STORM2K

Southlake doctor's saga began with horses, ended in alleged flight

By LAURIE FOX / The Dallas Morning News

SOUTHLAKE, Texas - Dr. Elizabeth Rohr lost custody of her five young children. She lost her sprawling ranch. She'd lost her horses and faced criminal charges for abusing them.

It appears that she thought she had only one option: to flee.

For the last several years, the Southlake physician has been running in one way or another.

She'd battled her ex-husband in court for more than two years over their divorce. She struggled to maintain a home and schooling for her children. She fought to make more money to pay mounting bills. On Wednesday, 20 miles north of the Mexican border in Texas, Dr. Rohr finally stopped.

Police apprehended her in San Benito after authorities had issued an Amber Alert earlier Wednesday seeking her and her five youngest children, ages 3 to 11.

The children's father, Keller physician Craig Saunders, had spent a frenzied few days trying to convince law enforcement officials that his ex-wife and children were gone.

After he learned Wednesday afternoon that his children were found, he said: "I'm ecstatic beyond rational thought. My heart could bust, I'm so happy."

Having holed up in a Harlingen hotel, Dr. Rohr apparently left to buy groceries when police detained her. When confronted, she fainted.

Dr. Rohr, 44, faces five counts of interfering with custody, a state jail felony punishable by six months to two years in jail or a fine of up to $10,000.

The embattled physician was to have delivered the five children to their father Monday evening. She never arrived.

The last time Dr. Rohr was seen publicly was Monday, when she applied for a marriage license at the Denton County courthouse. It was only hours after a state District Court judge in Denton awarded temporary custody of the children to her ex-husband and terminated her right to purchase her 42-acre property in Southlake.

Mike Maloney, Dr. Rohr's lawyer on family issues, declined to comment. Gerald Staton, who represents Dr. Rohr in the Wise County case, could not be reached for comment.

Dr. Rohr was charged with probation violation in June in Wise County after she was accused of mistreating horses on her Paradise ranch.

She pleaded no contest last year to animal cruelty. She is scheduled to appear Tuesday before a Wise County judge. She also is to be arraigned Sept. 7 in Denton County on similar charges.

Estranged sister

Dr. Rohr was a bright, headstrong child who grew up on an Ohio farm surrounded by animals, said her younger sister, Ginny Wilcox.

Nothing during those years indicated she would end up neglecting her horses or disappearing with her children.

"I never would have known back then any of this would happen," said Ms. Wilcox, 42. "Everybody had chores to do. We had to bed the barn and feed the calves. We had horses, and we always took care of them."

But her sister, who was the second of six children, also could be a bully, Ms. Wilcox said.

"She was strong-willed and always wanted to be in charge, and she expected you to listen," she said.

Ms. Wilcox said her sister finished high school, except for a half-credit course, at age 16. She attended the University of Delaware for a year, then transferred to Kent State University. Dr. Rohr earned her medical degree in 1985 from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

The sisters reconnected about seven years ago, when Dr. Rohr began calling Ms. Wilcox several times a week. They talked mostly about horses, Ms. Wilcox said, but became estranged after one of her stallions died in Dr. Rohr's care.

Ms. Wilcox said she began noticing problems with Dr. Rohr's horses several years ago and suggested that her sister sell some.

Peggie Kimberlin, editor and publisher of The Trailrider's Journal , said she and other horse advocates have been following Dr. Rohr's case with interest.

"Our focus has been on the horses, but now we're concerned about the children," Ms. Kimberlin said. "The profile of a person who hordes or abuses animals is that it will fold over into behavior with children, so I can understand Dr. Saunders' strong desire to get his children away from her."

Money, legal woes

Her arrest Wednesday marks an end to a spiraling sequence of events for Dr. Rohr.

She spent much of the summer trying to keep her land and fighting her ex-husband's accusations that she didn't properly care for her children.

In court records filed this month, Dr. Saunders charged that his ex-wife "demonstrated an inability to provide a safe and stable environment for the children."He was granted a temporary restraining order last fall as he sought to keep the children from their mother. He also filed a report with Child Protective Services through the Roanoke Police Department against Dr. Rohr in September, charging that the children lived in hazardous conditions with inadequate supervision.

In the report, Dr. Saunders said the children were allowed to play near Dr. Rohr's horses and that the animals were untrained and aggressive.In a long letter filed in the divorce case, Dr. Rohr detailed her frustrations at leaving her children so she could earn more money to support them and pay her legal costs.

"I was compelled to work extra, leaving my children more often, to bear the burden of attorney's fees and the increased financial hardship," she wrote.

The couple's divorce proceedings and subsequent legal actions against one another date to December 2001. In September 2003, a judge granted Dr. Saunders a restraining order against Dr. Rohr, awarding him temporary custody of the children.The relationship between the pair continued to deteriorate once school started last fall, as Dr. Saunders alleged that Dr. Rohr had kept the children from attending public school in Roanoke.

Dr. Saunders said he hopes his ex-wife "gets the help she needs."

"What I'm trying to think of is, how do you talk to your children and protect them and shield them in terms of what to say?" he said. "I'm just thinking of what to say to my kids about why this all happened.

