WILDWOOD — On a hot day in late August, Jonathan Carter watched from afar as dozens of police in riot gear descended on his grandparents’ sprawling home in this woodsy suburb.
At least eight police cars pulled up to the 10-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot house, accompanied by a SWAT truck carrying even more officers outfitted in protective gear. A judge had signed a search warrant just hours after Carter’s family gave photos to police showing what was inside the home, which sits on a large piece of land in the 18000 block of Country Trails Court.
Once inside, officers found more than 60 cats living in squalor — and in the days that followed, authorities reported rescuing more than 130 cats from the house and its property.
The house was later condemned. The cats were taken to a animal shelter. And Carter’s ailing 83-year-old grandfather was moved into a hotel with Carter’s aunt, Elizabeth Fischer, who had lived at the Wildwood home for years while collecting stray cats, according to testimony in court on Friday.
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“I want her locked up,†Carter said of his aunt outside the courtroom. “I want her in jail. I believe she should be held accountable.â€
The raid on Carolyn and Thomas Fischer’s house on Aug. 28, which drew media attention throughout ºüÀêÊÓƵ this week, was the climax of a yearslong power struggle among four of the couple’s six adult children and came just days after Carolyn Fischer’s death.
Family members were in court on Friday to determine who should now take care of Thomas Fischer and his finances.
Elizabeth Fischer briefly testified, only to say that she could not get along with her siblings and she did not want any of them to take over the temporary guardianship.
During the long hearing, family members described their fracturing relationships and the chain of events that led to an elderly couple being isolated from most of their children and living in a home filled with living — and dead — cats.
Two of Fischer’s daughters described heated confrontations with their sister, Elizabeth, the oldest sibling, while trying to visit their elderly parents. They told of long stretches of no contact with their mother and father, and how they were even barred from entering their parents’ Wildwood home.
Elizabeth Fischer demanded that her siblings only talk to their parents while in family counseling sessions, they testified. They said they reported the situation to authorities. And, they said, they found out about their mother’s Aug. 22 death days after it happened, and only because a family friend texted their brother about her passing.
They said none of her children, other than Elizabeth Fischer, knew Carolyn Fischer’s health had been declining for months. Carter said on Friday that his grandmother had been hospitalized about seven weeks before she died at a Delmar Gardens facility.
One of their daughters, Jennifer O’Donnell, asked the court to appoint an emergency guardian to oversee his finances, medical decisions and other affairs. The goal, O’Donnell said, is to protect him from what she described as controlling behavior by Elizabeth.
“When she moved into the house, we weren’t allowed in,†said O’Donnell, who lives in Waynesville, Missouri, west of Rolla. “But my parents could go out and do stuff with us.â€
But as time went on, it appeared to her siblings that Elizabeth Fischer was controlling the couple’s finances and lives. They said she put her parents on time limits when it came to conversations and family outings.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ County police said they were called for two welfare checks in 2023 and three in 2024. But, police were never allowed inside the home.
Another daughter, also named Carolyn Fischer, said her parents would visit her family in Virginia every Christmas, until 2022. On the last few trips, she told the judge, their clothes and suitcases smelled of cat urine.
“I spent too many Christmases talking to my dad one-on-one,†she said. “He was telling me he was concerned about the house.â€
Lawyers also questioned Thomas Fischer, who seemed confused at times. He described helping his eldest daughter take care of his wife as her health declined. He also acknowledged the drama among his children, though he said he could not recall the specifics of past spats.
He also told the judge that he doesn’t want to move away from ºüÀêÊÓƵ to live with one of his children under a temporary guardianship. Though he admitted that his memory has begun to fail in recent years.
When a lawyer asked about the number of cats in the home, Thomas Fischer said he recognized it was a problem, but then defended Elizabeth.
“What she was doing was saving them,†he said. “She couldn’t stand the fact that someone would kill a cat.â€
Thomas said his Social Security checks were used to feed the cats and confessed that his daughter also started putting dead cats in their freezer.
“She was afraid of someone checking the trashcans,†he said.
His grandson, Carter, told the Post-Dispatch that in 2022 he asked the couple if he could spend a few nights a week in the house to be closer to his warehouse job. He was on parole after serving time for a fatal crash, and was not allowed to drive.
They agreed and Carter said he slept on a mattress in the dining room. He said of the nine bathrooms in the house, there was only one working shower.
“She’s obsessed with them,†Carter said of the cats. “Those are her babies. She named every last cat.â€
Elizabeth Fischer’s sisters said Elizabeth had been working as a lawyer in Virginia until she was disbarred in 2015 in multiple states, including Virginia and Missouri. She also got divorced around that time, and the bank foreclosed on her house.
“It took a toll on her,†O’Donnell said Friday, noting that was around the time she moved back home to Wildwood.
Elizabeth Fischer did not talk about her siblings’ accusations or the cats.
Judge Misty Watson granted the emergency temporary guardianship to a third-party lawyer and ordered a medical evaluation for Thomas Fischer.
The case is set for a one-day trial Nov. 25.