Autopsy results from the woman who caused last month’s deadly wrong-way crash on the Taconic State Parkway show Diane Schuler was not an alcoholic and did not suffer from the mystery ailments her family claimed she had, according to several reports.
Nothing in the tests casts doubt on findings that Diane Schuler, 36, had drank a copious amount of vodka and had marijuana in her system when she slammed her sport utility vehicle into another car on July 26, killing eight people including three of her own children.
But a private investigator hired by Schuler’s husband, Daniel Schuler, who obtained the findings of the Westchester Medical Examiner, said there is no evidence of cirrosis of the liver or other diseases common to alcoholics, the Journal News reported today.
Investigator Tom Ruskin told the paper the lack of evidence of long-term alcoholism backs up the claims of “dozens upon dozens” of people who said she did not have problems with alcohol.
“To take that leap of faith, to believe that this woman took 10 shots, possibly in a 48-minute period – certainly defies logic – defies common sense and substantiates to a certain sense the family’s story, the witnesses’ story, that this is inconsistent with her personality,” Ruskin told the paper.
The Schuler family has denied that Diane Schuler was drunk at the time of the crash, and their attorney has blamed the crash on a variety of medical ailments, including a tooth abscess and a mystery lump on her leg, and said she may have suffered a stroke.