8 Die in Crash on Taconic State Parkway #2

[Clearly Confused]

All I recall, her brother's Wife said Diane was one of her best friends and an awesome Mother and this was fairly soon after the collision.

It has been reported by some of the more sensational papers that Daniel's BIL has cut ties with him, but I do not know if that is true.

Thanks! I wasn't sure if it was his brother or her brother.

 

[dgfred]

IMO if she did have a tooth problem, it is possible she was guzzling vodka just to dull the blinding pain... which I know from personal experience is 'blinding'. Not an excuse, but a possible explanation.

 

[angelmom]

I'm having trouble following the families and went on vaca and missed some info. Has Diane's neices family commented on this? TIA

All I recall, her brother's Wife said Diane was one of her best friends and an awesome Mother and this was fairly soon after the collision.

It has been reported by some of the more sensational papers that Daniel's BIL has cut ties with him, but I do not know if that is true.

Thanks! I wasn't sure if it was his brother or her brother.

Okay, I THINK that the nieces were the children of Diane's brother and sister in law. They are the ones who have cut ties.

Jay Schuler is the sister in law who is married to Daniel's brother (same last name), made more complicated by the fact that in print it looks like they are referring to a man. But Jay is the SIL, IIRC. Right? She is the one who went on Larry King with Daniel defending Diane and saying she had 2 pina coladas a year, that they are made with vodka and not rum :waitasec: and that Diane would never do this.

 

[justathought]

I watched most of Larry King last night. The husband did look like he had been given something to keep him calm on the show and it had a numbing reaction. He seemed much different in the clip of the press conference I saw this morning...more antimated. The PI said they had spent extensive time interviewing friends, family, and checking bars and liquor stores and that they can find no evidence that this woman drank...if it were me, that would make me even more want to have a second autopsy done. I think I would have insisted on it from the get go, if I felt it needed to be done. The thing that troubles me most. I used to be a fairly heavy drinker...not vodka.....but never in my life could I have drunk that much in that short of time without throwing up....just couldn't have done it. You know, I'm starting to wonder about the McDonald's deal as well....just pondering. I do wish Larry would have asked why she didn't get the tooth taken care of.......and if the vodka bottle was still in the camper...the inference, was it was not but that wasn't said right out. Was it ever truly established the bottle was the same brand and in the van...not just on the side of the road?

 

[dgfred]

I thought it was 'broken' inside the car.

 

[Intermezzo]

I'm not defending the woman, but if this were my spouse, I would want an independent investigation. Mistakes are made everyday, and I don't know that my conscience would allow me to live each day if I had thoughts that he/she could be innocent. If the results come back the same, he will need to live with that, too.

BBM
Trino I agree with that.
And I would have had my spouses' body exhumed for independant testing immediately following the release of the toxicology report by the ME's office.
And, I'm glad he is having a 2nd autopsy done.

 

[southcitymom]

Okay, I THINK that the nieces were the children of Diane's brother and sister in law. They are the ones who have cut ties.

Jay Schuler is the sister in law who is married to Daniel's brother (same last name), made more complicated by the fact that in print it looks like they are referring to a man. But Jay is the SIL, IIRC. Right? She is the one who went on Larry King with Daniel defending Diane and saying she had 2 pina coladas a year, that they are made with vodka and not rum :waitasec: and that Diane would never do this.

I think you are right about the relationships - Jay is NOT Diane's brother's Wife who lost her 3 girls, though I thought she was.

I do not know if I believe that Daniel and Diane's brother are estranged - obviously, the two families were very close before this. I know it has been reported in a couple of places that ties have been cut, but I have only read that in more "questionable" publications.

I do know some folks use vodka and not rum in pina coladas. I do not think Daniel or Jay Shuler are lying about their knowledge of Diane's drinking.

 

[MissieMt]

I was thinking about this case yesterday. I was trying to imagine being in the husbands position. Whether he knew she drank or not, I don't see how a spouse living through this would not eventually go insane, I know I would.

 

[daisy7]

Does anyone find it odd that he refers to Diane in the present tense (i.e., she does not drink, she is not an alcoholic)?

 

[angelmom]

I think you are right about the relationships - Jay is NOT Diane's brother's Wife who lost her 3 girls, though I thought she was.

I do not know if I believe that Daniel and Diane's brother are estranged - obviously, the two families were very close before this. I know it has been reported in a couple of places that ties have been cut, but I have only read that in more "questionable" publications.

I do know some folks use vodka and not rum in pina coladas. I do not think Daniel or Jay Shuler are lying about their knowledge of Diane's drinking.

I really don't think they're LYING, per se, either. I think they are in deep deep denial about the truth here, and may be exaggerating the truth to make her look better than she was. 2 pina coladas a year? Seriously. Who would bother with the bottle for that? Never saw her drunk? Never ever? Really? Maybe if she were Mormon or a recovering addict with years and years of sobriety, but a "normal" person, or a person who thinks pot around the kids is no biggie? Not buying.

So I think some of this is making it look like they are lying because their denial is so implausible.

 

[southcitymom]

Does anyone find it odd that he refers to Diane in the present tense (i.e., she does not drink, she is not an alcoholic)?

I don't - I think that's typical for lots of folks dealing with the death of a loved one. She still feels very present to him.

