Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Man on Trial for Setting Woman Aflame

VAN NUYS —  Testimony began Friday in the trial of a Val Verde man accused of setting his ex-girlfriend on fire after pouring gasoline on her, with attorneys focusing on his state of mind during the attack.

Lawyers for both sides agree that Johnny Mack Finney, 39, emptied a two-liter plastic bottle of gasoline on Janice Johnson, 31, at her Val Verde home Aug. 1, 1993, and used a cigarette lighter to ignite the gas in front of her three children. But the prosecution claims that Finney intended to kill her, while Deputy Public Defender Howard Waco describes Finney as a troubled person who let an argument get out of hand.

“His intent was to fill a need . . . to control her--to gain her respect, to frighten her--but not to kill her,” Waco told jurors during his opening statement in Superior Court in Van Nuys.

Finney abused drugs and alcohol, making his thinking unclear during the attack, Waco said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Jonas brought Johnson before jurors during his opening argument to show the massive scarring inflicted to her upper body by the flames, which consumed most of her right ear and has left her with restricted use of her right arm. She suffered life-threatening second- and third-degree burns over about 25% of her body.

“He wanted her to suffer,” Jonas said. “You will hear lots of testimony about comments and threats he made in the two weeks prior to this incident.”

Finney abused Johnson during much of the four years they dated, Jonas said. The couple has two children who were 2 years and 10 months old at the time of the attack.

Jonas also introduced the jury to Johnson’s 15-year-old son, Roderick Spencer, who witnessed the attack. The prosecutor said he hopes to make Johnson and her son feel more at ease when they testify--and keep jurors from being distracted by Johnson’s injuries--but Waco condemned the tactic.

“The district attorney calls this an insidious crime,” he said. “The only thing I find insidious is displaying a 14- or 15-year-old boy and a woman like she’s a sideshow freak. . . . I’m not disputing that she suffered grievous injury.”

Johnson, in an interview outside the courtroom, said she believes jealousy over her ending the couple’s four-year relationship caused the attack. “He told me if I couldn’t belong to him, than I couldn’t belong to anybody.”

She said she was on welfare and worked part-time as a house cleaner before the attack, but is now disabled and unable to work. She has moved from Val Verde since the incident.

The prosecution’s first witness, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Douglas Schoenborn, testified that he and two other people in his patrol car spotted Finney about two miles away from Johnson’s house soon after the attack. Finney surrendered immediately, saying, “I wanted to kill myself, too,” as deputies recovered a dull knife he had apparently used to inflict minor stab wounds to his neck, stomach and hands.

Finney is in custody in lieu of $1 million bail on charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and spousal abuse. He faces life in prison if convicted.

More coverage of the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys appears today on B22.