On cable news and talk radio shows, the man who married Terri Schindler in 1984 is the villain in a national life- and-death saga.

Five years after his wife lapsed into what doctors call a persistent vegetative state on Feb. 25, 1990, the Levittown, Pa., native moved in with another woman in Clearwater and fathered two children. Now, some commentators paint him as a cruel cad who seeks to starve his bedridden wife.

Claims that Michael Schiavo abused his spouse and fears her waking up and blowing the whistle on him still swirl, despite repeated state investigations that cleared him.

Journalists fretted this week that Michael Schiavo was either being demonized as the next bad husband after convicted spouse-killer Scott Peterson, or not investigated enough.

``He's been given the benefit of the doubt regarding his `devotion' to his wife, even though he shacked up a long time ago with another woman but didn't have the ethics to divorce his wife so her family could take care of her,'' wrote Julia Duin, assistant national editor of The Washington Times. Her comments appeared in a letter posted to a Web site of The Poynter Institute media think tank in St. Petersburg.

Few Public Comments

Michael Schiavo's side of the Terri Schiavo saga seems the least known - in part, perhaps, because he seldom grants interviews.

The youngest of five brothers raised as Lutherans, he grew up in Pennsylvania and moved with Terri Schiavo to Florida in 1986.

When Michael Schiavo does speak, as he has in two recent appearances on CNN's ``Larry King Live,'' he appears expressionless, giving short answers often expanded by his lawyer, George Felos. At one point, Schiavo, a former restaurant manager who became a nurse to care for his wife, did choke up when he said he still loved Terri Schiavo.

``The reason why I've been keeping private for the longest time ever here, I've always wanted to protect my wife's privacy,'' Michael Schiavo, 41, said in an interview on ABC's ``Nightline'' last week. ``I don't like, I didn't want to put her picture all over the news. I just wanted to keep her private.''

In court records, interview transcripts and his public statements, he emerges as focused since 1998 on meeting what he insists were his Roman Catholic wife's wishes: that her life not be artificially prolonged if she ever got incurably sick.

``Again, Larry, you've asked me this question before. This is what Terri wants,'' Schiavo said Monday night on CNN. ``She does not want to be in this condition. She does not want to exist in this condition. And I'm going to carry out what she wanted.''

Schiavo, and court records from the 2000 trial in which his wife's feeding tube was initially ordered removed, say Terri Schiavo voiced her wishes after watching her grandmother deteriorate.

Deflecting questions about his alleged financial motives, Schiavo has said publicly that he has turned down separate offers of $1 million and $10 million from private individuals if he would turn over guardianship of his wife to her parents. He also says there's no insurance to collect.

``I made a promise to Terri,'' Schiavo told Larry King. ``I'm going to stick by her side, and I'm going to do this for her. Terri is not a piece of property you pass back and forth. She didn't say, `When I become sick, give me back to my parents.' I will stick by Terri.''

Michael Schiavo and his in- laws had a falling out in 1993, three years after Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage when her heart stopped, possibly because of an eating disorder.

Court transcripts show Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri's parents, grew angry because Michael chose not to treat a urinary tract infection that Terri had developed. That was his right as her medical proxy and legal guardian, a court ruled.

The Schindlers petitioned to remove him as guardian. ``He has made a mockery of his marriage to Terri,'' the petition stated. They lost in court.

By 1998, Michael Schiavo began legal moves to remove his wife from life support after deciding, based on doctors' reports, that she had no hope of recovery. The parents disagreed, and the court battles began.

Money Matters

Overlaid in the dispute were money questions about a $1 million-plus medical malpractice verdict after Michael Schiavo sued the doctors who treated Terri.

Of the total, Terri Schiavo received $750,000 for medical care and Michael Schiavo kept $300,000 for loss of consortium damages, records show. The parents wanted some, too, and that's when relations soured further.

Little remains, according to Felos.

While the Schiavo case has been dissected for years by Tampa Bay news organizations, the story rarely reached a wider audience, even when Gov. Jeb Bush pushed through Terri's Law and had her feeding tube reinserted in 2003.

That changed a week ago, when Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected, for the third time in five years, on orders from a state judge.

Suddenly, Michael Schiavo's private life was the talk of Washington.

``I am concerned that her husband is pushing for her feeding tube removal after he has become involved with another woman and had children,'' said Rep. Terry Everett, R-Ala., on the House floor before a bill emerged Sunday night, sending the case to federal courts.

That drew a rebuke from Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston.

``The representation regarding the care of Theresa Schiavo by her husband as represented in the Chamber is totally inaccurate,'' Wasserman Schultz said.

Bob Steele, a media ethicist at The Poynter Institute, said the Schiavo case raises so many questions about public policy, life and death and family relations that dumbing it down to a battle between Michael Schiavo and his in-laws grossly oversimplifies it.

That also makes Michael Schiavo vulnerable to criticism because he speaks out less than his wife's parents, who have kept high profiles on talk shows and interviews recently.

``I think he's been unsympathetically portrayed in some stories,'' Steele said. ``There's some risk when a key participant in an issue, a key character, is not highly accessible. But not seeking the public platform to personally speak out is his right.''

Yet, that makes him seem emotionally detached from the case, he said.

``It's probably left him open to criticism in other ways as someone not willing to publicly justify his position,'' he said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Brad Smith can be reached at (813) 259-7365.