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- [00:05]
Anna Johansson Brown
When Tom Broderson started visiting Terri Schiavo, he didn't have a specific goal in mind. He just wanted to get to know her, see for himself what her condition was. But when he hears her whisper the word no, they are in her hospital bed, he's shocked.
- [00:19]
Tom Broderson
I was just blown away.
- [00:22]
Anna Johansson Brown
This is a game changer. If Terry can be taught to communicate, even just answering yes or no questions, that could upend Michael's case. Someone could ask her if she wants to keep living or if she really does want to die. Broderson tries to get her to say yes, but she doesn't have the motor control to pull that off, so he takes a different tack.
- [00:41]
Tom Broderson
So I tried to teach her by modifying a moan to say yeah, and said, what I want you to do is I want you to moan and then close your mouth a little bit and then open it, and it'll sound like this. Oh, yeah. She was able to do that. She had the motor control, and she could answer questions.
- [01:11]
Lynn Vincent
So the thing that leaps immediately to.
- [01:14]
Tom Broderson
My mind is, why do they let somebody like me in hospice to begin with? Well, that's what happened the next day is they quit.
- [01:23]
Lynn Vincent
What?
- [01:24]
Tom Broderson
I was out of there.
- [01:36]
Anna Johansson Brown
From World Radio and the creative team that brings you the world and everything in it, this is Lawless.
- [01:41]
Glenn Beck
I see a wicked man walking down a broken road I see a ransomed man in the storm Trying not to fall for gold Devil's at the door Trying to take control but the Lord's gonna scatter his bones.
- [02:01]
Anna Johansson Brown
I'm World Radio features editor Anna Johansson Brown.
- [02:05]
Lynn Vincent
And I'm Lynn Vincent, New York Times bestsel and executive editor of World magazine. Lawless is a true crime podcast that examines a frightening fact of American life, that not every crime is against the law. In season two, we're finishing our investigation of the Terri Schiavo story, a case that, in 2005, shocked the world. This is episode two, Boneyard. As Tom Broderson tells Anna and me this story of teaching Terri to talk, I have to admit, I'm struggling with it. Why on earth didn't Broderson or the Schindlers tell anyone? If Terry really could speak, why didn't her family keep working with her to try to get her to communicate more? Broderson says he tried to get the Schindlers to pick up where he left off, but they didn't, not really.
- [03:06]
Tom Broderson
The family was in trauma. You know, this was still all life and death, and Michael was clearly in their mind. I assume the Prince of darkness and trust for the Judicial process was kind of at an all time low, and everybody was deep in trauma.
- [03:32]
Lynn Vincent
As you were telling it, I was thinking, what does Tom have to say to the skeptics? What does Tom have to say to those people who will say, oh, well, you're obviously a biased witness and, you know, why should I believe you?
- [03:53]
Tom Broderson
Well, there will always be those, and I can understand that. They don't know me. Why would they trust me? You're gonna believe what you're gonna believe, and they've already decided what they're gonna believe long before I ever came along.
- [04:15]
Anna Johansson Brown
Broderson doesn't stay around long. As Terry's guardian, Michael has control over the visitors. Listen, only people he approves can see Terry, and he can block visitors at will. Broderson doesn't know why he was taken off the list, but he has a guess.
- [04:30]
Tom Broderson
Well, it was clear who I was. I was Pat Anderson's office manager in paralegal, and she was the enemy.
- [04:41]
Anna Johansson Brown
Broderson never gets to visit Terry again. The Schindlers had always loved summers when the kids were growing up. They often traveled to Corning or the Jersey shore. Then, living in St. Petersburg, they were always close to the beach. Bobby showed us around their old neighborhood, a quiet residential area dotted with palm trees and hibiscus.
- [05:06]
Bobby Schindler
We would go to the beach. We go to the restaurants and the bars, and it was just. I remember it was a lot of fun memories that we had, just the family spending time together.
- [05:15]
Anna Johansson Brown
All that changed after Terry's collapse in 1990.
- [05:19]
Bobby Schindler
Now it was like, oh, my gosh, you know, now we have to take care of my sister. Now we have to defend her life. So it's not like even though you're still surrounded by the beauty of the beach and the beauty of Florida and the beaches and the restaurants, it just wasn't the same. After Terry's collapse. Everything felt different and not in a good way.
