Terri Schiavo's Ashes Buried

TAMPA -- After earlier announcing plans to bury his wife's ashes in their native Pennsylvania, Terri Schiavo's husband instead interred her remains in Clearwater, his lawyer said Monday.

Clearwater, near Tampa, is where much of a yearslong legal battle over her life and death were fought.

The severely brain-damaged woman died March 31 after an internationally watched fight between her husband and parents over whether she should be kept alive with artificial feedings. The seven-year conflict engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country.

She was cremated two days after her death, and her husband was given possession of her remains.

After being criticized by her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, for failing to tell them his plans for her remains, Michael Schiavo had his wife interred at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park in Clearwater, his lawyer, George Felos, said in a short news release.

Felos did not say in the statement why Schiavo decided to keep his wife's remains in Florida. He did not immediately return a phone call seeking additional information.

A service at the cemetery was officiated by a priest, the statement said. Michael Schiavo and at least one his brothers attended.

"Mrs. Schiavo's parents, as ordered by the court, have been advised of the exact location of Mrs. Schiavo's site," Felos' statement said.

The Schindlers' lawyer, David Gibbs, said Felos notified his office via fax later Monday afternoon, after the service. The Schindlers already had started getting calls from reporters about it when his office called to tell them, Gibbs said.

"We were not notified (in advance) in any respect of any service or any memorial, and clearly that's sad for the family," Gibbs said.

The interment comes less than a week after an autopsy report was released revealing that Terri Schiavo was almost certainly in a persistent vegetative state, as most doctors had determined, and that her body showed no signs of abuse by her husband, which her family had claimed. The cause of the 1990 collapse that left her with severe brain damage was not determ-

ined.

The report prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to ask the Pinellas County chief prosecutor to investigate what happened the night Terri Schiavo collapsed. The governor cited an alleged gap in time between when her husband found her unconscious and when he called 911. Michael Schiavo has said there was no delay in making the call.

Terri Schiavo died March 31, 13 days after the feeding tube keeping her alive was removed by a court order won by her husband.

Her husband convinced a state circuit judge that his wife -- who left no written directive -- had made statements that she would not want to be kept alive artificially with no hope of recovery.

Her parents doubt she had any such end-of-life wishes, however, and thought she could get better. Even after the autopsy results showed that their daughter's brain had shrunk and that all the evidence affirmed previous diagnoses of persistent vegetative state, the Schindlers said they still believe she had some consciousness and reacted to them when they came to visit at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lived.

Calls to the cell phones of her father and her brother, Bobby Schindler, were not immediately returned Monday.

Services for Terri Schiavo already had been conducted in nearby Gulfport, where her parents live, and in Pennsylvania.