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“I love her to death”, Michael Schiavo says about his new wife, Jodi, the woman he lived with for nearly 10 years while still married to Terri Schindler-Schiavo.
Strange choice of words.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Matt Lauer, aired Sunday night on “Dateline”, Michael Schiavo continued to insist that he loved Terri until her death and honored his wedding vows, to love, honor and cherish---til death do us part.
Of course he lived in adultery for over 10 years with Jodi Centonze, fathered at least two illegitimate children and fought with Terri’s parents bitterly in his efforts to end her life.
Although it was obvious that Michael Schiavo had rehearsed his responses, his body language gave him away and his temper and selfishness were boldly exhibited. Me, me, me, it’s what he wanted, not what Terri wanted. It wasn’t about Terri’s wishes, it was, and still is, about his. HE didn’t want to divorce Terri, it was HIS life, HE was mad because people were trying to tell HIM what to do. Selfish, controlling and abusive, domineering—that’s the persona that exudes from Michael Schiavo.
He also exhibits just what he really thought of his wedding vows when Lauer asked him why he didn’t divorce Terri when he was living with Jodi Centonze.
“Why do I have to divorce Terri?”, Michael defiantly responds.
Because Michael Schiavo exchanged his wedding vows with Terri in a Catholic church. Because the Ten Commandments say thou shall not commit adultery. They also say thou shall not commit murder.
And because adultery is illegal in the state of Florida.
His jaw movements and tongue in his cheek indicated that he was uncomfortable when discussing the timing of the 911 call the night of Terri’s collapse on Feb. 25, 1990. He continues to maintain that he called 911 immediately, that he held Terri in his arms, but all of the evidence disputes that. The police report indicates that the 911 call was not received until 5:40 a.m. although in the interview with Lauer he maintains that he heard a “thud” and found her lying face down “on the ground”---not the floor, the ground.
When Lauer asked him about the allegations that he waited to call 911 after Terri collapsed in 1990, he said “they’re wrong. I heard the thud, ran to Terri. Called after that little gasp, I mean, it was within a minute I was on the phone with 911. They can think whatever”.
So why can’t he get his story straight and why do the official records in the case dispute him----and why didn’t he try to administer CPR, a life-saving exercise for which he had received training as an employee of McDonald’s. The inconsistencies in Michael Schiavo’s story are troubling, to say the least.
He testified in a 1992 medical malpractice trial that he found Terri collapsed at 5 a.m. He said in a 2003 television interview that he found her about 4:30 a.m. The records clearly indicate that he didn’t place the 911 call until 5:40 a.m., AFTER he had called Terri’s father and AFTER Bob Schindler told him to call 911.
There is virtually no argument that between 40 and 70 minutes elapsed before he called for medical assistance for Terri, but yet he continues to blatantly, defiantly make false statements about that night. On that basis alone, clearly contradicted by witnesses and records, it’s obvious that Michael Schiavo isn’t telling the whole truth about Terri’s collapse---or anything else for that matter. Michael Schiavo has absolutely no credibility.
One gets a chilling, almost evil sense of the real Michael Schiavo when Lauer comments that Schiavo’s new book, supposedly telling the truth (not necessarily the whole truth and nothing but the truth) about Terri, is not a book that honors Terri but rather a book that “in some ways settles some scores”.
Michael diabolically laughs, obviously tickled with himself and yes, “Oh yes it does”.
His mindset is clearly demonstrated when Lauer asks him why he just didn’t get on with his life and allow the Schindlers to take care of Terri, that even Jodi had said to him “Give it up”.
Once again, he indicates it was all about Michael, not Terri and emphasizes that he “wasn’t gonna let anybody stand in my way” with braggadocio. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t. You know, my parents, they raised me to be a fighter”.
According to his book though, Michael and Jodi left out a key part of the story when talking with Matt Lauer. In his “book of truth”, they claim that when Jodi asked him to “give up the fight”, he agreed and called his lead attorney, George Felos. Felos wouldn’t let him “give up the fight, reminding him the case was now bigger than Terri Schiavo. Felos said it was about everyone who wanted to be able to refuse medical treatment, everyone who didn’t want the government to intervene in their lives, according to Schiavo’s book.
