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- [00:05]
Lynn Vincent
Congressman Jim Davis has a reputation. He almost never gets angry. But Davis is about to get some news that will make his blood boil.
- [00:15]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
I had gone to dinner with a family friend in Washington and I got a phone call in the middle of dinner, and it was Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
- [00:24]
Lynn Vincent
Davis is a Florida Democrat. Wasserman Schultz would later rise to chair the Democratic National Committee. But when she interrupts Davis dinner in March 2005, she's a freshman in Congress for less than three months.
- [00:39]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
And she called to tell me that she was very upset because she had just found out that there was a plan to bring a bill to Congress on an extremely expedited basis.
- [00:52]
Lynn Vincent
On the phone, Wasserman Schultz tells Davis that House Majority Leader Tom delay is set to fast track a bill meant to save Terri Schiavo's life. Delay plans to call a vote without a floor debate or a quorum. That's not a huge deal. Congress waves the rules all the time. But Davis feels this vote is outrageous. In his view, the US House is about to trample on matters already decided in a state court.
- [01:21]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
It was one of the most significant examples of abuse by government ever seen.
- [01:26]
Lynn Vincent
He tells Wasserman Schultz, I understand this.
- [01:29]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Issue well enough to know we need to stand up and fight this.
- [01:42]
Lynn Vincent
From world radio and the creative team that brings you the world and everything in it. This is Lawless. I see a wicked man walking down a broken road I see ransomed man.
- [01:56]
Glenn Vinson
In the Trying not to fall for.
- [02:00]
Lynn Vincent
Gold Devil's at the door trying to.
- [02:03]
Glenn Vinson
Take control but the Lord's gonna scatter his bones.
- [02:09]
Lynn Vincent
I'm New York Times best selling author and World Magazine senior writer, Glenn Vinson. Lawless is a new true crime podcast that examines a frightening fact of American life. That not every crime is against the law. In season one of Lawless, we're investigating the Terri Schiavo story, a case that in 2005 shocked the world. This is episode four, For Love or Money. Terri Schiavo loved Florida. And she loved to drive. Two years after Michael and Terry got married, they packed up their car and left Pennsylvania for good. With Michael in the passenger seat, Terry steered their car to i95 outside Philly, stepped on the gas and headed south. It was 1986. Ferris Bueller was cutting class.
- [03:09]
Michael Schiavo
This is my ninth sick day this semester.
- [03:11]
Lynn Vincent
If I go for 10, I'm probably gonna have to barf up a lung. President Ronald Reagan was promoting liberty. And we can enlarge the family of free nations if we will defend the unalienable rights of all God's children to follow their dreams. And Tom Cruise was box office king. Talk to me, Goose. Roger, I got him. Contact 20 left at 30 miles. 900 knots closure. Even before they got married, Michael and Terry had talked about moving to Florida. Terry worked at Prudential, but Michael wasn't happy in his job outside Philadelphia. Bob and Mary Schindler owned a condo in St. Petersburg, and they agreed to let Michael and Terry rent it. And when the time came for the big move, Terry was ecstatic. As Michael and terry flew down I95 toward a sunny new chapter in life, they didn't have money, but they did have love. They had no idea they were headed into history. November 5, 1992, at the Old Pinellas county courthouse in Clearwater, Florida. Judge Philip Frederico presiding. Almost exactly two years before, Michael had filed a malpractice suit against Terry's OBGYN, Dr. Steven Igel, and her general practitioner, Dr. Joel Prower. On Terri's behalf, Michael claimed she had suffered from a secret battle with bulimia and that both doctors should have caught it. At first, both Igel and Prower denied this claim. I visited the old Courthouse twice in 2021. It's neoclassical, tan brick with four towering white columns. It's a big contrast with the sleek flagship headquarters of Scientology, which sits within sight half a block away. On my first visit, Covid restrictions kept me out of the courthouse. On my second visit, a very kind deputy gave me a tour.
- [05:31]
Bobby Schindler
Downstairs used to be the holding cell, the original jail.
