Some of you may remember the story of Diane Schuler, the high and drunk woman who crashed her minivan full of children into another carload of people, killing herself and several other people including her daughter and three of her nieces. As I pointed out when first covering this awful story, studies have shown chronic marijuana users are more likely to be involved in car accidents than sober people and “acute” use raises the chances of being involved in an accident significantly. In this case, the stoned woman was driving the wrong way on a parkway when she caused the accident.
I mention this story (yet again) because I have frequently been told by potheads that they are excellent drivers, which is asinine and indicative of the selfishness of drug users who are always willing to endanger other people’s lives to party. Now Diane Schuler’s sister-in-law has confirmed what people have known all along, she was an immature party girl who thought getting high was more important than her responsibility to her children and other drivers on the road:
The sister-in-law of Taconic Parkway wrong-way driver Diane Schuler has told police Schuler smoked pot every day, according to a lawyer for victims of the crash.
The admission runs contrary to high-profile reports by Diane’s husband, Daniel Schuler, who has said his wife didn’t drink or use drugs.
Police have said Diane was high and drunk on July 26 when she drove her minivan the wrong way on the Taconic and crashed in Westchester County, killing herself, her 2-year-old daughter, her three nieces and three men from Yonkers.
The new evidence was revealed during a meeting on Friday with police and representatives from the district attorney’s office to go over evidence, including security footage of the children eating breakfast at a McDonald’s and Diane Schuler pumping gas, according to Irving Anolik, lawyer for the families of victims Michael and Guy Bastardi.
Anolik said Joan Schuler, sister of Daniel, “told them that she knew for a fact that the deceased, Diane Schuler, used marijuana daily because of the fact that she didn’t believe in doctors and that this was the best medicine in the world, as far as she was concerned.”
Anolik said he was “annoyed” and his clients were “outraged” at prior reports by Daniel Schuler and his attorney that Diane Schuler was clean of drugs and alcohol.
Yes, pot is “medicine” according to many pot smokers, but there’s nothing healthy about drinking and drugging as reports on Schuler’s behavior clearly indicate:
 Schuler stopped her red minivan loaded with kids on Route 17 at approximately 11:45 a.m. on July 26, the police report says.
“[The witnesses] noticed an adult female outside of the vehicle with brown hair, wearing blue, knee-length shorts, bent over with her hands on her knees, as if throwing up,” the report stated.
Afterward, the red van was seen “zigzagging in and out of traffic.”
Just north of the Ramapo rest stop, the witnesses “saw this same van pulled over” and the female “again with her hands on her knees.”
At 1:35 p.m. — driving the wrong way down the Taconic Parkway in Westchester — Schuler rammed her minivan into a Chevy Trailblazer.
Schuler, her daughter, Erin, 2, and her three nieces — Emma Hance, 8, Alyson Hance, 7, and Katie Hance, 5 — died in the crash. Killed in the Trailblazer were Michael Bastardi, 81, his son Guy Bastardi, 49, and Daniel Longo, 74.
An autopsy showed Schuler had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19. There also was evidence of a high level of THC in her blood, indicating she had smoked marijuana.
Mike Bastardi Jr., whose father, brother and family friend died in the crash, called the latest revelations “outrageous.”
“She threw up twice and kept drinking and smoking pot,” he alleged.
Yeah, that sounds pretty selfish. People in their latter 30s who still smoke pot even though they have children often are. Diane Schuler spent her life partying the way she did when she was a teenager and eight people payed the price for her inability to grow up and get sober with their lives.
But I’m sure legalizing pot would have prevented this right?
Thank you for your precise evaluation of the Taconic Crash. Diane Schuler did indeed kill my Dad, Brother and Friend along with 4 innocent children. This was all due to her irresponsible behavior and choices to drink and smoke pot that day. Sincerely, Mrs. Roseann Guzzo
I’m sorry for your loss. You’re in our prayers.
The more i read about this case, the clearer it gets. She argued with them at McDonalds to get her kids their last favorite meal and let them play in the playground there since she was gearing up for murder/suicide. It was premeditated, she fed the kids, got her OJ mixer to go, and peeled out of that gas station with a death wish, she drove like a maniac until she was numb enough to not care. She must have told her brother and sister in law something in those phone calls that sealed her fate, she left the phone and with it all hope of being stopped or saved, she drove up the Saw Mill to the Taconic, turned around and came back to end it all. She was not confused, she was building up her nerve. The phone probably got dumped because the kids kept calling home and interferring with her death wish plan, as soon as she knew they were coming to look for her, as soon as the kids said what the road signs said, she went in the opposite direction, north, up the Saw Mill so they would be looking in the wrong place. She was not confused, she was still making premediated decisions to carry out the plan. Then she told her brother she was on Southern State Parkway on Long Island, come on, no matter how drunk you are you can tell the difference between the 2 mile long Tappan Zee toll bridge soaring over the Hudson and Southern State pkwy. She had gone through the toll literally 30 seconds before making the call. She didn’t crash into the toll booth and was able to pull over to the pull off on the right shoulder. The 4 or 5 right hand toll lanes there are all cash only, since they claim they checked the time on her ezpass, that means she probably went through tolls on the left and had to navigate across at least 5 lanes of toll plaza traffic to the pull off without hitting anything.
