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Lone protester still takes a stand for Terri Schiavo

Weeks after Terri Schiavo's death, one protester continues to show signs of conviction.

By LEONORA LaPETER
Published May 17, 2005

	[Times photo: Kathleen Flynn]
	Lisa Wilson, 48, hasn't let the death of Terri Schiavo stop her protests. She arrives at 66th Street N at dawn to send her message.

PINELLAS PARK - The sky was still dark Monday as Lisa Wilson walked quickly up 66th Street N toward her destination.

She carried a sign with the words "Terri Schindler was murdered" and a single-minded purpose that even she struggles to explain.

"I've never gotten up this early for a job in my life, but you do strange things when you love your job," said the 48-year-old woman as she took up her post at the intersection of 66th Street N and 102nd Avenue N at 6 a.m.

Wilson is the last of the hundreds of protesters who trampled the grass outside Terri Schiavo's hospice in the days before her death March 31.

If you talk to Wilson, you find out the Topeka, Kan., woman is not so much a religious zealot like some of the other protesters but maybe a woman who has either lost or found her way, depending on your perspective.

She hadn't been to a church in 25 years until recently. She says she has had an abortion. She has a bachelor's degree in business administration from Washburn University in Topeka and a master's in food and nutrition from Kansas State University. And she maintains that she has never been to a protest in her life - until she showed up 56 days ago.

"I believe strongly in what i'm doing," Wilson said. "I'm trying to protect other people from getting euthanized. This is a wake-up call for me."

Five days a week she arrives at the intersection near Hospice House Woodside at the crack of dawn and holds up her sign hoping to reach the "movers and shakers" whom she thinks travel the roads at this time of day.

Never mind that they can barely see her sign at this hour.

At 8 a.m., she gets breakfast at McDonald's. Then she moves over to the grass in the right of way at the edge of the hospice's property until 3 p.m.

On Saturdays, she walks the intersection's four corners with a small American flag, pushing the button to change the light with military-like precision. On Sundays, she sits in front of the hospice.

Most people ignore her. A few honk. Some yell at her, like a man in a maroon Corvette, who yelled, "Woman, mind your own business."

"Personally, I think she's wasting her time," said crossing guard Ed Bigger, 65, as he helped students cross 66th Street at 7 a.m. Monday. "It's all over, the show is done."

Hospice officials say Wilson has been respectful of employees and the families who visit loved ones. But she received a $56 ticket a few weeks ago for violating Pinellas Park's sign ordinance.

Signs are not supposed to be placed in the right of way. Wilson says she leans two of the three rods holding up her sign on her Nike sneakers as she sits in her white plastic chair. But on April 14 police accused her of planting the sign in the ground and ticketed her.

She is the only Schiavo protester cited for violating the sign ordinance, despite the huge number of signs in the right of way before Schiavo's death.

"We felt ... that we had more important issues to deal with at that particular time," said Pinellas Park police Capt. Sanfield Forseth. "And now that a lot of our problems that we were dealing with up there at the time have now since resolved, we're trying to get back to a state of normalcy."

Wilson pleaded not guilty to the ticket last week and is scheduled to go to trial July 1.

"As far as we're concerned, this is a very minor violation and I'll speak with the officers and see what their side of the story is," said Christopher Hammonds, assistant city attorney of Pinellas Park. "We'll continue to work with Ms. Wilson to come to some sort of resolution with this, but it's definitely her right to go to trial if she wishes."

* * *

She came down on an impulse. She was at home in Topeka listening to a former nurse of Schiavo's say on television that she'd heard the brain-damaged woman use words such as "mommy" and "help me."

Next thing, Wilson was in her late husband's red GMC driving to Florida to join the protesters.

Her third husband was a child molester who, when she met him, had spent five years in prison for molesting a 9-year-old girl. He killed himself with sleeping pills last July rather than be sent back to prison for trying to lure a 4-year-old out of her yard.

As Wilson saw it, she'd lost her husband. She'd been fired from her job as an office manager at an architectural engineering firm. Her son was grown. What did she have to lose coming to Florida?

Wilson said she'd learned as a dietitian that removing a feeding tube is unethical.

So her first stop was in Tallahassee to urge Gov. Jeb Bush to step in. Her first sign read: "Jeb Bush, are you a man or a mouse?"

Later, her sign read, "Mommy," "Help me," "Pain."

Then, "Terri likes Jello."

And, "American Justice in Crisis."

Day after day she stood there with her ever-changing array of signs. She made friends. She put up five or six protesters in her hotel room for two weeks. She bought one protester a black suede cowboy hat. She bought others meals. She said she helped a woman pay a $300 fine and $150 in towing costs after she was arrested in a police dispute. In exchange, she got the sign she now carries.

She says she's living off $100,000 she got in insurance money after her husband's death. (Some insurance policies will pay out on suicides after a two-year waiting period.)

Wilson's son, John Wilds, drove down to Florida with her but headed for a vacation with friends in Tampa. He returned to Kansas after two weeks.

"It's interesting because she's never been an activist before," said Wilds, 26. "It hit her like a ton of bricks. I think she just had problems with her past couple of husbands and she took it real serious."

The day after Schiavo's March 31 death, Wilson made a new sign: "Terri Schindler Protest, Phase II." She told everyone she was staying forever.

"This is life and death for me," she told a reporter.

* * *

Wilson keeps in contact with many of the other protesters by e-mail.

Judy Goldsberry, a former protester who lives in Clearwater, has given Wilson a temporary home while she conducts her protest. "It's not something I'm going to do," Goldsberry said. "But more and more, I've come to think what she's doing is very valuable."

At first, Wilson said she would leave when the state or federal government passed a law banning the removal of a feeding tube.

Today, she admits the laws likely won't change soon and so she stays to promote awareness.

"This is a one-person job," she said.

--Times staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[Last modified May 17, 2005, 01:36:07]