- [05:35]
Lynn Vincent
How old is this building? This is a hundred years. 100 years ago. Some Pinellas county lawyers call this the Inherit the Wind courthouse, after the 1960 film that dramatized the infamous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. The wood panel courtroom looks just like the one in the movie. It was in this place that Michael Scheibo and Terry Witham took their first steps into legal and medical history. Though Terry was a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, she wasn't in the courtroom. But she could have been, easily. In fact, Michael's attorneys had initially planned to wheel her in, introduce her to the jury. But in the end, they made a video to show the jury instead. More on that later. The malpractice Trial begins at 9am Dr. Steven Igel takes a seat beside his defense attorney, Ken Deacon. On the advice of his insurance company, Dr. Joel Prower had settled out of court for a quarter of a million dollars. But on the eve of trial, Igol rejected a settlement offer. A couple of possibilities here as to why either Igel's insurance Company thought they could win the case. Or Igel himself didn't believe he'd done anything wrong. But Glen Woodworth immediately gets to work trying to prove Igol had done something wrong. Remember, Woodworth is Michael's attorney. He's a malpractice lawyer from Tampa Bay. Woodworth builds his argument on several data points, Terry's iced tea habit and her life threatening potassium level. Terry also had irregular menstrual cycles, but her mother, Mary Schindler, said that wasn't unusual for her daughter. When Terri visited Drs. Igel and Prower, they just would always.
- [07:51]
Glenn Vinson
Say, oh, you know, just watch your period or, you know, make sure that you get them regularly. Well, Terry never had irregular periods, ever.
- [08:00]
Lynn Vincent
And now Woodworth argues everyone knows why, because Terry had bulimia. Woodworth also emphasizes Terry's weight loss, which he says caused stretch marks and sagging skin. Woodworth calls Michael to the witness stand.
- [08:16]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
After you all moved to Florida, did Terry lose more weight?
- [08:20]
Cindy Brashers
Yes, you did.
- [08:21]
Lynn Vincent
Michael Schiavo still hasn't responded to my multiple interview requests. So that's not his voice, but it is his testimony. There's no courtroom audio available for the malpractice trial. These are voice actors.
- [08:35]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
And how far down the weight scale did she go?
- [08:38]
Cindy Brashers
I can remember Terry being about 110, 115 pounds.
- [08:43]
Lynn Vincent
But Igle's defense attorney, Ken Deacon, gets Michael to admit that he rarely saw Terri because they worked opposite shifts. Deacon also produces Terri's medical records, which seem to show that Michael's memory of her weight, including claims of wild swings of 20 to 25 pounds, actually conflicts with documented evidence. Deacon tells the jury that when Terri saw her GP, Dr. Prower, in 1987, she weighed 119 pounds. That was the year after she and Michael moved to Florida. Two years later, she saw Dr. Igel. He recorded her weight at 121 pounds. That was 1989. The year after that, Terry visited Igle again. Her weight, 124 pounds. That visit was in February 1990, the same month Michael says he found Terri unresponsive on their hallway floor. But in court, it's not always hard data that sways a jury. Sometimes it's which lawyer has the more compelling story. Deacon represented an insurance company and Woodworth. He was fighting for a tragic young couple in love. After Michael and Terry moved down From Pennsylvania in 1986, they settled into the Schindler's condo. Terry got that job at a prudential branch in St. Pete. At first, Michael struggled to find work, so the couple was Often late on the rent. But the Schindlers let it slide. After a couple years of job hopping through the restaurant industry, Michael Michael landed the manager job with the Greco brothers at their high end Italian restaurant, Agostino's. A few months later, the Schindlers sold their Philly area home after Bob's material handling business failed. Then they too moved to St. Pete and so did Terry's brother Bobby. Because Michael and Terry worked opposite schedules, Terry spent a lot of time with her parents and their friends Fran Kastler and Sherry Payne. Sometimes, Sherry remembers, Michael came along too.
- [11:11]
Glenn Vinson
The one that really sticks out was when we were at that concert at Pass the Grill, right, and they shut off the street, you know, no cars could come. So we had blankets and everything. And Terry was there and Michael, her husband was there, Bob and Mary and the Clings were there and it was so much fun.
