlers - who did not respond to a request for an interview made through their lawyer - have been distrustful of his motives partly because, they have said, no one mentioned Terri's wishes until years after her collapse.
But, Scott said, "it's not something you think about while Mike's trying to save her life... . It's something that people do when there's nothing left to do."
This particular fight has not come without a price.
"I give Mike all the credit in the world, because I would have snapped already. I know how bad it hurts me when I hear people talking about him and downing him," Scott Schiavo said.
Most of all, Scott said, "the thing that tears him up is he worries at nighttime, if he's working. He's afraid for the kids and Jodi."
Love and moral dilemmas
Michael Schiavo met his girlfriend, identified in court records as Jodi Centonze, about a decade ago.
Initially, Rowley, who was Centonze's friend, didn't know what to think. The court battles had not yet heated up, but she knew the situation with Terri.
When Rowley met Michael Schiavo, what she noticed first was his "great smile, a gentle smile."
Gradually, her respect grew. "He could have stepped off and divorced Terri five years ago, when this really hit the court. And got married and started his family that way," Rowley said.
The couple has two toddlers - a daughter and a son. Michael Schiavo works in the medical unit of the Pinellas County Jail.
Both Centonze and Michael Schiavo had to face "their own moral dilemmas as far as having children out of wedlock," Rowley said. "But the two of them weren't getting any younger... So does that make him a bad person because he did that? Did he fluff his responsibility to Terri at any point? No."
It is Centonze, Scott Schiavo said, who now does all Terri's laundry. "She's been unbelievable. She supported Mike in everything he did... . She's gone with Mike to visit Terri. She's helped Mike clean Terri up."
Centonze has been a flashpoint for Michael Schiavo's critics who think it is a reason to disqualify him to be Terri's guardian. His living with Centonze "abrogates the covenant of marriage," said Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, who was among the demonstrators outside the hospice on Friday.
Looking back on it now, Scott thinks his brother "just wanted somebody to love him." He equates it with a widower who remarries, "but it doesn't mean that that person stopped loving their spouse that passed on. Mike was very lonely. I mean, he was a 26-year-old kid" when Terri collapsed.
"It's hard to imagine the circumstances he lived under," friend Russ Hyden said. "There was no closure, yet there was no companionship either. That's the worst possible scenario."
Hyden had met Schiavo in 1991. Hyden's pregnant wife had been diagnosed with cancer. A mutual friend thought they "might have something in common. And we did."
But it was more than that they were both going through "life-changing ordeals," Hyden said. "We both liked to play a little golf. We enjoyed each other's company."
Hyden scoffs at the accusations about Schiavo taking the malpractice money awarded to Terri. "If there was so much money, where was that money when I first met Mike? Why wasn't he driving a big car and living in a big home? He was driving a Jeep and living in an apartment."
Hyden's wife lived for almost three more years. He and Schiavo spoke or saw each other several times a week.
"He was always great with my kids," Hyden said. Hyden's daughter was 2, his son 7, and Michael brought them gifts.
"He spent a great deal of time helping me put my family back together," Hyden said. "Perhaps it was because his had fallen so tragically apart."
Sympathy for Terri's parents
In a way, Michael Schiavo has said he can sympathize with Terri's parents. "I have children, and, you know, I couldn't even fathom what it would be like to lose a child," he said in an interview on Nightline last week.
But, he continued, "they know the condition Terri is in. They were there in the beginning. They heard the doctors. They know that Terri's in a persistent vegetative state. They testified to that at the original trial. Fifteen years - you've got to come to grips with it sometime."
He said Terri would "always be a part of my life.
"And to sit here and be called a murderer and an adulterer by people that don't know me, and a governor stepping into my personal, private life, who doesn't know me either? And using his personal gain to win votes, just like the legislators are doing right now, pandering to the religious right, to the people up there, the antiabortion people, standing outside of Tallahassee?
"What kind of government is this? This is a human being. This is not right."
In a way, Michael Schiavo's world still revolves around Terri. He calls every day and visits several times a week, Scott Schiavo said. He can still talk to her, even if she doesn't talk back.
