Long Legal Battle Over as Schiavo Dies

Suzanne Vitadamo called for calm after her sister's death. "Threatening words dishonor our family, our faith and our sister, Terri," she said. (Carlos Barria -- Reuters)

Addressing the demonstrators, with her father and brother by her side, Vitadamo urged calm. "Threatening words dishonor our family, our faith and our sister, Terri. We would ask that all of those who support our family be completely kind in their words and deeds to others."

As the demonstrators wept and prayed, a national conversation about living wills was taking place, spurred by the ambiguity and pain caused by Schiavo's lack of written instructions about life-sustaining care. Conservative activists were vowing to exact election-time revenge on the judges and politicians who stood in the way of reinserting the tube removed from Schiavo's stomach 13 days ago.

"There will be hell to pay," said Randall Terry, the Operation Rescue founder who became the spokesman for Schiavo's parents.

No political figure is more entwined in the case than Jeb Bush, who told reporters this week that the Schiavo case is the toughest issue he has faced in nearly seven years as governor. Bush pushed a measure through the Florida Legislature -- which was ruled unconstitutional -- that allowed him to order her feeding resumed six days after her tube was removed in 2003. But some demonstrators were calling him a "traitor" on Thursday because he refused to defy a court order that said he did not have authority to take custody of Schiavo.

Mirror on Society

"Terri's death is a window through which we can see the many issues left unresolved in our families and in our society," the governor told reporters Thursday.

Congressional leaders and lawmakers in statehouses across the nation also were pledging to convert the emotions and the rhetoric of Schiavo's case into new laws for families divided by end-of-life issues. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who two weeks ago said there was doubt about whether Schiavo was in a vegetative state after reviewing videos of her, has indicated that Congress should revisit feeding-tube issues raised in the Schiavo case. "May God bless her memory," he said.

The last half-hour of Schiavo's life, much like the last seven years, turned into a family brawl. Her brother, Bobby Schindler, who lobbied Congress and conservative Christian groups for years to save her, argued with police when he was asked to leave her room so that hospice officials could assess her condition. Pavone said Schindler complained because he was told he was being banned from the hospice as Schiavo neared death.

Michael Schiavo's "heartless cruelty continued until this very last moment," Pavone said.

Felos countered during a news conference later in the day, saying Schindler was kept out because he had become loud and confrontational, and Michael Schiavo wanted his wife to die in an atmosphere "of love." The bitter back-and-forth colored the moments after Schiavo's death, underscoring the intractability of a family fight that has consumed nearly half of the 15 years since that day in 1990 when oxygen stopped flowing to her brain after a heart attack.

Pavone said he prayed over Schiavo on Thursday morning before being asked to leave the hospice. Later, about 30 hospice employees -- many of whom waited hours after their shifts ended to say goodbye for the last time -- circled Schiavo's body and prayed as it lay waiting to be taken away by the Pinellas County medical examiner, Felos said.

Her body left the hospice two hours after she died, Felos said, driven away discreetly through a back entrance far from the dozens of reporters and protesters in front of the hospice. Michael Schiavo has asked for an autopsy in hopes of ending doubts that his wife's brain was damaged beyond repair from lack of oxygen. But in an indication that debate might never end, Terry asserted Thursday that the examination cannot prove Schiavo was in a vegetative state.

The Schindlers failed in a court fight to block Michael Schiavo from having his wife's body cremated. The cremation will take place in Florida, Felos said, then Schiavo's ashes will be taken to Michael Schiavo's family plot in suburban Philadelphia. No plans for services have been announced, but Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan friar who has been by the Schindlers' side for weeks, said "there is no way" her parents will join Michael Schiavo.

"It would be like a victim's family attending services with the murderer," he said.

Michael Schiavo is accused of being an adulterer by protesters because he and his girlfriend have two children. One woman Thursday carried a sign with pictures of Scott Peterson, O.J. Simpson and Michael Schiavo. It said, "Three of a kind."

End of a Long Fight

Michael Schiavo has said his wife told him multiple times before her collapse that she would not want to be kept alive by a tube, and a Florida judge sided with him over her parents, who said she told them she would want to be kept alive. Michael Schiavo spent nearly twice as long with a wife who was a brain-damaged patient than he did with her before her heart attack, which he has blamed on a potassium deficiency brought on by bulimia. The Schindlers and some of their supporters have accused him of attacking Schiavo because of an unhappy marriage and causing her brain injuries -- accusations Michael Schiavo, who says he and his wife had planned to have children, vehemently denies.

The Schindlers and Michael Schiavo have been fighting in court since 1998, probably making their case the most litigated of its kind in U.S. history.

Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, who administered the Catholic sacrament of the dying to Schiavo on Easter, slipped into a white robe and compared Schiavo to Jesus Christ. "He was put on trial unjustly, just like Terri," he said, standing before a makeshift altar outside the hospice. At Malanowski's feet was a bouquet of Easter lilies -- once brilliantly white, now turning brown and wilted.

Staff writers Charles Babington and Mike Allen, and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report from Washington.