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Yeah, I agree. The representation wouldn’t be about him, it would be about Barbara, so he won’t get to step out of the limelight.</p>
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<p>Thanks, zoos. I thought I had seen him on CNN or something similar at one time discussing a divorce case. The legal community in the U.S. is an interesting one, I have to say.</p>
<p>Sorry, but there are 2 different stories about where the vodka bottle was found. Some are saying it was open and broken near the crash scene, other are saying inside the minivan. Not sure what is the truth.</p>
<p>There’s no evidence that she had diabetes. As I understand it, her husband’s claim is that she had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant with their younger child, who was two and died in the accident. She hasn’t had a KNOWN case of diabetes since then.</p>
<p>So, let us forget all the fairy tales about how she felt ill and grabbed the vodka and drank it to raise the level of her blood sugar. </p>
<p>The coroner tested for diabetes–and found none. In fact, the coroner noticed excess fluid in her eyes, which can be a sign of diabetes, according to news reports. The fluid turned out to be alcohol–that’s how intoxicated she was. </p>
<p>As I understand it, the husband admitted she sometimes smoked dope. </p>
<p>I think it’s possible the husband is telling the truth. Apparently, she worked days and he worked nights and they didn’t see much of each other during the week. The claim in the Post is that she was drinking at bars for a couple of hours after work very frequently and that she came alone. </p>
<p>Maybe she was drinking OUTSIDE the house, after he left for work and he really didn’t have a clue. When the accident reconstruction crew lifted out the rear seat, they found a broken Absolut bottle. Maybe she stashed it in the car so her husband wouldn’t see it.</p>
<p>Maybe she really didn’t have anything to drink during the time they spent together at the campsite. If she was an alcoholic, she might have been desperate for a drink by the time he left on Sunday. Put 5 kids in a car with her–with the normal noise and bickering of 5 little kids–and she might have been unable to control the “need” for a drink. 'I’ll just have one." </p>
<p>Makes more sense to me than the idea that a woman who does NOT have a drinking problem downs 10 glasses of vodka in less than 4 hours on a Sunday morning with 5 little kids in the car.</p>
<p>One potentially innocent explanation for the vodka bottle would be that she was just bring back camping gear. There would be nothing untoward in various people bringing a bottle of booze to a big group camping trip.</p>
<p>I am a total lightweight drinker, one, maybe two drinks at an event are all I can handle, but I could still be in a car with a box of alcohol that was all the leftovers from a group function. Sometimes we have people over who drink a lot more than we do and they BYOB, but we recycle the bottles and I wonder what the trash guy would say about me :)</p>
<p>Of course, all that being said as a perfectly valid innocent reason for the bottle, would presume that there is not alcohol in the driver’s stomach or blood.</p>
<p>So, each item in the story could have an innocent explanation, but how do you explain the alcohol in her stomach??</p>
<p>I could see the husband not knowing, as Jonri said, about the alcohol abuse. Hubby and I work opposite hours and I could do any number of things without him knowing. But about the pot, I’m not so sure. But I don’t think there’s an innocent explanation for the amount of alcohol in her body.</p>
<p>I agree, ZM, closet drinkers, closet eaters, secret porn and other addictions, people can hide all sorts of guilty secrets, he may honestly not have known she had a drinking problem.</p>
<p>People also tend to think of some one who drinks a lot at parties as just being fun. We have attended many gatherings with a particular group of friends, one guy always drinks too much. We were new to the group and I asked people about it, people found him some what offensive, but no one would do anything about it. He finally crashed his car & got a DUI and now is finally facing the issue. People may se other people drunk, but still not think they have an addiction.</p>
<p>I can buy into his not realizing that she had a drinking “problem” because there is certainly the possibility of denial. However, and I know this isn’t a crime, just my perception, the skeezy lawyer and weird dynamic with his sister-in-law compound the sense that this guy is part of the problem - and I don’t see how he could make a statement that he never saw her drunk unless they’ve been living totally separate lives (and apparently they spent many weekends together at this campground) and unless he is trying to protect himself and his remaining child. I understand that the Hance parents are fully cooperating with the investigation while Daniel Schuler will not speak with investigators at the advice of his lawyer. There definitely needs to be a thorough investigation which answers these questions for the people who have lost loved ones and for the sake of clarity.</p>
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I hadn’t seen that. Would you elaborate?</p>
<p>I was surprised that he is not speaking to investigators. Apparently the owner of the car (father of the three girls who died) is cooperating fully.</p>
<p>Um…breaking news…Suffolk County Child Protective Services has opened an investigation, supposedly at the DA’s request. If it’s proven than Schuler had knowledge of his wife’s drinking and left the kids with her anyway, he could lose custody of his son (who survived the crash). </p>
<p>My guess is tthe CPS investigation is why he isn’t talking.</p>