Michael Schiavo yesterday told CNN that he had a "sense of relief" now that the feeding tube had been removed and he promised to "stay by her side" till the end.
"This is her time...," he said. "I will love her and I will hold her hand."
--------------------------
Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 610-701-7635 or sbauers@phillynews.com.
Congress tries again to stop Schiavo death
Timeline of the Terri Schiavo Case
Recent court rulings and other materials related to the Terri Schiavo case:
5 Wishes a Site that helps one prepare if one is unable to speak for themselves.
Yes. That's why the radiologist made a statement like "Somebody beat her up pretty bad."
There was no police involvement, and the radiologist had no way to know the circumstances of her being there. All he did was take and inspect the xrays.
The Schindlers - who did not respond to a request for an interview made through their lawyer - have been distrustful of his motives partly because, they have said, no one mentioned Terri's wishes until years after her collapse. But, Scott said, "it's not something you think about while Mike's trying to save her life... . It's something that people do when there's nothing left to do."
Your quote
It's because of his treatment of her. Contrary to his claims of how well he treated her, the preponderance of evidence indicates he despised her, and wanted her dead quite soon after he got the lawsuit settlement.
Those witnesses, volunteered to give their affidavits, and they have absolutely nothing to gain.
Michael has money, remarrying, no time out to have to deal with Terri, or the Lawyer, or the media.
He has contradicted himself, and tried to blame everyone else for 'his problems'.
He keeps her room dark and cold, has had personal effects removed.
He doesn't want her given water by mouth as she may choke to death.
At least it would me more merciful than dehydrating and starving her to death over a likely two week period.
In Michaels defence and please believe me when I say I not all too comfortable taking his side but only because if he is so devoted and desirous that her wishes be carried out than he should not be unfaithful to her.
But the article says that early on he did provide very good care and theorapy. It was not until he was convinced that she was never going to recover and that she was PVS that her began to whithold care. Now if she is truely PVS then it's not like whe knows or cares so maybe in his eyes he is doing her no harm.
Now did this just coincidently happen at the same time Terri was awarded the $1 million? I don't know but if so it doesn't look good.
I still wish he would have divorced her even if he is telling the truth that he is only trying to do what Terri requested by not letting her live in a condition like this his getting a mistress kinda says to me that he's not really all too concerned about her wishes.
Then again maybe she would want him to move on with his life.
Who really knows?
Larry King: Michael, what is the motivation of Terri's parents to fight to keep her alive?
Scumball: I guess to make my life hell.
Larry King: Michael, would you take a polygraph?
Scumball: I better refrain from
answering that.
I've seen you. I know you now. I smell the evil. Before this ends they'll be justice for Terri.
There was no police involvement, and the radiologist had no way to know the circumstances of her being there. All he did was take and inspect the xrays.
This is not how it works in a hospital.
If foul play is suspected the hospital/doctors have to report this to the police.
Why didn't that happen?
It's not the radiologist job to do that.
Is the hospital part of this larger consiparcy too?
Why do I get a bad vibe when I see the nick "Howlin". Is he/she the resident troll here or something? One of Wlat's buddies perhaps?
This is my running list of conspirators...
I was commenting Friday how this has to be the biggest conspiracy of all time.
The hospital/doctors who treated her after her collapse. kill her.
Micheal.
Felos.
Greer.
The doctors who diagnosed her a PVS.
The Gardian ad litem who agreed with the PVS diagnosis.
The pinellas County Sheriff.
Hospice.
MSM.
The hospital/doctors who treated her after her collapse for not reporting her obvious compression fractures which is obvious proof that Michael tried to kill her.
It has been said that Greer and Felos have a financial stake in the hospice which makes no sense that they would want Terri dead because it is to their advantage to fill beds not empty them.
The Gardian ad litem is anti Terri's Law so he lied.
Hospice migh have drugged her before the Gardian ad litem came so she couldn't respond.
The MSM repeats the lies that she is PVS because they are part of the culture of death.
The doctors who diagnosed her as PVS because they are part of the culture of death.
Felos because he is pro euthenasia.
It would also be to Felo's advantage to keep Terri alive until he milked all the settlement money.