- [11:36]
Lynn Vincent
Terry's olive skin browned in the Florida sun. A family photo from that period shows her smiling on a beach in a bandeau bikini with pastel geometrics. She's tanned and slim, but with womanly curves. No more beach trips now though. No more bikinis. Terry's in a nursing home, completely dependent on her caregivers. It's been tough on everyone. For Michael, money isn't just tight, it's almost non existent. Unable to work, he lives on Terry's disability payments from Social Security and the stress of her care weighs on him as he slogs through a haze of depression and sometimes rage. By this time, Terry lives in a nursing home called Sable Palms and Michael isn't happy with the care she's getting. He starts railing against the Sable Palms staff, hunts down staff members and chews them out, asking why they aren't doing their jobs. Michael's friend Dan Greco says he doesn't remember that happening, but if it's true, it's understandable.
- [12:52]
Bobby Schindler
Here's a guy that's 26 or 27, his life, as he expected, it just ended on a Sunday morning, right, in 1990. You're angry at it. He's on your angry. He was angry with me, but he was angry at everybody. He was angry at life. How do you deal with something like that? I mean, those first three years were horrible.
- [13:18]
Lynn Vincent
Michael files grievance forms against the nursing home staff, one report after another, accumulating a stack of complaints an inch thick. Years later, after Michael filed his petition to have Terry's feeding tube removed, a court appointed Investigator would interview 313 members of the Sable Palm staff. Several said Michael yelled in the hallways, intimidated staff and brought nurses to tears. The staff learns to dread his tirades. They say he's a bully, harassing them about Terry's care and screaming at them when they don't follow his instructions to the letter. But several witnesses at the time notice Michael's dedication. Michael Schiavo is a nursing home administrator's nightmare. He has had nurses, aides, administrators in tears because of his overbearing demeanor and demands that Terry get the best care possible. That's attorney George Filos. He'll become a major figure in the Terri Schiavo case. You'll meet filos in episode six. Dr. David Barris also has great regard for Michael. Barris says Michael is devoted to Terry, perhaps obsessively so. Bob and Mary also notice Michael's dedication. They never thought their daughter had an eating disorder, but it sounds plausible at least. What else could explain what happened? And Michael tells them that if he wins the case, the money is going.
- [14:52]
Glenn Vinson
To be used for her to be taken care of, you know, and she's going to have a house that's for him on one side, and then the other side is going to be a house for her with everything in it that she could possibly have, like rehab and nurses.
- [15:14]
Lynn Vincent
But Bobby Schindler is a little more cautious.
- [15:16]
Michael Schiavo
My dad was spending all of his savings. He wasn't receiving any rent from the condo that he was letting Michael and Terry stay at the time. And yeah, I just said, make sure Michael honors what he says. And I remember my father said that he wasn't going to do that, that he had trusted that Michael would do what he said he was going to do.
- [15:41]
Lynn Vincent
Back in courtroom B, Michael testifies to exactly that. Not only will he take care of Taylor Terry, he's going to study nursing so he can bring her home, take care of her himself. In other testimony, Michael says he never noticed any unusual eating habits and he had no indication whatsoever that Terri had an eating disorder. She ate a huge omelet most Sundays, cooked it and ate it all. Sometimes the couple would order in, we'd.
- [16:12]
Cindy Brashers
Order a pizza and shoot. She'd eat practically all of it.
- [16:15]
Lynn Vincent
Doctors also testify on Terry's behalf, including Dr. Barris. From the witness stand, he tells the jury about Terry's cognition, what she can and can't do. He says that Sable Palm therapists have been able to get Terry to follow a one step command. Not always, but she could do it. Baris said this Terry might be able to regain some brain function and make progress. Glen Woodworth wants the Jury to see for themselves what Terry's life is like. So he shows them a 20 minute video. Michael rises from his chair at the plaintiff's table and joins Woodworth on the main floor of the courtroom. From there, he narrates what's happening in the video.
