Ernst Was Cruel to Her Other Children, Brother Tells Court

Beverly Jean Ernst, convicted of child endangerment in the deaths of her twin infants in Garden Grove last July, has a history of cruel and abusive treatment of her other two children, according to testimony by her brother and another witness Friday at her sentencing hearing.

One former family boarder said that Ernst had put a gun to the head of her son, 3 years old at the time, then called him a foul name and threatened to kill him.

Ernst, 26, her right arm in a cast because of a recent fall, wept and groaned aloud as the boarder, Joseph S. Taback, and her brother, Stephen E. Ernst, recounted several incidents in which they said they saw her beat her young son. There also was testimony that Ernst used drugs with her children present.

Ernst was convicted two months ago of two counts of felony child endangerment for leaving her 3-month-old twins, Adam and Ashley, unattended in her car with the windows rolled up for five hours on July 20, 1986. The children died from heat stroke, according to medical testimony. She faces a maximum sentence of more than seven years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Jean H. Rheinheimer recessed the hearing until July 31 to give Deputy Public Defender Dennis P. O’Connell more time to investigate the child-abuse allegations against his client.

Court records show that Ernst was twice reported to the county’s child-abuse registry. In addition, she was arrested twice by police in 1985, once after she threatened to kill herself and her children and the second time after police said she assaulted her mother and bit a policeman on the finger, the records show.

Her two surviving children, the son, now 7, and a girl, 5, live in the Midwest with the parents of Ernst’s ex-husband.

Testimony and information filed in prosecution papers Friday alleged that Ernst was using cocaine and amphetamines while she was pregnant with the twins and was using drugs up until the time they died.

Her brother testified that the drugs greatly affected her, sometimes causing her to go into a deep sleep for a day and a half.

He said his sister several times told her son, the oldest of her children: “I’m going to rip your damned head off.”

After testifying against his sister, Ernst put his arms around her and tried to shield her from television cameras as she left the courtroom in Westminster.

Her mother, Mildred Ernst, told reporters: “She’s a good kid. Just leave her alone.”

According to court testimony, Beverly Jean Ernst and her friend, Scott Morrow, went to a coffee shop at about 3 a.m. on the day her infant twins died. At about 7 a.m., they returned to a supply shop on Euclid Avenue where Morrow lived in a back room. Ernst and Morrow went inside while the children remained in the car. Ernst said she fell asleep by accident but thought that Morrow had agreed to watch over the children for her.

Instead, she testified that when she awakened shortly past noon, Morrow was asleep beside her. Pathologists’ reports show that the babies had died at least 1 1/2 hours earlier.

Jurors had reported themselves deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of convicting her of involuntary manslaughter. But since that crime carries a six-year penalty and felony child endangerment carries a maximum sentence of seven years and four months, prosecutors decided not to retry her on the manslaughter charges.

During the trial, O’Connell argued that his client was a victim of circumstances--she was alone with no husband and no home of her own, trying to raise twins who had been born two months prematurely.

But testimony Friday portrayed Ernst in a different light.

Her brother testified that she once picked up her son, about 4 or 5 years old at the time, by the hair, lifted him five inches off the ground, then flung him to the ground so hard that he fell down. Stephen Ernst, in his testimony, said that he had seen his sister backhand the boy so hard that it knocked him down.

Taback testified that he saw Beverly Jean Ernst on numerous occasions grab the boy and throw him into a wall in a fit of anger.

Taback gave a quick, matter-of-fact version of the gun incident with the boy but said it was “a stressful situation.” O’Connell later asked him if he did anything to Ernst in response to the incident.

“You don’t mess with someone who has a gun in her hand,” Taback said.

Stephen Ernst testified that his sister once pulled a gun on a friend inside their home because the man had taken some marijuana from a plant growing in the garage. The brother could not recall whether the children were present at the time.

The brother said that both he and his mother told Beverly Jean Ernst that they thought her discipline of her son was excessive. On one occasion, when her mother interfered, Stephen Ernst testified, his sister dragged the boy into a bedroom, locked the door and continued to beat him, yelling at her mother: “Now you can’t do anything to stop me.”

Ernst’s former husband is not the father of the twins who died in the car. Prosecutors say they believe that they know who the twins’ father is, but they have never identified him publicly because he never figured into the case against his ex-wife.

In remarks outside the courtroom, Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace A. Wade said: “This is a person who did not care about her children.”

In court papers made public Friday, Wade asked for a four-year state prison sentence.

O’Connell, in asking for probation, said Friday’s testimony and court records do not accurately reflect his client’s attitude toward her children.