The Pinellas County Sheriff who refused to investigate the attempted murder allegations Terri's parents brought forward after learing some years later of the compreshion fractures because he is a friend/campain contributor to Greer.
I'm sure I've forgotten someone but you get my point.
The majority opinion expressed here is so far fetched that it is completely unbelievable.
Why people just can't make the simple argument that Terri should not be killed because it is morally and ethically wrong and leave it at that I do not understand.
Instead they insist on building these wild conspiracy therories which discredits them is just plain stupid.
I know there are a great deal of emotions over this case but you and many others are doing yourself and ultimatly Terri a disservice and libelling many in their wake.
This case has made FreeRepublic look as kooky as our friends at DU.
ABSOLUTE BS, you are so right. And whatever else he may or may not be he is ABSOLUTELY an adulterer.
He should have obtained a divorce. I sincerely doubt that Judge Greer, as GAL would have denied it to him.
Talk about your barf alerts!
He's a holy, sainted man Micheal Schiavo is. He's suffered like no other, loved like no other. He's a fine, fine fellow. He lives just to bury his family. That heathen woman, she's letting him down.
Ack, the guy is a nurse! Don't let this sleazo near my sick bed, that's all I can say.
Update
Addeed abusive guardian
This is my running list of conspirators...
I was commenting Friday how this has to be the biggest conspiracy of all time.
The hospital/doctors who treated her after her collapse. kill her.
Micheal.
Felos.
Greer.
The doctors who diagnosed her a PVS.
The Gardian ad litem who agreed with the PVS diagnosis.
The pinellas County Sheriff.
Hospice.
MSM.
The abusive guardian.
The hospital/doctors who treated her after her collapse for not reporting her obvious compression fractures which is obvious proof that Michael tried to kill her.
It has been said that Greer and Felos have a financial stake in the hospice which makes no sense that they would want Terri dead because it is to their advantage to fill beds not empty them.
The Gardian ad litem is anti Terri's Law so he lied.
Hospice migh have drugged her before the Gardian ad litem came so she couldn't respond.
The MSM repeats the lies that she is PVS because they are part of the culture of death.
The doctors who diagnosed her as PVS because they are part of the culture of death.
Felos because he is pro euthenasia.
It would also be to Felo's advantage to keep Terri alive until he milked all the settlement money.
The Pinellas County Sheriff who refused to investigate the attempted murder allegations Terri's parents brought forward after learing some years later of the compreshion fractures because he is a friend/campain contributor to Greer.
The abusive gaudrian who would fly into a rage if he discovered anyone was trying to give Terri speach therapy and who would change Terri's patient charts to please Michael.
I'm sure I've forgotten someone but you get my point.
The majority opinion expressed here is so far fetched that it is completely unbelievable.
Why people just can't make the simple argument that Terri should not be killed because it is morally and ethically wrong and leave it at that I do not understand.
Instead they insist on building these wild conspiracy therories which discredits them is just plain stupid.
I know there are a great deal of emotions over this case but you and many others are doing yourself and ultimatly Terri a disservice and libelling many in their wake.
This case has made FreeRepublic look as kooky as our friends at DU.
"I guess to make my life hell."
Oh my GOD! Did he really say that on Larry King? I can't beleive I never heard this quote before.
That's it, if this is true any lingering, niggling doubt I might have had about this man's sincerity is removed. He is nothing but an inept and cowardly murderer, who couldn't get the job done himself, and now wants "the system" to finish the job. What a truly evil man.
I quoted right off the Larry King rebroadcast that just finished airing. From 11-02 originally, I think.
...This case has made FreeRepublic look as kooky as our friends at DU.
.....
Well - guess we are just kooky.
Guess it is kooky to care that a 40 year old lady is being killed by a husband right in front of our eyes with state support. Dang - how dumb and ignorant can we be.
Guess it is kooky to speak up when we see a new defining line as to when life is ended. WHO IS DECIDING ALL OF THESE REASONS TO KILL OFF OUR WEAK? (Pure kookiness)
But - you see - I get highly irate when I see people mistreating the weak, changing the death criteria in America, when I see judges that are not impartial ruling a case for years and not appearing to provide any respect or rights to the parents and Terri.
