Originally Posted - June 24, 2006

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Doug Henning he's not.

Michael Schiavo is playing smoke and mirrors, creating illusions, trying to make it appear that he's telling the truth when he's trying to divert the overwhelming suspicion away from himself.

He says in his book, "Terri" The Truth", that the facts have been twisted.

That they have………by him and he continues to twist the facts and the truth, trying to create an illusion of the ever faithful, ever loving husband when in fact, he is a vindictive, crass, greedy, adulterous bully determined to get his own way, seeking revenge against the Schindler family. They simply wanted to take their daughter home and care for her, allowing Michael to get on with his life.

Due to the high level of suspicion of criminal wrongdoing in this case and the total lack of credibility of Michael Schiavo, Terri Schindler Schiavo should not have used as the poster child for the death cult of America.

But Michael Schiavo pushed for his wife's death, not because it was her wish, but because it was his, he couldn't and wouldn't allow her to live because of his hate for the Schindlers and because he stood to inherit a great deal of money had he been successful in ending his disabled wife's life when he first tried. The harder and more determined the Schindlers were to try and save their daughter's life, the more determined Michael was to ensure her death....and the more money that went out of his pocket and into the pockets of his attorneys George Felos, Deborah Bushnell and others. The longer it took to end his wife's life, the more bitter he became against the Schindlers as the money dwindled away from his clutches.

Schiavo used the court system to murder an innocent handicapped woman based totally on self-serving and unsubstantiated hearsay which appears to have been fabricated to try and meet the standard as established in the guardianship case of In re Guardianship of Browning of clear and convincing evidence. The only thing that was clear and convincing in the Schiavo case is that Michael Schiavo and George Felos created stories that could only be substantiated by Terri Schiavo.

Had Terri Schiavo been a criminal, not only would the federal courts been accessible to her for review of the monopolistic, tyrannical decisions of Pinellas County judge George Greer, but the U.S. Supreme Court's 2004 holding in Crawford v. Washington may have been applicable. In Crawford, the Supreme Court said "testimonial" hearsay is not admissible under the Confrontation Clause when the witness is not available for cross examination. Terri Schiavo wasn't available for cross examination. Michael Schiavo, Scott Schiavo and their sister-in-law Joan Schiavo could say anything they wanted without fear of contradiction by Terri. They were far from competent witnesses.

The most clear and convincing evidence in the Schiavo case is evidence of the controlling, abusive relationship between Terri and Michael and events which occurred the day of her fatal collapse, given under oath during the January 2000 trial by her best friend Jackie Rhodes. RHODES TESTIMONY

But when Greer issued his death decision of Feb. 11, 2000, he never mentioned the Rhodes' testimony, he didn't want it on the record for appeal because her testimony clearly established a motive for murder and negated the so called clear and convincing evidence that Terri would not want to have lived. Judge George Greer deliberately omitted and disregarded the reliable testimony of Jackie Rhodes and in fact, exhibited his bias towards her and the Schindler case with his rulings made during her testimony, upholding objections by Felos who sought to keep her damaging testimony containing the motives of Michael Schiavo out of the record.

Michael Schiavo starts his book off with a lie in the opening pages. Time and time again he claims he can't remember crucial facts but yet can claim to remember other seemingly insignificant details if they serve to benefit him.

His wife, Terri Schindler Schiavo, with whom he had reportedly been arguing with the previous day and who had told her brother, sister and best friend that she was thinking of divorce Michael, mysteriously collapsed during the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 1990, with the only known witness being her husband.

Only Terri Schiavo can tell what really happened that night.

While it was to become probably the most significant 24-hours of his life, Michael Schiavo has repeatedly told different versions of what occurred and the known, uncontroverted facts of the situation contradict him about the most crucial moments of Terri's life.

Bernie McCabe's state attorney's office says that Schiavo is immune from prosecution because he has a bad memory.

