Observations on Micheal Shiavo

I've been getting a large and consistent amount of traffic from search engines looking for information on "shiavo" or "michael shiavo." Obviously, even though Terri Shiavo is dead and cremated and soon to undergo burial, people still want to know about her life and her death, and the former husband entangled in both.

Michael Shiavo claims that his wife had a heart attack as the result of an eating disorder. Her body chemistry, enzyme levels and EKGs in the hospital emergency room never supported this claim. If experts are correct, Terri Shiavo's recently completed but as yet unreleased autopsy should be able to explain whether Terri Shiavo's brain damage was the result of a heart attack or some other means.

Michael Shiavo then sued in 1992, and won a court judgment for $300,000 for himself and $700,000 for Terri's rehabilitation. Instead of getting Terri Shiavo rehabilitation, however, he stuck her in a nursing home and denied her treatment. It was at this point, only after winning a million-dollar settlement and putting Terri into a nursing home instead of a rehabilitation facility that Michael Shiavo suddenly "remembered" Terri wanted to die.

For seven years Michael Shiavo spent Terri's rehabilitation funds trying to have her taken off her feeding tube instead of trying to get her therapy. Once successful in getting legal permission to commit the homicide of his wife, he made no known efforts to find a shorter, more humane ways to end Terri Shiavo's life than letting her starve to death.

Once Terri Shiavo was dead, Michael Shiavo would not let her parents bury her body nearby in Florida where both the Shiavo and Shindler families live. Instead, he had Terri Shiavo cremated instead of buried as her family desired, would not let the Shindler family have access to Terri's body or ashes for their daughter's memorial service.

In addition, if widely available accounts can be believed, Michael Shiavo did not want to even let the Shindler family know where or when their daughter's ashes would be buried, only providing that information under court order.

That is what we know of Michael Shiavo. Make of it what you will.