The Westchester medical examiner says new tests on the wrong-way driver who killed eight people on a New York highway may show lower levels of alcohol and marijuana.
The original autopsy found that 36-year-old Diane Schuler had a blood level alcohol of 0.19 -- more than twice the legal limit -- and was high when she drove her minivan, loaded with children, into an oncoming SUV on July 26. Eight people, including Schuler, her daughter, three nieces and three men from Yonkers in the SUV were killed.
The family of the Yonkers men was outraged at the findings of the autopsy, which showed Schuler was wasted at the time of the crash.
Schuler's husband, Daniel, rejects that finding and is arranging for blood and tissue samples to be retested. Daniel Schuler and his lawyer, Dominic Barbara, announced recently they intended to apply for an exhumation of Diane's body in an attempt to disprove the findings.
But the medical examiner's office said today that normal chemical changes over six weeks could mean different levels of alcohol and marijuana than in its original autopsy.
Daniel Schuler's investigator, Tom Ruskin, said his experts believe new test results should be very close to the originals.