Terri Schiavo truly was the guinea pig for the euthanasia movement spearheaded by George Felos. Felos convinced Schiavo to continue on his march to kill Terri. It wasn’t about Terri’s wish. It wasn’t about Terri. It was what Felos and the death cult wanted. As many have long suspected and said, Felos, Hospice of Florida Suncoast, Mary Labyak, Martha Lenderman and many others in the culture of death used Michael Schiavo to further their goals. Did the end justify the means--- killing an innocent disabled woman to further their goals and bring their agenda to the national spotlight and ripping the hearts out of the Schindler family?
Felos got Schiavo fired up again and Michael went home and told Jodi he wasn’t “giving it up”, he wasn’t allowing Terri to live, wasn’t allowing the Schindlers to take care of her.
And in response, Jodi left with the kids. Somehow they chose to leave that out of the Dateline interview.
“You had to live what I lived, Matt, to understand”, Michael says. Once again, it wasn’t about Terri, it was about Michael. “I wasn’t going to give Terri back to somebody who wanted to do what they wanted to do with Terri”, he says referring to her parents who wanted to keep her life, give her therapy and love her.
He wasn’t going to give her back because George Felos wouldn’t let him.
That’s what Michael does best, fights and argues and displays his abusive nature, which started to come through several times during the interview, although he had obviously been told to hold it in check. As an after thought to Lauer’s question, he adds, “‘And I was doing something that Terri wanted”.
Michael first, Terri second.
He forgot to mention it was what George Felos wanted.
If one steps outside the emotion and just listens to Michael Schiavo and watches his body movements, you can hear the phoniness in his voice, the staged responses, the insincerity, and see what questions and issues strike a nerve with him by the way he moves his body and clenches his fists.
Michael maintains that they had the “perfect marriage” but her family, friends and co-workers say otherwise and reveal that she had expressed a real fear of him just days before her unexplained collapse. It was far from a perfect marriage-----but it may have become the perfect murder.
Michael also makes another telling slip in his story----which is probably why Felos limited his public appearances and even his trial testimony---because the more Michael Schiavo talks, the more he implicates himself.
During a segment of the interview, Lauer questions him about the argument in Terri’s room at the nursing home on Feb. 14, 1993 between himself and Terri’s father, with Schiavo claiming that Bob Schindler wanted money from the malpractice award that Schiavo had received just months earlier.
“I’m giving it all to Terri”, Schiavo claims he said but Bob Schindler says that Schiavo had told him that day there was no money, that it was all gone.
“Well, then how much is she going to give me”, Schiavo claims Bob Schindler responded. “She’s not going to give you anything, that money is in trust for her guardian” Schiavo says he responded and only after Lauder adds, “for her care” does Schiavo add “for her care” lending the impression that even as early as 1993 Schiavo considered the money to be his as Terri’s guardian, not money awarded to Terri for her rehabilitation, not money for lawyers to arrange for her death.
Lauer comments about “two sides to every story” and emphasizes that the Schindler’s version of events occurring on that date is remarkably different which clearly agitates Michael Schiavo.
Although the jury awarded the money to Terri for her rehabilitation, Schiavo makes it very clear that he had no intent of using the money for rehabilitation, claiming that he offered three times to give the money away to charity and the Schindlers refused, but Michael forget to say that one reason they refused was because they wanted the money to used as the court and jury intended it----for the therapy their daughter deserved and needed. Instead, he used the money to pay George Felos, Deborah Bushnell and others to end his wife’s life.
Michael again seems to have a problem with the “truth” as it wasn’t three times that he supposedly offered in writing to give the money to charity, it was once.
When Lauer comments that Bobby Schindler has stated publicly that he and his family have collected a great deal of evidence that “possibly suggests something violent happened to my sister the night that she collapsed and it could have been or could be that Michael doesn’t want Terri to ever speak again because if she did, she could shed some light on what happened the night she collapsed”, Michael again is defiant and visibly agitated.
Schiavo claims that Bobby has no proof and has offered him no proof. He maintains there is no evidence. He tauntingly says they have no evidence but yet there is evidence of possible abuse that was presented to Judge George Greer who refused to consider it, saying it was interesting but wasn’t germane to whether Terri should live or die, never mind that the possible abuser was the guardian who’s trying so hard to end her life. That’s germane.
What’s telling in this is that Michael Schiavo doesn’t deny that anything happened. He says---prove it which seems to imply unclean hands, a guilty mind.
