Once close, Schiavo family grew divided with time

ST. PETERSBURG - It is almost beyond belief, given the sea of distance between them now, that Terri Schiavo's husband and parents once shared a home, a life, a goal. But for years - when Terri Schiavo walked and talked among them and after her catastrophic collapse - the headstrong young man and his traditionalist in-laws were by all accounts friendly.

Now, as the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo lies dying in a hospice and her husband and parents continue to the end their battle over her fate, the rancor is building and a transfixed nation is wondering how a 12-year-old fight - even one that everyone agrees began over money - ever got so bad.

The hurled accusations persist: adulterer, opportunists, murderer, liars. Everyone on the street has taken sides, guessing at the motivations of Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers but never knowing for sure.

It is easy for most to assume that blinding love for their daughter drives the parents, who have begged Michael Schiavo to give them his wife and walk away. But his motives are harder to fathom. Is it stubbornness that drives him, or fervor to commit fully to the other woman in his life, a girlfriend of eight years with whom he has two children? Does he want Terri Schiavo to die because she is a burden, or because, as he says time and again, he promised his wife not to keep her alive by artificial means?

The truth may always be out of reach. But the history between Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers, gleaned from court transcripts, interviews and their statements over the years, offers at least some insight into a war of clashing values, personalities and hopes. Theirs is a battle over power, money and a woman they all claimed to love more than anything, borne of perceived betrayal that grew more painful with each new attack that was mounted over the years.

Even now, their visits to her deathbed are carefully orchestrated so as not to coincide, and they can't even agree on what to do with her remains once she dies.

''It's not a family issue anymore,'' said Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo's younger brother, adding that it had been years since the Schindlers considered Michael Schiavo anything but a legal opponent. ''All we've ever asked is that he give Terri back to us.''

They met in the Philadelphia suburbs where Terri Schiavo and her husband, Michael, spent their childhoods and married in 1984, barely past adolescence. The young couple relied on the generosity of her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, first living in their basement in Pennsylvania, then moving to a condominium here that Robert Schindler had bought around the time he sold his heavy equipment business.

The Schindlers followed their daughter and son-in-law to this sunny coastal city, and though they did not see Michael Schiavo often - he was working long hours at beachside restaurants - they had no problem with him. He called them Mom and Dad. They paid their daughter and son in-law's rent.

The couple wanted to have a baby, according to court papers, but failed to conceive, even after consulting a fertility doctor. By then Terri Schiavo, who is 5-foot-3 and had weighed more than 200 pounds in high school, weighed only 110. Her brother and sister now say that at the time, she was starting to feel unhappy in her marriage. In an interview, her brother Bobby Schindler said Terri Schiavo confided in him at a restaurant one night.

''She brought me over to the bathroom and broke down in tears,'' he said. ''She said her marriage was falling apart, but she didn't have the guts to divorce him. I was shocked.''

In recent years, the Schindlers have also described Michael Schiavo as a controlling husband who would keep track of the mileage on his wife's car, lash out at her for spending money and hound her to stay thin. They have said the couple fought in the months before Terri Schiavo's collapse, and that perhaps Michael Schiavo had been harming his wife. But Michael Schiavo's brother Brian said he found that unfeasible.

''Mike was three times her size,'' Brian Schiavo, who lives in Sarasota, said in a 2003 interview. ''If he was abusing her, there would be some sign of something. She would have taken her two cats and gone to her parents'.''

Whatever the various relationships were, they changed profoundly in February 1990, when Michael Schiavo says he awoke to a thud in the dead of night and found his wife passed out on the floor. Together, the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo learned that Terri Schiavo's heart had stopped and she had suffered drastic brain damage before the paramedics arrived that night. Doctors say a potassium deficiency, possibly caused by an eating disorder, led to her collapse.

The parents and son-in-law vowed to see Terri Schiavo, just 26, recover.

The Schiavos and Schindlers moved in together, sharing a house in St. Petersburg Beach as they devoted themselves to Terri Schiavo's care. In June 1990, Michael Schiavo was appointed his wife's guardian, and months later, he took his wife to California for an experimental, but ultimately unsuccessful, treatment to stimulate her brain.

Terri Schiavo was later placed in a nursing home in Largo where Michael Schiavo was strict with and sometimes hostile toward staff, according to court transcripts.

''His demanding concern for her well-being and meticulous care by the nursing home earned him the characterization by the administrator as 'a nursing home administrator's nightmare,' '' wrote Jay Wolfson, a court-appointed independent guardian for Terri Schiavo who had no say in her case but researched it in 2003.

Michael Schiavo even went to nursing school with the goal, his brothers say, of better caring for his wife.

A few years after his wife's brain damage, Michael Schiavo filed a malpractice lawsuit against the obstetrician who had overseen Terri Schiavo's fertility therapy, charging that the potassium deficiency should have been detected. In January 1993, the couple won just over $1 million: $750,000 in economic damages for her, and a loss of companionship award of $300,000 for him.

