TAMPA, Fla. - In a victory for Michael Schiavo, a coroner who performed an autopsy on Terri Schiavo reported Wednesday that she suffered from an irreversible brain injury and would not have recovered as her parents insisted was possible. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.
"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," Jon Thogmartin, medical examiner for Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County, told a press conference. "There was massive neuronal loss, or death. This was irreversible and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."
"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he added.
Thogmartin was joined by Dr. Stephen Nelson, who described her condition as "very consistent with a persistent vegetative state," which is what Michael Schiavo and most doctors had contended was the case.
Schiavo died March 31 at the age of 41, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube keeping her alive was removed by a court order sought by her husband, Michael Schiavo.
She was blind Thogmartin added that Terri Schiavo had been blinded by the injury and that all evidence indicated that she could not have survived without a feeding tube. "Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin said.
In addition, the report said no evidence existed that Michael Schiavo tried to hasten his wife's death via drugs or other substances as her parents had alleged.
But what caused her collapse 15 years ago remained a mystery. The autopsy and post-mortem investigation found no proof that she had an eating disorder, as was suspected at the time, Thogmartin said.
Schiavo's death marked the end of a bitter, seven-year legal battle between Michael Schiavo and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who desperately tried to keep her alive. Their efforts reached the halls of the Congress and made news around the world. Clues 15 years later?
Neither Michael Schiavo nor the Schindlers have responded to the report yet, but on Tuesday Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, said his family was eager to see if the results would indicate what went wrong when her heart stopped beating for several minutes at her St. Petersburg apartment Feb. 25, 1990.
The cause of her collapse has never been definitely proven, but testimony in a 1992 civil trial indicated that she probably was suffering from an eating disorder that led to a severe chemical imbalance and a heart attack.
The Schindlers, though, don't believe she had an eating disorder and have accused Michael Schiavo of abusing his wife, a charge he vehemently denies.
"Our family would really like to know what caused Terri's collapse," Bobby Schindler said Tuesday. "I don't know what they can and can't find 15 years after the fact. If we could get some of our questions answered as to how Terri ended up the way she did, that would be helpful." 'Smear campaign' alleged
During the long legal battle, the Schindlers unsuccessfully sought an independent investigation of their daughter's condition and what caused it. Numerous abuse complaints to state social workers were ruled unfounded.
Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said Tuesday the Schindlers continue to engage in a "smear campaign against Michael to deflect the real issues in the case, which were Terri's wishes and her medical condition."
"I think everyone who has followed the facts in this case knows there is no substance to those (abuse) charges, and I'm confident we're not going to hear anything differently from the medical examiner," Felos said.
Funeral plans Bobby Schindler said the family still has not been told about plans for Terri's cremated remains. Michael Schiavo has said he would bury them at his family's cemetery near Huntingdon Valley, Pa., but it is unknown whether that has occurred. Michael Schiavo is required by court order to tell the Schindlers his plans, but they say he has yet to contact them.
Without the remains, funerals were conducted in Gulfport by her family and by friends in Pennsylvania, where she was born and reared.
Felos referred questions about the remains to Michael's brother, Brian Schiavo, who did not return a phone call Tuesday. Legal tug of war
About 40 judges in six courts were involved in the Schiavo case at one point or another on its way to becoming the most famous and bitterly fought right-to-die saga in U.S. history.
Michael Schiavo convinced Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer that his wife would not want to be kept alive artificially with no hope of recovery, contending that she made statements to that effect before her collapse.
Her parents doubt she had any such end-of-life wishes and also disputed that she was in a persistent vegetative state as court-ordered doctors determined. They believed she could get better with therapy.
Twice Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed by court order and twice it was reinserted. The second time, in October 2003, Gov. Jeb Bush intervened, pushing a law through the Legislature authorizing him to resume her artificial feedings six days after they were stopped. That law eventually was struck down by the state Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
The tube was removed for the final time March 18 at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lived. As Schiavo faded, Congress rushed through a bill to allow the federal courts to take up the case, and President Bush signed it March 21. But the federal courts refused to step in.
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Jon R. Thogmartin, M.D., District Medical Examiner for District 6, Pinellas and Pasco Counties, since December 2000. Dr. Thogmartin was born in Wellington, Texas, and received his doctorate in medicine in 1990 from University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and his bachelor of science in biology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1986, magna cum laude.
Dr. Thogmartin was Associate Medical Examiner in Broward County and Dade County before becoming District 15 Medical Examiner in Palm Beach County in April 1999, a position he left in November 1999 to accept the position in Pinellas and Pasco. Licensed in both Florida and Texas, Mr. Thogmartin is also certified in Anatomic, Clinical and Forensic Pathology by the American Board of Pathology. Jon Thogmartin has been honored by the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society (1989), Phi Beta Kappa (1986), and Robert Stewart Hyer Society (1985). He also received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Metro-Dade Police Department in November 1996. Jon Thogmartin has been accepted as an expert in the field of Forensic Pathology in U.S. Federal Court and in the Circuit Courts of Dade, Broward, Palm Beach County and the State of Michigan. His major fields of interest are wound ballistics, firearms, infant deaths, child abuse, asphyxia, and forensic toxicology.
Thogmartin has also done his share of teaching. In Texas, beginning in 1984, he was a teaching assistant at Southern Methodist in the Department of Chemistry, and at the University of Health Science Center at San Antonio in the Departments of Cellular and Structural Biology and Pathology. More recently, in Miami, at the Dade County Medical Examiner Office and IACP Seminar, he taught a course on Strangulation and Other Compressions.
Jon Thogmartin has been published in the Journal of Forensic Science, American Journal for Medical Pathology, and Journal of Pediatrics, in addition to the Palm Beach Post and Medical Examiner Annual Report.
Please welcome Jon Thogmartin at our luncheon on July 26th! His presentation can't help but be fascinating! Reservations are required, and the luncheon is free to CBA members. Judges, law office staff and guests pay $15. Call CBA to reserve at 727-461-4869.
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Did you know that Thogmartin was promised a $20,000/year raise by Bernie McCabe if he would take this case "in the interest of the county of Pinellas".
Scahvio autopsy report released.
