Episode 6 - In my time of dying

LYNN: It’s March 28, 2005. The Monday after Easter.

CARRIE: This afternoon, it’ll mark a full ten days since Terri Schiavo has had any food or water.

LYNN: A white stretch limousine cruises within a block or so of the hospice…then parks. A tall, distinguished-looking man climbs out—an icon of the Civil Rights era and a lightning rod of contemporary politics: The Reverend Jesse Jackson. 

As Jackson marches up the street, Mike and C.B. Tammaro watch from their hideout in the shop across from the hospice. They’re hunkered down with their sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Bob Schindler.

CB TAMMARO: From the moment he was let out at the end of the street—because there were so many cars, they were not letting anybody park in there—He and his entourage of probably 15 to 20 people walked down the center of the street that you know, now we were set because they were all there. “I’m here and everything you know is good now.”

LYNN: Camera operators walk backwards in front of Jackson. Jackson leads his procession right up to the Schindlers’ refuge.

MIKE TAMMARO: He came into our little room there bigger than life…I don’t think he knew why he was there.

CB TAMMARO: Well, he came in that place and he sat down on the couch and he asked if he could pray remember?

CB TAMMARO: It was so…He definitely had a plan because he knew the TV stations were, he definitely had a plan for his entrance.

LYNN: Still, the reporters outside lap it up.

CHANNEL 2: Just a short while ago, the Reverend Jesse Jackson emerged after meeting with the family and various official he said he knows there’s little likelihood Terri’s feeding tube will be reinserted. But even in depth Terri Schiavo’s case serves as an important purpose for us all he says.

LYNN: Michael Schiavo and his brother Brian watch from inside the hospice, laughing at the scene. When an officer informs Michael that the Reverend Jesse Jackson would like to pray with him, Michael declines. He also turns down Jackson’s offer to pray with Terri. So, Jackson remains outside with the crowds…And Bob, Mary, Mike, and C.B. stand by…wondering how things got to this point.

CB TAMMARO: But Bob and Mary had constantly been saying that just all of the the circus atmosphere is not what they intended.

LAWLESS THEME

LYNN: From WORLD Radio, and the creative team that brings you The World and Everything in It: This is Lawless. I’m New York Times bestselling author and WORLD Magazine executive editor Lynn Vincent.

ANNA: And I’m WORLD Radio Features Editor, Anna Johansen Brown. Lawless is a true crime podcast that examines a frightening fact of American life: That not every crime is against the law.

LYNN: In Season 2, we’re finishing our investigation of the Terri Schiavo story, a case that in 2005 shocked the world. This is Episode 6: In My Time of Dying.

SPONSORSHIP SPOT: Lawless is made possible by listeners like you. Additional support comes from Compelled Podcast. Listen to unique and compelling testimonies like Gracia Burnham, a missionary to the Philippines who was kidnapped by Muslim terrorists and held hostage for over a year, yet who chose to forgive her captors. Listen on your favorite podcast app or at CompelledPodcast.com.

ANNA: Police at Florida Hospice of the Suncoast have the whole place on lock-down. It’s like a fortress…the Schindlers and Tammaros have to fight their way inside every time.

SUZANNE: Our family had to go through three police checkpoints to even enter Terri’s room. We’d empty our pockets. We can’t take cell phones and then there was policeman in front of Terri’s room. And then there’s also a policeman in Terri’s room…we never had any alone time with Terri.

CB TAMMARO: I can remember walking into hospice and going through all of that, degrading, you know, “Turn around, hold your arms up, and you got anything?” and thinking, and I said it out loud, “Excuse me. We do live in America. We live in the United States of America. What is happening here?”

ANNA: Police are on high alert for anyone trying to smuggle food or water to Terri.

MIKE TAMMARO: They talked about not giving her any ice or not giving her any water, don’t don’t attempt to sneak any ice into the room for any. You know, it was, it was terrible.

ANNA: Michael doesn’t have to deal with any of that. Ever since Terri’s feeding tube came out, he’s been living in a little room at the hospice…right down the hall from Terri, so he can be close to her. On March 23, Michael is watching TV with his brother Bill. Suddenly, his program is interrupted with a breaking news announcement.