If only the police officers from the St. Petersburg Police Department who had allegedly investigated the incident had been trained enough in police work and had the presence of mind to have hit the automatic redial button on the telephone, perhaps Terri Schiavo would be alive today and a criminal investigation would have ensued as it should have on Feb. 25, 1990. Instead of veterans on the job, one of the two who responded was essentially an officer in training, still on probation.

For over 10 years, Schiavo battled Terri's parents, Mary and Robert Schindler Sr. in the Florida courts trying to end Terri's life by withdrawing the feeding tube that provided her nutrition and hydration. Removal of the tube caused the brain damaged woman to die March 31, 2005 at age 41 of marked dehydration destroyed the evidence of an alleged crime and any chance of her recovery to speak and point an accusatory finger at him.

There have been repeated allegations of criminal wrongdoing in the case and violations of state statutes in regard to the protection of vulnerable and disabled adults.

Repeated demands for a criminal investigation into the matter have fallen on deaf ears with Pinellas and Pasco County state attorney Bernie McCabe claiming that the statute of limitations had passed. There is no statute of limitation for murder. Simply refusing to act in order to then claim the time to prosecute has expired is an obstruction of justice and there is growing evidence of cover ups in wrongful deaths in Pinellas County with McCabe writing them off as justified homicides.

With the rising evidence that Michael Schiavo gave perjured testimony at trial and that his attorney George Felos refused to give up the death fight even when Schiavo told him he didn't wish to continue in his march to Terri's death, a Grand Jury investigation is long overdue and warranted. Gov. Jeb Bush is statutorily and constitutionally empowered to empanel the Grand Jury and has an obligation to seek the truth in this case.

The Schindler family asserts that Michael has provided different versions of what he did before Bobby arrived at his sister's apartment that fateful morning of Feb. 25, 1990, Schiavo has testified that he held Terri, but when Bobby entered, he found his sister as the paramedics did: facedown.

In a July 1992 deposition, Michael Schiavo testified that after Terri collapsed he was holding Terri in his arms and then 'laid Terri down' so that he could call Bobby Schindler," said the dossier the family has compiled. This would indicate that if Michael Schiavo was holding Terri, as he states, he would have had to pick Terri up off the ground then, in order to call Terri's brother, lay Terri back down on her face, ostensibly making it very difficult for her to breathe, because as the police and Bobby Schindler state, Terri was found lying face down.

According to Bobby, Michael was also inaccurate in claiming that he held Terri in his arms until Bobby arrived. When he got there, says her brother, Terri was "lying on top of her arms with her hands up around the neck area, and was making a gurgling sound, struggling to breathe."

Bobby says that he himself once was the subject of a violent rage by his brother-in-law. He says that around 1984, when the family was still living in Philadelphia, they got into an argument. "I remember distinctly that Michael got so upset that he suddenly snapped, and grabbed me by the throat and threw me down on the couch, had one hand around my neck and the other was in the air ready to punch me in the face."

Other people, including a former girlfriend, have alleged Michael had a violent streak, and that they feared him. Michael was 6 foot 6 inches and 250 pounds. Terri was 5 foot 3 and weighed about 120 pounds.

Terri was overweight while in high school but never the 250 pounds that Michael Schiavo says. Virtually every time he tells the story, he increases her weight.

Depending on which version of Schiavo's story one wants to believe, he claims that on finding Terri the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, he called his father-in-law Bob Schindler Sr. and then his brother-in-law Bobby who lived in the same apartment complex. Bobby says Michael never called him.

Michael at some point called his father-in-law and told him that something was wrong with Terri. Who else did he call in the infamous time lapse of 40 to 70 minutes between the time he first claimed to have heard the "thud" of Terri falling in the hallway and the known time of 5:40 a.m. when the call to 911 was made? When did he make his first call to Daniel Grieco who quickly showed up at the hospital and convinced the Schindlers to agree to let Michael call all the shots and make all the medical decisions.