- [05:38]
Anna Johansson Brown
The summer of 2002 is especially tense. Every weekend, the Schindlers go to visit Terry. Mary spends Mother's Day at the nursing home. Everyone is gearing up for the October trial, where five doctors will present their findings on Terry's condition. And Judge Greer will once again decide if Terry stays alive or not. Bobby hates seeing the toll on his parents.
- [05:59]
Bobby Schindler
Seeing my parents suffer, I mean, Terry was suffering at one level, My parents were in another way, my parents were suffering terrible. I mean, just think about parents just wanting to care for their child and seeing her being abused and neglected, and there's nothing they can do about it.
- [06:16]
Lynn Vincent
Here's another reason the summer of 2002 is difficult. That's when Terry's money runs out. Here's George Felos.
- [06:24]
George Felos
Terry's medical care, nursing home care and hospice care was paid out of her guardianship fund until approximately 2002. Hospice of the Florida Suncoast had her on their indigent care list. So they provided they provided her care at the organization's expense.
- [06:46]
Lynn Vincent
Back in 1992, Michael broke down in tears on the witness stand, telling jurors all he wanted was to care for Terri at home. A few months later, the court approved a $2 million payment. 70% was earmarked for Terry's career and 30% went to compensate for Michael Schiavo's loss. Michael reports that after attorney's fees and other costs, Terry's sum dropped to about $725,000. The balance in Terry's trust account remained relatively stable throughout the 1990s. That's probably because of all the interest it accrued. It was basically self sustaining. In April 1999, nine years after Terry's brain injury, the bottom line was still $725,000.
- [07:29]
Anna Johansson Brown
But all that changed after the case went to trial in January of 2000. It's hard to be sure about exact figures since trust fund records are now sealed. But investigative journalist Diana Lynn uncovered a few figures in her book Terry's Story. Following the trial, Lynn writes, Terry's money started vanishing into the pockets of Michael's attorneys. Not right away, because Philos didn't send Terry an invoice until after the 2000 feeding tube trial. Still, by October 2002, only $110,000 remained. The next year, that number had dropped to 55,000. More on that from attorney Dan Greco.
- [08:06]
Lynn Vincent
George Feliz came in as private counsel.
- [08:09]
Tom Broderson
For Terry, so he was going to.
- [08:10]
Lynn Vincent
Be paid out of the funds that she obtained that were in her account.
- [08:15]
Tom Broderson
It shouldn't have been as much as it was because he was in the case for what, seven, eight years after that.
- [08:22]
Anna Johansson Brown
Pinellas county auditor Robert Melton says that's one of the top, quote, dirty tricks of guardianships, draining a ward's assets in a legal power struggle. Melton investigated various Florida guardianship cases in the early 2000s and presented his findings in a lecture at Eckerd College. All in all, a patchwork of court records and attorney statements show that over 60% of Terry's $725,000 covered litigation costs, not medical care.
- [08:49]
Bobby Schindler
A lot of the money was going to pay George Felos and Michael's attorneys in his pursuit to kill my sister. So the money that was intended to be used for Terry's lifelong rehabilitation and care and therapies was in fact being used to kill her.
- [09:04]
Anna Johansson Brown
But Michael saw it differently. He said the money was helping achieve what Terry herself would have wanted.
- [09:16]
Lynn Vincent
October 11, 2002. The day of the trial dawns. Clear sky and humid. This is the day the Schindlers have been waiting for for months. Soon, five doctors will present their findings on Terry's condition. By this time, Glenn Beck's show has gone national. He's exchanged the beaches of Florida for the skyline of Philadelphia. But as the court date approaches, Beck travels back down to the Sunshine State and sets up shop in a restaurant across from the courthouse.
- [09:45]
Glenn Beck
Theresa's non verbal recognizes husband.
- [09:49]
Lynn Vincent
Here he is quoting the 1993 malpractice trial transcript when Michael Schiavo's attorney argues to the jury that Terry is at least somewhat cognizant and alive.
- [10:01]
Glenn Beck
There is life, life inside this woman. Something is flickering there.
- [10:08]
Tom Broderson
How much we don't know.