FREE SPEECH RADIO: Florida Governor Jeb Bush held a press conference this afternoon during which he suggested that the State Department of Children and Families could invoke its right under Florida statute to provide protective services to certain quote vulnerable adults and apply it to the Terri Schiavo case.

ANNA: Government agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are already on their way…staging a last-ditch effort to rescue Terri. Michael’s blood boils. His knee is still injured from his tumble over the backyard fence as he dodged reporters…but he hobbles down the hall as fast as he can in search of Deborah Bushnell. George Felos hurries off to the courthouse…

RODRIGUEZ: Mr. Felos went directly to judge Greer ex parte for an emergency motion to get an order enjoining DCF, or any other person, under penalty of contempt, from trying to take custody of Terri or re-insert the feeding tube.

ANNA: Back at the hospice…Michael is pacing the halls…practically tearing his hair out as TV anchors debate the odds of a standoff between FDLE and police.

RODRIGUEZ: In order to avoid any kind of misunderstanding and tragedy, FDLE had radioed ahead to Pinellas Park Police saying, “Hey, we’re on our way.” And the Pinellas Park Police told them to stay away, and FDLE backed off.

ANNA: No last-minute intervention. The governor’s rescue mission has failed.

BOBBY: Everything was turned upside down. Policemen are supposed to protect life and help people that are in trouble. But yet they were there to make sure Terri died.

ANNA: Governor Bush tells the press his hands are tied…

JEB BUSH: I’ve consistently said that I can’t go beyond what my powers are and I’m not going to do it.

LYNN: As Terri lies dying…an increasing number of medical professionals write in challenging her PVS diagnosis or recommending new treatments. One of those is Dr. William Cheshire.

CHESHIRE: When I first walked into her room, she immediately turned her head toward me and looked directly at my face. There was a look of curiosity or expectation in her expression, and she maintained eye contact for about half a minute.

LYNN: Cheshire declined an interview, so the voice you’re hearing isn’t his. But they’re his words from a March 23 affidavit. As part of their review of the case, Florida’s Adult Protective Services, sends Cheshire on a mission: observe and document Terri Schiavo’s true condition. Cheshire visits Terri…and he reviews her medical records and videotapes. As he reads, one issue keeps surfacing over and over again: Pain. Terri’s not supposed to be able to feel it in PVS.

CHESHIRE: And yet, in my review of Terri’s medical records, pain issues keep surfacing.

LYNN: Terri moans and cries when she has a UTI. And her hospice nurses have to give her ibuprofen for menstrual cramps. Cheshire wonders if those responses might signal something more.

CHESHIRE: …should not the clear presence of pain be given serious consideration as possibly indicating conscious awareness in Terri Schiavo? If Terri is consciously aware of pain, and therefore is capable of suffering, then her diagnosis of PVS may be tragically mistaken.

LYNN: Terri’s 2002 CT scan shows she’s lost a lot of her cerebral cortex—the part of the brain responsible for memory, emotions, consciousness. Scientists have traditionally distinguished pain reactions in the brain stem from conscious suffering in the cerebral cortex. But…

CHESHIRE: Recent studies suggest, however, that such a distinction may not be the clear bright line previously imagined.

LYNN: It’s a major red light for Cheshire. He suspects Terri isn’t PVS at all, but instead, MCS: in a minimally conscious state.

CHESHIRE: As I looked at Terri, and she gazed directly back at me, I asked myself whether, if I were her attending physician, I could in good conscience withdraw her feeding and hydration. No, I could not…I could not withhold life-sustaining nutrition and hydration from this beautiful lady whose face brightens in the presence of others.

LYNN: In addition to Cheshire’s report, the Schindlers collect forty other affidavits. A handful date from the early 2000s…but most arrive in March 2005. They’re from neurologists, nurses, and speech pathologists. Of all the affidavits, David Gibbs thinks Dr. William Cheshire’s is a standout.