In the opening pages of his book, Schiavo claims he had been at Agostino's, the restaurant where he worked that was owned by attorney Grieco, since early afternoon on Feb. 24, 1990, and wouldn't get out there for another three hours. He claims that Terri had called him and asked him when he was coming home. Given the time factors that are known, if she did call him, it would have been between 9 and 9:30 p.m. He states that he replied to her, "I don't think I can get out of here til we close. Probably be home after midnight", which places the purported call at about 9 p.m. He then claims in yet another version of his story that he went back to work for three more hours and got home between 12:30 and 1 a.m.

He then claims he asked her "Did you do it" referring to her hair, claiming that she was going to have her hair cut short" and that her response was "You'll just have to wait and see".

Schiavo attempts to establish his alibi and lead the public down the yellow brick road from the very outset of the book which he hawks as "the truth", except it's the truth as he tells it, not as it is. He leads the public to believe that as of 9 p.m. on Feb. 24, 1990, approximately 7 ½ to 8 hours before Terri's collapse that he didn't know what the outcome was of Terri's visit to the hairdresser earlier that day.

But he did. According to his own brother, Scott Schiavo, Terri's best friend Jackie Rhodes and her brother, Bobby, Terri and Michael had quarreled earlier that day, before he left for work. Jackie says it was over her expenditure of $80 at the hair dresser's. Michael mentions nothing about the color of her hair, that she had decided to keep it blonde rather than going back to the natural brown color that he wanted. Despite the evidence to the contrary, Michael has consistently failed to mention the argument of Feb. 24 and has tried to paint a tranquil marriage.

As usual, Michael's statements have no substantiation. It's solely hearsay that could be entirely fabricated without fear of contradiction as the only witness is dead.

He claims that "she'd had an appointment to get her hair cut-real short". He also claims that she said that "I just got home from having dinner with the folks" another indication that if the call occurred, it was placed around 9 p.m. because she had called her mother upon returning home at about 8:30 p.m. Michael says that she said "Now I've got to go over to Bobby's and iron his pants" but that statement contradicts known material facts.

Terri had attended 5 p.m. Mass with her parents that Saturday, a service which lasted about an hour although Schiavo tries to maintain that neither Terri nor her parents regularly attended church. They then went to the home of Fran Casler, a friend, for dinner. After dinner, Terri returned to her parents' home with them and left about 8 p.m. When she to the apartment complex, she went to Bobby's apartment and then returned to her apartment, calling her mother about 8:30 p.m. There was no pre-arranged plan to iron Bobby's pants, his jeans. Bobby said that when she was at his apartment, he tried to talk her into going out with him and his roommate but she declined.

The known facts and times of the case are these:

Terri went to the hairdresser the morning of Feb. 24, 1990

Michael claims that he did not see Terri that morning and his testimony is inconclusive as to whether he saw her before going to work.

Between 2 and 3 p.m. on Feb. 24, Jackie Rhodes called Terri and asked about her hair.

Rhodes testified at trial in January, 2000:

"The last time I spoke to Terri was February 24th of 1990. It had been a big joke that week at work because she was going for a hair appointment on Saturday and she had dyed her hair blond. Her hair was normally blond, although she naturally had very dark hair. She had to decide whether or not she wanted to stay a blond or if she was going to go back to her natural color.

"So I called her Saturday afternoon and asked her, well, are we a blond or brunette? She said I'm still a blond. But she was very, very upset when I was talking to her. It sounded like she had been crying. I asked her if she was okay. She said she had a fight with Michael. That he was extremely upset with her because she had spent, I think she told me $80, on her hair that day to stay blond.

"So I asked her if she wanted me to come over. She didn't seem like her normal, jovial self. She said that's okay. I'm going over to Bobby's. I said are you sure. She was very upset. She said I'm going to Bobby's. I already talked to him and am going to go over as soon as we get off the phone".

At approximately 3 p.m., Terri went to Bobby's and told him that she and Michael had been fighting but she didn't elaborate. Bobby asked her to go out with him and Craig, his roommate but she declined and said that she was going to church with their parents.

She and her parents left Fran Casler's about 7 p.m. and went to the Schindlers' home. Terri left there after about a half hour and went back to Bobby's and then home, calling her mother about 8:30 p.m.

