TAMPA, June 16, 2005
Schiavo Parents Consider Next Move
Autopsy Fails To Convince Them She Could Not Have Recovered
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Play CBS Video Video Schiavo Autopsy Results Terri Schiavo's autopsy reports were made public, and they showed she was blind and had irreversible brain damage. Jim Axelrod reports on the final chapter of Schiavo's controversial life and death.
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Video Schiavo State 'Irreversible' A Florida medical examiner ruled Wednesday that Terri Schiavo would never have recovered from the near fatal brain injury she suffered years earlier. Scott Rapoport reports.
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Terri Schiavo (CBS/AP)
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Medical examiners Dr. Jon Thogmartin, right, and Dr. Stephen Nelson (AP)
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Parents Mary and Bob Schindler earlier this year (AP)
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Interactive Life And Death Battle Terri Schiavo's husband and parents clash over keeping the brain-damaged woman alive.
The autopsy also found no evidence that Terri Schiavo was strangled or otherwise abused before her sudden 1990 collapse — countering allegations by the Schindlers that she was abused by her husband.
Yet medical examiners could not say for certain what caused the collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.
George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the findings back up their contentions made "for years and years" that Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. He said Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of her shrunken brain.
"Mr. Schiavo has received so much criticism throughout this case that I'm certain there's a part of him that was pleased to hear these results and the hard science behind them," Felos said.
The Schindlers fought their son-in-law in court over their daughter's fate for nearly seven years, battling to the end with conservatives at their side.
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president was briefed on the autopsy, and the results do not change his stand on the case.
©MMV CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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