Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Judge Orders Man Held in Torching of Woman

A Municipal Court judge on Tuesday ordered a Val Verde man charged with attempted murder in a brutal attack on his estranged girlfriend held without bail until a preliminary hearing next month.

Newhall Municipal Judge H. Keith Byram ordered Johnny Mack Finney, 38, who has also been known as Johnny Lee Brown, held without bail for violating the terms of a probation set by the court after he beat Janice Johnson in April.

On Sunday, Finney, who suspected Johnson of dating other men, doused the 30-year-old Val Verde woman with a mixture of gasoline and oil and then threw a cigarette lighter at her, setting her on fire, according to deputies’ reports. Finney then embraced Johnson and fell on top of her in a failed attempt to die with her, deputies said. The wall near the spot where he held her was still blackened from flame and had an eight-inch hole kicked in from her attempts to escape him.

Byram set bail at $1 million for the Sunday night attack, and told Finney’s attorney, Public Defender Jim Racusin, that he saw “no reason for this man to be released to the public.” Racusin entered a plea of not guilty for his client, who appeared in court with his hands bandaged.

Johnson’s 14-year-old son, Roderick Spencer, witnessed the attack at the family’s single-room apartment on Cromwell Avenue in Val Verde, deputies said. The estranged couple also have two children together, a 7-month-old girl and a 2-year-old boy.

Finney also is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and spousal abuse, said Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Allie Scolnick. Those charges and two prior one-year prison terms include enhancements that could extend Finney’s sentence if convicted, Scolnick said.

Johnson was listed in critical but stable condition Tuesday with internal burns and burns on 25% of her body, said Johna Rogovin, a spokeswoman at Sherman Oaks Hospital & Health Center.

Johnson is expected to survive her injuries, but will probably be permanently scarred, said her physician, Dr. Karl Stein.

Stein said he will begin today a process to remove dead skin tissue in preparation for a series of skin grafts. Johnson suffered burns to her chest, back, both arms and face in the attack.

This is not the first time that Finney has been arrested for assaults against women, according to court records.

In February, 1987, he began serving a three-year state prison term for the beating of his former wife, according to a spokeswoman at the state Department of Corrections. He was released from parole in January, 1992, she said.

As part of the settlement in his December, 1989, divorce from Renee Ann Mix, Finney was ordered to keep away from his former wife and their two children, according to court records. His ex-wife could not be reached and her attorney, who is now retired, declined comment.

Finney’s old friends in Val Verde, where he has lived since he was a teen-ager, said he beat his former wife so badly that she was hospitalized for three weeks.

Johnson’s landlord, Odis Sneed, said he refused to rent a room in a front house to Finney in early July, after hearing the couple bicker from his house across the street.

“I told him that was like putting cats and dogs together, and I wasn’t about to do that,” Sneed said.

Within two weeks of his request to move in there, Finney and Johnson had argued again, and Finney had come out to the house on July 14 and cut the outside phone lines to Johnson’s apartment.

Sheriff’s deputies from the Santa Clarita office responded to a call from Johnson that night and reconnected the line, Sneed said. Finney then came over and cut the line again, said Sneed, pointing to a section of line held together by black electrical tape.

Lt. John Vander Horck, a watch commander at the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station, confirmed a service call to Johnson’s home that night to respond to a disturbing-the-peace call.

Reports indicate that sheriff’s deputies had been to the victim’s home three times this year before the Sunday night attack.

People in Val Verde, a community of about 1,600 formed in the 1920s as a retreat for black entertainers, seemed stunned by the occurrence.

“The whole town was dead for two days after it happened,” said Karen Landcraft, a 27-year-old resident.