Schindler Attorney David Gibbs Speaks Out on Schiavo Autopsy

But that does not eliminate some of the questions that still remain as to what caused her injuries, and certainly what we would call the larger moral or legal issues still remain.

The IME said clearly that Terri was not terminal, and what that means is she was not going to die because of her brain-injured condition, her disability; she had no living will, she'd put nothing in writing as to her wishes; her heart was remarkably strong and would have continued for many years; and that the immediate cause of death was this brutal dehydration that Terri was taken, where she had no hydration, no nourishment, and died over those period of days.

"Moral shame"

And so, what the IME put forward really doesn't erase, in our opinion, the the moral shame of what happened--that the quality of a person's life became the basis for which it could be ended. And to think that in this country if we say someone's blind or brain-injured that we would allow them to be put to death, it just seems so barbaric and so heartless that as a nation there is still not an outcry that Terri, a woman that was not terminal, was killed in such an unbelievable fashion.

CINDY: Most of the mainstream media is trumpeting that the results vindicate her husband's belief that she should have been allowed to die. I'd like to quote conservative Christian blogger La Shawn Barber, who I think sums up what a lot of Americans are feeling right now. "For me, the whole tragedy surrounding Terri and the people who wanted her dead didn’t hinge on how severely brain-damaged she was. She was alive and wasn’t on life support, and her husband’s credibility was extremely low, too low to trust his assertion that Terri wanted to die if ever severely brain-damaged. Forget about what you’d want if you were ever in the same condition. Take yourselves out of the equation.

"The way they killed her was appalling, and I was angry for a long time afterward. (and she goes on to say). The doctor-induced starvation was immoral."

Unanswered questions

David, Terri's parents, the Schindlers, say there are still a lot of unanswered questions. What are some of those unanswered questions?

DAVID: Well, one of the major unanswered questions is how did Terri's condition happen? What occurred back in 1990? Terri was a healthy 26-year-old girl--she collapsed--the IME said her brain injury was caused from lack of blood flow, lack of oxygen to the brain over a protracted time period. And some leading theories were kind of ruled out by the medical examiner's report. Many people had said it was bulimia, an eating disorder, some had said it was a heart attack, and the medical examiner said there is no evidence--matter of fact, in his opinion, the evidence rules out the bulimia, rules out the heart attack, and so, one of the leading questions that for any parent, any family, is very troubling, is what happened to Terri that night?

Michael Schiavo, the husband in 1990, has given so many inconsistent statements that it leaves people wondering what occurred.

For example, he said to the medical examiner, he said to "Larry King Live", that Terri collapsed at 4:30 in the morning. Well then, 911 wasn't called till 5:40 in the morning--that's an hour and 10 minutes. Seventy minutes went by, if these reports are believable, where Terri is in this collapsed condition, and getting no care, no assistance, and certainly if blood isn't flowing to a person's brain, not just every minute, but literally every second counts. And the family would just like to understand, why are these time discrepancies? What actually caused Terri's condition? And so, in a measure, by ruling out the eating disorder, by ruling out the heart attack, the medical examiner may have raised more questions than his report actually answers.

CINDY: So what's the next step for the Schindlers? Are they going to challenge this in any way legally?

DAVID: Well, the medical examiner's report is put forward by the government, and what they do, is they lay out, this is what we've found. The medical examiner said it is an open investigation--if there's new evidence or things that come forward, he would gladly re-review his findings. And so, in all of that, we are hoping that possibly Mr. Schiavo or somone would step forward and give us more of an indication what happened that night.

Focusing on Terri's legacy

The Schindlers themselves are wanting to focus at this point on Terri's legacy. They stood as a loving mother and father would--I mean, you need to understand, even though she was 41, Terri was their daughter. They loved her more than life itself, they had to watch her, and I was in the room with them, literally be dehydrated to death. And the medical examiner was pretty clear that it was not a pretty dehydration, that it was very severe and very unpleasant. And here the family had to watch that, and they had fought so hard for Terri's life. But now their focus is "OK, Terri paid this incredible sacrifice, she's now in eternity, she's now at peace, but what can we do to make sure no other family, no other patient, no other person, whether disabled, senior citizen, or whoever, has to undergo this barbaric death that Terri underwent."

And so they're really wanting to focus on seeing laws changed nationwide, seeing the heart and mind of Americans changed, where people would once again have that compassion for someone like Terri.