GIBBS: This is an independent neurologist, highly trained, and he came back with the overwhelming opinion that Terri Schiavo was alive, she was not in PVS, and that she should indeed be kept alive. The judge in this case did not want to hear it.

Neither does the Mayo Clinic. They send out a disclaimer saying Cheshire’s views don’t represent an official position since he only visited Terri…and didn’t perform a neurological examination.

Dr. Ronald Cranford isn’t impressed with Cheshire’s conclusions. Cranford points out Cheshire doesn’t address Terri’s flat EEGs—those brain scans detecting no cerebral activity.

ANNA: The Schindler’s case races up and back to the Supreme Court twice in under ten days—a record in U.S. legal history, Gibbs says. Between March 18 and 28, the Schindlers file ten petitions in ten days. But the courts consistently rule against the Schindlers…

GIBBS: The courts locked in on “Judge Greer made a decision. And we’re going to stand by what the judges did. And there were moments where you began to realize each appeal was getting to be less likely of succeeding.

ANNA: March 25 is Good Friday. The Schindlers encourage protestors to go home for the holiday. But, they don’t.

ANCHOR: Outside the hospice somber services on Good Friday with communion and prayers for Terri Schiavo.

BOB: Terri is weakening. She’s down to her last hours.

PROTESTORS: Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives…

ANNA: The crowds number in the hundreds. Protestors hail from every corner of the map.
I’m down here from Mobile, Alabama, Washington State, I’m from Lakeland, Florida. Most of them are just ordinary people moved by Terri’s plight.

REPORTER: Why did you come down here?

PROTESTORS: …I came down here because what is happening anyway you slice it, it’s an outrage…Terri Schiavo ought to have a right to live. See, the problem with this government is it started killing babies in 1973 with abortion and killed 46 million against abortion…No person should be starved or dehydrated to death. No person if they're a human being, then that’s it.

ANNA: Some high-profile celebrities also offer their support. Jesse Jackson and his entourage. Big names like Mel Gibson, Chuck Norris, and Rosalynn Carter. Jim Caviezel, the actor who portrayed Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, calls Bobby quietly just to pray.
Others come armed with strategies to rescue Terri…

BOBBY: I can’t tell many people came up to me who had the silver bullet, knew how to save Terri…

ANNA: A few try to take matters into their own hands…

CARRIE: And in a related story the North Carolina man accused of putting a $250,000 bounty on Michael Schiavo’s head will make his first court appearance this morning…

ANNA: A member of a SWAT team walks up to Bobby with a question: Is he in touch with the militia?

BOBBY: Because the militia was evidently going to, was making threats. They’re going to come take Terri away. And they thought that I was might have been coordinating it. And I’m like, I don’t even know about it….I have I have nothing to do with that.

ANNA: Frank Pavone and his associate Janet Morana with Priests for Life had considered their own rescue plan.

MORANA: There were people in the prolife movement that would have done anything to rescue Terri.

PAVONE: And they were talking to us.

ANNA: Morana says she floated the idea to Bobby at a family dinner back in February.

MORANA: We go in the middle of the night, like at three in the morning, when very little people are going to be paying attention to what’s going on. Maybe there’ll be one security guard, we just march in there. And she’s not on any machinery, we just put her on a stretcher, and we have a jet waiting, a private jet that we get a donor to donate, and we’ll fly her to a nearby island like Bermuda or Nassau something close enough where it's like, timeout, keep her safe. Give her nutrition so she won’t die. And then we could talk about it later. You know, it was the idea of remove her from this perilous situation. They’re gonna starve her to death.

ANNA: But Morana says they can’t do anything without the Schindlers’ approval. And the Schindlers…they say “no thanks” to Plan B.

MORANA: In their heart of hearts, they really thought, if we just follow the law, and do what we're supposed to do, this will never happen, somehow it’ll resolve.

LYNN: Nearly 50 people have been arrested trying to bring Terri water…a handful of them children. One of these unlikely rescuers is Dow Pursley. He’s a middle-aged professor from Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Pennsylvania. Pursley was keeping tabs on the Schiavo case and brought it up for discussion in an ethics class he was teaching.