I also get really scared when I see how many Freepers see nothing wrong with killing others when THEY DECIDE THAT PERSON WOULD NOT WANT TO LIVE ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN STANDARDS. I depend on these freepers and I am very afraid of what will happen to our country with the death culture making such great strides on all fronts.
Kooky, kooky, kooky.
..
Michael did not call 911. At some point he called the Schindlers. Terri's brother came to the apartment and found Terri on the floor, inert and unresponsive. It was he who called for emergency aid. Bobby said that Michael was sitting in another room as if in a daze.
She was taken to an ER where a desperate effort was made to revive her. It's not like they gave her a physical.
>> She is in a coma. <<
She was for all practical purposes dead. She was not breathing at all and not responsive.
>> The doctors find these compression fractures and conclude that her condition is a result or likely result of these injuries.<<
The ER doctors knew nothing of this. The bone scan was taken a year later.
Interestingly, Michael's lawyers later concealed the incriminating bone scan from the Schindlers, for years, along with Terri's other medical records. It was only revealed by accident. Whether the court knew about it is disputed. But if it did know and didn't pursue an investigation for criminal assault on Terri, it was grossly negligent. That would be one more -- fatal -- error in Judge Greer's biased handling of the case.
Keep in mind there was only one possible suspect in this assault -- Michael.
I asked two FR physicians to examine the scan and both affirmed that Terri had suffered major traumas. Her injuries were far worse than anything she could have suffered by "collapsing." The injuries are consistent with a beating or the stress of fighting desperately to breathe while she was being smothered.
Michael is a big man, twice Terri's size. The injuries sharply suggest that he got on her back, pinning her down with one knee on her back and one on her leg (bones fractured in both spots) and smothered her.
Another point. If Michael did win the malpractice suit for "whatever" and, in actuality, he caused the damage to her through something and failed to provide CPR, would he be required to repay those funds should his guilt be discovered?
We've all wondered why such a strong interest in her death and logically it is because of Michael rather than because of Terri since he is a control freak.
How come he is surrounded on all sides by euthanasia proponents - the hospice, his lawyer, the owner of the hospice and major euthanasia promoter and Judge Greer?
It is not kooky to want to defend life.
Sigh...
I find it hard to believe that these injuries are a rusult of major truma sustained the night she collapsed and the doctors who traded her that night failed to notice them?
She collapesed for unknown reason and they don't do a physical?
They tried to revive her and when they couldn't they just say oh well?
We don't know what happended but hey we don't do physicals on practically dead people. People who are practically dead for some unkown reason?
Still not buying it.
I would think that would be reasonable but the fact remains that a jury has already determined that malpractice was the cause.
How come he is surrounded on all sides by euthanasia proponents - the hospice, his lawyer, the owner of the hospice and major euthanasia promoter and Judge Greer?
I'm not very good at coming up with conspiracies. Why do you think it is?
Begging your pardon, there is no conspiracy theory involved. There is, however, strong medical evidence, from blood chemistry as well as the bone scan, that Michael Schiavo tried to smother his wife in 1990 in the course of an ordinary domestic fight.
Well you know how we are - same was done with Scott, OJ, anything we are all fired up about. We all throw in our theories while we wait for the news.
Sometimes, we figure things out. Same kookiness that appears at the watercooler.
Its funny ist it 40,000 children are aborted a day just in this country and not one man can stop what a woman wants to do with her body !
And yet this one man is allowed to murder his wife only on heresay his heresay with no medical exam to probe the facts and being dead she would be immediatly cremated with once again no exam i doubt very much if he's telling the truth about anything .
We kill to many of our own in this country
Every female in this country has the right to abortion if they want it and no man can stop them through any court its been tried and tried to no avail
Why should mike be able to Kill his wife who at the least is or has at the momment the mind of a child .
Now i hear there are recordings of her responding to her father recent recordings would prove she is not a vegatable but a victim of some sinister plot to shut her up .
Whats mike got to lose after 15 years of torture or the judge for that matter ....?
We do know what happened to her. It took time to develop the information. A person can be smothered with few or no external marks.
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