- [10:11]
Lynn Vincent
At the coming trial, Judge George Greer plans to play tapes from the doctor's exams. Philos files a motion to conceal those videos from the media. He says news clips of the exams will only confuse viewers.
- [10:24]
George Felos
What these little bits of videotape do are misleading. Now, if you say, terry, open your eyes, nothing may happen. If you just have a little snippet, a video of the 31st time you say that, somebody will say, oh, my God, look at that. She's responding to commands. It's obvious to everyone that she's responsive, that she's in there. But they don't show you the first 30 times in which they give Terry the command. And there's absolutely nothing.
- [10:54]
Lynn Vincent
Local TV stations aren't buying it, though. They storm into the courthouse with their legal reps and demand access. After a verbal skirmish, Greer allows them to point their cameras at the courtroom video monitors and broadcast what they see watching from the courtroom seats. Bob Schindler says Greer doesn't look happy about it.
- [11:17]
Anna Johansson Brown
The five doctors are lined up to testify. Two of them are on the Schindler side. Dr. William Hammisvar, a pioneer of vasodilation therapy, a widening of blood vessels to improve blood flow and oxygen to areas of the body that need it. And Dr. William Maxfield. Maxfield is a radiologist from Tampa who practices hyperbaric oxygen therapy on stroke victims. On Michael's side are two neurologists. First, Dr. Melvin Greer, no relation to Judge Greer. Dr. Greer was the first chairman of the University of Florida College of Medicine's neurology department. He also served a stint as the president of the American Academy of Neurology. The other is Dr. Ronald Cranford, a bioethicist and longtime neurology professor at the University of Minnesota. This isn't Cranford's first right to die case. He's appeared as a professional witness in two other landmark cases already. That's why even today, attorney Pat Anderson calls Cranford Dr. Death. Michael says Cranford volunteered his services for free because of his belief in Terri's right to have her wishes carried out.
- [12:22]
Lynn Vincent
The court appointed doctor is Peter Bambakidis, a neurologist from the Cleveland Clinic. He's never testified at a trial before, and he's not really even sure why Judge Greer picked him. Of all the doctors, he admits to serious soul searching before reaching a decision. He knows the stakes are high. Since Greer selected Bambakidis, the doctor is supposed to be neutral. But when his plane gets in three hours late, it's Philos who gives him directions from the airport. And it's Philos and Michael who meet the doctor in the hospice lobby. But no one tells the Schindlers that the court appointed doctor has arrived. As a result, they're not present for Bambakidis 30 minute exam. The purpose of this trial is to determine what condition Terry is really in and whether or not she can get better with treatment. Doctors like William Maxfield have filed affidavits claiming Terry does have a fighting chance at recovery. Here's Tom Broderson.
- [13:19]
Tom Broderson
The narrow assertion from Dr. Maxfield that with appropriate treatment, Terry might be able to be restored to a state where she could say what she wants. He had said that in the affidavit that he signed.
- [13:40]
Lynn Vincent
At the end of the day, it's a trial over whether Terry has any hope of improvement.
- [13:48]
Anna Johansson Brown
Sitting in Greer's courtroom, Mary notices how many people are gathered on their side of the aisle. Reporters sit mostly on Michael's side because there's no other space for them. Terry's primary physician testifies first. Dr. Victor Gambone tells the court Terry's condition is beyond help. But he also says Terry hasn't received any therapy since he first started treating her in 1998. Why not? Michael's orders. Next, the five doctors present their findings. Each gets a full day in court. Each doctor evaluated Terry in his own style. They all tried to get Terry to respond to them. Cranford instructed Terry like any other patient.
- [14:28]
Glenn Beck
Look at me. Over here. No, no, over here. Look at me over here. That's it. Come on.
- [14:35]
Anna Johansson Brown
He held a balloon over Terry's upturned face and asked her to track its motion.
- [14:39]
Glenn Beck
Can you follow that at all, Terry? Come on, Terry. No, no. Come on. I'm using both sound and something. Can you follow that? Huh? Can you see that? Okay. All right. Look over here. Look over here. That's fine. Look over here.
- [15:00]
Anna Johansson Brown
Terry rolled her head slowly, slowly side to side, eyes flitting back and forth.