PURSLEY: One of my students was a great pastor in the area. And he said, “Dow,” he said, “I feel really bad that we’re sitting here talking about Terri Schiavo. She’s down there without water, and they’re not feeding her and she’s gonna die. And and we’re talking about her here, I just, it’s just cognitive dissonance. And when I left that class, I went home and I told my wife, I’m about to go down there.

LYNN: Pursley catches a late flight and arrives at the hospice the next morning.

PURSLEY: Well, the first thing I saw was the SWAT team up in the wall back behind. And I had taken two bottles of water, this little small Delta bottles. And I just, I had a little eyedropper that the Catholics used to give communion to people that are You know, can’t swallow very well. And so I, I had brought in my shirt pocket.

LYNN: Pursley knows it’s an unlikely plan, maybe doomed to be nothing more than symbolic…even if he does make it inside, he doesn’t even know which room Terri’s in. But he believes God can do the impossible.

PURSLEY: I prayed before I went and I said, “God I, you know, I’m just gonna do the right thing. And if you don’t maybe get in the room, I’ll not be given the water. But whatever the outcome, I’m leaving it to you.”

LYNN: Then, Pursley hops the fence and makes a run for it. Just as quickly, on-duty police officers guarding hospice spring into action.

PURSLEY: But they knocked me down. There were about five cops that finally were there at the front door.

LYNN: One of the officers tases Pursley. Police escort him to jail where he’s strip-searched and locked away. That night, an anonymous benefactor posts bail, hires him a lawyer, and covers his legal fees. Pursley goes free. A reporter later asks him why he did it. Pursley says Terri needed a defender…and the words of Proverbs 24 kept ringing in his ears. 

PURSLEY: And so it says this, “Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die, save them as a stagger to their death. Don’t excuse yourself by saying, ‘Look, we didn’t know,’ for God understands hearts, and He sees you. He who guards your soul knows you knew and he will repay people as their actions deserve.”

ANNA: On March 26, Mary goes to visit Terri for the last time.

MARY: I went in there a few times. Then after that, Bobby wouldn’t let me go in there anymore. Because did you ever see somebody that was starved to death? Well, it’s not a nice, it’s not pretty, okay?

ANNA: David Gibbs goes with her. As they near Terri’s room, he notices something strange…

GIBBS: The first thing that hit me was the noise. And I honestly thought, did an air conditioner go out? Did something happen? And then I thought, Well, did they put her on a ventilator? What is this loud mechanical noise that I’m hearing? And as we would move into the room, Mary was in front of me, so it’s kind of coming behind her. But I realized it was Terri’s breathing.

ANNA: Terri’s breath is coming in gasps. She’s writhing up and down on her bed.

GIBBS: Looking at Terri, I was shocked by what I was seeing. I knew she was not going to be well. But when you start to see someone that’s dying of dehydration and starvation. I looked at her mouth and I have seen chapped lips before and people that have you know skin that’s been frostbit or something. But I’d never seen a totally dry mouth where like the tongue is white and flaking and the roof of the mouth, you could see it was peeling her body was you know, losing all moisture. And so it was getting extremely dry. Her face looked incredibly sunken, her eyes were in deep and her skin again very, very kind of red and dry, like almost like it had been burned.

ANNA: Mary bends over her daughter in anguish.

GIBBS: She was kissing her daughter and hugging her daughter and talking in her ear, I saw some of Mary’s tears hit Terri’s cheek. And as they would hit her cheek and kind of run it had the look of like a little creek of water in a desert canyon.

ANNA: Gibbs watches everything from the foot of the bed. Mary keeps reassuring Terri, telling her she isn’t alone.

GIBBS: And then she would cry, you know, “Dear Jesus, please help my daughter. Don’t let her hurt.” And you’d see her kind of go between prayer and mom encouraging and then just sobbing over this horrific scene…

LYNN: As the days slip past, Terri continues to fade. But what that really looks like…depends on who you ask.