- [17:02]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Mike, if you will, just as we go along, tell the jury what's happening here.
- [17:08]
Cindy Brashers
Right here. Basically, you can see she's already had her shower and everything. We would get her dressed, put her shoes and socks on.
- [17:18]
Lynn Vincent
The video goes on and Michael tells the jury what they're seeing. Michael and Mary working together to care for Terry.
- [17:26]
Cindy Brashers
And I usually do a little bit of range of motion.
- [17:29]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Ah, she doesn't like that very much.
- [17:31]
Cindy Brashers
No, no, she doesn't. She does feel pain.
- [17:36]
Lynn Vincent
Wait, what? Remember back in 1990, Dr. Garcia de Souza diagnosed Terry as being in a persistent vegetative state. PBS patients have sleep wake cycles, but they're not aware of their environments. And by definition, PBS patients don't feel pain. More scenes from Terry's typical day. Michael putting makeup on her, moving her between her bed and her chair, stretching out her arms and bracing her legs to prevent contractures. Terry has a feeding tube attached to her abdomen. In the video, a speech pathologist massages her lips and throat.
- [18:21]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
You're hoping he can get her to the point where she swallows.
- [18:24]
Cindy Brashers
Yes, she just swallowed that time.
- [18:27]
Lynn Vincent
If therapists can teach Terri to swallow consistently, they can take her off the feeding tube. She's gotten her food and hydration that way for two years. She'll continue to do so if she can't learn to swallow. Remember, this is November 1992. At trial, neither Michael nor his attorneys tell the jury that Terri wouldn't want to be kept alive by a feeding tube. Then Michael's attorney asks a key question.
- [18:58]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
How do you feel about being married to Terry now?
- [19:01]
Cindy Brashers
I feel wonderful. She's my life. I wouldn't trade her for the world.
- [19:08]
Lynn Vincent
Again, this isn't Michael's voice, but those are his words, read from a court transcript. Michael says he believes in his wedding vows. He chokes up at this point, shedding tears in full view of the jury. Woodworth asked the judge for a short recess, then.
- [19:28]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
You okay? Yeah.
- [19:31]
Cindy Brashers
I'm sorry.
- [19:33]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
You believe in your wedding vows? What do you mean by that?
- [19:37]
Cindy Brashers
I believe in the vows I took with my wife. I might be my through sickness and health, for richer or poor. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I'm going to do that.
- [20:02]
Lynn Vincent
In his closing statement, Woodworth makes an emotional appeal.
- [20:06]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
There is life, life inside this woman. Something is flickering there. How much we don't know. She is trapped in that body. She'll be trapped the next 51.27 years, half a century.
- [20:27]
Lynn Vincent
He's referring to the number of years doctors project that Terry will live. Michael had said he believed in his wedding vows and that he would take care of Terry for the rest of his life. That's going to cost a lot of money. Woodworth asks the jury to award the Shivos $20 million. It'll take that jury less than three hours to return a verdict. But what the jury didn't know may have been as important as what they. At the same time Michael Schiavo was giving his emotional testimony about his wife, he was seeing another woman. Had been for almost a year. Her name was Cindy Brashers. They got to be good friends, and maybe more than friends. In 2001, when the Schiavo case first crept into Tampa Bay area news, Cindy Brashers dialed into a radio call in show. I was the first girl that Michael.
- [21:32]
Glenn Vinson
Schiavo dated after his wife had a target.
- [21:34]
Lynn Vincent
Michael's relationship with Cindy didn't become public until then. Each remembers the relationship differently, and sometimes they even contradict themselves. We'll explore that in a future episode. But in a 1993 deposition, a lawyer asked Michael whether his relationship with Cindy Brashers was intimate. He said yes. But he would later say they never actually dated. And that deposition answer. Michael would say the lawyer never defined what intimate meant. But Michael and Cindy did hug and kiss. And according to Cindy, they even talked about marriage. Cindy says Michael asked her once, what would you do if I asked you to marry me? Cindy says she told Michael, I'd say, you're married to somebody else and you can't ask me that question. Michael has an explanation for all that. He says Bob Schindler told him to do it, to move on with his life. Even told Michael to go out and find somebody to sleep with. It's unclear whether Michael slept with Cindy, but they did spend a lot of time together. Cindy said they talked a lot about Terry, her condition, her medical care and how she interacted with Michael.
