Feud may be as much over money as principle

This is the first I heard of it, but USA Today said Michael Schiavo and Bob and Mary Schindler once were very close. He was the husband. They were the in-laws. The bonds remained strong even after tragedy befell Terri. Early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, she suffered a heart attack that led to massive brain damage.

Today, Terri Schiavo's agonizing struggle for life — or death — grips the nation and much of the world. Driving the sorrowful, sometimes angry rhetoric in this epic clash over the right to live or die is something less cosmic: a vitriolic family feud.

It is a feud, to some degree, over principle. Michael Schiavo says Terri should be allowed to die because she told him long before she was stricken that she would never want to be kept alive by a feeding tube or other such measures. The Schindlers say their son-in-law is starving Terri to death. They want to keep her alive and try to rehabiliate her. But it also appears to be a fight over money — how a $1 million malpractice settlement Schiavo won 13 years ago over Terri's care should be spent.

Without that emotional public schism, the Schiavo case might simply have been one of thousands of wrenching family decisions about life and death that unfold quietly every year. What once was a fond relationship — Michael Schiavo had called the Schindlers "Mom" and "Dad" — has dissolved into bitter recriminations playing out in courthouses, capitols, weblogs and on Larry King Live. Schiavo says he hasn't talked to his in-laws in years.

Some of the protesters gathered outside Woodside Hospice here have demonized Michael Schiavo, accusing him of everything from murder to adultery because he lives with a woman and has two toddlers, a daughter and a son, by her. It wasn't always this way, according to a USA TODAY review of voluminous records in the Probate Division of Pinellas County Circuit Court in nearby Clearwater.

Those records show that Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers jointly supervised care for Terri after she collapsed. For the first 16 days and nights that she was hospitalized, Schiavo never left the hospital. Over the next few years, as she was moved from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility, to a nursing home, to Schiavo's home and finally back to a nursing home, Schiavo visited Terri daily.

They had met in a class at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. They were engaged five months later and married on Nov. 10, 1984, in Huntingdon Valley, Pa. She was, he said, "sweet. Very personable. You would meet her and just be charmed by her. ... To me, she was everything."

Once Terri was unable to help herself, Michael became a demanding advocate.

John Pecarek, a court-appointed guardian for Terri, described her husband as "a nursing home administrator's nightmare," adding, "I believe that the ward (Terri) gets care and attention from the staff of Sabal Palms (nursing home) as a result of Mr. Schiavo's advocacy and defending on her behalf."

Mary Schindler testified that, while her daughter was at one nursing home, her relationship with her son-in-law was "very good. We did everything together. Wherever he went, I went." Schiavo and the Schindlers even sold pretzels and hot dogs on St. Pete Beach to raise money for Terri's care. But everything seemed to change on Valentine's Day 1993 in a nursing home near here.

In 1992, Schiavo had filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against two doctors who had been treating his wife before she was stricken. Late that year came a settlement: Schiavo received $300,000 for loss of consortium — his wife's companionship. Another $700,000 was ordered for Terri's care.

Mary Schindler later testified that Schiavo had promised money to his in-laws. They had helped him and Terri move from New Jersey to Pinellas County, let them live rent-free in their condominium and had given him other financial help. "We all had financial problems" after Terri's crisis, she testified. "Michael, Bob. We all did. It was a very stressful time. It was a very financially difficult time. He used to say, 'Don't worry, Mom. If I ever get any money from the lawsuit, I'll help you and Dad.'"

By February 1993, Schiavo had the money from the lawsuit.

On Valentine's Day that year, he testified, he was in his wife's nursing home room studying. He wanted to become a nurse so he could care for his wife himself. He had taken Terri to California for experimental treatment. A doctor there had placed a stimulator inside Terri's brain and those of other people in vegetative states to try to stimulate still-living but dormant cells.

According to Schiavo's testimony, the Schindlers came into Terri's room in the nursing home, spoke to their daughter, then turned to him.

"The first words out of my father-in-law's mouth was how much money he was going to get," Schiavo said. "I was, 'What do you mean?' 'Well, you owe me money.'" Schiavo said he told his in-laws that all the money had gone to his wife — a lie he said he told Bob Schindler "to shut him up because he was screaming."

Schiavo said his father-in-law called him "a few choice words," then stormed out of the room. Schiavo said he started to follow him, but his mother-in-law stepped in front of him, saying, "This is my daughter, our daughter, and we deserve some of this money."

Mary Schindler's account of that evening is far different. She testified that she and her husband found Schiavo studying. "We were talking about the money and about his money," she said. "That with his money and the money Terri got, now we could take her (for specialized care) or get some testing done. Do all this stuff. He said he was not going to do it."

She said he threw his book and a table against the wall and told them they would never see their daughter again....

Daniel Grieco, the attorney who handled Michael Schiavo's malpractice case, says his client never promised money to Bob Schindler. He also said Schindler never understood that he wasn't entitled to money under Florida law. Grieco says the money is at the root of the estrangement. "It was the precipitating factor," Grieco says. "That was the fracture. That was the basis of it."