CARRIE: Michael Schiavo's attorney George Felos, meanwhile, says that she’s resting comfortably and admits her eyes are sunken in but he says that she does not appear to be uncomfortable.

LYNN: The Schindlers say that’s far from the truth. They watch in agony as Terri’s body breaks down and shrivels away.

BOBBY: Oh, my gosh…I mean, the only thing you can compare to that people would understand is when you do see pictures of concentration camps. I mean, we were seeing my sister look like those people. I mean, the, you know, the sunken eyes. It was it was grotesque. Her teeth were protruding because her face was shrinking. Because it was it was getting so dehydrated. She was bleeding. She’s the last couple days of bleeding. Her eyes started bleeding. Her lips were terribly chapped, her skin started to chap. It started turning different shades like it was. I remember being yellowish or bluish for skin. And while we were experiencing this, we had Michael’s attorney coming out and giving press conferences. And his eye witness was how beautiful and peaceful Terri appeared to him, which was completely contrary to what was happening inside the hospice and what we were seeing.

LYNN: Felos continues to insist that Terri can’t consciously feel pain and isn’t suffering…this despite Dr. Cheshire’s analysis, years of notes from Terri’s rehab nurses, and even Michael’s own 1992 testimony to the contrary. Terri, Felos says, is dying a gentle, peaceful death.

FELOS: The unrebutted medical evidence is that a death of this kind is painless.

LYNN: Mary fires back:

MARY: If anybody tells you in this whole world. That’s a beautiful death. Okay, they are absolutely lying, lying, lying, because it’s not.

ANNA: On Easter Sunday…Michael allows Terri to receive the elements of the eucharist from Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski—a local priest serving as spiritual advisor to Terri and the Schindlers.

CARRIE: Yesterday Michael Schiavo did allow Terri to have Holy Communion for Easter with a drop of wine on her tongue. Her mouth was too dry for a wafer…

ANNA: …But only under strict conditions.

BOBBY: And it was, it was nuts. They had they, they, they only allowed us to do it if they had the chaplain of hospice, holding Monsignor’s hand, so Monsignor’s holding the needle over, you know, Terri's mouth and the chaplain's holding Monsignor’s hand. And they made sure that they were gonna control how many drops he was able to give her.

ANNA: Before leaving, Bobby stoops down to give Terri a hug. In the hallway, he realizes the Vaseline on Terri’s lips left an imprint on his shirt. He saves the shirt in storage and never wears it again.

LYNN: When Michael enters Terri’s room a few days later, he can see that time is short. Felos sees it, too.

FELOS: It was evident upon first seeing Terri yesterday that she was entering into the final stages of her death process. She went through intermittent periods of rapid breathing. Her limbs became progressively colder.

LYNN: Michael, his brother Brian, Felos and Bushnell camp out in Terri’s room. Hospice staff order them pizza. They pull some chairs together, put their feet up, and wait.

FELOS: Some beautiful soul sent just just sent us for Michael a gorgeous bouquet of flowers with with lilies and white roses and red roses, just a gorgeous display of flowers yesterday that we brought to the hospice with us. Music was playing. Very soft, soothing music for a good part of the day. The hospice facility itself was relatively quiet. We did not hear any protesters. Outside it was a very peaceful and calm setting.

LYNN: In his book, Michael writes he held Terri’s hand most of the night. He says he and Brian told stories about Terri—remembering her laughter and joy.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO: I could see that Terri was changing, her breathing was changing. It would be a little abnormal for a while and then go back to normal. And so I spent the night with her. I stayed by her side. I cradled her in my arms, and I told her, I love her. It’s still hard to this day. And I told her, “It’s okay.”

ANNA: Meanwhile, Bobby, Suzanne, and Father Pavone are holed up in the shop across the street…waiting for the moment they can return to Terri’s side.

PAVONE: So we’re trying to fall asleep in the in the bookstore on a couch there and oh, my gosh, that night, then I dragged out. We were waiting. We wanted to go back in. So we were waiting for them to tell us, “Okay, Michael has finished his visit, you guys can go back.” The hours of the night went on. And we heard nothing. Three hours, four hours, five hours. Before you know it. It was seven o’clock in the morning. And finally, right around that, 7:30 or so, we were told we could go back out, which we did right away.