- [15:05]
Glenn Beck
Doing pretty good there, Terry. Oh. Oh, Terry, look over here, Terry. Look at. Look at the balloon. Brightly colored, isn't it? Huh? It's brightly colored, isn't it?
- [15:17]
Anna Johansson Brown
As the tapes roll, murmurs break out across the courtroom. Some viewers weep or cheer. Mary turns around to see Glenn Beck sitting still, eyes glued to the monitor. Tears streak his face. When she turns around again, he's gone. Watching the footage, Mary is confident Greer will finally see what she sees. A girl responding. A girl aware.
- [15:42]
Glenn Beck
Look up here. Come on. Come on. You're doing pretty good. Okay? It's got to be in your field of gaze, doesn't it? Huh? It's got to be right in your field of gaze. You got to see it first, don't you? Then you can follow it a little bit, can't you? Come on over here. Come on.
- [15:54]
Anna Johansson Brown
But when Cranford testifies, he tells the court Terry's responses. Blinking, moaning, laughing. All boil down to one thing. Reflex. Just the body humming along without any direction. It strikes Mary like a bolt of lightning.
- [16:10]
Mary Schindler
Every morning that I woke up, I said, there is nobody that's going to take her feeding tube away, because I. I keep thinking that nobody's going to take a disabled person's feeding tube away and kill her.
- [16:23]
Anna Johansson Brown
That testimony comes as no surprise to Michael, though. In his book, he describes the doctor's exams. He says, during Cranford's, the doctor marched into Terry's room, glanced at her scans, and immediately noted her eeg. Electroencephalogram. An EEG stands for electrical activity in the brain. According to Cranford, Terry's is flat, a rare result, suggesting little to no brain activity. Drs. Greer and Bambakidis also land on Michael's side. Based on their exams and Terry's behavior, they believe Terry shows no sign of cognition. Maxfield and Hamisfar, meanwhile, align with the Schindlers that Terry is genuinely responsive.
- [17:03]
Lynn Vincent
In his book, Michael admits Maxfield has impressive credentials, but he still dismisses the doctor as a radiologist attempting to do a neurological exam. In his testimony, Maxfield suggests that Terry's recent CT scan shows signs of improvement. Judge Greer dismisses that opinion. He cites the other doctor's testimony, saying destroyed brain tissue cannot regenerate. But can it? In mammals, most cells think blood, skin, cold, gut, they're constantly renewed. But for decades, scientists regarded the brain as a non renewable organ. Maybe you've even heard something along these lines, that you're born with a certain number of brain cells and that's all you get.
- [17:49]
Glenn Beck
The brain, a pulpy mass of cells.
- [17:52]
George Felos
And fibers, is the center of the network of fibers that make up man's nervous system.
- [17:57]
Lynn Vincent
Dr. Santiago Ramon y Cajal is considered the father of neuroscience. He explored this question in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Do adult brains undergo what's called neurogenesis, or the formation of new brain cells? Cajal's conclusion? No. In adults, Cajal wrote, the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, immutable. Everything may die. Nothing may be regenerated.
- [18:26]
Anna Johansson Brown
But the last 50 years of research has systematically dismantled Cajal's conclusion. In the late 1960s, researchers found anatomical reorganization of brain cells in adult rats in response to stress. They called this phenomenon neuroplasticity, meaning the brain adapts itself to injury or as lab people like to put it, insults. Then in the 1980s, researchers studied two species of songbirds. Scientists showed that certain neural stem cells in some brain regions can differentiate into certain neuron types and migrate to other parts of the brain. That's exactly what happened in canaries and zebra finches in the spring as they learned new songs. From there, science advanced rapidly. By the 1990s, soon after Terry's brain injury, scientists had accepted that neurogenesis was a legitimate field of study.
- [19:17]
Glenn Beck
You can actually regrow brain cells.
- [19:20]
Anna Johansson Brown
By the time we will turn 50, we will have all exchanged the neuron we were born with in that structure with adult born neurons.
- [19:29]
George Felos
I'm a neuroscientist who studies the brain in the context of aging and age related neurodegenerative disorders.
