NY police say no signs of trouble when driver stopped at McDonald’s before wrong-way crash

NY police: Woman was OK at restaurant before crash

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — Police investigating a head-on highway crash that killed a suburban mother and seven other people said Friday she was fine at a fast-food restaurant an hour after starting her drive, narrowing the timeline for when she may have begun a drinking binge.

State police are piecing together Diane Schuler’s journey from an upstate campground, where she left in a minivan carrying five children, to a fiery collision with an SUV about four hours later after driving the wrong way for nearly two miles.

Schuler was sober when she left the camp at about 9:30 a.m. on July 26, but she had had more than 10 vodkas and was high on marijuana by the time she crashed on the Taconic State Parkway, just north of New York City, at 1:30 p.m., autopsy results found.

Schuler, 36, was killed along with her 2-year-old daughter, three nieces aged 5, 7 and 8 and three men in the SUV. Her 5-year-old son survived.

Her husband, Daniel Schuler, has said he noticed nothing suspicious when he and his wife left in separate vehicles from the campground that Sunday morning. He headed home to Long Island with the family dog, and she planned to stop at a McDonald’s in Liberty, N.Y., not far from the campground.

State police said Friday that after interviewing employees at a McDonald’s about 15 miles from the Hunter Lake campsite, “there was no indication of any illness or impairment during the time she was there.”

Schuler left with her children in the minivan between 10:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m., police said. The last time she was heard from was a cell phone call she made at 1:02 p.m., from a parking area south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, only a few miles from where the fatal collision took place, they said.

An investigator hired by Daniel Schuler’s attorney has said that three other telephone calls were made earlier in the journey but has not revealed details of those calls. In the final phone call, Schuler’s 8-year-old niece told her father that Schuler wasn’t feeling well and had trouble seeing and speaking.

Daniel Schuler’s attorney, Dominic Barbara, did not return several telephone calls seeking comment Friday.

Diane Schuler’s autopsy found she had a blood alcohol level of 0.19 percent, more than twice the legal limit for driving, and a high level of the key ingredient in marijuana in her system when she crashed.

Daniel Schuler has disputed the autopsy’s findings and said his wife wasn’t a drinker. He and his attorney suggested this week that some other medical conditions may have contributed to the crash.

Several relatives reacted with shock to the revelation that the woman they said was a trustworthy, responsible mother and aunt would have been severely intoxicated.

Police said Wednesday that no criminal charges were planned, but relatives of the three Yonkers men killed in the SUV have questioned how Schuler’s family could have been oblivious to an alcohol abuse problem and have consulted with Westchester County prosecutors.

A lawyer for relatives of two of the Yonkers men suggested charges might be possible against anyone who knew Schuler had been drinking before the crash. He said his clients also would explore a possible civil case.