Teen Tells of Altercation at Home

Aspiring pop singer Jennifer Childs told a Ventura County jury Wednesday that she hit her stepfather over the head with a baseball bat to force him to release his hold of her ailing mother.

Jennifer Childs, 19, is accused of conspiring with her mother, Eileen, 37, to kill the woman’s husband, Larry Childs, by setting fire to his bed and then beating him with bats during an altercation in the family’s Simi Valley home.

Defense attorneys say the two acted in self-defense.

On the witness stand Wednesday, Jennifer Childs was composed as she described her version of what occurred before dawn March 25.

“I was afraid he might be hurting my mother,” she told jurors. “I thought I wouldn’t be able, without some object, to make him stop.”

The women are charged with attempted murder, arson and use of deadly weapons.

Eileen Childs also faces two child-endangerment charges because her two young sons were in the house at the time of the fire, and a charge of felony grand theft alleging she forged her husband’s name on a $132,000 insurance check.

Prosecutors contend that Eileen and Jennifer Childs had wanted to cash in on a $1.4-million life insurance policy held by Larry Childs, 57, in part to buy out a recording contract so Eileen Childs could become Jennifer Childs’ manager.

The teenager, who performs under the name Jenni Childs, said Wednesday she was “very excited” about her current contract and had never considered her mother taking over her singing career.

In fact, Jennifer Childs said, the two discussed how happy they were with the way things were going in her career the night before the altercation.

According to the earlier testimony of Larry Childs, he awoke in the middle of the night to find his bed in flames and went to check on the family. When he entered the living room, he testified, Jennifer and Eileen Childs came at him swinging baseball bats at his head.

His stepdaughter’s account was different.

Jennifer Childs said she had fallen asleep on the couch the night before and awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. She then went to find her mother, she testified, who was sleeping in the room of her 11-year-old half-brother, Jacob.

Jennifer Childs said she and her mother started down the hallway of the house to investigate the smoke smell, when Larry Childs flung open the door to the couple’s master bedroom.

“He looked like a crazy person--like a wild animal,” she testified.

“He came running down the hall toward my mother and I and grabbed us both by the hair, then pulled, pushed and dragged us down the hall.”

Jennifer Childs said that was when she grabbed a wooden bat, which her younger siblings had used the previous day during Little League practice. She saw her parents in a struggle, she said, and then hit Larry Childs about five times until he let go of her mother.

“I didn’t want to hurt him,” she said. “I just wanted him to let go of my mother.”

She said she did not set fire to her stepfather’s mattress, and testified that Larry Childs had made statements before March 25--during fits of anger--about setting the house on fire.

On cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Lee grilled Jennifer Childs on the details of her account and attempted to show inconsistencies between the teenager’s testimony and what she had previously told Simi Valley police.

Lee questioned, for instance, how Eileen Childs could have gotten out of Jacob’s bed as quickly as Jennifer Childs had indicated in her testimony.

In her previous testimony, the teen said her mother, who suffers from lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease, had severe trouble walking and bending down.

Jennifer Childs also admitted on cross-examination that she never knew whether there was a fire in the house, never saw what her stepfather was allegedly doing to her mother and heard no sounds other than her mother whining, “Ow.”

“So you found that the only thing to do was to hit your stepfather over the head with a bat?” Lee asked.

Jennifer Childs responded calmly, “Yes, I did.”