ANNA: When Pavone enters Terri’s room, he can tell she doesn’t have long left to live.
The vase of flowers by Terri’s head creates a scene of searing irony for Pavone.

PAVONE: What was going through my mind was, “Lord, look at the absurdity here, how did we get into this absurd situation, where these flowers rightfully are being nourished by water, and the human being inches away, is deprived of water dying, because she's deprived of water.”

ANNA: Bobby sits in a chair on Terri’s right. Suzanne and Pavone sit opposite. Sometimes, one of them bends over the bed and lays a gentle hand on Terri’s head.
But mainly: long interludes of silence. Because by then the situation was beyond words.

PAVONE: When a situation is like beyond our own words, we rely on the words of the church. And so we use the prayers of the church, we use the prayers for the dying, I use the prayers of Scripture. And then sometimes it's just beyond words, period. And so you're in silence. And then sometimes it's even beyond silence. And what do you do, then? You sing.

PAVONE: LATIN CHANT

PAVONE: To the paschal victim. Christians raise your hymns of praise Christ, the the Lamb has died for the sheep, the innocent one as died for sinners and has reconciled us to the Father. Life and death that the think of that you think of these words and what was going on in the context, it says, life and death were locked in an awesome struggle. Life's Captain died, but now reigns victorious.

ANNA: Around 8:45 a.m., staff go in to check Terri’s condition. They ask Pavone, Bobby, and Suzanne to step out into the hallway during the exam.

BOBBY: But we were promised that once she was assessed, we would be allowed back into the room. Once we got to outside the room, a policeman said that we have to leave the hospice building. And that’s when I became very upset because I wanted to be with my sister.

ANNA: It’s the last straw for Bobby.

PAVONE: I mean, look, the guy had no sleep for days he was, we were frustrated, sad, angry, all this. Anybody would have would have lost their their, their, their temper, anybody. So he did at that point, it was very tense.

ANNA: By now, the hospice vice president has tracked down Michael.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO: About a quarter to nine, the administrator came down and said, “Michael, if you want to see Terri, you need to come now.” So I jumped up from the bed and I, you know, I hurt my knee and all this and I was hobbling down the hall as quickly as I could. And as I was there, the administrator said, “Well, we asked Bobby and Suzanne to leave because we’re gonna do an assessment and we noticed the change in Terri, but Suzanne left with the priest and Bobby got into an argument with the police officer.” I had no time to sit and think about Bobby Schindler in what he was doing out there with a police officer. So my attorney quick said to me, “Do you want him in?” And I said, “No.” I had seconds when I got in the room to spend with Terri.

ANNA: Police turn Bobby, Suzanne, and Pavone away. A few minutes later, at 9:05 a.m. on March 31, Theresa Marie Schiavo takes her last breath. Michael says he was kneeling next to the bed…cradling Terri as she died. Crying. One by one, his companions leave the room. Only Brian remains. Michael takes a rose and places it in Terri’s hands. Twenty minutes later, the brothers leave, too. 

Meanwhile, Suzanne calls her parents to break the news. When Mary hears it, she starts to sob…and can’t stop. She’s been bracing herself for this moment for days. But now that it’s here, she’s overcome with grief. After fighting to be strong for her family for so long…she can finally just cry.

LYNN: Bob holds Mary tightly in the backseat of Mike Tammaro’s car as they drive to the hospice. They meet up with David Gibbs at the odds-and-ends shop and prepare to brave the crowds. Outside, TV cameras surround them. Reporters shout questions. The family will later say the cameras and reporters felt birds of prey. But Mary doesn’t say a thing. She can’t…her voice is choked by tears.

Bobby and Suzanne wait outside the door—stricken and pale-faced. Even now, police stop and search the Schindlers on their way in. Inside the room, Terri’s body is shrouded.

