Slaying victim taught English at UC

A man found slain in his Long Beach home over the weekend was identified Tuesday as a popular English professor at UC Riverside who specialized in African American studies, officials said.

Lindon Barrett, 46, was found dead in his home Sunday after neighbors reported a foul odor coming from one of the units in the complex, Long Beach police said.

It appeared that Barrett had been dead for several days, investigators said.

They found his missing vehicle near Paramount Boulevard at South Street and staked it out.

Marlon Martinez, 20, of Long Beach, who was identified as a construction worker, was arrested about 11:20 p.m. Sunday when he went to the vehicle, police said.

On Tuesday, he was charged with murder and was being held at the Long Beach jail on $1 million bail, authorities said.

Long Beach police said Barrett and Martinez were acquaintances, but they did not elaborate.

The cause of death was not known; an autopsy was scheduled today.

Katherine Kinney, chairwoman of UC Riverside’s English department, said the faculty was devastated by Barrett’s death.

“A brilliant scholar, Lindon was just finishing a major book on slavery’s central role in the evolution of Western modernity,” Kinney said in a statement. “Lindon offered so much, personally and professionally, to the department, the campus and the scholarly field of African American studies.”

Barrett, shown in a UC Riverside photo with a broad smile and dreadlocks, had taught at the university for a year, coming from UC Irvine.

He had earned his doctorate in English at the University of Pennsylvania and specialized in 19th century and early 20th century African American literature and culture.

“The English department at UCR saw him as a bright beacon of the future,” Kinney said.

He had written for scholarly journals on a wide range of subjects, including the slave narrative and autobiography, the homoeroticism of Langston Hughes and the development and interdependence of mercantilism and slavery.

“He will be missed by friends and colleagues across campus and across the country,” Kinney said.

Besides his academic pursuits, Barrett served as an advisor on Steven Spielberg’s film “Amistad.”

Before moving to UC Riverside, Barrett taught in UC Irvine’s Comparative Literature and English Department.

He was one of the founding faculty members of the Program in African American Studies in 1994 and its director from 2004-07.

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jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com