- [22:55]
Glenn Vinson
He said that he would go through the nursing home, and he said immediately, as soon as he got near the door, her head was already looking at the door because she would recognize his voice, right? And she would start crying when he got ready to leave.
- [23:08]
Lynn Vincent
But there are other things that don't quite line up with Michael's heartfelt testimony about how much he loved his wife. Terry loved animals and couldn't stand to see them hurt. Remember that time she thought she'd run over a cat? She was hysterical. At the time of her brain injury, Terry owned two cats, Tally and Shana. Terry found Shana first, an emaciated, flea bitten kitten on the side of the road. The vet said there was nothing to be done for Shana, but Terry disagreed. She stayed home from work for two days to nurse the kitten back to health. Later, she worried that Shana would be lonely. So Terry adopted a second cat from a shelter. Tallie. Terry picked Tallie when she found out he'd been abused. When Michael gave up the Shaiva's apartment, he had no place for the cats. Mary says she begged Michael to take Tally and Shana to a shelter. Instead, he had them euthanized. And the fact that they were Terry's, you know, why. Why would he destroy, you know, what she loved? That's Fran Castler. Why would he want to do that? I just can't imagine doing that to an animal that's perfectly healthy. I understand. If he couldn't take care of them, then you give them away, or you, you know. But you don't just put them down. Michael says it was Mary who told him to do it. Back at Old Pinellas County Courthouse, the malpractice jury doesn't know about Cindy Brashers or the Katz. They reached their verdict in 2 hours and 46 minutes. Jury's in the jury box and seated, you, Honor. They had to answer seven questions, the most important of which was, question, was there negligence on the part of Dr. Steven Igel, which was a legal cause of injury to Teresa Schiavo? The jury's answer, yes. But they don't go for the $20 million Woodworth asked for. Instead, they award Terry $4.8 million in damages. They award Michael 2.1 million for what's called the loss of consortium, the loss of Terry's companionship and affection.
- [25:37]
Bobby Schindler
The verdict was enormous. It was the biggest verdict, at least in the county that year.
- [25:43]
Lynn Vincent
But there's a catch. The jury concludes that Terry did indeed have bulimia. That means they held her partially responsible for her own brain damage.
- [25:54]
Bobby Schindler
In some states, it's called contributory negligence as the victim, if you contributed to it. In some states, you can't recover anything. In Florida, it's a comparative negligence statute, which means that the jury, they attribute percentages to the plaintiff and the defendant. So they found a 70, 30 comparison.
- [26:24]
Lynn Vincent
Negligence split that reduced the initial award by about 70%. And so some math was required. In the end, the jury awarded about $1.56 million to Terry. About 686,000 went directly to Michael. After attorney's fees, Michael says He received about 300,000 worth about 600,000. Today. It's Valentine's Day, 1993. A Sunday. Terri Schiavo sits in her chair at Sable Palm, dressed with her hair and makeup done by one of the nurses. Michael brings her a dozen red roses and sets them on a table. Then he pulls out his schoolbooks. He's taking classes to get certified as an emt. He plans to sit next to Terry while he studies for a few hours. After a while, Bob and Mary come in. They greet Michael, say hello to Terry. Then Bob walks over to Michael.
- [27:45]
Glenn Vinson
He said to him, to Michael, michael, I thought we were going to use some of this money to take care of Terry and get her rehab.
- [27:56]
Lynn Vincent
He means the money from the malpractice settlement. Since the trial, Bob had asked Michael twice about his promises to them and to Terry. Michael always said, we'll talk about it later. Then on Valentine's Day, Bob asks Michael again.
- [28:12]
Glenn Vinson
He stood up and he got so mad at Bob.
