8 Die in Crash on Taconic State Parkway #2

[CCmakes3]

Just out of curiosity, I have to wonder if any of the posters who think Diane may have mistaken the vodka for water are actually vodka-drinkers? I know that vodka has a reputation of being odorless, but it's certainly not tasteless. Vodka is about the only form of alcohol I can drink (due to allergies). I love the stuff, but I can't drink it without a healthy dose of tonic water or 7-Up mixed in!

 

[nosysw]

Just out of curiosity, I have to wonder if any of the posters who think Diane may have mistaken the vodka for water are actually vodka-drinkers? I know that vodka has a reputation of being odorless, but it's certainly not tasteless. Vodka is about the only form of alcohol I can drink (due to allergies). I love the stuff, but I can't drink it without a healthy dose of tonic water or 7-Up mixed in!

I'm glad to know it's okay for allergies :great:

But, seriously, it is my drink of choice and I can't drink it straight either...unless it's a flavored vodka and even then I have to sip it gingerly...if I took a big slug, thinking it was water, I certainly would end up gasping and having trouble keeping it down...definitely not able to keep going at it.

 

[redheadedgal]

It turned out to be her blood pressure medicine. It does not really explain the vodka but if she did have some underlying side effect to a medication I guess that could have been the cause. I never read the autopsy report so this is pure conjecture. Did she have any prescription drugs in her system? Antidepressants? Insulin stabilizers? Something like that.

a simple and quick google shows only THC and alcohol:

http://www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/Other/schuler, diane_report.pdf

 

[Mama-cita]

This is just speculation, but is it possible that she got a restaurant employee very angry when they had to cook up those chicken fingers? It's known that they spit in food when they feel angry, so maybe somebody there slipped her a Mickey. It does happen. And everything after that was because she was feeling the effects of her tampered food?
She did pull off the road to vomit. She was getting sick, maybe from a Mickey or something in the food. And maybe she did think the vodka was water because she was getting very disoriented.
It just makes no sense to me that with kids in the car she would get drunk. She would drive back, get them all home, and then go get drunk.

It doesn't make sense to me that a fast food restaurant employee would become so angry to have to throw a few pieces of chicken in a fryer that they would commit a felony that could seriously injure or kill a person. Besides the chicken selects we're for her son, not Diane. If anyone would have been "drugged" it would have been him. Also all of that per-supposes that some random McDonalds worker just happens to have a stash of "roofies" for when they get ticked off at a customer, as well as the time to drug the food without someone seeing them. I agree with other posters sentiments about Vodka. No way, even in the most of "drugged" states could anyone chug vodka like it is water. It's hard to accept that people do depraved things. Diane Shuler showed a depraved indifference for the lives of her children, nieces and everyone else on the Taconic that day...IMO

 

[Nova]

Just out of curiosity, I have to wonder if any of the posters who think Diane may have mistaken the vodka for water are actually vodka-drinkers? I know that vodka has a reputation of being odorless, but it's certainly not tasteless. Vodka is about the only form of alcohol I can drink (due to allergies). I love the stuff, but I can't drink it without a healthy dose of tonic water or 7-Up mixed in!

As a stupid teenager I once drank vodka until I threw up and passed out on a public sidewalk. At no time did I think I was drinking water.

I haven't been able to tolerate much vodka since then, but I've never heard any vodka drinker say s/he confused alcohol with H2O.

Is it possible Diane got so drunk she couldn't tell the difference? I don't know for sure, but I think she'd have to have already consumed a lot of vodka.

 

[Nova]

I'm not an expert, but I just don't think there is any sort of "Mickey" or mind-altering substance that wouldn't be able to be detected on autopsy. Do you have any sources on medications that would have such an effect on a person but wouldn't show up on an autopsy?

I'm not 100% sure and I don't expect anyone to take my word for this: but my impression from true-crime books and TV shows is that coroners test for different drugs depending on the circumstances of the death. (For example, if the victim seemed to die of flu-like symptoms over a period of time, a coroner might test for arsenic poisoning; but if the victim died suddenly and smelled of almonds, the test for cyanide poisoning might be run instead.)

I assume there's some sort of "standard" panel of tests, but I don't know what's on it. Beyond that, having found so much alcohol (and the THC), I can imagine a coroner deciding no further drug tests were necessary. I don't know that s/he would test for whatever drugs are "slipped" into a "Mickey".

In case somebody cares, here's a pretty good discussion of the issues coroners face and the decisions they make:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1680257-overview


The link seems to confirm my understanding that the tests run depend on the coroner's understanding of the circumstances surrounding the death. One would HOPE that Diane's case would merit thorough testing, but as I said elsewhere, the quantity of alcohol present may have seemed to answer the question and preclude much more thorough testing. IMO, obviously.

 

[Nova]

a simple and quick google shows only THC and alcohol....

I'm so impressed if you found that "simple and quick" to read as well as find. (I am impressed. This is not a snark.)

By my reading, it merely says a "drug screen" was run and found THC.

It doesn't tell us what other drugs are covered by the "drug screen" (which I assume is some sort of standard panel of tests).

I'm not saying I subscribe to the theory that Diane was slipped something during her journey, but as for the poster's speculation that she was slipped a "Mickey", we still don't know whether the testing covered that.

Right?

 

[CCmakes3]

I'm so impressed if you found that "simple and quick" to read as well as find. (I am impressed. This is not a snark.)

By my reading, it merely says a "drug screen" was run and found THC.

It doesn't tell us what other drugs are covered by the "drug screen" (which I assume is some sort of standard panel of tests).

I'm not saying I subscribe to the theory that Diane was slipped something during her journey, but as for the poster's speculation that she was slipped a "Mickey", we still don't know whether the testing covered that.

Right?

Surely that's something Daniel would have asked them to check for on the second, independent autopsy? He wanted so badly to exonerate her.

 

[Isabelle]

I have always thought Diane may have had a Four Loko or two. That would do it!

 

[redheadedgal]

Would that include something like rohypnol? I honestly don't know.

It doesn't tell us what other drugs are covered by the "drug screen" (which I assume is some sort of standard panel of tests).

I'm not saying I subscribe to the theory that Diane was slipped something during her journey, but as for the poster's speculation that she was slipped a "Mickey", we still don't know whether the testing covered that. Right?

"the current standard immunoassay panel includeds... e. benzodiazepines i.e. flunitrazepam (rohypnol)"

http://www.doj.state.wi.us/dles/crimelabs/physicalEvidenceHB/Ch28_Toxicology.pdf

p. 205

i would presume most states would do similarly.

 

[JakeWestSide]

Well, curiously there was a drug bust in that McDonald's parking lot in May 2011. So drugs were available in the area. There could be some connection.

http://www.riverreporter.com/conten...-liberty-make-several-drug-busts-recent-weeks

I do not think Diane got drunk and continued the ride home. It makes no sense to me. I think something happened: a pivotal incident, and everything after that was a result of something that happened. She could have been a victim.

I think Diane was vomiting because of something that happened just prior that made her sick. Could she have been slipped a "date rape" drug?

Was she tested for other drugs like "roofies" in the autopsy?

 

[zippitydoda]

While I love to sleuth... I just don't get how the simple facts, proven by the ME's report (see link below) still cause the need to find some other excuse for DS's chosen criminal behavior that day.

DS a victim???? No! DS's toxicology report proved that she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 percent - twice the legal limit. That is the equivalent of 10 shots of 80-proof liquor. Its also been reported by witnesses that she was seen on two seperate times that day pulled over and appearing to vomit prior to crashing her car head on into the Bastardi's car, so who can really say how much more alcohol she had really consumed. The alleged alcohol source, her gallon-sized vodka bottle, was found in the car wreckage. DS was also high on marijuana (which tells me that she must have associated with drug dealers to get that, because I doubt it came with the McD's happy meal).

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/feature?section=news&id=6995282

For me, the "how" has been proven, it is the "why" that we may never know... IMO - the simply truth is that DS was a very drunk and stoned driver who killed her her own daughter and her three nieces, along with three other adults, and maimed her son.

I wonder what this thread would have been like if it was man who was the driver that day and committed this horrific act of carnage... would some seek other reasons? or simply call the man what he was proven to be - a drunk driver.

 

[CCmakes3]

Surely that's something Daniel would have asked them to check for on the second, independent autopsy? He wanted so badly to exonerate her.

I apologize...there was no second autopsy, just a review of the toxicology results by an independent lab and DNA confirmation that the samples were indeed from Diane.

 

[CCmakes3]

Well, curiously there was a drug bust in that McDonald's parking lot in May 2011. So drugs were available in the area. There could be some connection.

http://www.riverreporter.com/conten...-liberty-make-several-drug-busts-recent-weeks

Drugs are available everywhere. :-( Unfortunately, lots and lots of people do drugs recreationally. Fortunately, in comparison, relatively few people are willing to "waste" ther stash by surreptitiously slipping them to innocent, unsuspecting folks. Drug busts are a weekly occurance in my neck of the woods....it never occurred to me that unintentional ingestion of them might account for any uncharacteristic behaviors in unrelated individuals from a year or more in the past.

 

[CarolinaMoon]

I followed this case a long time, but dropped it for a while. I clearly recall Dan with his then attorney acting as if in a state of total denial of the siutation. They blamed the crash on every possible thing but alcohol and THC intoxication.

IMHO, nothing has changed. He continues to fight because he is in a total state of denial about his wife.

Since then, I had a very bad experience while driving from LA to Reno. We missed a turn and ended up on an alternate route out of LA. All of a sudden, we encountered stopped vehicles in the road, broken glass, etc. We drove with care through this awful scene until we came upon a car upside-down on jersey walls that were separating the lanes. I saw a lone policeman using a fire extinguisher to put out flames in the car. Unfortunately, I saw the policeman put out the flames and saw the burned corpse of a man, upside-down with his arms hanging down. It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.

I followed reports later in the day to learn that the driver had been intoxicated and had ended up travelling at high speed the wrong way on the highway. His blood alcohol, I later learned, was 1.8. It was enough to get him going the wrong way on a 6-lane-highway.

The only difference between this accident and the one we are discussing is the fact that those other cars had been able to avoid him (with some damage). He was the only victim.

I've always bellieved that Diane had some serious drug and alcohol problems, an no amount of lawsuits will convince me otherwise.

 

[Nova]

"the current standard immunoassay panel includeds... e. benzodiazepines i.e. flunitrazepam (rohypnol)"

http://www.doj.state.wi.us/dles/crimelabs/physicalEvidenceHB/Ch28_Toxicology.pdf

p. 205

i would presume most states would do similarly.

Thank you, gal. I wouldn't have recognized the technical name for roofies. I didn't even know they were part of the benzodiazepine family.

 

[Nova]

Well, curiously there was a drug bust in that McDonald's parking lot in May 2011. So drugs were available in the area. There could be some connection.

http://www.riverreporter.com/conten...-liberty-make-several-drug-busts-recent-weeks

I do not think Diane got drunk and continued the ride home. It makes no sense to me. I think something happened: a pivotal incident, and everything after that was a result of something that happened. She could have been a victim.

I think Diane was vomiting because of something that happened just prior that made her sick. Could she have been slipped a "date rape" drug?

Was she tested for other drugs like "roofies" in the autopsy?

From redheadedgal's link, it appears she would have been tested for roofies.

I'm still puzzled as to how she managed to vomit and still throw a BAC of almost 2.0 PLUS keep a stomach-full of vodka.

Do we have reports of her vomiting except from passersby on the freeway? (E.g., did her niece say Diane was vomiting when the niece talked to her dad?) Because I wonder whether people passing at high speed actually saw vomiting, or merely saw Diane on her hands and knees and assumed she was throwing up.

 

[Nova]

While I love to sleuth... I just don't get how the simple facts, proven by the ME's report (see link below) still cause the need to find some other excuse for DS's chosen criminal behavior that day.

DS a victim???? No! DS's toxicology report proved that she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 percent - twice the legal limit. That is the equivalent of 10 shots of 80-proof liquor. Its also been reported by witnesses that she was seen on two seperate times that day pulled over and appearing to vomit prior to crashing her car head on into the Bastardi's car, so who can really say how much more alcohol she had really consumed. The alleged alcohol source, her gallon-sized vodka bottle, was found in the car wreckage. DS was also high on marijuana (which tells me that she must have associated with drug dealers to get that, because I doubt it came with the McD's happy meal).

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/feature?section=news&id=6995282

For me, the "how" has been proven, it is the "why" that we may never know... IMO - the simply truth is that DS was a very drunk and stoned driver who killed her her own daughter and her three nieces, along with three other adults, and maimed her son.

I wonder what this thread would have been like if it was man who was the driver that day and committed this horrific act of carnage... would some seek other reasons? or simply call the man what he was proven to be - a drunk driver.

Well said, zip! I for one am not looking for something that will excuse DS' behavior. But I would like to understand how anyone gets THAT drunk at that hour in the morning and loads a bunch of children into a minivan and drives away.

As I've said, I enjoy more than a single glass of wine on occasion, but I don't drive and I certainly don't load children into my car. In fact, I don't even drink at all when I'm taking care of the grandkids.

So I'm not looking to excuse Diane, but I would like to understand what happened that morning.

 

[JakeWestSide]

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=320986

I do not think Diane would have consumed vodka and then driven the car. If she wanted to drink or get drunk, she would have waited until a few hours later when she arrived home.

I do not think she was trying to commit suicide. She would not have taken all the children with her.

I do not think Daniel is in denial. I think he believes something happened. I believe something happened.

It is a mystery. And the above link tells how there can be false autopsy alcohol reports.

 

[nosysw]

That article is from 1957 and the sample size was 75. Do you know of anything more recent replicating these findings? I haven't read the detailed medical reports but do you even know what methodology was used? I'm fairly certain there must be a protocol which follows much more recent research than this...