JACKIE RHODES  TESTIMONY

TRIAL OF 1/26/2000

Speaker	Testimony	Page	Line
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY PAMELA CAMPBELL
Campbell	Good morning.	799	24
Jackie	Good morning.	799	25
Campbell	Please state your full name.	800	1
Jackie	Jacquelyn Rhodes, but you may call me Jackie.	800	2
Campbell	Where are you from?	800	4
Jackie	Akron, Ohio	800	5
Campbell	Did you fly here for the trial just?	800	6
Jackie	No.  I have friends.  I was visiting friends.	800	7
Campbell	What is your occupation?	800	9
Jackie	I am a management assistant for Prudential Insurance	800	10
Campbell	How long have you been with Prudential?	800	12
Jackie	Since April of 1985.	800	13
Campbell	Was tehre eer a time you worked for Prudential in Florida?	800	14
Jackie	Yes.  I worked in Florida from May of 1988 until December of 1996.	800	16
Campbell	How do you know Theresa Schiavo?	800	18
Jackie	Theresa and I worked together at St. Pete Prudential Insurance office.	800	19
Campbell	When did you meet Terri?	800	21
Jackie	In May of ‘88.	800	22
Campbell	Was Terri already working there?	800	23
Jackie	Yes.	800	24
Campbell	Describe what you did for Prudential.	800	25
Jackie	At the time I transferred to the St. Petersburg, Florida opffice, I worked at the public counter assisting the clients coming into the office to make premium payments or beneficiary changes.  Any type of service work.  And I did other functions in the office.	801	1
Campbell	What did Terri do for Prudential?	801	7
Jackie	Terri sat right beside me at tha time.   She also waited on the clients that came into the office and she had other responsibilities as well.	801	8
Campbell	Did you socialize together?	801	11
Jackie	Yes.  We did.	801	12
Campbell	What kind of activities would you do together?	801	13
Jackie	Michael worked evenings and weekends.  I know he worked on Saturday.  We used to go shopping.  I used to go and pick her up, as Michael monitored the amount of miles she put on the car, so I usually drove.  We wuold go shopping, run errands, or go see her grandmother.	801	15
Campbell	Was this the grandmother at Majestic Towers?	801	21
Jackie	Yes.  It was.	801	23
Campbell	How much time did you spend together in a given month on weekends?	801	24
Jackie	We probably spent a couple Saturdays together a month depending what she had going on in her life and what I had going on in my life.	802	1
Campbell	Did you also socialize during week nights?	802	4
Jackie	On occasion, yes, we did, but not usually.	802	6
Campbell	How would you describe your friendship during that time frame?	802	8
Jackie	Theresa and I are the same age.  We had a lot of things in common.  When I came to work for Prudential, I think Michael had just left one employer or was unemployed or recently gained employment and they were having some financial problems living on one income.  And my husband, shortly after, in the fall of 1988, he lost his job as well.  So we had different things we could relate to.	802	10
Campbell	Would you confide in each other about these difficulties?	802	19
Jackie	Yes.  She was upset that she could not go anywhere.  Mostly in the evening she stayed home.  That is why on Saturdays we would go shopping.  Not necessarily to buy anything, just for both of us to get out of the house.  We would have lunch usually somewhere and visit her grandmother.	803	1
Campbell	Tell me about the visits to her grandmother.	803	3
Jackie	I don’t know why here grandmother was in the nursing home, but she was very, you know, she usually was in bed when we were there.  I don’t recall her not being in bed.  And she was fine.  We talked to her.  Theresa would talk to her about different things that was going on in her life or with the family.  It was just idle conversation.  You know, sometimes we spent an hour there.  Sometimes more.  Sometimes less.  Depending on what other things we had to do during that day.	803	5
Campbell	Did you see other residents at Majestic Towers?	803	15
Jackie	Yes.  Her grandmother’s room was in the nursing home quite a bit.  I mean, you know, not right at the door, so we had to pass other rooms.  And there were other people in her grandmother’s room.	803	17
Campbell	Could you describe the people you would pass by on the way to the grandmother’s room visually?	803	22
Jackie	Some people were in wheel chairs.  Some	803	25
Jackie	people in their room.  There was people that would moan.  Some of the other people in her grandmother’s room did not communicate with us and maybe they were sleeping.  I don’t know.  Some people were -- never saw do anything but lay there.  So I don’t know what their situation was.	804	1
Campbell	Did you see any patients on ventilators or respirators?`	804	7
Felos	Leading question, Your Honor.	804	9
Court	Overruled.	804	11
Jackie	I don’t recall seeing people on ventilators and I don’t recall seeing people on feeding tubes, but at that time I really didn’t know what a feeding tube was.	804	12
Campbell	Were there any patients you saw with tubes in their noses?	804	16
Jackie	It’s been so long ago, I honestly really concentrated on Theresa’s grandmother and not on the other patients.	804	18
Campbell	Were you aware of Theresa’s medical health in 1988, 1989 time frame?	804	21
Jackie	Yes.  As a matter of fact, we both went to the same gynecologist.  Usually it seemed our appointments were right near each other.   So she	804	23
Jackie	would share, I have a doctor’s appointment, and usually mine was like right around there. I know she was having problems with her period.  She said that is -- she had never gotten pregnant during her and Michael’s marriage and she had never been on any form of birth control.  That was something that she was talking to the doctor about. After one of the visits, I know they were going to start performing tests to find out if the problem lied with her or Michael.  They wanted to start with the tests on Michael, as I guess there was only one test that he needed to do, and then otherwise they would start doing   several tests on Theresa.  As far as I know, she told me that Michael did not want to do the test as he had to provide a semen sample.	805	1