- [19:37]
Lynn Vincent
Dr. Mark Matson is lab director emeritus at the National Institute for Aging. He's also the most cited neuroscientist of the 20th century. Not just in America, in the world, Matson told me. He estimates that 90% of all neuroplasticity results from cognitive challenges to the brain. That includes therapeutic exercises that present the brain with positive stressors that grow more challenging as the patient improves. Terri Schiavo had been allowed no such therapy in years.
- [20:12]
Anna Johansson Brown
When William Hamisfar examined Terry, he spent hours with her to build rapport. He massaged first one elbow, then the other, coaxing Terry's shriveled arms to uncurl. He repeated simple commands over and over again. Open your eyes up.
- [20:28]
Lynn Vincent
Open your eyes, Terry, open your eyes.
- [20:34]
Anna Johansson Brown
At first, nothing. Then after a 20 second pause, Terry opened her eyes wide.
- [20:41]
Glenn Beck
There you go.
- [20:41]
Anna Johansson Brown
Good, good, good job.
- [20:45]
Lynn Vincent
Good job, young lady, Good job.
- [20:48]
Anna Johansson Brown
Hammisfahr also checked Terry's legs. He announced he could feel Terry pressing against his hand, struggling to move. Tom Broderson remembers watching the tape.
- [20:57]
Tom Broderson
It's Dr. Hammisfahr who is a very, very talented young doctor and he conducted a very much in depth examination of Terry. But a lot of it was necessarily subjective. And in one sequence, he put his hand on Terry's right leg and asked her to try to raise her right leg. Well, her right leg was considerably atrophied from all the time she spent in bed or a jerry chair with no physical therapy or exercise. And you could tell by the reactions of Dr. Hammisfahr that what he felt, having his hand on her leg was a little jerk. And I think he described it and you could sort of see it on the video, but it was very low key. A lot of things like that where depending on your starting point or your bias, you might interpret it one of two different ways, totally opposed to each other.
- [22:20]
Anna Johansson Brown
But Michael says Terry's leg was pretty much locked in place by contractures that resistance Hamasvar felt just stiffness causing her locked up limbs to snap back into place. But there's something else Hamisfar reports from the exam. This next part of Hamisfar's testimony is important and we have a recording of it, but the audio quality is terrible. So I'm going to quote it. He tells the court the neck was stiff in a fashion that was consistent with a brand new injury to the neck. When asked what could cause that, he replies, I've only seen this kind of injury one time before in my entire career where you have, from a physical standpoint, a combination of what looks like a spinal cord injury, a brain injury and a neck injury. I've only seen that type of injury one time before in my entire life, and that was an attempted strangulation case.
- [23:15]
Lynn Vincent
I've been a career pattern once before my entire life, and that was an attempted strangulation case.
- [23:22]
Anna Johansson Brown
That testimony drops on the court like a bombshell. An attempted strangulation case. Suddenly, Mary contemplates the unthinkable. Had Michael tried to choke Terry, could that be the real explanation for Terry's collapse? That same thought occurs to Pat Anderson. Could this explain the mysterious gaps and inconsistencies in Michael's account of that night. Like the lag between Terry's collapse and the 911 call, or the fact that Michael said he repeatedly cradled Terry in his arms while waiting for the ambulance, but paramedics found her face down. It all takes on a new sinister tone in the Schindler's minds. And their fears are about to get even darker.
- [24:08]
Lynn Vincent
At first glance, Pat Anderson and Eleanor Drexel don't seem to have much in common. Anderson, the liberal civil rights attorney, and Drexel, a nurse and staunch conservative. But the atypical partnership they would form was typical for the Schiavo case. Drexel was from Boston. Her main practice area was working with mothers and babies. As a devout Catholic, she also worked to eliminate abortion. Schindler attorney Jim Eckert knew both Drexel and Anderson, so he introduced them. Hello? Hi, Eleanor. We're here. Oh, okay.
- [24:45]
Glenn Beck
I'll back you up.
- [24:46]
Lynn Vincent
Okay. I visited Drexel with production assistant Lillian Hammond in February 2022. Right off, we asked for a tour of the sprawling Florida condo she shares with her husband. It's filled with the treasures of a 50 year adventure in marriage. So pretty.
- [25:06]
Eleanor Drexel
Yeah.