MARY: When I was in there, Bobby had covered her up covered her because I knew there was no way I was going to go in there to see her looking like that. Because I probably wouldn’t be as like I am today if I had seen her. So I thank God every day that somebody covered her.

LYNN: Mary throws herself on Terri sobbing.

MARY: I cried for a while. And then one of the policeman wouldn’t let me stay in, they picked me up by my shoulders and told me, they told them to take me out. I was on the bed with my face down in the blanket. And I was crying. They let me stay there for a little bit. But then he just picked me up on my shoulders and told them to take me out.

LYNN: David Gibbs calls the Franciscan Brothers of Peace to coordinate a covert getaway so the media won’t trample them. They arrive in a van at the back door of the hospice. Outside, a news helicopter hovers overhead. Police motorcycles hem the van before and behind to force a way through the crowds clogging the road. 

Mary puts her head down on Bob’s lap. Bob watches through the window. Reporters run alongside the van. One cracks his telephoto lens against the glass. It startles Mary and she begins to cry. The camera operator falls over, then gets right back up again, running after the car. At home, Bobby turns on the radio and listens as Rush Limbaugh announces Terri’s death: “Today, America, we have hit rock bottom.” Bobby turns off the radio and falls asleep.

PAVONE: Everyone was exhausted. I remember that. We went to their house after that. I remember, I could still see Bobby, just lying on the floor asleep. You know, he was like, finally was able to get some sleep. But he was they wasn't sleeping in a bed. He was on the living room floor.

ANNA: After the Schindlers leave, hospice workers wash Terri’s body. About forty of them gather outside Terri’s room to hold hands and pray. Then, they escort her remains down the hallway. Outside, two identical white vans wait. One to carry Terri’s body. One to act as a decoy. Police escort both vehicles off the premises. And a wave of grief passes over the crowds huddled on the grounds. 

O’NEILL: The most dedicated protesters those who’ve been here for all two weeks or more. Some of them are taking the news very hard. I’ve seen medics fall to their knees in prayer other women sitting here weeping, one man chanting Terri’s home now. Many people feel they have lost a great war and not just a battle now that Terri Schiavo is dead at the age of 41.

ANNA: Lawless is a production of WORLD Radio. Paul Butler is our executive producer and sound engineer. Music by Will Shehan. Lawless is reported and written by Grace Snell, Lynn Vincent, and me, Anna Johansen Brown. For more resources related to this and other episodes, visit LawlessPodcast.com. Thanks for joining us.

SPONSORSHIP SPOT: Additional support comes from Compelled Podcast. Listen to unique and compelling testimonies like Stu Fuhlendorf, a staunch atheist and alcoholic with a tremendous success record on Wall Street... but during a booze-filled trip around the world he couldn't shake the idea...What if God actually was real? Listen on your favorite podcast app or at CompelledPodcast.com.

AUDIO SOURCES
(in order of appearance)

Carrie Kirkland: Tube out 10 days, audio from Tampa WMTX mix 100.7

Channel 2 News: 3/30/2005, video from Terri Schiavo archives at Ave Maria University

Fatima Today: Mary and Suzanne [2006], video from Terri Schiavo archives at Ave Maria University

Free Speech Radio News lineup - Wednesday, March 23, 2005, video from Free Speech Radio

Terri Schiavo: 3/24/05 [ABC]

Shortcut of Terri Schiavo story, Youtube video by koliberek89

Battle For Terri Schiavo's Death Remembered | Flashback | NBC News, Youtube video by NBC News

Terri Schiavo Revisited: Woodside Hospice 3.27.05, Youtube video by kombatrock

Between Life & Death - the Terri Schiavo Story, Vimeo video by beanfieldproductions 

CBN News Watch [3/31/2006], video from Terri Schiavo archives at Ave Maria University

Nancy Grace and Scarborough Country pt. 1 3/28/2006, video from Terri Schiavo archives at Ave Maria University

ABC: Schindler family [3/27/2006], video from Terri Schiavo archives at Ave Maria University

Carrie Kirkland: Tube out 14 days, audio from Tampa WMTX mix 100.7

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.