"The children really loved their mother."

Dallas Morning News writers Debra Dennis, Kathy A. Goolsby, Marice Richter and Kathryn Yegge contributed to this report.

Southlake doctor: I'm the real victim

Records give perspective of mom held after fleeing with kids

By LAURIE FOX / The Dallas Morning News

Dr. Elizabeth Rohr stands accused of starving her horses and jeopardizing the safety of her children. But the Southlake physician says she is the real victim – both of circumstance and the actions of others, according to court records obtained by The Dallas Morning News .

Dr. Rohr portrays herself as a self-sacrificing mother and a supportive and dutiful wife who turned to raising horses to fill a void. About the time things turned bad at home, a string of animal-cruelty charges against her began.

The 44-year-old mother of seven was arrested in South Texas near the Mexican border as she tried to flee with her five youngest children after disobeying a judge's order to turn them over to their father. After being arraigned Thursday in San Benito, she was being held in the Denton County Jail on five counts of interfering with child custody, and no bail had been set.

Career on hold

In a four-page letter to one of her divorce attorneys, Dr. Rohr says she sacrificed for her family. She says in the June 2003 letter that she put her career on hold and took a back seat to further the medical practice of her husband, Dr. Craig Saunders.

Dr. Rohr wrote that she gave up her goal of being a radiologist, instead taking jobs in local emergency rooms. She said she then gave up that work to start a family practice when Dr. Saunders moved his orthopedic practice.

"I have given wholeheartedly to this man," she wrote. "I gave him seven loving, healthy children. I stayed home with the children during his first year of residency to help him. I stayed home and home-schooled the children while he was getting established in Dallas."

Abuse alleged, denied

Dr. Rohr, who was subsequently divorced from her husband, accused him of abusing the children by hitting them, then coaching them about what to say to Child Protective Services officials.

On Thursday, Dr. Saunders denied her accusations. He was awarded custody of the children Monday and traveled to San Benito to collect the children after Dr. Rohr was arrested.

"Her allegations are false," he said. "If the judge felt that I hadn't been fit, he wouldn't have given me custody. The court has done a lengthy review of this case. If the judge thought those were valid concerns, he would have weighed in differently."

Dr. Rohr also lost her ranch this week and faces criminal charges of abusing many of her horses.

In the letter to her attorney, Dr. Rohr said that a former farm manager starved her horses when he got word that she might fire him.

She also wrote that Dr. Saunders had instituted a "finely orchestrated and media wide horse cruelty case" that would prejudice the judge against her in the divorce case.

Dr. Rohr made references to Dr. Saunders purportedly threatening to "crush her," and she accused him of hiring a private investigator to stalk her.

During their marriage of almost 20 years, Dr. Saunders said, he worked to support the family, helped his wife financially and encouraged her love of horses.

Domestic strife

According to police reports in Southlake, Dr. Rohr has accused her former husband repeatedly of bugging her home and breaking in. She also asserted that he was trying to kill her by removing the lug nuts on her tires and turning on the gas on her stove.

Police investigated almost a dozen incidents at the Southlake ranch between March 2000 and March 2004. The couple's divorce was final on July 1, 2003.

In almost every case, Dr. Rohr accused Dr. Saunders of wanting to harm her. None of the cases was prosecuted, either due to lack of evidence or because Dr. Rohr failed to follow up with detectives.

The problems at home coincided with the animal-cruelty charges. The first horses were seized in the summer of 2000 in the first of several animal-cruelty cases.

She was charged with probation violation in June in Wise County after she was accused of mistreating horses on her ranch in Paradise. She pleaded no contest last year to animal cruelty. She is scheduled to appear Tuesday before a Wise County judge. She also is to be arraigned Sept. 7 in Denton County on similar charges.

According to court documents, neglect was also a factor at home. In papers filed to obtain a restraining order against Dr. Rohr last year, and in another attempt to obtain custody of the children this month, Dr. Saunders alleged a history of neglect by his ex-wife.

Concern for children

He charged that the children often played unsupervised in unsanitary conditions on the ranch, were not always adequately clothed and didn't get to spend enough time with her.

Dr. Saunders told a state district court judge in documents that Dr. Rohr "continues to act in ways that are detrimental to the physical health and emotional development of our children."

The family home in Southlake shows signs of neglect. A rutted-out gravel driveway leads to the one-story beige brick house surrounded by mud and broken-down fences. Weeds sprout from a load of gravel dumped next to the garage, its double doors enclosed with sheets of plywood.

'The children's mother'

A half-dozen bleating goats press against the back fence, and stagnant water fills a large hole dug next to an unfinished deck. Empty trash bins, adult running shoes and empty flowerpots are strewn across the property.

The only signs that children once played here: an elaborate two-story wooden play set with ladders, swings and a bright yellow slide, and a lime-green bicycle on its side, half-buried in mud.

Dr. Saunders said Thursday that even after this week's events, he still wants his ex-wife to take a more active role in their children's lives.

"This is still the children's mother," he said. "But she's got to be willing to make some effort. She needs to re-evaluate her life."

Staff writer Kathy A. Goolsby contributed to this report.