Agency: No Signs Of Schiavo Abuse

The Department of Children and Families said it found no evidence that Terri Schiavo had been abused or exploited by either side of her family after the legal battle surrounding her right-to-die case intensified, according to documents released under a court order Friday.

The agency investigated 89 complaints logged on its hotline dating back to 2001, when Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for the first time. The calls alleged that the brain-damaged woman was being mistreated by both her husband and her parents for financial gain.

One complaint alleged her parents were selling videos of her through a Web site, while another caller complained that her husband wasn't spending money intended for her rehabilitation.

However, investigators said they found no evidence that either her husband or parents were exploiting her, and often noted in their records that they found Schiavo well cared for on their visits to her Pinellas Park hospice.

The agency was ordered on Thursday to release the records by Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer.

Schiavo, 41, died last month after her feeding tube was removed for the third time, ending a gut-wrenching court battle between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, over whether she would have wanted to live in a vegetative state.

The repeated allegations of abuse were based partly on bone scans showing Terri Schiavo suffered fractures and statements she made to family and friends that she was unhappy in her marriage.

Schiavo's husband has denied harming his wife. His lawyer said the fractures resulted from osteoporosis caused by the woman's years of immobility and complications of her medication.

Attorneys for Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers did not immediately return calls seeking comment Friday. The Schindlers attended a memorial service for their daughter Friday evening in Southampton, Pa.

Schiavo's parents, brother and sister took part in the service at Our Lady of Good Counsel attended by about 500 people, including uniformed students of the high school where Schiavo graduated.

"If Terri's death has taught me anything, it is to make me starkly aware that matters of life and death are truly in our hands," the Rev. Clemens Gerdelmann said in a brief homily. "Let us never be so bold and brazen as to think that we can better our lives at the expense of another's."

Afterward, friends lined up to greet Schiavo's family in the basement of the Catholic school. "She was murdered. There's no getting around it," said childhood friend Diane Meyers, 41. "But whatever anger comes, I hear her voice in my ear saying, 'Always find the good.'"

Schiavo's parents declined to comment.

Before the service, friends and relatives clustered in small groups to visit and reminisce.

"She was the sweetest, kindest person — full of life, always bubbly, always happy," said Sean Pickford, 41, who went to high school with Schiavo's younger brother and said he often visited the family home.

It is the fourth service the parents have held for Schiavo. A community memorial was held in Florida hours after she died, followed by a funeral Mass and another memorial in the following two weeks.

Michael Schiavo also plans to hold a memorial service for his wife in Pennsylvania, but he has not said when. He is under court order to notify the parents of his plans.

Schiavo had his wife cremated, and said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. Schiavo's parents had opposed her cremation and hoped to bury her in their adopted state of Florida.