The remnants of a family coping with the aftermath of the mother, intoxicated on booze and drugs, killing so many. It couldn’t be what the coroner said. It had to be something else. I get denial. But there is a weird twist to this. Politicians so often stand before the microphone and say specious things about a topic or issue. The fact that they speak it makes it true to some. Politicians create a “truth” irrespective of the facts all of the time. Isn’t that then what we as a society do when bad things happen? We don’t take responsibility, we don’t acknowledge the facts. We create a truth.
This family is wondering if they ever knew the person who caused this terrible loss of life. And, they are learning from our elected leaders that it is ok to hide behind a manufactured fact than face the hard realities.
Alcohol and Phone-Call Details in Wrong-Way Crash
Published: August 7, 2009 New York Times
The husband of the intoxicated woman who killed herself and seven others after driving the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway said Friday that they carried the same bottle of vodka every weekend between their home and a campground during the summer.
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Daniel Schuler, center, with his lawyer, Dominic A. Barbara, left, and Tom Ruskin, an investigator working for Mr. Schuler.
In doing so, he offered the first explanation of how his wife may have had access to alcohol on the morning of the crash, on July 26.
Tom Ruskin, an investigator who is working for the husband, Daniel Schuler, said that Mr. Schuler occasionally drank vodka and that his wife, Diane, was so frugal that she packed the same bottle of Absolut in a bag meant for trips between the family’s home in Suffolk County, on Long Island, and the camper in the Sullivan County campground they had frequented for the past three years. He said a single bottle could last a year for the Schulers.
But Mr. Ruskin said Mr. Schuler did not see the bottle that day, and was not sure whether his wife had packed the bottle in the bags he loaded into the minivan that Ms. Schuler drove from the campground. “He did not pack it, he did not see it,” Mr. Ruskin said. “As far as he knows, it is still in the camper, but I haven’t been up there and none of the investigative staff has checked it out as of yet.”
The authorities have said that Ms. Schuler, 36, of West Babylon, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 percent, more than twice the legal limit, and high levels of the chemical found in marijuana when she collided, head-on, about 1:35 p.m. with a Chevrolet TrailBlazer. Some days later, a broken Absolut vodka bottle was discovered under a seat in the minivan. Each revelation in the case has led to more questions about a crash that has left a riveted public uncomprehending of the tragedy: Ms. Schuler was killed, as was her daughter, Erin, 2; her three nieces, Emma, 8, Alyson, 7, and Kate, 5; and the three men in the TrailBlazer: Michael Bastardi, 81, his son, Guy Bastardi, 49, and a family friend, Daniel Longo, 74, all from Yonkers.
Mr. Schuler and his family have insisted that despite the toxicology findings, Diane Schuler rarely, if ever, drank, and that a medical problem must have had a role in the events of that day.
Mr. Ruskin said on Friday that phone records showed that four calls were logged on Ms. Schuler’s cellphone in the last hours of her life — two incoming calls and two outgoing ones.
He said that Ms. Schuler called her brother, Warren Hance, at 11:37 a.m., to say that she was in traffic, “running a bit late,” but that her nieces would be home in time for a scheduled performance rehearsal. At 12:08 p.m., Ms. Schuler received a call, but it is not yet known who made the call, Mr. Ruskin said.
Emma Hance called her father at 12:58 p.m. and said, “Daddy, there is something wrong with Aunt Diane and she is having trouble seeing and she is talking funny, she is slurring,” Mr. Ruskin said. That call was dropped after three minutes and Mr. Hance called back at 1:01 p.m., in a conversation that lasted nine minutes.
The authorities, who have recovered Ms. Schuler’s abandoned cellphone, will dig into the phone records as part of a criminal investigation by the New York State Police and the Westchester County district attorney’s office.
Law enforcement officials said on Friday that while misdemeanor charges could be brought if someone knowingly allowed a drunken driver to take off with children in a car, they did not expect to seek criminal charges against Mr. Schuler or Mr. Hance.
Still, the authorities said the criminal inquiry is continuing for two reasons: There is a public interest, since the crash occurred in daylight on a state parkway, and the families affected by the crash are in need of answers.
Lt. Dominick L. Chiumento of the State Police said that Mr. Hance was interviewed by investigators on Thursday, but that an interview of Mr. Schuler scheduled for that day did not occur. The lieutenant said that Mr. Schuler was not interviewed by the police on Friday and that investigators hoped to speak to him “as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, investigators have spoken to people at a McDonald’s where Ms. Schuler stopped on her way home and determined “that there was no indication of any illness or impairment at the time she was there,” the State Police said in a statement. Ms. Schuler left the restaurant between 10:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m., the police said.
With the specter of possible civil liability hanging over the case, Mr. Schuler, through representatives, including his lawyer, Dominic A. Barbara, and Mr. Ruskin, has mounted a public effort to say that Ms. Schuler must have suffered some kind of medical crisis before the crash and that they are trying to find out what happened.
In conversations with the authorities before the release of the toxicology reports, Mr. Schuler told investigators that his wife had no health crises, according to one law enforcement official.
On Friday, Rosemary Guzzo, the daughter of Michael Bastardi, said her family was angered by what Mr. Schuler and his representatives said at a news conference on Thursday.
“I couldn’t even watch it, I had to walk outside the house,” said Ms. Guzzo. “It bothered me so much.”
The Westchester County medical examiner who produced the toxicology reports issued a statement Thursday standing by the findings and reaffirmed it on Friday.
The Schulers’ 5-year-old son, Bryan, survived the crash.
Charles V. Bagli, Nate Schweber and Karen Zraick contributed reporting.
