Girl, 10, Tells Court of Mistreatment by Parents

A 10-year-old girl whose parents allegedly beat her and hung her by a belt testified in Van Nuys Superior Court Monday that she was fed only sardines and table scraps and was forced to sleep in a garage.

Answering questions with hesitant, one-word answers, Cynthia Valencia, who was 8 at the time of the alleged incidents, said her father did most of the beating but that her mother, Teresa Pulido Valencia, also hit her sometimes with a heavy piece of tubing.

Teresa Valencia, 25, is on trial on charges of attempted murder and child endangering, which allegedly occurred between May 1 and Sept. 7, 1983.

The girl’s father, Jose Pulido Montano, 37, was convicted last year of attempted voluntary manslaughter and child endangering and was sentenced to 17 years in state prison.

The parents were arrested on Sept. 7, 1983, when a Canoga Park liquor store owner called police to report that the little girl had wandered into his store asking for food.

“The girl was very thin,” Sheldon Mark, the store owner, testified earlier in the trial. “She was filthy. Her hair was matted down to her head. Her eyes were very swollen. Her face was very bruised.”

Dr. Thomas Crawford of County/USC Medical Center, who examined the girl shortly afterward, testified that the girl’s injuries, which included malnutrition, a detached retina in her left eye and hemorrhages under both eyes, would have killed her “within a short time” if left untreated.

Cynthia and her 9-year-old sister now are in foster care and attend school in Whittier.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert P. Imerman showed the jury photographs of the girl, showing large bruises and scrapes around her eyes and a large cut under her chin.

In her testimony Monday, Cynthia said she received the cut when her father put a belt around her neck and hung her by it.

At the start of her testimony Monday, both the girl and her mother broke into tears when Imerman began asking about the vacant garage where she said she had been forced to stay while her parents and sister slept in a camper nearby.

Imerman said investigators do not know the parents’ motive for abusing the child. But Loretta Sandoval, a Spanish interpreter at a medical clinic, testified that Teresa Valencia told her in April, 1983, that her child was “bad, evil and dirty.”

During cross examination of the girl, defense attorney Walter Krauss introduced photographs of her seventh birthday party and of the family at McDonald’s, apparently to show that there was some normal family life.

Krauss said he expects the trial to conclude next week.

No bail has been set for Teresa Valencia, who is being held in County Jail.