Florida: Schiavo wasn’t abused

ORLANDO, Fla. – In the four years after Michael Schiavo won the right to remove his wife’s feeding tube, the state’s social welfare agency methodically investigated 89 complaints of abuse, but never found that he or anybody else harmed Terri Schiavo, records released late Friday show.

To the contrary, the state Department of Children and Families repeatedly concluded that Michael Schiavo ensured his wife’s physical and medical needs were met, provided proper therapy for her and had no control over her money.

They also found no evidence that he beat or strangled her, as his detractors have repeatedly charged.

The 45 pages of confidential abuse reports made public by court order Friday show that despite the litany of complaints, investigators never found that Terri Schiavo had been abused.

That raises what Michael Schiavo’s attorney said is a key question: Why, during her last weeks of life, did DCF twice try to intervene in the seven-year dispute pitting Terri Schiavo’s husband against her parents?

“The answer is obvious,” said attorney Hamden Baskin III. “From the get-go, this was nothing but a political intervention. There was and continues to be no reason for them to have been involved.”

DCF spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez would not address the charges of political interference directly, saying only, “The reports speaks for itself. … We have a duty to protect the vulnerable and investigate allegations of abuse.”

Terri Schiavo died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept the badly brain-damaged woman alive for 15 years was removed.

The courts had ruled that she was in a persistent vegetative state and had not wanted to be kept alive artificially. But her parents countered that she responded to them and wanted to live, setting off an international debate over right-to-die issues.

Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, could not be reached for comment Friday night. They were attending a memorial service for their daughter in Pennsylvania.

The records, which media outlets in Tampa Bay fought to make public, show that DCF took its duty to investigate the alleged abuse of Terri Schiavo seriously.

Eighty-nine times, DCF investigated calls to their hotline alleging abuse that have become familiar fodder on the Internet: Terri Schiavo was dirty and unkempt. She did not receive proper dental care or rehabilitative therapy. She was kept in isolation. Her husband beat her, and broke her bones. He wanted her dead for her money, or to remarry.

He pumped her full of insulin, hoping to kill her. He often asked, “When will (she) die?” Her lips were cracked and dry.

The names of the complainants were blacked out under Pinellas Circuit Judge George W. Greer’s orders.

But DCF investigators looked into the charges and closed them as unfounded with such comments as “the spouse has always been courteous and very compassionate toward his wife” and “all her needs being met.”

In at least one case, the caller found the evidence of Terri Schiavo’s alleged abuse on the Internet.

In January 2004, a female caller reported that Terri Schiavo had an infection on her stomach, at the site of her feeding tube, that was not being treated. But, when questioned, she said she had no firsthand knowledge of her complaint.

“(She) stated that her information on current infections and lack of treatment was from Yahoo chatline,” the report said.

In another instance, Terri Schiavo’s parents were the subject of a complaint by a caller who alleged the Schindlers were exploiting their daughter by selling videotapes of her on the Internet for $100. That, too, was ruled unfounded.