Woman says she’s still waiting for justice
Adopted daughter wants to know why she’s being denied her day in court after accusing Redwater mayor of abuse years ago; he denies all allegations
Tiffany Lorance, the adopted daughter of Redwater, Texas, Mayor Robert Lorance, has waited half her life for justice.
As a young teen, Tiffany Lorance accused her adoptive father of continuous, yearslong sexual abuse, and to this day, she remains firm in her allegations. While the sexual abuse claims were investigated beginning in January 2004, Robert Lorance received a plea deal five years later for injury to a child by hitting.
“He beat me. He sexually abused me. Why can’t he be prosecuted for both?” Tiffany Lorance asked.
Robert Lorance continues to deny the sexual abuse allegations.
“She’s a good liar,” Robert
Lorance said in an interview Friday. “This is all a lie.”
Tiffany Lorance wants him charged in the alleged sex crimes. She wants the case presented to a Bowie County grand jury, and she wants to tell her story to a trial jury.
THE ALLEGATIONS
In 2004 at age 14, Tiffany Lorance, who was adopted at age 6 by Robert Lorance and
his former wife Nelwyn Miller, first told of the alleged sexual abuse against Robert Lorance after her adopted mother questioned her about a sickening suspicion.
Nelwyn Miller said she, Robert Lorance and Tiffany Lorance had fallen asleep in the couple’s bed when she awakened and saw Robert Lorance inappropriately touching her daughter.
Nelwyn Miller said she asked Tiffany Lorance later in the day about what she saw and was devastated to hear her daughter allege years of sexual abuse beginning when she was 7. Nelwyn Miller said she had suspicions about a year before, but put them out of her mind.
“I loved him. We had this beautiful girl, a good life,” Nelwyn Miller said recently. “I was just blown away. I lost part of my mind that day.”
Tiffany Lorance said she remembers the white cotton long johns with pink roses she was wearing the first time Robert Lorance allegedly touched her sexually. Her wet hair was wrapped in a towel. Her mother was at a bunco game.
“I can’t even remember how many times this happened,” Tiffany Lorance said in a Jan. 21, 2004, statement at the Texarkana Children’s Advocacy Center. “I would say over a hundred times over the past seven years.”
Tiffany Lorance said her father’s work schedule meant he was often alone with her after school. She claims he molested her in pastures on the family’s property and that he often woke her at night as she slept.
“Sometimes I would fall asleep in class and get in trouble because I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before,” Tiffany Lorance said. “As I got older, I would hang towels over the windows when I took a bath. I knew he was watching me, looking in.”
She claims her adoptive father physically abused her, also. She remembers being struck with his monogrammed belt so hard that the letters were visible on her skin in red and purple, being hit with a board and having injuries that kept her from “dressing out” for sports.
Robert Lorance admits hitting Tiffany Lorance once with a belt when she was arguing with her mother and “nearly set the kitchen on fire.” He claims Tiffany Lorance moved when he began to strike her with the belt, and his “name plate” hit her inadvertently on the leg and left a mark.
THE ADOPTION
Tiffany Lorance said she was abandoned as a baby by her biological mother. She lived with the family of a distant
relative who had other girls close to her age. She was happy there, but was excited when she learned that a couple wanted to adopt her, Tiffany Lorance said.
“It was cows and horses and four-wheelers and a nice room—stuff just for me,” she said.
When the sexual abuse began, Tiffany Lorance said, she was afraid that telling would mean losing her adoptive mother.
“You know it’s wrong, but you don’t know why. He said we would get in trouble if I told. He used my mama against me a lot,” Tiffany Lorance said. “I felt a strong connection to her right away. I didn’t want to lose her.”
ACTING OUT
Nelwyn Miller said that after Tiffany Lorance told her about the alleged sexual abuse, she spent that night in her daughter’s room. The next day, when Robert Lorance was at work, Nelwyn Miller loaded some of her and her daughter’s things into an SUV, picked her daughter up early from school and headed out of state.
Tiffany Lorance said she became mistrustful of everyone after leaving Bowie County. She acted out, including assaults on other teens that led to placements in youth homes. The turmoil in her mind that led to her anger and misbehavior settled as she reached adulthood, she said.
“I still have trouble trusting people. I’m jumpy. I have a lot of anxiety,” Tiffany Lorance said.
Robert Lorance said Tiffany Lorance and Nelwyn Miller often called him for help after leaving Redwater.
“If I’m the bad guy, why call me?” Lorance asked.
Tiffany Lorance said on the day she and her mother left Redwater, they answered a call from Robert Lorance while driving. She called him once for bail money after a friend urged her to, and once at the suggestion of a group home staff member. The staff member told Tiffany Lorance to ask her adoptive father why he abused her.
“He didn’t deny it,” Tiffany Lorance said.
THE INVESTIGATION
When she left Redwater with her daughter, Nelwyn Miller reported the abuse to the authorities, and Bowie County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation. Tiffany Lorance was interviewed in January 2004 at Children’s Advocacy Center in Texarkana and by Child Protective Services. Two months later, CPS made an affirmative finding that the abuse occurred, according to CPS documents provided by Nelwyn Miller.
Robert Lorance filed for divorce in January 2004. In an interview in February this year, he claimed Nelwyn Miller concocted the allegations because she wanted to get more money in their divorce settlement.
“We didn’t really have that much. I was working as a secretary for the city of Redwater. If not for this, we might still be together,” Nelwyn Miller said.
When interviewed by investigators in early 2004, Robert Lorance denied sexually abusing his daughter and agreed to take a polygraph. Retired BCSO Investigator Stacey Sumner said in a late-February interview that he had arranged for Robert Lorance to undergo that polygraph in a neighboring jurisdiction because of Lorance family ties to area law enforcement. Robert Lorance’s father is retired from Texas Department of Public Safety and has served as mayor of Leary, Texas, in Bowie County.
A report detailing the results of the polygraph is included in the sheriff’s investigative file, a copy of which the Gazette obtained through a Freedom of Information request. Robert Lorance showed “deception” on a series of specific questions concerning the alleged sexual abuse of Tiffany Lorance. (It should be noted that polygraph information is seldom admissible in court proceedings.)
The sheriff’s office turned its file over to the Bowie County District Attorney’s Office with a recommendation that the case be referred to a grand jury for indictment in December 2004, case documents show.
Years passed without action.
Nelwyn Miller and her current husband, Bobby Miller, called and wrote the District Attorney’s Office repeatedly when it was under the supervision of former District Attorney and current 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart. In a letter to Bobby