PHILADELPHIA — He has been vilified on Web sites and talk shows. He's been called a wife-abuser, an adulterer, a money-grubbing murderer.

Death threats have been left in his mailbox.

Throngs of protesters have waved signs and chanted outside his house in Clearwater, Fla.

Even Michael Schiavo's friends have wondered why he didn't just walk away.

It would have been easier for him to relinquish guardianship of his severely incapacitated wife, Terri, to her parents.

After all, he is living with another woman now and they have two children.

"Because he's sticking by what he promised," said Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother. "He wants to honor the last thing he can give to her."

Physicians have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and never will improve. Michael Schiavo has said his wife told him she would not want to live like this.

Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say she is responsive and can be helped. As a Catholic, they say, she would choose life at all costs.

Throughout the legal battle, the Schindlers have made their religious views, their personal anguish and their mistrust of Michael Schiavo a public cause.

Intensely private, according to his family and friends, Michael Schiavo rarely has spoken publicly about the matter, out of respect for his wife's privacy. He declined to be interviewed for this report.

However, he has gone on national TV in recent days to reiterate that Terri would not have wanted to live like this and criticize politicians for interceding in a deeply personal matter.

Support from family, friends

His brother and friends also have decided to speak up. The mudslinging, they said, has become too ugly, too nasty.

"I have a friend who I think has been maligned," said Russ Hyden of Gainesville, Fla., who met Schiavo via a common friend in 1991 after Hyden's pregnant wife had been diagnosed with cancer.

"We're tired of it. We're done. It's time people know who he is," said Scott Schiavo, who lives in Levittown, Pa., near where the brothers were reared.

The thing is, even if Michael Schiavo wins in court, he really hasn't won at all, Scott said.

"He's already lost," he said. "He's already lost Terri."

His brother and friends describe Michael Schiavo as social within his circle of friends, but otherwise almost reclusive. Except for the "No Trespassing" sign on his front lawn and the armed guards he occasionally has hired to protect his home, he has tried to grasp whatever shreds of normalcy he can.

His friends don't see the demon that protesters who have hurled insults at him do.

Wilma Mackay, a 65-year-old retiree from Palm Harbor, Fla., who watched her husband and brother die of cancer, sees a man who is "the epitome of loyalty."

Bonnie Rowley of Largo, Fla., a friend for about a decade, sees someone who "stands strong on what he believes in, and that is Terri Schiavo. If I needed a health-care advocate, he'd be my first choice. I know he'd be there till the end, and he'd give it one hell of a fight."

Michael Schiavo, 41, was the youngest of five boys. Six-foot-seven, athletic and model-handsome, he met Terri Schindler at Bucks County Community College near Philadelphia in 1982.

Married two years later, they moved to Florida, where, early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, Michael Schiavo has testified, he awoke to the sound of a thud and found Terri on the floor in the hallway, unconscious. Her heart stopped beating because of a possible potassium imbalance that was believed caused by an eating disorder. Her brain was deprived of oxygen for 10 minutes before she was revived, doctors estimated.

At the time, Michael and Terri Schiavo had been married a little more than five years.

Trying to bring her back

He has spent three times as long — the past 15 years — first trying to bring her back, then trying to let her go, his friends and brother say.

In the beginning, they say, Schiavo was relentless in his search for his wife's cure. She underwent various therapies.

He rented a house large enough for him and Terri's parents, who had moved to the area.

He made sure she was dressed every day. He applied her makeup and dabbed on perfume, Rowley said.

He went to school to become a nurse "because he wanted to take care of Terri," Scott said. "He swore that he could get Terri better. ... One doctor said: 'Mike, you know what? There's nothing else we can do. The next time Terri gets sick, why don't you just let nature take its course?' And Mike wouldn't do it."

The brothers both have testified that Terri Schiavo personally told them that she would not have wanted to be kept alive in a situation similar to the current one. Scott says his conversation with Terri followed the 1988 death of the brothers' grandmother in which a decision to remove her from a ventilator had to be made.

The Schindlers — who did not respond to a request for an interview — have been distrustful of Scott Schiavo's motives partly because, they have said, no one mentioned Terri's wishes until years later.

But, Scott said, "It's not something you think about while Mike's trying to save her life. ... It's something that people do when there's nothing left to do."

The cost of the fight

This particular fight has not come without a price.

Most of all, Scott said, "The thing that tears [Michael] up is he worries at nighttime, if he's working. He's afraid for the kids and Jodi."

Michael Schiavo met his girlfriend, identified in court records as Jodi Centonze, about a decade ago.

The couple have two toddlers — a daughter and a son. Michael Schiavo works in the medical unit of the Pinellas County Jail.

Centonze and Michael Schiavo had to face "their own moral dilemmas as far as having children out of wedlock," Rowley said. "But the two of them weren't getting any younger. ... So does that make him a bad person because he did that? Did he fluff his responsibility to Terri at any point? No."

It is Centonze, Scott Schiavo said, who now does all Terri's laundry. "She's been unbelievable. She supported Mike in everything he did. ... She's gone with Mike to visit Terri. She's helped Mike clean Terri up."

Looking back on it now, Scott said he thinks his brother "just wanted somebody to love him. ... Mike was very lonely. I mean, he was a 26-year-old kid" when Terri collapsed.

Dispute over settlement

Michael Schiavo's relationship with his in-laws exploded in 1992, when he received a $1 million medical-malpractice settlement from doctors who failed to diagnose the chemical imbalance that caused Terri Schiavo to stop breathing on that morning in 1990. The money would go toward caring for her for the rest of her natural life.

Schiavo claims Bob Schindler became indignant when he wouldn't share the 1992 settlement with him. The Schindlers say their son-in-law's personality changed and that he stopped all rehabilitation efforts after he received the money.

The bulk of the settlement, $700,000, was targeted for Terri Schiavo's care and rehabilitation. Some of that money has gone for her care, but a lot has gone toward legal fees, said George Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer. The other $300,000 was Schiavo's personal compensation.

Schiavo also has rejected offers of up to $10 million to give up his right to decide his wife's treatment, Felos said. The latest came two weeks ago, when a California businessman proposed a $1 million payoff.

Hyden scoffs at the accusations about his friend taking the malpractice money awarded to Terri. "If there was so much money, where was that money when I first met Mike? Why wasn't he driving a big car and living in a big home? He was driving a Jeep and living in an apartment."

In a way, Michael Schiavo's world still revolves around Terri. He calls every day and visits several times a week, Scott Schiavo said. He still can talk to her, even if she doesn't talk back.

Michael Schiavo told CNN on Saturday that he had a "sense of relief" now that the feeding tube had been removed. He promised to "stay by her side."

"This is her time ... ," he said. "I will love her, and I will hold her hand."

Background on the malpractice settlement and proposed payoffs was provided by the Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press.