- [28:16]
Lynn Vincent
Mary says Michael tells them there is no money. And then things get heated. No one is sure who started yelling first. Michael said it was Bob. The Schindlers say it was Michael.
- [28:30]
Glenn Vinson
He took the books and he threw them off the table and they went flying up against the wall. And she's not getting any rehab. You're not getting anything.
- [28:41]
Lynn Vincent
Bob goes toe to toe with Michael, all 5 foot 8, versus Michael, 6 foot 6. The two men scream @ each other, red faced and furious, hurling accusations and threats. Mary, who's tiny at 5 foot 3, jumps up and gets between them, trying to calm them down, trying to stop one of them from punching the other. Then Michael shuts it all down and that was that.
- [29:10]
Glenn Vinson
And he walked out of the room and he says, you can talk to my attorney.
- [29:15]
Lynn Vincent
The Schindlers are devastated. And Mary is terrified about what Michael's going to do next. Michael has a different version of the Valentine's Day fight at Sable Palms. Michael says Bob planted himself in front of the chair Michael was sitting in and demanded to know about the malpractice money. How much am I going to get? Bob was talking about the money Michael had gotten for a loss of consortium. That was the only part of the jury award over which Michael had direct control. Michael says he tried to stay cool, but that Bob just kept pushing and pushing. So Michael said, you Know something? I'm just going to give it all to Terry. Michael said that's when things escalated. He says his father in law has been obsessed with a malpractice settlement. He'd driven everyone around him crazy, calculating and recalculating the numbers. Dan Greco says, bob came in to.
- [30:17]
Bobby Schindler
See me and asked how much he and Mary should be getting.
- [30:24]
Lynn Vincent
Do you remember his exact words or a close paraphrase?
- [30:29]
Bobby Schindler
Are Mary and I entitled? Are we entitled to any compensation out of this? We've taken care of Terry.
- [30:39]
Lynn Vincent
You know, would that be because they had drained their savings and mortgage their house and would like to be made whole again, that kind of thing?
- [30:49]
Bobby Schindler
I don't remember it being that, but.
- [30:51]
Lynn Vincent
Bobby Schindler says it was exactly that.
- [30:54]
Michael Schiavo
I do remember telling my dad, you know, dad, maybe you should get something in writing from Michael that he's going to use the money, you know, for tariffs and also reimburse you all the money that you, you know, to help him at the time.
- [31:10]
Lynn Vincent
Meanwhile, people outside this family fight are also concerned about Michael's behavior. Don't forget, he's clashed with the Sable Palms staff for months. But that day, February 14, 1993, Sable Palms administrator Emily Layton has had enough. She files for a restraining order against Michael. According to the filing, Michael had come to Sable Palms two days before he acted in a belligerent manner, causing fear of bodily injury to the staff members and or residents. Administrators at the nursing home talked him down. Now, though, two days later, a screaming match in Terry's room right next to where she was sitting. Layton wants to keep Michael from entering the premises and from contacting any of the staff or residents. But the restraining order doesn't go through. A judge denies the request. But Bobby Schindler isn't about to be denied. When he hears about Michael's fight with his parents, he's furious.
- [32:19]
Michael Schiavo
I had a meltdown. I got extremely upset. I got so mad I punched a hole in the hallway, my bedroom door. I was extremely mad and I grabbed my keys and I was going to go over and confront Michael.
- [32:41]
Lynn Vincent
Next time on Lawless.
- [32:43]
Cindy Brashers
He had this money that was supposed to be used to take care of Terry.
- [32:49]
Lynn Vincent
If something happened to her, that money would be his.
- [32:52]
Cindy Brashers
It wouldn't be spent on her well being, which to me was just a clear conflict of interest.
- [33:01]
Lynn Vincent
Lawless is a production of World Radio. Our executive producer is Paul Butler. Our production assistant is Lillian Hammond. Music by Will Sheehan. Lawless is reported and written by Anna Johansen Brown, Bonnie Pritchett and me, Lynn Vincent. For a list of additional audio sources in this episode, visit lawlesspodcast.com thank you for joining us.