A month later, on Valentine's Day, both sides say a nasty fight over the award marked the beginning of their estrangement. The way Michael Schiavo has described it, he was visiting his wife when the Schindlers walked in and Robert Schindler asked how much money he would get from Michael Schiavo's portion of the malpractice settlement.

The Schindlers say the fight was about what kind of treatment their daughter's money would go toward, with them advocating rigorous therapy and Michael Schiavo wanting only basic care.

The rift quickly deepened. Michael Schiavo blocked his in-laws' access to his wife's medical records. In July 1993, the Schindlers briefly tried to remove Michael Schiavo as his wife's guardian.

Scott Schiavo said his brother was deeply offended by what he saw as a crass attempt by Robert Schindler to claim some of the settlement money.

As the fight played out, Michael Schiavo's hopes for his wife's recovery apparently evaporated. In 1994, according to court records, he decided not to have her treated for a urinary tract infection - a move prompted, he later testified, by her doctor's advice.

''I think he finally saw the reality of it,'' Brian Schiavo said.

Ultimately, Terri Schiavo's nursing home challenged her husband's order and he canceled it, along with a ''do not resuscitate'' order he imposed at the same time, according to Wolfson.

Only after his mother's death in 1997 did Michael Schiavo tell his in-laws that on several occasions, his wife had said she would not want to be kept alive artificially. The timing of the revelation - after he had won the malpractice money and begun dating Jodi Centonze, with whom he would eventually have two children - made the Schindlers deeply suspicious, they say.

They continue to insist that their daughter, who they say tried to administer CPR to the family dog when it was dying, would never choose to have her life cut short.

''My sister and I were very close and we never talked about this stuff,'' Bobby Schindler said. ''I mean, who would at 20 years old, 25?''

In 1998, when Michael Schiavo asked a court's permission to remove his wife's feeding tube, the Schindlers challenged him, necessitating a trial. That is when Michael and Scott Schiavo and their sister in-law, Joan Schiavo, testified that Terri Schiavo had told them never to prolong her life artificially.

Scott Schiavo testified that after his grandmother was put on life support at the end of her life, Terri Schiavo told him, ''If I ever go like that, just let me go. Don't leave me there.''

Judge George Greer of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court found the testimony constituted ''clear and convincing'' evidence of Terri Schiavo's wishes, and her feeding tube was removed in April 2001. But it was reconnected days later, after an ex-girlfriend of Michael Schiavo called a local radio station to say he had told her he had no idea whether his wife would have wanted life-prolonging measures.

That led to a new trial, but it ultimately did not change Greer's mind, partly because the girlfriend recanted.

The Schindlers stepped up their public-relations campaign that year, videotaping their daughter and distributing the tapes to television stations. That infuriated Michael Schiavo, his brother Scott said, because his self-conscious wife would have been mortified.

''She was very, very particular about the way she looked, very proud when she walked out the door,'' Scott Schiavo said. ''She would be so upset to have the world seeing her that way, and Michael knew that.''

Michael Schiavo's anger intensified as the Schindlers went increasingly public with their battle, winning support from religious groups, media outlets and ultimately Gov. Jeb Bush.

At one point, Michael Schiavo banned the Schindlers from seeing his wife, saying aides at her hospice had found what appeared to be needle marks on her arm after one of their visits.

A police report found no evidence of wrongdoing and their visitation rights were restored three months later.

Michael Schiavo's demeanor, prickly and forceful, did not gain him much sympathy. And as the case has attracted nationwide publicity, Michael Schiavo has become the subject of such intense, widespread hatred that he and his family get regular death threats. His brother Scott, who lives in Pennsylvania, said he received enough such threats this week to send his children away. On Friday, the FBI said it arrested a man in North Carolina for sending an e-mail that offered a $250,000 bounty for Michael Schiavo's death.

By contrast, the Schindlers - he affable and jokey, she quiet and melancholic - worked hard to win hearts and minds.

Scott Schiavo said he felt sorry for Mary Schindler, whom he said was always close to her daughter, but not for Robert Schindler, who he said thrives on the attention.

If it weren't for the father, he said, ''this could have been resolved a long time ago; Terri would still have whatever dignity she had left, and everything would be peaceful.''

Instead, Michael Schiavo has even rejected the Schindlers' request that their daughter be buried in Florida instead of cremated, which they object to as Catholics. He also refused their request to let Terri Schiavo die in their home instead of at her nearby hospice.

Michael Schiavo's lawyer told reporters this week that he would inter his wife's cremated remains at the Schiavo family plot outside Philadelphia, far from the parents who fought so intensely to win her back.

Whether they can or will visit her gravesite there could be the next subject of dispute.