Jury Clears Mother of Charges That She Attempted to Kill 8-Year-Old Daughter

A 25-year-old Canoga Park woman has been acquitted of attempting to murder her 8-year-old daughter through starvation and beatings.

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury found Teresa Valencia not guilty of one charge of attempted murder and seven counts of felony child endangering. Valencia, who had been in custody since her September, 1983, arrest was freed after the verdict was announced Monday.

Her daughter, Cynthia Valencia, who is now 10, wandered into a Canoga Park liquor store in 1983 covered with bruises and begging for food, according to testimony. The store owner contacted police, who arrested the girl’s parents.

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 testified during the trial that her father often beat her and that her mother occasionally hit her with a piece of tubing.

A physician testified that the girl was severely malnourished and badly bruised when he examined her on the day of her parents’ arrest.

Teresa Valencia took the stand in her own defense and said that she was nearly blind at the time and could not see that Cynthia had been beaten.

Jurors said after the verdict was announced that the prosecution had failed to present enough evidence tying the mother to the abuse.

Cynthia and the couple’s two other children are in foster care pending the outcome of child custody proceedings in Los Angeles Juvenile Court, Teresa Valencia’s attorney, Walter Krauss, said.