 

[southcitymom]

I really don't think they're LYING, per se, either. I think they are in deep deep denial about the truth here, and may be exaggerating the truth to make her look better than she was. 2 pina coladas a year? Seriously. Who would bother with the bottle for that? Never saw her drunk? Never ever? Really? Maybe if she were Mormon or a recovering addict with years and years of sobriety, but a "normal" person, or a person who thinks pot around the kids is no biggie? Not buying.

So I think some of this is making it look like they are lying because their denial is so implausible.

I hear what you are saying.

The thing about the drinking is I have a sister (my middle one) who drinks exactly like that - she's a mother of three and maybe has 2 or 3 drinks a year. Even back when she drank a little more as a teenager/early 20s, I never saw her drunk that I recall, and I've known her longer than Shuler probably knew his wife. She's been known to keep a bottle of wine in her refrigerator for months and months. Hard alcohol (vodka) keeps, so I don't find it odd that they might have had a bottle on hand for the occasional drink.

If - God forbid - this had been my sister, I'd be saying the same general thing about her drinking habits as Shuler is about Diane's.

Also, I have friends (parents) who only smoke pot and don't drink anything much to speak of. They don't smoke in front of their kids of course, but they sure don't consider pot a biggee.

So, I can't roundly accept that Shuler and his sister's assertions as trying to make her look better than she was. I think they're telling the truth of what they knew about her.

ETA - and unless the BAC is wrong, they are surely in denial.

 

[Lexington]

Why, if Diane was having problems with her tooth, wouldn't she have told her brother in one of their phone conversations that day that "her tooth was killing her" rather than she didn't feel well and couldn't see? Sounds to me that the abscessed tooth story came up after the fact. I would still like to hear from her brother as to what exactly was said in those phone conversations.

 

[redheadedgal]

TCJ - I might be wrong, but I don;t think the BAC content came back until after the funeral. Someone please correct me if that's not the case.

IIRC, the police withheld releasing the tox results til after the funeral...

 

[southcitymom]

IIRC, the police withheld releasing the tox results til after the funeral...

Thanks for the confirmation, RHG!

 

[hoppyfrog]

I hope someone tells him to pull himself together ...

IMO it would be very cruel to tell someone who has tragically lost a spouse and a child to "pull himself together." He will need a lot of time and support in order to begin to heal.

Hoppy

 

[hoppyfrog]

The only reason I can think of is drinking like that would hide it from other adults.

Hoppy

 

[cloudajo]

I think you are right about the relationships - Jay is NOT Diane's brother's Wife who lost her 3 girls, though I thought she was.

I do not know if I believe that Daniel and Diane's brother are estranged - obviously, the two families were very close before this. I know it has been reported in a couple of places that ties have been cut, but I have only read that in more "questionable" publications.

I do know some folks use vodka and not rum in pina coladas. I do not think Daniel or Jay Shuler are lying about their knowledge of Diane's drinking.

Yes, and this was the conversation last night about Diane’s nieces’ parents - Diane’s brother Warren Hance and his wife Jackie.

KING: Daniel, you have talked to the parents of the nieces who were killed?
SCHULER: Yes, it's my brother-in-law. We keep in touch. We talk.
KING: And?
SCHULER: They're having a hard time with it. But they're managing slowly, day by day, just like I am.
KING: What do they think about what was the condition of your wife?
SCHULER: They don't believe it either, not for a second.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0909/01/lkl.01.html

 

[cloudajo]

Taconic Victims' Families Furious With Schuler
September 2, 2009

[snipped]
Rosann Guzzo and Margie Nicotina, the daughters of Michael Bastardi Sr. and sisters of Guy Bastardi, the two men killed along with friend Dan Longo in the fiery wreck, watched Larry King and heard Schuler's declarations about his wife. They told CBS 2 just how it made them feel.

[snipped]
But Schuler's attorney, Dominic Barbara, made an additional comment that disgusted the victims' families.

"When Barbara said that 60 percent of America thinks she wasn't drunk I would love to know where he got that figure, did he go into a bar and interview 10 people and six of them said that, I mean where did that statistic come from?" asked Guzzo. "Read the blogs. Most of the people agree with the Bastardis and the Longos and the facts from the state police, the DA and the Medical Examiner. That's the facts."

[snipped]
"It's impossible to describe what we're going through. We don't sleep. One minute we're really angry and like the next minute we're so depressed that we sit in here and we know we have a thousand things to do and we get nothing done," said Nicotina. "We get nothing done. Like this isn't really happening. This didn't happen."

By "a thousand things to do here," what the sisters mean is that because their brother and father were killed, the house where they grew up – now, since the crash – they have to get it ready to be sold. And doing that brings it all back.

The sisters also want to make sure that no one loses sight of Bryan Schuler, the 5-year-old boy who was the only survivor of the crash. Their thoughts they say are always with him.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/taconic.crash.wrong.2.1160463.html

 

[arielilane]

In addition to many that were killed by DS, a NY couple also were victims of this horrible crash; D. and A. Tallarico, who received minor injuries when Bastardi’s vehicle (after being hit by Diane Schuler) veered off and hit their vehicle. ​

This drunk driver has affected many lives…yet Daniel S will not let it go.

Total 7 killed + drunk driver + 3 injured = many ruined lives​