Campbell	To you knowledge, did Terri become pregnant during that time frame?	805	18
Jackie	No.   Not to my knowledge.	805	20
Campbell	Did Terri ever indicate she was trying to have children?	805	21
Jackie	She never indicated that she wanted children.  She just indicated that she had never gotten pregnant and they were looking into	805	23
Jackie	medically why that had not happened.	806	1
Campbell	Were you ever around Terri and Michael together?	806	2
Jackie	There was a few occasions.  A Saturday where I would pick Theresa up and I was around Theresa and Michael.  There were, you know, they seemed like any normal couple.  I remember one time.  She had rather thin legs.  Michael was laying on the floor looking at Theresa.  We were both standing there getting ready to walk out the door.  He told her her legs were skinny.	806	4
Campbell	To you knowledge, did Terri have a weight problem?	806	12
Jackie	No.  The time I knew her she was very thin.  She had shared with me at one time she was very heavy and she had lost a lot of the weight and she was very proud of her accomplishment and the weight loss.	806	14
Campbell	When was the last time that you spoke to Terri?	806	19
Jackie	The last time I spoke to Terri was February 24th of 1990.  It had been a big joke that week at work because she was going for a hair appointment on Saturday and she had dyed her hair blond.  Her hair was normally blond, although she	806	21
Jackie	naturally had very dark hair.  She had to decide whether or not she wanted to stay a blond or if she was going to go back to her natural color. So I called her Saturday afternoon and asked her, well, are we a blond or brunette?  She said I’m still a blond.  But she was very, very upset when I was talking to her.  It sounded like she had been crying.  I asked her if she was okay.  She said she had a fight with Michael.  That he was extremely upset with her because she had spent, I think she told me $80, on her hair that day to stay blond. So I asked her if she wanted me to come over.  She didn’t seem like her normal, jovial self.  She said that’s okay.  I’m going over to Bobby’s.  I said are you sure.  She was very upset.  She said I’m going to Bobby’s.  I already talked to him and am going to go over as soon as we get off the phone.	807	1
Campbell	How long of a time frame were the two of you in this close friendship there?	807	20
Jackie	I’d say I started there in May of ‘88.  It takes a little time to form a friendship.  I’d say for a good year we were pretty good -- very close friends.  We shared different things about	807	22
Jackie	our lives.	808	1
Campbell	When did you first hear then about Terri’s incident?	808	2
Jackie	I received a phone call on, early Sunday morning, February 25th, from Murial Westrom, a lady we worked with.  She informed me Theresa collapsed at her home and she was at the hospital and she had to be taken by paramedics to the hospital and that she wasn’t doing very well.  And she told me which hospital it was.  I’m sorry, but I don’t recall.  I don’t know if I went over that day or the next day.	808	4
Campbell	What happened when you went to the hospital?	808	13
Jackie	There were quite a few people there.  Family members.  Michael.  Michael’s family, I believe were there.  The Schiavos.  The Schindlers.  People from work.  Theresa was well liked.  There were several of us sitting there.  I was trying to understand what had transpired.  Michael had, I guess, found her on the floor in the  bathroom. I knew that he was a  restaurant manager and figured he knew CPR.  I asked him, I said, well, do you know CPR?  He said yes.   I said did	808	15
Jackie	you perform it on Theresa?  He said no.  He had panicked.	809	1
Campbell	How often did you visit Terri in those early days?	809	3
Jackie	In the early days, I was there for the first month or two every evening after work.	809	5
Campbell	Did you continue to visit Terri frequently?	809	7
Jackie	Yes.  I did.  There was a period that I, you know, did not go quite as often.  For the first month or two, I was there every day.  After that, it may have been like a couple of times a week.	809	9
Campbell	Were you aware of any fund raising to help with Terri’s expenses?	809	14
Jackie	Yes.  Things going on in the county.  I don’t recall, but I know there were different things going on, maybe like a carwash.  But Prudential, we were so upset by what happened, we sent letters out to all the other Prudential offices requesting assistance for one of our fellow employees.  And we got in trouble for that, but we did it anyway.  I don’t know how much money was raised.  I think it went to a bank, but I don’t know the amount that was raised.	809	16
Campbell	Did you attend the trial in this case?  The malpractice trial?	810	1
Jackie	Yes.  I attended the malpractice trial.   A few other people from work also attended to tell what kind of person Theresa was, and she was a loss to the company, and you know, to her family and friends. One thing that did occur during that trial, my husband was in the hospital having a heart cauterization and I had to go down there as soon as I left the Courtroom, as soon as I testified, and the malpractice attorney followed me down to the pay phone and said to me, you know, it wouldn’t help the case at all if I told them that Theresa and Michael were talking about getting a divorce.  I turned to him and I said if I’m asked that question and that is the correct answer, that is the answer I’m going to give.	810	3
Campbell	Did you believe that Michael and Terri were getting a divorce?	810	19
Jackie	There had been several times throughout Theresa’s and my friendship that she was extremely mad at Michael.  That there was a lot of mental abuse.	810	21
Felos	Your Honor, objection.  That	810	25
	is a conclusion on the part of the witness.	811	1
Court	Yeah, it is, coming up at an odd time in her testimony.  She is in ‘92 now.  Now all of a sudden she’s getting back because of a, of something a lawyer said.  I’m going to sustain the objection.	811	2
Jackie