MIMI'S HUSBAND: 'CAN I COME HOME?'

Author: ANN W. O'NEILL, Daily News Staff Writer

William G. Rohrer looked up at his wife yesterday as she strode into the main office of the bank he founded two decades ago and quietly asked, "Can I come home now?"

Mimi Rohrer had moved her husband out of their rambling colonial house in Haddon Township several weeks before her murder trial began because, she said, he would not agree to testify on her behalf or fire her lawyer.

"Can I come around the house some time, now that this is all over?" William Rohrer, 74, the longtime mayor of Haddon Township, again asked his wife. "We'll talk," she responded, making no commitments.

As she left the building, Mimi Rohrer remarked, "It was definitely chilly in that bank. I would say my husband and I are quite estranged."

William Rohrer's desk, with its clutter of papers and the coffee mug lettered in red with the word "BOSS," was the first place Mimi Rohrer stopped yesterday, after her murder trial in Camden Superior Court ended with a hung jury after 14 weeks of testimony.

"I was happy with him," Mimi Rohrer says of the man she married 11 years ago. "We had a good life. We did a good job with our daughter. Unfortunately he didn't want to help me when we were faced with a major problem that involved a lot of public questions. He didn't want to stand up for me in public."

Mimi Rohrer says she was told the jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquitting her of charges she murdered the couple's adopted son, Billy, 3, through a pattern of child abuse.

William Rohrer declined to speak about the case, telling a reporter, "I don't have anything to say."

Because the trial ended without a verdict, the state attorney general's office must decide whether to continue with the prosecution.

After the jurors had gone home, and the reporters and television cameras had left the courthouse in Camden, Mimi Rohrer stood in a parking lot, clutching a child's reading book and looking for her car. It took a while, and she stopped to speak with a reporter as she searched.

"I wish that I was vindicated because I was innocent," she said. "I will continuously have to live with this over my head. I don't know what will happen to me."

Mimi Rohrer declined to discuss details of the case because, she said, "I don't know what my legal situation is." But she did say the prosecution ''wasted a lot of time and money" bringing her to trial. "Rather than try me again and put me through all this all over, I wish they'd use the money to help the poor children of Camden."

Still, Mimi Rohrer seemed relieved that the trial was over, if only for the time being. She put the top down on her new Chevy convertible, ran errands, and spoke of going to school, getting a job as a paralegal, maybe going to law school. She talked about taking a vacation, then moving out of New Jersey and putting her adopted daughter, Laura, 11, in "a good Catholic school."

"I'm going to be my own woman from now on, believe me," she said.

As she wheeled the car along Route 70, Mimi Rohrer slowed and pointed in the direction of the Locustwood Memorial Cemetery as several motorists beeped their horns in annoyance. "That's where Billy is buried. He's right to the left of that arch there."

Then she pulled into a small bicycle shop that advertised 10-speed bicycles for $99. "I'm going to have to start shopping for bargains if I'm going to be supporting myself," Rohrer said. She purchased a bicycle for Laura, using her husband's credit card.

"Is that William Rohrer, the mayor of Haddon Township?" a sales clerk asked. "He's good friends with my mother. He's done me a few favors."

Mimi nodded, and said, "See what I've been up against."

Later, she elaborated. "If Bill Rohrer wasn't indicted, why was Mimi indicted? That's the question I want answered. I can't believe my husband would hurt Billy. I can't believe I would hurt him."

She continued, "I wanted the jury to know. I have a marital agreement with my husband. I didn't marry him for his money. I raised my daughter myself. No nanny raised her."

And, Mimi Rohrer said, she wants to adopt another child from El Salvador.