DEFENSE: ROHRER GOOD TO DAUGHTER

Author: RON AVERY, Daily News Staff Writer

Could a mother beat one child to death yet show consistent love and caring for a sibling?

The defense attorney for Mimi Rohrer argued successfully yesterday to permit testimony showing the murder defendant to be a good parent to her daughter, Laura, now 11.

Rohrer, 43, is charged with "a pattern of child abuse" leading to the death of her 2 1/2-year-old son, Billy, in May 1975.

The two children were adopted together in El Salvador. Billy died of head injuries about three months after arriving at Rohrer's Camden County home. Laura continues to live with Rohrer and is expected to appear as a defense witness.

Several longtime friends of Rohrer's were permitted to testify yesterday that the defendant has been a loving parent to Laura since adopting her nine years ago.

Deputy Attorney General Anthony Zarrillo argued that Rohrer's treatment of the girl is irrelevant and "distracts the jury from the real issue."

Zarrillo also argued that in child abuse, "It is classic to single out one child for abuse while the others are left alone. That's what the experts tell us."

However, Superior Court Judge David G. Eynon said the jurors' own logic and experience is as valid as expert testimony and agreed to permit limited questioning about Rohrer's treatment of Laura.

Rohrer claims Billy died of self-inflicted injuries. Several friends testified yesterday that they saw Billy deliberately bang his head.

Donna Frankeny and Joann Cunningham, two longtime friends of Rohrer's from the Pittsburgh area, said they saw Billy bang his head against a heavy iron door on a kitchen cupboard during a visit shortly before his death.

"I'd have thought he would have cried," Cunningham said. "I picked him up and he just smiled at me."

The two women also said they saw the boy jump down a flight of steps, land on his buttocks and laugh. "Someone else might have started crying. He just started laughing," Frankeny said.

Both women called Rohrer "a very fine mother," who showed love for both children.

Bette Gahres, another old friend, said she saw Billy ride his tricycle into a wall, then slam his head into the wall after the impact. "What struck me was he consciously threw himself foward into the wall . . . I thought he had hurt himself because he hit so hard, but he didn't cry."

Robert J. Venuto, who described himself as a longtime political friend of the defendant's husband, William Rohrer, the mayor of Haddon Township, testified that he saw the boy fall and land on his head while trying to climb onto a desk.

"I thought he would be knocked out, but he got up and laughed," Venuto said.

And Joseph Porchilo, a carpenter who worked in the Rohrer home soon after the children arrived from El Salvador, said, "The boy was never happy. He cried all the time . . . To me, he was not a normal boy."

Porchilo said he formed his opinion after he saw the boy playing in feces.

The trial, which started in Camden on Sept. 10, is expected to last about two more weeks.