So far, the Schindlers----and Terri----have been denied an investigation. There is no statute of limitations for murder. Attempts to open an investigation have been stymied at every level, at the Department of Health, in the state attorney’s office of Bernie McCabe, in the office of Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, even in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) by Gov. Bush’s Homeland Security advisor. The question has long been posed---who’s protecting Michael Schiavo and why? It wasn’t that Michael Schiavo was cleared by any investigation, no investigation has ever been allowed to go forward.
Michael questions why Mary Schindler’s attitude towards him changed from the time of malpractice trial until now---but he forgets to take into consideration that in between he went from trying to help rehabilitate Terri to facilitating her death by starvation and dehydration in probably the longest and most public execution ever. The jurors felt sorry for Terri which is why they awarded the money. One thing is for sure—the money changed everything because once he had control of the money, he ordered no more rehabilitation, entered a do not resuscitate order and tried to keep her parents and family from her, even at the time of her imminent death. Would that have been Terri’s wish?
When questioning why Mary Schindler’s attitude changed towards him, he also forgot to mention that his relationship with Jodi Schiavo allegedly started three years after Terri’s collapse, or in about 1992 and he began openly living with Jodi Centonze, while still married to Terri and refusing to divorce her which was contrary to the Schindler’s strong Roman Catholic faith. No wonder the Schindler family’s attitude changed towards Michael Schiavo.
Along the way a bone scan surfaced which indicated signs of abuse and medical testimony which indicated that Terri’s injuries could have occurred as the result of attempted strangulation. There is other evidence and other witnesses---all of which have been shoved under the table by Florida officials.
Michael Schiavo, who has even stated in depositions under oath that he has a terrible memory, somehow clearly remembers a train ride back in about 1983 when Terri was 22 years old and in talking about her disabled uncle, supposedly told Michael that “if I ever become a burden to anybody, don’t ever let me live like that”. He claims that as a result of that hearsay and unsubstantiated conversation that he decided in 1998 that his wife should die and petitioned the court for a death order. He also claims that it was in 1992 that he first recalled that conversation that he’d supposedly had with Terri. Once again, Michael has changed his story.
He’s talks about Terri’s dying in a dispassionate way, obviously pleased with himself that he was in control and could keep Terri’s brother and sister, Bobby and Suzanne, from being with Terri when she died but more importantly, keeping Terri from them. And then came the obviously well-rehearsed emotion exhibited when he tells what he supposedly did in her last seconds. There’s no evidence that exists that Michael Schiavo was even in the room when Terri Schiavo died of severe dehydration because her husband ordered it. He says the 13-day long ordeal was peaceful. Not hardly.
When Lauer asks why Michael Schiavo refused to allow Terri’s brother into her hospice room to say a final goodbye, once again, it was all about what Michael wanted, not Terri. “I didn’t want a police officer standing over her head, Matt, when she died”. But there wouldn’t have had to be a police officer had it not been for Michael Schiavo, he was the one causing the animosity, not Bobby Schindler. “I didn’t want the aura of it, you know, Bobby and I hate each other”, Michael says almost proudly.
Maybe that’s because Bobby knows the kind of person that Michael Schiavo is and knows what Terri told him just a few days before her collapse, that she was scared of Michael and wanted a divorce.
Even in death, although Michael Schiavo acknowledges that Terri’s wish probably would have been to have her brother and sister with her when she died, it was what Michael wanted that counted, not Terri.
“Do you think, Michael, in that last minute, Bobby’s in the hallway; he wants to come in---her brother. You’re walking into the room. Did you stop and think, ‘What would Terri want?’ Would she want her brother and sister?”
“I’m sure Terri would want the families to get along and be happy. But it didn’t happen. I had to get to Terri”. Me, me, me---with total disregard for anyone else in her death as he been for the last 10 years, selfish and controlling to the end.
In one of the last scenes of the interview, Lauer and Michael are shown at Terri’s gravesite, with Lauer noting that there are three dates on the gravestone, her birthday, the date of her collapse and her death.
“I kept my promise”, Lauer reads from the stone. “Why was it so important to put that on there?”
“It was very important to me” Michael said.
And that’s what it was always about and why he battled the Schindlers for over 15 years. He wasn’t going to let anyone stand in his way or anyone tell him what to do. It’s always been about what Michael Schiavo wanted, not what Terri Schindler-Schiavo would have wanted.
Even when death did them part.
June Maxam 3-27-06
© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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