In the police report, the brother then says this was the first season they camped at that place, so how does the owner say she knows them for years? The brother is very vague with the times the kids called (‘sometime in the late morningâ€). Wouldn’t it have been tormenting enough so he would have looked at those call times over and over trying to figure it all out? He and his wife had to know what was up, they both talked to a trashed Diane Schuler and had to know she was wasted. The kids were crying in the background. Then Danny says the brother called him and said there was an accident, but the police tapes have Warren talking to Danny before trying to get information on the phone bill..etc.. He also says this was the only time they took the kids to this campground, which means it was also the only time they drove separately since she had the brother’s car and kids. So she goes over the Tappan Zee bridge instead of the Throgs Neck, as Danny said they normally did. She was lost with a car full of crying kids, drunk, sick and high
Then Joan says she didn’t believe in medicine, so why was she looking for Tylenol?
From this, a picture emerges that Danny went there on Thursday, had a nice relaxing time by himself, then Diane had to work Friday, then get her kids ready and packed up, then drive to Floral Park, pick up the other kids, drive to the campground and take care of everyone. Even her brother and sister in law were having a weekend to themselves, but she was stuck with all 5 kids and a dumba** husband. They drank Friday night he says. Then Saturday Danny says they went to bed at 11:30 and he got up at 5. So, likely Danny crashes out, Diane has insomnia (as her family has stated she suffered from and smoked pot to fall asleep), so she stays up drinking and smoking all night. He gets up at 5 and goes fishing, leaving her to wake up still wasted, wake the kids, pack up and get all the kids in the car to take them out for breakfast and then drive them home, drop off the kids in Floral Park then drive out to Suffolk while Danny and the dog went off in the pickup truck merrily oblivious. She is probably still hella hung over and takes a few nips and tokes while Danny is fishing, wake and bake. They supposedly leave together, but he doesn’t stop at the McDonalds with her to help with the kids or anything, he keeps going. She then has to stop for gas too where she is probably looking for Tylenol since she is hung over.
One thing i noticed on the tapes of the brother at the police station is that when they are discussing the cell phone they mention that the voice mail says “Diane Hance†not Schuler even though the phone was registered under the name Diane Schuler and they were married for 6 or 7 years.
Of course. There is no chance the McDonalds employee’s, especially a manager, will admit anything suggesting they allowed an intoxicated person to leave their premises with 5 children. There is zero value in any statement made by these employees, they were not under oath, and they have every possible reason to lie to cover their liability. Think about it, why has there been no theory that she got sick after eating at McDonalds? With all the crazy theories they have put out there you would think this would be on the top of the list. There is likely some conspiracy between the McDonalds employees and the Schuler’s. If they thought she was drunk at McDonalds, and made a scene requiring a manager and then they gave her what she wanted and got rid of her, that implicates them, if they say she was drunk, it also implicates Danny. This is just not a reliable account as both parties stand to lose if they make any admission she was impaired.
I watched the gas station video a couple of times, first, she walks in and out of the place, the guy doesn’t even look up as she enters and the exchange seen can’t be more than on second as she asks something and then walks out the door. If anything the video shows her as a reckless driver. She drives like a maniac. She peels out from the pumps at a much higher rate of speed than other cars in the video, whips around the other pumps on the wrong side, (if someone had been pulling up she would have hit them) then flys out the left side of the entrance (IN) where oncoming cars would be coming in to the station, then you can see her zooming out into oncoming traffic lane on the wrong side of the exit to make her left turn across the lane of oncoming traffic! The more information these fools reveal the more the picture becomes clearer, yet they keep making hilariously outlandish claims as ‘proof’ she wasn’t intoxicated. Come on people, she had a gallon jug of vodka in the car. The only thing this video ‘proves’ is that drunk or sober, she is a terror on the road and a menace.
So since there are really no plausible medical conditions that make you randomly drive on the wrong side of the road, disputing the intoxication option leaves only premeditated murder suicide. So which is it? Can’t have it both ways.
On page 10 of the police report, a witness describes travelling north on the Taconic at 1:15 pm and being cut off by the minivan ALSO TRAVELLING NORTH getting on the Taconic from the Saw Mill Parkway. This is right where the crash happened, about 200 yards north of the Saw Mill/Taconic merge. This means she went up the Taconic past the crash site, then turned around and got back on the same exit ramp in the wrong direction. She scouted the route! Probably saw a perfect spot to end it all and headed back down the road heading south knowing what was going to happen and where, there is a blind curve with a hill right at the crash site, no chance for the unwitting accessory to the crime to react evasively. There are two (2) turnarounds in that stretch of road, plus a lot of wide grass median and shoulder to change your mind if you wanted to.
