Man Gets 6 Years in Beating Death of Wife’s Daughter

A 25-year-old man was sentenced to six years in state prison Monday for child abuse that resulted in the death of a 3-year-old Van Nuys girl.

In an emotional courtroom scene, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard G. Kolostian sentenced Larry Hernandez of La Habra to three years for one count of child endangering and three years for intentionally inflicting great bodily injury on the child. The victim was the daughter of a woman who subsequently married Hernandez, and the couple now have a 1-year-old daughter of their own.

As sheriff’s deputies led Hernandez away, his mother became hysterical, shouting, “My son is innocent! My son is innocent!” Hernandez’s brother then led the family in a prayer.

Hernandez pleaded guilty to the charges last July in connection with the April, 1983, death of Candace Langer, the daughter of his then live-in girlfriend, Kathleen Langer, 24.

According to a probation report released Monday, Hernandez hit the girl “daily, except on Saturday and Sunday.” The report also said that, on April 13, 1983, Hernandez struck the child three or four times and then knocked the girl down, causing her to strike her head on a cabinet.

On April 16, the couple, who lived in Van Nuys at the time, took the child to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Panorama City, saying she had fallen in a household accident, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing. After examining the child, doctors suspected she had been the victim of abuse, officials said.

Ten days later, the child died. A coroner’s report indicated the cause of death as being blunt force trauma to the head.

Kathleen Langer Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and child endangering in connection with the death, and her trial is scheduled to begin later this month. In December, a judge refused to accept a plea-bargaining agreement after the mother declined to admit any role in the death.

In pleading for leniency, defense attorney Elliot Stanford said, “If ever a man is feeling remorse for what he did, it’s this man.”

Hernandez faced a maximum sentence of seven years, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Freeman. He will be eligible for parole after serving half of his term.