- [25:06]
Lynn Vincent
The living room. Finally, we sit down in the Drexel's cozy living room. Lillian and I are in armchairs across from Drexel, who perches on a couch. She starts pulling out files she wants to share with us. They're files from the early 2000s that she saved all these years. Drexel is a tiny octogenarian and still fiery about her calling to protect life.
- [25:29]
Eleanor Drexel
And today you think, oh, well, this is really maybe the first incident of legalized murder. And I thought, no, it was the second because abortion was the first.
- [25:39]
Lynn Vincent
When Drexel gets involved, Anderson and Broderson are up to their eyeballs in case files. They'd inherited an avalanche of discovery when they joined the case in 2001. Piles of folders and loose documents, completely disorganized. Drexel volunteers to help sort it out.
- [25:56]
Eleanor Drexel
So what we did was we went back and we looked at those files that were most relevant to where she was at and where the case was at, what she wanted.
- [26:04]
Lynn Vincent
Then Drexel finds something that seems very relevant. In fact, it seems like a game changer. It's just a few weeks after the PBS trial and the doctor's testimonies, but Judge Greer hasn't announced his ruling yet.
- [26:17]
Eleanor Drexel
And one day I went in and looking around and I saw this little box with some files in it. And I thought, I don't think we've gone through that, I don't think. I don't remember seeing that because they weren't really a part of the rest of the files in the order that some of them were in, where they had sort of a. I thought, what are these? And I started going through and lo and behold, I pull out these files that were the X ray and the bone scan. And I thought, oh my gosh. And they looked at me just as a nurse, you know, I thought, these have to be pretty important.
- [26:52]
Lynn Vincent
They're bone scans conducted on Terry 11 years earlier. The Schindlers had never seen the scans. And if any of their long procession of lawyers had ever seen them, they did not mention the bone scans to the family. Here's Pat Anderson.
- [27:07]
Pat Anderson
I was in my office. Eleanor came in sort of white faced and said, look at this. And I read the notes and was aghast.
- [27:24]
Anna Johansson Brown
The report is from Metaplex, where Terry stayed for six months the year after her collapse. January to July of 1991.
- [27:32]
Pat Anderson
And the bone scan reported some fractures that didn't seem normal. They seemed abnormal.
- [27:41]
Anna Johansson Brown
The examining radiologist writes that Terry's scan suggests a history of trauma. He concludes the injuries must have occurred in the 12 to 18 months prior. That time frame stretches back to right around the time of Terry's brain injury. The new information is deeply troubling to Anderson, especially in light of Hamisfahr's testimony about strangulation. And that's not all.
- [28:02]
Pat Anderson
The report shows there was also a rehabilitation series of notes in which Terry said no and stop because the therapy was so painful to her, probably because of these fractures. I took the deposition of that doctor and he thought that in looking at his records that she had probably been in a traffic accident. It was consistent with a traffic accident and was aghast because of course the other side was putting out that Terry was brain dead. And here early on she had been saying no and stop.
- [28:47]
Anna Johansson Brown
Anderson thinks Michael's attorneys buried the bone scan in a mountain of files on purpose. It's a technique George Philos calls the avalanche. And he writes about it in his 2002 book, Litigation as Spiritual Practice. Bury the smoking gun in a mountain of information, he writes. You strategically place your client's incriminating internal memo amongst thousands upon thousands of pages of useless but similar looking data. A less than diligent opposing counsel may not discover the needle in the haystack.
- [29:22]
Lynn Vincent
Anderson calls the Schindlers and details return to Mary's mind. Forgotten memories like bruises on Terry's arms from roughhousing with Michael Mary recalls one time in the living room when Michael and Terri started fooling around.
- [29:37]
Mary Schindler
I was watching, and all of a sudden Terry got on top of Michael and she was, like, trying to hold him down, you know, just laughing. She was giggling and laughing. And all of a sudden I saw his hand and he took her thigh and he pinched it so hard, I mean, really pinched it, that she yelled and she jumped off him. And he had a look on his face. I'll never forget it. It was vicious. Get off me. And she wasn't getting off fast enough, but she was just playing. But he pinched her so hard. And when she. The next day, she had a black and blue mark there that you wouldn't believe.