There are various versions of the incidents rendered by Michael in addition to the one related in his book.

In a statement to Dr. James Carnahan of Mediplex Rehabilitation Center on Jan. 29, 1991, Michael says that Terri got up early the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, and went into their bathroom. He says he heard her fall, landing "mostly" in the hall. He told Carnahan that he had seen what he thought was vomitus next to her head but he later blamed that from being from the cats. This is the only time that he mentioned seeing the vomit.

Michael tried to claim it belonged to Terri's cats.

It was never mentioned on the police report and there is no report of it ever being analyzed to determine the origin. He never mentioned the vomit in any of his testimony although he claims that Terri had gotten up to tend to the cats. Although his medical malpractice claim was premised on the fallacy that Terri was bulimic, he never raised the issue about the vomit at the med mal trial or any other legal proceeding.

Because of its proximity to Terri's head as related by Michael Schiavo himself, it's highly likely any existing vomitus was emitted from Terri, possibly as the result of a choke hold.

He told Carnahan that he "rolled her head to one side but couldn't rouse her. She appeared to be gasping for breath. Mike called 911".

In his Jan. 27, 1992 deposition he says:

He got in 12:30 or 1 a.m.

Q. Was your wife awake when you got in?

A. No

Q. Did you talk to her at all?

A. She said good night to me.

He then said he was getting out of bed "for some reason" and heard her fall and hit the floor, that it was seven feet from the bed to where she fell and that he didn't think her feet were still in the bathroom. When asked what time it was when he saw her, he testified he believed it was almost 5 a.m. She was lying on her back, he didn't hear any sounds before she fell. He says he was to her within two seconds, saw she had stopped breathing, ran to phone, called 911 within five seconds and panicked. He said after he called 911, he went to her, started talking to her, held her, laid her down and called Bobby.

In his Nov. 15, 1992 testimony at the medical malpractice trial, when asked what time of day he saw her on the 24th and his response was late at night, probably 11:30 or 12 by the time he got home.

Q. Your wife up?

A. I don't recall if she was up or not.

Q. Do you recall whether or not you had any conversation with her that night?

A. I might have. I don't remember that conversation.

Q. Do you recall whether or not she was there when you got up?

A. No, she usually did her food shopping when I was sleeping (testified he didn't get up until 10-10:30)

Q. You don't recall seeing her that morning?

A. Not that early.

In his Jan. 24, 2000 testimony at the guardianship trial:

Q. Michael, tell me what occurred on February 25, 1990.

A. I got home late from work that night. I came in the house. Terri woke up. She heard me. I gave her a kiss good night. She gave me a kiss good night. A few hours later, I was getting out of bed for some reason and I heard this thud. So I ran out into the hall and I found Terri on the floor. I knelt down next to her and I turned her over because she sort of fell on her face. On her stomach and face. I turned her over going, "Terri, Terri. You okay?" She kind of had this gurgling noise. I laid her down and ran over and called 911. I was hysterical. I called 911. I called her brother, who lived in the same complex as we did. I held her in my arms until her brother got there. Bobby has testified that upon his arrival, he found Terri face down. The police report says the officer found her lying face down and unconscious halfway in and halfway out of the bathroom, her head facing east out into the hallway and feet and legs pointing west on bathroom floor.

On Larry King on Oct. 27, 2003, Michael says he got home at 2 a.m., climbed into bed. "Terri said good night, gave me a kiss. I gave her a kiss back. I'd say about 4:30 I was for some reason getting out of bed…………….I rolled her over, held her in my arms. Ran over, called 911. I called her brother.

In his book, released in March, 2006, Michael says he got home somewhere between 12:30 and 1 a.m. "Terri turned toward me and mumbled "Hello", adding "See you in the morning. I love you". (He never mentioned anywhere in any of his testimony that she said 'I love you') "We kissed good night and in second, were both asleep".

