Mother and Daughter Acquitted

A Ventura County jury acquitted a woman Friday accused of trying to kill her sleeping husband by setting him on fire, allegedly to collect on a $1.4-million life insurance policy.

The woman’s teenage daughter, who allegedly beat her stepfather over the head with a baseball bat during the attack, also was found not guilty.

Eileen and Jennifer Childs of Simi Valley were cleared of nine charges, including arson, and set free Friday after spending four months in jail.

Some jurors returned to the courtroom after the verdict to hug the two women. One juror said police conducted a shoddy investigation.

Prosecutors alleged the pair conspired to kill Larry Childs, 57, so they could spend insurance money to further the singing career of 19-year-old Jennifer Childs. The pair had also talked about opening a Jiffy Lube franchise with the money, according to prosecutors.

“I really cannot put this feeling into words,” Jennifer Childs said, flanked by family members as she left the courtroom of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Herbert Curtis III. “After being in jail for four months, right now I feel I could pass out.”

The aspiring pop singer, who performs under the name Jenni Childs, said she wrote a few songs while in jail and is eager to return to the recording studio.

Eileen Childs, 37, who was portrayed by prosecutors as the mastermind of the attack, said her husband was abusive and set his own bed on fire to frame her. The verdict, she said, was an “absolute relief.”

“I just want to hug my sons,” she said, referring to 11-year-old Jacob and 9-year-old Zachary, who also testified in the month-long trial. A few minutes later she got her wish, as the boys were brought into the courthouse.

The mother said she was nervous as she awaited the verdict, but felt confident that justice would be served. Eileen Childs also was acquitted on two counts of child endangerment and one count of grand theft in connection with a forged insurance check.

“When I was first arrested, I thought, this is a terrible mistake,” she said. “I knew this was not right.”

Larry Childs, reached at his Simi Valley home Friday, said he was shocked at the jury’s verdict. He said the evidence clearly indicated that his wife and stepdaughter were trying to kill him on the morning of March 25.

“You depend on the system, and it doesn’t seem to work,” he said.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Lee, teary-eyed as she left the courtroom, said the verdicts were “extremely disappointing ... I can’t imagine what the jury was thinking.”

Juror Ta-Lin Chen said that for her, the case was hampered by an error-filled police investigation that resulted in “premature and wrong assumptions. There was no solid proof of the crime.”

Saying she believed Larry Childs lied on the witness stand, she added he “deserved an Oscar” for his performance. “I truly believe they are innocent.”

Prosecutors alleged that the women tried to set fire to his bed, and when that didn’t work, they ambushed him with baseball bats, hitting him several times over the head.

On the witness stand, both women admitted to striking Childs, but only in self-defense as he ran out of the bedroom in an angry frenzy. Larry Childs was an abusive husband and father, the women said, and must have just “snapped.”

Eileen Childs said Friday that she believes her husband set his own bed ablaze to frame her and her daughter, in part because he didn’t want to go through a divorce.

The fire became a key point for jurors, who said they believed it was set intentionally, but could not find the proof about who started it.

Any time there is a fire, arson should be suspected, Chen said. But investigators didn’t begin looking for a lighter that may have been used to start the fire until months after the incident.

“It was a huge foul-up,” she said.

For the prosecution to base its case on such shaky evidence was “like trying to build a house out of sand,” she said.

Other jurors said the testimony of the two Childs boys swayed them, as did a secretly recorded videotape of a conversation between the two women while they were in the police station hours after the incident.

“You would think if they didn’t know they were being recorded, one of them would have said something incriminating,” said juror Sheri Castorena. “That was a biggie.”

Acquittals in major criminal cases are fairly rare in Ventura County.

Since 1995, only two other defendants in high-profile defendants have been cleared on all charges. Edward Nishida Drake, a Simi Valley auto mechanic, was acquitted in 1999 on allegations that he fatally shot a 17-year-old whom he mistook for a burglar. That same year, Margaret Major, a Simi Valley day-care provider, was found not guilty on child-abuse charges.

Deputy Public Defender Jean Farley characterized the arrests of Jennifer and Eileen Childs as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice she has seen in her 30 years as an attorney. “Today, I think justice was done,” she said.

Amy Bradbury, Eileen Childs’ sister, said the case has taken a major toll on the entire family. She is getting married next month, she said, and can finally print the programs because her niece, Jennifer Childs, will be able to sing “The Lord’s Prayer.”

“This has ruined our lives,” Bradbury said. “I’m so happy it’s over.”

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Times staff writer Jessica Blanchard contributed to this report.