Local News in Brief : Jury Acquits Mother of Trying to Kill Daughter
A 25-year-old woman accused of attempting to murder her 8-year-old daughter was found not guilty Monday by a Van Nuys Superior Court jury.
Teresa Valencia sobbed into her hands as the court clerk announced her acquittal on one charge of attempted murder and seven counts of felony child endangering.
Immediately after the verdict, Commissioner Alan B. Haber ordered Valencia freed. She was arrested in September, 1983, and had been in jail for more than two years awaiting trial.
Her daughter, Cynthia, who is now 10, wandered into a Canoga Park liquor store in September, 1983, and begged for food, according to testimony. The store owner called police, who arrested the parents.
The girl testified during the trial that her father often beat her and that her mother sometimes hit her with a heavy piece of tubing.
A physician testified that the girl was severely malnourished when he examined her in September, 1983.
The girl’s father, Jose Pulido Montano, was convicted last year of attempted voluntary manslaughter and child endangering, and was sentenced to 17 years in state prison.
Cynthia and the couple’s two other children are in foster care pending the outcome of child custody proceedings in Juvenile Court, according to Valencia’s attorney, Walter Krauss.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