He says that "sometime after 5:30 a.m. (this is the first time that he uses the 5:30 a.m. time and only after Jeb Bush had asked state attorney Bernie McCabe to investigate the 40 to 70 minute lapse in time between the time he says he heard her fall until the 911 call was made) I woke up because I needed to go to the bathroom. As I started to get out of bed, it didn't even register that Terri wasn't there. (He has testified under oath he heard her get up). "And then I heard a thud……I could see Terri on the floor, sort of on her left side facing the closet door, in the hallway outside the bathroom. She had one arm by her side and the other arm over her heard….I got down on my knees, roller her over so that she was facing me, and scooped her into my arms"………"I immediately laid her down, ran through the living room to the table phone that was about 20 feet away and dialed 911. …..Then I hung up the phone and ran back to the hallway…..When I got back to Terri, I picked her up again….then I put her back down called her parents……." Her father told him to call 911. He ran back to Terri, then ran back to the phone and called Bobby".

Bobby says that when he arrived at the apartment, Michael opened the door. Terri was lying in the hall near the bathroom, face down, right cheek against the floor, hands clenched against her chest, just beneath her neck and shortly after that, the paramedics arrived, 5:52 a.m.

In his interview with MSNBC's Matt Lauer on Dateline aired on March 26, Michael had this version:

Lauer: Take me back to the night that Terri collapsed. Talk me through that early morning.

Schiavo: I got undressed and slipped into bed. Terri woke up and she gave me a little kiss on the cheek. She said, "Goodnight. I love you." And we both went back to sleep. And somewhere around 5 a.m., I heard a thud, a loud bang.

I looked over and I noticed Terri wasn't in bed. So, I ran out in the hall and there was Terri laying on the ground.

Lauer: What'd you say to her? What were you-

Schiavo: "Terri what's wrong? Wake up. Terri. Tell me something. Talk to me. What's wrong? What's wrong?" And right there she just made this noise and no response since then. I laid her down and immediately ran over and called 911.

Lauer: (talking about the time discrepancies) The reason it's so important to their side, Michael, is that they paint a different picture of your relationship with Terri and your marriage prior to her collapse on February 25th. They say this wasn't such a happy marriage, that there were problems. And they allege, I think, that perhaps you waited to call 911 because you didn't want her to get the help-

Schiavo: That's absurd. Terri and I had a perfect marriage. Matt, Terri and I were trying to get pregnant. Now, tell me why would she have wanted to bring my child into this world if she wanted to divorce me?" Michael Schiavo has never told the same story twice.

Michael has claimed throughout that Terri was trying to get pregnant but there is absolutely no evidence of that. According to Jackie Rhodes, Michael had refused to take a sperm test which deflates his claim of "we were trying to get pregnant". Although guardian ad litem falsely claims that Terri was seeing a fertility doctor, she was not. She was consulting a gynecologist due to menstrual problems. Her mother says she never discussed any attempts to get pregnant with her and in fact, expressed discontent with her sexual relationship with Michael.

Jackie Rhodes had worked with Terri at the St. Petersburg office of Prudential Insurance Company, first meeting her in May, 1988. She said they socialized and that she would often pick up Terri on Saturday to go shopping because Michael monitored the amount of miles she put on the car although he denied it.

Schiavo had been recently unemployed and the couple was having financial problems, Jackie said. She testified that he frequently called her at work and that they argued on the phone about his working and money.

Rhodes said she last spoke with Terri on Feb. 24, 1990, after Terri had been for a hair appointment. She said she "was very, very upset when I was talking to her. It sounded like she had been crying. I asked her if she was okay. She said she had had a fight with Michael, that he was extremely upset with her because she had spent…..$80 on her hair that day to stay blond".

'So I asked her if she wanted me to come over. She didn't seem like her normal, jovial self. She said that's okay. I'm going over to Bobby's (her brother)…I already talked to him and am going to go over as soon as we get off the phone".

Bobby Schindler has also testified that Terri had talked to him about divorcing Michael as has her sister, Suzanne.

Jackie Rhodes testimony, January, 2000 trial

CAMPBELL: (Schindlers' attorney) Did you believe that Michael and Terri were getting a divorce?

