INMATES TELL OF PRISONER'S FINAL HOURS

Schilling's pleas before he died in jail were ignored, 2 men say

>From the moment Paul R. Schilling boarded a van that took him to the
Milwaukee County Jail, sheriff's deputies taunted him, ignored his repeated
pleas for medicine and called him a drunk - even when he tumbled off a
booking-room bench and called for help, fellow inmates say.

Jesse Hyde and Alvin Johnson, who were in custody at the same time as
Schilling, vividly remember the unshaven, disheveled man, and the deputies
who made Schilling's last hours of life a living hell - deputies, they say,
who showed little concern for a visibly ill man in need of medical
attention.

Schilling, a 51-year-old attorney who once headed the University of
Wisconsin Board of Regents, was arrested at his home July 22 by Madison
police on a Milwaukee County warrant for operating a vehicle while
intoxicated. He was transported from the Dane County Jail to Milwaukee,
where his booking was put off to allow him to "sober up," according to the
medical examiner's report.

Schilling died in a cell early July 23, his head resting on a stainless
steel toilet.

"The man didn't deserve to die like that," Johnson said. "Everyone may be
locked up, but we're all still human."

Preliminary toxicology tests show that Schilling had no alcohol in his
system when he died nearly 12 hours after arriving at the jail. The tests
also show that Schilling, who was a non-insulin-dependent diabetic, did not
die in a diabetic coma.

Milwaukee County Sheriff Lev Baldwin said over the weekend that he would not
comment on the case until an investigation was complete. Sheriff's
investigators are waiting for Schilling's autopsy results, which the medical
examiner will release when toxicology tests are completed.

District Attorney E. Michael McCann said Friday he had directed
investigators to interview everyone who had contact with Schilling after he
was arrested. As soon as the district attorney's office discovers what
happened to Schilling, it will consult with the family and decide whether to
call an inquest jury, McCann said.

Neither Andrew Schilling nor Erin Schilling - Paul's children - would
comment.

Friends and another family member have said, however, that Schilling sought
treatment repeatedly over the last five years for an alcohol problem,
apparently without much success.

David Schilling, Paul's brother, said he was concerned about how his brother
was treated and hoped that "all of us soon know exactly what happened."

He said he was not surprised when he learned that his brother had been
arrested and jailed. He had hoped it would nudge his sibling toward getting
his life back on track.

"I knew he was having problems and wasn't his normal self, but I really had
tried in every way I knew how and had decided that he would have to resolve
this himself," David Schilling said late last week. "We looked at this
arrest with great relief, so it was quite a shock to hear what happened."

Hyde and Johnson, who experienced what happened firsthand, independently
contacted the Journal Sentinel last week.

"I didn't know who to call," Hyde said. "I didn't feel I could trust the
Police Department. I had to get it off my chest."

The Paul Schilling that Hyde now sees in newspaper file photos looks nothing
like the man he first saw slumped in a wheelchair, dressed in a blue Dane
County jail suit. It was about 3:30 p.m. on July 22 when sheriff's deputies
rolled Schilling up to the 16-passenger van that was bound for the Milwaukee
jail.

Schilling "was hot, he was sweating and he was breathing very erratically,"
Hyde said. "It was to the point where his glasses were steamed."

Rough Van Ride

Hyde, who had been arrested on a warrant for driving without a valid
license, had learned about Schilling five minutes earlier when a Dane County
official said another person was to be transported to Milwaukee, a man the
official described as having "vodka for breakfast."

Deputies helped Schilling out of the wheelchair and into the back of the
van. Another person sat near Schilling and Hyde sat on a seat behind
Schilling.

As the van pulled away, a deputy in the front passenger seat passed
Schilling a 1-gallon freezer bag and said, "Here, if you've got to puke,
puke in this," Hyde said.

During the 10-minute drive to the Oak Hill Correctional Institution in
Oregon, Hyde said, Schilling vomited into the bag and dry-heaved a couple of
times.