<p>I am trying to link to two articles and not sure if I am doing it right. The first is one about the Today show appearance of Jay Schuler, Daniel’s sister-in-law (his brother’s wife), defending him. I saw her pretty much take over, answer for him, etc. while stroking him during the news conference yesterday. OK. Where is her husband, his brother? Why is she the spokesperson? It was upsetting to hear her go on about losing the little girl when I was thinking about the three little girls lost to Diane’s brother’s family. She just seems way inappropriate. If you can google the news conference, you will see her in action. The other link just came up and shows a motive for Daniel. There is now a Child Protective Services investigation against him because he was the last adult with Diane and he was the one who waved good-bye to all seven kids who were riding with her while he left solo.</p>
<p>[Diane</a> Schuler defended on ‘Today Show’](<a href=“http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/diane-schuler-defended-on-today-show-1.1354626]Diane”>http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/diane-schuler-defended-on-today-show-1.1354626)</p>
<p>[Daniel</a> Schuler probed by Child Services in Taconic crash wrong-way driver case, sources say](<a href=“http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/daniel-schuler-subject-of-suffolk-cps-probe-sources-say-1.1355949]Daniel”>http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/daniel-schuler-subject-of-suffolk-cps-probe-sources-say-1.1355949)</p>
<p>NY Post is now saying she called four times:</p>
<p>[‘SOMETHING</a> WRONG WITH AUNT DIANE’ - New York Post](<a href=“‘SOMETHING WRONG WITH AUNT DIANE’”>‘SOMETHING WRONG WITH AUNT DIANE’)</p>
<p>This is disturbing because if the last call was from the child and the child was frightened, why was the phone found thrown out of the car? I don’t think a frightened child with the one way to communicate with her father in hand would throw the phone out of the car…Did Aunt Diane throw the phone out of the car? Why?</p>
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<p>That was me. In response to someone stating, </p>
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<p>I wrote,</p>
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<p>And it is still true that barring an unlikely public health scenario, unless we are members of one of the families involved in this tragedy, what happened is none of our business.</p>
<p>This is a terrible, terrible tragedy. That family is involved makes it all more heart wrenching. The H may feel this is the best way to deal with the whole situation; to just say that his wife was not a drinker, pot user and this was a one time aberrant thing that went way wrong. To speculate what happened really makes little sense since everyone is going to be paying for this in the worst way as it is. Why make it even worse?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/nyregion/08bigcity.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/nyregion/08bigcity.html</a></p>
<p>I guess as someone who is very familiar with alcoholism, I want to understand the role that disease did or didn’t play in this tragedy. It is more than a cautionary tale; it is a worst case scenario. Discussing it in this forum does not hurt the people already hurt, but understanding it might help someone - it might even help me.</p>
<p>From Babar’s link:</p>
<p>"If indeed Diane Schuler drank, and drank vodka — which experts consider a common choice of later-stage alcoholics because they think it is easier to hide — how is it possible that her husband, a public safety officer for the Nassau County Police Department, would not have a clue?</p>
<p>Consider a 2004 federal Department of Transportation manual on detecting drunken drivers: Citing a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., study, the manual suggests that for every person the police actually arrest for drunken driving, the intoxication of three other drivers who are stopped goes undetected because officers did not suspect they were drunk.</p>
<p>Consider the story of Doug Thorburn, a Los Angeles financial planner who dated a woman two years without realizing that she was an alcoholic, that she was spiking her morning coffee. “She sipped white wine with me,” said Mr. Thorburn, who went on to write several books about addiction. “I didn’t know she was gulping vodka before that.”</p>
<p>Consider this comment from the City Room blog on nytimes.com, signed ralphinjersey: “I’ve been with my current wife for nine years and sober just a little over six — and she still swears she never saw me drunk.”</p>
<p>Consider, for that matter, the story of a 41-year-old man in Paris who was a security director for a major hotel; whose best friends swore he was not an alcoholic; who flew private planes recreationally for years; and who, the night of his death, rejected a post-tennis beer because he had to drive that night, only to crash into a curb in a tunnel, with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit in France. That was Henri Paul, the man who was driving Princess Diana on Aug. 31, 1997."</p>
<p>The husband is now saying it might have been his Vodka. THis is why I think a lawsuit was a good idea. Get people under oath because there might have been other criminality or negligent behavior, and the survivors absolutely have a right to know.</p>
<p>I do get what you are saying, ZM.</p>
<p>It is definitely not in the H’s best interest to have it out that he knew his wife drank, particularly that she was imbibing that day. In fact, it would be a big problem for him, even above and beyond the tragedy as the custody of his son is at risk. Also, it comes out that he had an inkling of her condition and did not intervene, it would truly be hellfire on earth for him.</p>
<p>There is some thought that he and his wife had a huge fight before she left. If that is the case, it would explain some things. However, it would cause the H a tremendous amount of trouble. I don’t blame him for holding his stance. Enough has happened to this family.</p>