Cited: Daily News
Even though Diane Schuler was drunk and stoned at the time of the Taconic crash, her family is seizing on the autopsy report that proves that she was not an alcoholic. Her husband hired an investigator who gave them the coroner’s report that shows no cirrhosis.
“The autopsy supports the claims of over 50 of Diane Schuler’s friends and family members who have never once seen this woman drunk,” Tom Ruskin of CMP Group Investigators said Saturday. “It shows that Diane’s liver and pancreas have no signs of alcoholic disease.”
He said the autopsy found no erosion of her esophagus – another sign of long-term alcoholism. He plans to have a group of forensic experts review the 20-page report before deciding whether to exhume Schuler’s body. The autopsy found the Long Island mom consumed 10 shots of vodka and smoked marijuana before the wrong-way crash that killed eight people.
Schuler’s husband, Daniel, insists she did not have a drinking or drug problem and blamed mystery medical problems – which were not uncovered by the autopsy. Schuler was driving home from a camping trip in Sullivan county with her two kids and three nieces when she slammed into an SUV carrying Yonkers residents Michael Bastardi, 81, Guy Bastardi, 49, and Daniel Longo. Only Schuler’s 5-year-old son survived.
The Bastardis lawyer blasted Schuler’s legal team for their interpretation of the autopsy results. “The lengths these people are taking to deny reality are just astounding and painful to my clients,” said lawyer Irving Anolik.
“The fact remains that Diane Schuler was drunk and high when she killed all these people and the facts aren’t going to change,” said Anolik.
The Bastardis – who plan to sue Schuler – have their own problem with the autopsy: It didn’t include a hair sample that could show past narcotic use.
“Diane Schuler could have been a cocaine addict or on any number of drugs but we may never know because this test wasn’t administered,” Anolik said.
Westchester authorities should have tested Diane Schuler’s hair to find out whether the West Babylon woman who caused a deadly wrong-way collision on the Taconic State Parkway was a chronic drug user, the top forensic pathologist for State Police said Tuesday.
That was one of the lingering questions even after an autopsy report was released Tuesday after a Newsday Freedom of Information Law request. Also unanswered was whether Schuler, whose blood contained more than twice the legal limit of alcohol, had a prior drinking problem, experts said.
Her husband, Daniel, has denied she was a substance abuser. But Schuler had the equivalent of 10 drinks and “high levels” of marijuana in her blood on July 26, when she drove the wrong way on the Taconic with five children in a minivan and collided head-on with a sport utility vehicle, authorities say. Schuler and seven others were killed.
But an $85 test not done by the Westchester Department of Laboratories and Research could have definitively shown two months of drug history for every inch of Schuler’s hair, said Dr. Michael Baden, former New York City chief medical examiner who now works for the State Police. Hair testing would not show prior alcohol use.
“In a case like this, it would be of value to know, did she use marijuana for a long time?” Baden added.
Westchester authorities and other forensic experts said hair drug testing is generally not called for in a vehicular accident, but Baden – who is not involved in the State Police probe of the crash – said the collision’s circumstances called for the tests.
“It often isn’t done,” Baden said. “But when eight people die, that’s different. I think it would have been prudent to do.”
Donna Greene, a spokeswoman for the Westchester medical examiner’s office, had no immediate response to Baden late Tuesday. Earlier, in response to more general questions, she said the county stood by the autopsy. Irving Anolik, a spokesman for the Bastardi family of Yonkers, which lost two family members in the crash, has advocated hair testing. The lab does not have those hair samples so Schuler’s body must be exhumed for future tests.
Several other forensic experts interviewed by Newsday said hair drug tests are hardly ever used in autopsy investigations. “I know of no situation specifically where it’s been called for,” said Dr. William Closson, a forensic toxicologist with Bendiner and Schlesinger, an independent lab in Brooklyn that works with the NYPD.
“It doesn’t mean you can rule out alcoholism,” said Dr. Mary Case, the chief medical examiner of St. Louis County, Mo., who said alcoholism is often not detectable in relatively young, well-nourished adults like Schuler.
The autopsy did find that Schuler’s liver appeared healthy and had no unusual fat deposits or scarring with “normal consistency”. According to Dr. case, there are some experimental tests that contest delivers fatty acids to obtain a history of a person’s alcoholic use, however, the they have not been proven reliable as of yet. This result means that no one will ever know whether she was an alcoholic or not. The one thing that does not seem to be in dispute is the fact that she was drunk and high at the time of the crash.
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My Take: What I do not understand is why everybody worrying about whether she an alcoholic or not? No one seems to need disputing the fact that she was drunk and high at the time of the crash. That means that she is at fault for the death of 8 people. The only thing I can think of is that people are trying to figure out why she was not caught before if she was an alcoholic and drove drunk.
Both families are suffering from the loss. All the arguing over whether she was or was not an alcoholic should be set aside. If she was an alcoholic, it appears that she hid it very well. Otherwise, the one person who would have noticed would have been her husband. So why worry about the past? Why not worry about the future? Mr. Schuler has a 5-year-old son will grow up without a mother. He will also be faced with the fact that his mother killed 8 people. That is going to be tough for little boy to grow up with.
I also understand that the Bastardis have experienced a loss as well. Why not just go through your grief and leave it alone. Suing Mr. Schuler is not going to get your family members back. You are making him pay for something that his wife did. To me, that is completely unfair. Both families need to step back and face their grief and not worry about the errors that were made in the past.
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