RHODES: There had been several times throughout Theresa's and my friendship that she was extremely mad at Michael. That there was a lot of mental abuse.

FELOS: Your Honor, objection. That is a conclusion on the part of the witness. (But Felos had no problem allowing the three Schiavos---Michael, Scott, and Joan--- to make conclusions and offer speculative hearsay outside the presence of the only person who could have substantiated it)

GREER: Yeah, it is, coming up at an odd time in her testimony. She is in '92 now. Now all of a sudden she's getting back because of a, of something a lawyer said. I'm going to sustain the objection.

CAMPBELL: Okay. Was there, when you are saying that -- tell the Court if there were any specific examples of instances with you and Terri concerning an issue of concern between the marriage.

RHODES: When Theresa and I worked together, we sat side by side. There were days that if Michael were to call into the office, she did not want to take his phone call because they were fighting about a -- specifically, there was a period of time where Michael was not employed and they were living at the Schindlers' condo. Theresa told me that if it had not been for her parents and their condo, she didn't know where they would live because they could not afford to pay rent right now. And Michael, when he was employed, and I don't recall which employer it was, but he was very upset with the employer and things that were going on there, and he constantly would call her and threaten to quit his job. And Theresa was begging him to just look for something else and then quit when he had something else. And he did not do that because he quit that employer. He was no longer employed.

CAMPBELL: Do you know whether or not Terri specifically was seeking to get a divorce?

CAMPBELL: She had talked about it on several occasions. As a matter of fact, we had talked about living together, as my husband was very controlling to me and he asked for, my husband asked for a divorce also. Rhodes said that early the next day, on Feb. 25, 1990, she received a phone call from a work associate informing her that Terri had collapsed at her home and was in the hospital…..she had been taken by paramedics to the hospital and wasn't doing very well".

She said that the Schindlers, other family members and Michael Schiavo were at the hospital when she arrived. She said she knew that Michael knew CPR and she had asked him if he had performed it on Terri. He said no. He had only called the paramedics after being instructed to do so by Terri's father.

Rhodes said she had attended the malpractice trial which later followed in 1992 when Michael Schiavo sued the general practitioner and gynecologist who had been treating Terri. As soon as she left the courtroom on one occasion, Michael's malpractice attorney, Gary Fox, had followed her and told her it "wouldn't help the case if she testified that Michael and Terri were talking about getting a divorce.

"If I'm asked that question and that is the correct answer, that is the answer I'm going to give", she told him.

It appears that Schiavo's attorney should have been charged with witness tampering.

Although the police report taken early Feb. 25, 1990, by the St. Petersburg Police Department indicated that the incident should be routed to the homicide division, it was not and no criminal investigation of the matter has ever been conducted. In fact, the file in the case was closed out at 8:55 a.m. that very morning, just over three hours after Terri was found.

It was not until 2002 that it was revealed that a bone scan had been done on Terri in 1991, 13 months after her collapse, which showed broken bones in healing stages and it had been concluded that she had a "history of trauma".

Terri's brother, Bobby says that "several weeks prior to Terri's collapse, Terri had a breakdown at a Bennigans Restaurant. It was the first time Terri had ever discussed how unhappy she was in her relationship with Michael, although it was suspected by her demeanor when she was around Michael.

"I remember that we were sitting and having dinner with Michael, his brother Brian, and Terri asked me to go with her to the restroom", Bobby says. "Just outside the restroom in the hallway, Terri turned to me and started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she wanted to divorce Michael. I remember asking if she spoke to mom and dad about this, and Terri was adamant about not letting my father know how unhappy she was. Terri was always very protective of my father, never wanting to upset him with any of her personal problems.

"I didn't know what to say to Terri other than to try and comfort her", her brother says. "I remember being taken back how much resentment she had in her voice when she spoke about Michael and how unhappy she was being married to him. She had a tough time settling down and kept repeating to me, "Bobby, I wish I had the guts to divorce him because I would in a second."

It wasn't long after this conversation that Terri collapsed. 6-24-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette