8 Die in Crash on Taconic State Parkway

[MaryLiz]

Sorry if this has been brought up and I missed it, but is it possible she smoked the pot before she drank the vodka..and could the pot have been laced with something like cocaine or PCP?? That would definitely cause some frantic behavior. Would the cocaine or PCP show up in the toxicology screen if the pot was just slightly laced with it? Just wondering...

 

[southcitymom]

Sorry if this has been brought up and I missed it, but is it possible she smoked the pot before she drank the vodka..and could the pot have been laced with something like cocaine or PCP?? That would definitely cause some frantic behavior. Would the cocaine or PCP show up in the toxicology screen if the pot was just slightly laced with it? Just wondering...

That's possible, I guess, but IMHO, unlikely. I think the family had smoked some weed on the trip and it was left over from that - if it had been laced, I think they'd know. It's such a strange story.

 

[ElizaAvalon]

I'm STILL an idiot...what is BBM?

Bolded By Me.

 

[southcitymom]

Bolded By Me.

See - I always learn something here! Thanks, ElizaAvalon!!!

 

[ElizaAvalon]

Before the fatal crash, she was described as driving this way


"Schuler wove in and out of traffic, straddled two lanes, tailgated other vehicles, flashed her lights, and honked her horn on the roads leading up to the Taconic, the witnesses reported. She even used the shoulder to pass other cars for miles before turning the wrong way onto the highway, state police said.”

Then, once on the Taconic, she seemed to drive more calmly....thoughts, anyone??

Perhaps because everyone was getting out of her way without her having to flash her lights and honk her horn?

Just a thought.

 

[southcitymom]

Before the fatal crash, she was described as driving this way


"Schuler wove in and out of traffic, straddled two lanes, tailgated other vehicles, flashed her lights, and honked her horn on the roads leading up to the Taconic, the witnesses reported. She even used the shoulder to pass other cars for miles before turning the wrong way onto the highway, state police said.”

Then, once on the Taconic, she seemed to drive more calmly....thoughts, anyone??

Mystifying, but not out of line with drunkenness.

 

[SleuthyMama]

Before the fatal crash, she was described as driving this way


"Schuler wove in and out of traffic, straddled two lanes, tailgated other vehicles, flashed her lights, and honked her horn on the roads leading up to the Taconic, the witnesses reported. She even used the shoulder to pass other cars for miles before turning the wrong way onto the highway, state police said.”

Then, once on the Taconic, she seemed to drive more calmly....thoughts, anyone??

This story has mystified since day one. But the part you bring up has especially confused me.

I don't get at all why she was seen earlier driving very aggressively and then suddenly when she gets on the Taconic all reports are that she drove along as if it was totally the "normal" thing to do. Yet all the beeping and waving done by the other drivers as they saw her going the wrong way (and swerved to avoid her) didn't seem to catch her attention.

 

[Recovering-Lurker]

This story is just so sad. I for one was very shocked with what the toxicology reports revealed. It is very hard for a lot of us to come to terms with the fact that this mother and aunt got drunk and high with all of those kid in the car and ended up killing all but her son, since most of us are mothers or aunts, etc. It just doesn't make sense. It could've been that she did have some medical condition that clouded her ability to think logically, thus leading to the excessive drinking mixed with smoking weed. It could be she had just had enough of life, and decided to end it all and take the kids with her. Who knows if we will ever know the truth. I feel very sorry for the family.

 

[STEADFAST]

Bolded By Me.

What??? All this time I thought it meant the post was being sent from someone's BlackBerry! Learn something new every day.

 

[SuziQ]

Sorry if this has been brought up and I missed it, but is it possible she smoked the pot before she drank the vodka..and could the pot have been laced with something like cocaine or PCP?? That would definitely cause some frantic behavior. Would the cocaine or PCP show up in the toxicology screen if the pot was just slightly laced with it? Just wondering...

Anything else would have shown up in the tox screen. There was also no medical reason found. The autopsy is very definitive and final IMO. Unless information comes out that someone held her down and forced vodka and pot into her, she willingly did this to herself. Now what was behind that mentally is another story. And unfortunately not one that will be answered in an autopsy.

 

[SuziQ]

After going over this in my mind, I have to say I believe this was an intentional act. I believe she snagged the vodka before she left, slammed it while driving (that would explain the very high BAC and 6 oz of undigested vodka in her belly) and probably smoked the pop while driving too. She stopped and called her brother, who knows what was said, but if he was alarmed enough to call the cops when he arrived and found her gone, something was said more than "she said she was disoriented". She dropped her cell phone there. Camping and driving with five kids under the age of 7. Sounds like my mom! (she had six kids in 8 years). Potential marital problems, who knows, it's all speculation. Suicidal people do strange things and often do take others with them, not thinking about the others, just themselves (suicide is a very selfish act). I think the attempt to place criminal blame on the family is pointless. I understand the anger and dispair but I am certain they feel it as well. Brother lost his three daughters, husband lost wife and daughter. Three strangers gone. Place the blame where it lies, directly on the shoulders of Diane Schuler. Honestly, will everyone feel better when they vilify the husband and family and sue them or put them in prison? To what end? Aren't they ruined already? And a 5 year old who just lost his mom, sister and three cousins gets to be put into foster care while daddy goes to jail (for complicity?) This is a terribly sad story but trying to blame the family is absurd.

I think the family of three men killed might disagree with you. They deserve answers. And anyone who breaks the law, if that is what happened here, needs to face whatever consequences that come with that.

 

[STEADFAST]

This story is just so sad. I for one was very shocked with what the toxicology reports revealed. It is very hard for a lot of us to come to terms with the fact that this mother and aunt got drunk and high with all of those kid in the car and ended up killing all but her son, since most of us are mothers or aunts, etc. It just doesn't make sense. It could've been that she did have some medical condition that clouded her ability to think logically, thus leading to the excessive drinking mixed with smoking weed. It could be she had just had enough of life, and decided to end it all and take the kids with her. Who knows if we will ever know the truth. I feel very sorry for the family.

It does seem incomprehensible that a mother would expose her children, or any children, to such a dangerous situation. It's not uncommon for children to be the passengers of drunk drivers. Here's an article about a study about it, titled
Most Children Who Die in Drunk-Driving Accidents Were Riding With The Drinking Driver

"The researchers looked at a cohort of 16,676 children younger than 16 whose death resulted from a motor vehicle accident. The subjects were passengers, cyclists or pedestrians.
The results indicated that 3,310 deaths (19.9%) were linked to alcohol use by the driver of the motor vehicle. "Of the alcohol-related deaths, 79.5% involved children as passengers . . ." http://www.schwebel.com/news-room/article/most-children-who-die/

BBM

 

[Chiquita71]

Hello WS

I know people can get this messed up when they drink. Did Diane? I know we are waiting for more information. I am not drawn to every story on WS(in the news)but this one...

I do not drink, my parents are alcoholics: my father drove home drunk from my wedding. He had been walking/stumbling around thanking everyone for coming to "the birthday" when he and my mother came over and announced they would be going home. I asked, "do you think its okay for dad to drive?" And, my mother treated me as she always has: "of course he's okay to drive": like how dare you question us?

If I said out loud in public that my father is an alcoholic my mother would ask that I be checked out for sanity. If I told her I remember dad and her being drunk while I was a child they would say that I remember things the way I want to remember them. That I am melodramatic and a liar.

When my dad didn't come home on time my mom would have us sit in the dark in the living room "imagining" him home. We would imagine him pulling in the driveway and everything being okay: till he came home. Sometimes it was hours and we couldn't eat dinner till he came home. But by then he was so drunk he barely knew who he was or who we were. He would fall asleep eating dinner, or say and do things that made no sense. We would just wait for him to finally pass out.

Once we were in a restaurant waiting for my father(me, my sister, brother and mother)and when my father came in he was stumbling all over the place. When he came in everyone noticed how drunk he was: I was thinking about her children(of who there is only one left)and if their mom was a drinker, I know how scary that can be. If this wasn't her first time drinking, I think the kids knew, maybe too young to articulate what drinking is-but now that I am an adult I can look back and remember my father being drunk and my mom yelling at him about it as early as six. Diane's boy is five.

Will he be questioned? (I don't know if that would be right or not?):waitasec: Do we(under the law)ask questions in a investigation of children so young?


My mom drank and got angry. That is when she would come after us about something we had done earlier or anything we did wrong. I remember when she would pull my hair or get in my face, her breath would smell like alcohol.

But neither of my parents would dignify what I have said about them today. For you see, they have a crazy daughter. :crazy: (That would be me.)

Things are coming back to me now. I have never talked about this too much. My husband knows about my parents, his are equally as bad with the drink and his brother is an alcoholic too. It would take less time to list my family members that do not drink and are not alcoholics.

Well, sorry to go on...:boohoo:

I really do wonder if what really caused this "accident" was alcohol? And, if it was then we know it wasn't the alcohol that was the problem, it is whatever made her drink in the first place.

...jmo...

 

[SleuthyMama]

Hugs to you Chiquita. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry that those are your childhood memories and that your parents refuse to acknowledge what is your truth.

 

[Invisible]

She was fairly young, but I wonder what her liver looked like in the autopsy; if it would show signs of alcoholism?

 

[southcitymom]

She was fairly young, but I wonder what her liver looked like in the autopsy; if it would show signs of alcoholism?

That depends on so many factors - the liver can also be harmed by ibuprofen, acetaminophen, HIV, Hep C, environmental factors. Also, the liver is a very forgiving organ. Damage can, of course, be determined, but you can't really say with any certainty what caused it without some patient history.

 

[southcitymom]

It does seem incomprehensible that a mother would expose her children, or any children, to such a dangerous situation. It's not uncommon for children to be the passengers of drunk drivers. Here's an article about a study about it, titled
Most Children Who Die in Drunk-Driving Accidents Were Riding With The Drinking Driver

"The researchers looked at a cohort of 16,676 children younger than 16 whose death resulted from a motor vehicle accident. The subjects were passengers, cyclists or pedestrians.
The results indicated that 3,310 deaths (19.9%) were linked to alcohol use by the driver of the motor vehicle. "Of the alcohol-related deaths, 79.5% involved children as passengers . . ." http://www.schwebel.com/news-room/article/most-children-who-die/

BBM

I am not surprised by this at all.

 

[browneyes]

I'm thinking she pulled over to use the phone, talk to someone who was not her husband, not her brother. Someone else with whom she had an emotional relationship. And something happened during those conversations that led to the binge.

Looking at the family photos released yesterday had me thinking a different way about Diane. I think she had a double life and alcohol was just a small part of it.

JMO...

Is there a link to the family photos released yesterday? I missed them.

 

[MeoW333]

Before the fatal crash, she was described as driving this way


"Schuler wove in and out of traffic, straddled two lanes, tailgated other vehicles, flashed her lights, and honked her horn on the roads leading up to the Taconic, the witnesses reported. She even used the shoulder to pass other cars for miles before turning the wrong way onto the highway, state police said.”

Then, once on the Taconic, she seemed to drive more calmly....thoughts, anyone??

I think she initially pissed off at something, which would be explanation for her eradic driving like that.
Maybe once she became accepting of her suicide/homicide plan she had calmness wash over her to actually carry it out.
(yes, i know it sounds sick, however i think it fits the scenario if this whole case was a suicide/homicide).
Anyone who would drive that drunk with 5 children in the car is a murderer in my book!

 

[Openmind]

This story has mystified since day one. But the part you bring up has especially confused me.

I don't get at all why she was seen earlier driving very aggressively and then suddenly when she gets on the Taconic all reports are that she drove along as if it was totally the "normal" thing to do. Yet all the beeping and waving done by the other drivers as they saw her going the wrong way (and swerved to avoid her) didn't seem to catch her attention.

She didn't need to honk or wave at anyone anymore because no one was in her way until she had the head-on collision. Nothing normal about going the wrong way on a highway.