"That's when the guards figured they had something and kind of snickered
about it," Hyde said.

Hyde said the deputies would start laughing "every time he started to choke
or regurgitate."

During the trip to Milwaukee, the deputies weaved in and out of traffic and
shut off the air conditioning, Hyde said.

"I don't get carsick, but the way they were swerving you couldn't close your
eyes and rest," Hyde said.

The van heated up and Schilling, who was sweating profusely, asked for
water, he said.

"When he said it, he said, 'May I please have some water.' He was very
polite," Hyde said.

The deputies told him he would have to wait, Hyde said.

When the van arrived in Milwaukee about 6 p.m., Schilling asked for a
wheelchair and told the deputies he was having trouble walking, Hyde said.

"He asked for assistance, and they told him no," Hyde said.

A deputy grabbed his shirt, told Schilling not to touch him and led him into
the jail. Before long, Schilling was handcuffed to a concrete bench, where
he waited for a nurse to see him.

Schilling again asked for water.

Hyde said a deputy brought Schilling six to eight pill cups filled with
water and said: "These are on my tab. I'll just keep them coming for you."

"Anything they would say to degrade him he would ignore," Hyde said. "He
never copped an attitude."

Schilling then saw a nurse, who asked the deputies whether anything was
wrong with him. One said he was intoxicated and another said he was
diabetic, Hyde said.

The nurse appeared concerned and tried three times to check his blood sugar
with a hand-held machine, which Hyde said didn't appear to be working right.

A deputy told her, "We've all been on drinking binges," Hyde said. "It's no
big deal."

Complaints Ignored

Schilling continued to complain about his health.

"He said at one point that he was unbalanced and that he needed something,"
Hyde said.

In response, a deputy offered him his bologna sandwich, he said.

About 7:45 p.m., Schilling and Hyde were sitting on wooden benches in the
booking area. The room, which is lined with jail cells, was filled with
inmates waiting to be processed.

Hyde was there less than two minutes when Johnson, who had been arrested on
a domestic matter and faces battery charges, noticed something was wrong
with the person in front of him. There sat Schilling, his ankles shackled
and his face flushed.

"He kept trying to tell me something," said Johnson, adding that he could
smell alcohol on Schilling's breath. "He kept telling the deputies that he
needed his medication. He kept saying, 'I need my medication. I'm sick, I'm
sick.' "

Schilling began to shake and fell off the bench, landing face-first on the
floor, Johnson said.

A deputy and a nurse rushed to Schilling, took one look at him and said he
was drunk, the inmates said.

After Johnson told them Schilling may have had a seizure, the nurse "looked
to me and said he's having no seizure," he said. The nurse and deputy said
"he's just drunk."

"It was scary from what I saw," Hyde said. "His eyes didn't roll back into
his head, but they were about to. He was breathing as though he had just ran
a marathon through a desert."

The deputy told Schilling to "get the (expletive) up," Hyde said.

Schilling said he couldn't get up. He said something was wrong, Hyde said.

Another deputy picked up Schilling and dragged him across the room to a
cell, where he shut the door and turned off the light.

Hyde and Johnson both ended up in cells near Schilling. As the night
progressed, Schilling asked for assistance a couple of times, Hyde said.
Each time he was ignored, the inmates said.

About 2 a.m., Hyde said he heard Schilling choke and gag.

A couple hours later he said he saw guards walk past Schilling's cell, stop
and glance in, but "nothing was ever done."

Hyde fell asleep and woke at 6:10 a.m., when he saw a body on the ground at
Schilling's cell.

"He was in the Dane County uniform, and I knew exactly who it was," Hyde
said.

Deputies tied sheets together and held them around Schilling's body while
someone took pictures.

Schilling was pronounced dead in the jail at 6:30 a.m., according to the
medical examiner's report.

"Anyone could see that the man was sick," Johnson said. "That man needed
help."