- [30:18]
Lynn Vincent
Terry's sister Suzanne says she remembers, too.
- [30:20]
Suzanne Schindler
Michael would horse play quite a bit.
- [30:22]
Anna Johansson Brown
And he.
- [30:23]
Suzanne Schindler
Horseplay, right? I mean, he even gave me bruises when he would horse play. But she had. She would always attribute it to that.
- [30:29]
Lynn Vincent
But that's Suzanne telling Nancy Grace about it on CNN's Headline News.
- [30:33]
Suzanne Schindler
So, you know, of course, Nancy, hindsight is 20 20. I mean, there were signs that we see now, of course, you know, all along, we just didn't put two and two together. And Terry did a very good job at hiding a lot.
- [30:44]
Lynn Vincent
Now Mary is panicked at the thought that Michael might have hurt Terry, might have caused her injury and collapse. The bone scan feeds all their fears about him. They take the theory and run with it. Here's Suzanne in a 2003 Fox interview.
- [30:59]
Suzanne Schindler
Recently, there was some evidence that came forward that we found, for example, Terry had a neck injury and also found she had multiple broken bones. And we believe that there was something that possibly happened that night to cause this to happen to her. And therefore, we believe also that this is one of the reasons why he hasn't given terry rehabilitation in 10 years, because he's afraid that she'll wake up and actually, you know, say what happened that night.
- [31:27]
Lynn Vincent
And here's Bobby.
- [31:28]
Bobby Schindler
Michael has instructed the judge to cremate her body immediately upon her death, which adds even more suspicion to Anderson appeals.
- [31:36]
Lynn Vincent
To Greer holding up the bone scan as new evidence. George Filos is irate. He calls the allegation garbage.
- [31:48]
Anna Johansson Brown
On November 22, Greer issues his ruling in the doctor's trial. He rules against the Schindlers. At first glance, he writes, terri does seem to show signs of cognition, but her responses are inconsistent. Terry smiles lovingly at her mother sometimes. Other times, she doesn't seem to register her presence at all. At one point in the video, it looks like Terry's tracking a Mickey mouse balloon that her dad is holding. But the next time he tries the experiment, it's unsuccessful for Greer. Here's the bottom none of the treatments put forward offer Terry a strong chance of improvement, at least not enough to overturn his earlier decision about Terry's wishes. Greer is especially disgusted by Dr. Hamasvar. He skewers him as a self promoter whose vasodilation therapy is clearly not recognized in the medical community. Greer also dismisses the bone scan as irrelevant. He says that while the question of what happened to Terry in 1990 may be interesting, it has no bearing on the case now.
- [32:49]
Pat Anderson
Greer had his mind on her wishes and he would not hear any contravening evidence that her wishes were not as found by him in the first trial. And so none of this mattered to him. This was an exercise futility.
- [33:12]
Lynn Vincent
Greer sets a new death date for Terry, January 3, 2003. Here's how his ruling reads. It is further ordered and adjudged that Michael Schiavo, as guardian of the person of Teresa Marie Schiavo, shall withdraw or cause to be withdrawn the artificial life support from Theresa Marie Schiavo. Michael's lawyer, George Felos, points out an important, important distinction in the ruling.
- [33:37]
George Felos
It's not discretionary on his part, that is, it's a mandatory injunction.
- [33:43]
Lynn Vincent
In other words, Greer's ruling doesn't say Michael could end Terry's life. It says he shall. It's the first time in the history of the American legal system when a civil court, and not a criminal one, orders that a person be put to death. Next time on Lawless. The Schindlers gain powerful new allies.
- [34:08]
Mary Schindler
She said, governor Bush, can I ask you a question? She says, don't you know anybody, anybody in office that could help you, you know, or help us? But everybody started laughing, even Governor Bush. She didn't even realize who it she said it was his brother that was the President of the United States.
- [34:35]
Anna Johansson Brown
Lawless is a production of World Radio. Paul Butler is our executive producer and sound engineer. Our production assistant is Lillian Hammond. Music by Will Sheehan. Lawless is reported and written by Grace Snell, Lynn Vincent and me, Anna Johansson Brown. For more resources related to this and other episodes, visit Lawless Podcast. Thanks for joining us.