This is not the ‘mommy’s a secret addict’ story like the media has jumped on the bandwagon with to no end, she was uniquely crazy and suicidal and had to know what she was doing. Those people know what happened and have been protecting themselves since the brother first called the police and sugar-coated the situation as ‘a possible medical emergency’ and the husband only can say ’she was sober when she left..†not my fault. CYA.
Also, the husbands story about the vodka being his is total BS. He drinks beer, very few men drink vodka as their drink of choice, especially when they are beer drinkers. Vodka is a chick drink. And if it takes you 9 months to drink 1.75 liters of vodka, why are you carrying it around, why is it that important? The story about the vodka bottle is an example of the deep denial. That bottle costs 25 dollars, how frugal are they that they claim they carried the same bottle for a year? sorry, but if you have a couple of drinks a week, that bottle is going to last 2 months tops. And who is going to go camping for the weekend and have one tiny little drink, then bring it home? So that means they drink it at home too, so how could it last that long? Just doesn’t make sense. If the vodka meant that little to them why carry it around? They guy was sort of a cop, doesn’t he know its illegal to carry open containers?
I read the story in NY Magazine that said how Diane Schuler cut her mother out of her life completely since the age of 9, pretending she did not exist due to her leaving the family, even though the other siblings and her father did not and her mother reached out to her for a relationship, stating it was her choice to keep her away. That is a huge thing to hold inside for 27 years. I do think this is the elemental key to the whole story. The public photos released of her wedding are telling, how could she, or anyone there, not be thinking about her mother, who was not invited. How do you go through your wedding day holding that inside? Since it was her wedding day, everyone had to suck it up and it was all about her and not mentioning the obvious absence, the rest of the family would have invited her to such an event. Then having children and depriving them of their grandmother, and vice-versa. This pattern of controlling social situations and punishing people who love you most due to perceived transgressions only makes me believe the murder/suicide theory. Did she punish her husband and brother for something we will never know about? I think everyone needs closure on this case, I am on the side of the victims who feel there is much more to the story.
In the story at http://nymag.com/news/features/62043/
>>I want to know if Danny feels guilty in some general way, for inattention or absence or anything. “Absolutely not,†Danny says.
Wow. How can someone have no feelings of guilt at all. It is incomprehensible. Not even guilty for not following her down the road? For not calling her when she didn’t show up? He was home before they even crashed. I can’t possibly imagine not second-guessing every minute of that day and being overcome with guilt? Come on, guilt is one of the most basic human emotions there is, even when you have no control over a situation it is there. Is it possible this man has no emotions whatsover? All he has lamented over is the loss of his wife and child, he never even mentions the 3 relatives, or 3 strangers that lost their lives.
I am afraid the Hance’s are not telling the whole story about the phone calls with Diane. Both of them talked to her, but I really think it was the kids that called 1st, then Warren called back and got her on the phone. The content of this call is the key to her mindset. I really doubt she said she wasn’t feeling well and had tunnel vision, etc…if she was slurring and calling Warren Danny, she was out of it and not going to be describing her symtpoms like that. I think they are putting words in her mouth. What was said that made her get out of the van and put the phone on the divider? What made her drive away in the opposite direction they would have thought she was going in to look for her. I agree with the above, that she hung up on Warren, left the phone and took off in the opposite direction fully aware of what she was doing. Why didn’t he call the police right away? He drove all the way to Westchester looking for her and stopping at the police station. It was Jackie who called the police from home after Warren left. In the police calls when they were looking for her, they never mention the vision, or confusion problems, he only describes it a possible medical emergency. The cops were probably looking for someone stopped by the side of the road when they should have put out an APB for a crazy confused driver menacing the population of the roads.
Was it was the husband having the affair or her? There was a wrong number dialed from her phone to a guy in Oyster Bay, only 10 minutes from where she works that morning. How coincidental that a random wrong number would go so close to home. Maybe the kids had the phone and accidently dialed a contact or recent call? She was left to her own devices when he was at work. Anyway, i think it was the kids who called their father, not her, and then the truth came out.
Or the husband confronted her about this other guy and it blew up? He went camping thursday morning, she came up friday night with all the kids. What happened Thursday night?
This is (very) amateur detective work seemingly designed to blame everyone but the pot smoking party girl for the death. My question is why?
She was a known drug user and heavy drinker. She was intoxicated the day of the crash. The simplest explanation is usually true. You’re weaving together a conspiracy based on what YOU WANT to believe about family relations, drug use etc. But accidents like this caused by drunk or high drivers happen every day of the week. Are they all really part of a conspiracy?
Tell me why exactly it’s impossible to believe that a couple in their 30s who still get high will do irresponsible things that end in tragedy?
> blame everyone but the pot smoking party girl
how did i not blame her? it was her fault 150%. maybe i know this to be true, thats why i said it.