Sentencing of Killers Marlow and Coffman Postponed

Lawyers for a couple who received death verdicts from a jury for the murder of a young Redlands woman told a judge Thursday that they need another month to prepare for formal sentencing.

Cynthia Lynn Coffman, 26, reportedly told her lawyers as late as Wednesday night that she would refuse to agree to postpone Thursday’s scheduled sentencing. One lawyer involved said Coffman told her lawyers that she just wanted to get it over with.

But after a nearly hourlong conference Thursday morning behind closed doors with one of her lawyers, Alan Spears, Coffman agreed with her co-defendant, James Gregory Marlow, 32, to an Aug. 24 sentencing date.

Coffman and Marlow were convicted of murdering 20-year-old Corinna Novis, who had given them a ride from the Redlands Mall on Nov. 7, 1986. She was later strangled, and her body was dumped in a field near Fontana.

Coffman and Marlow are awaiting trial in Orange County for the murder of 19-year-old Lynell Murray, who was kidnaped Nov. 12, 1986, from the Huntington Beach dry cleaners where she worked. She was found strangled in a Huntington Beach motel room the next day.

Unless San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Don A. Turner overturns the jury verdict in the Novis case, Coffman could become the first woman sentenced to death in California since capital punishment was reinstated 12 years ago.

Orange County prosecutors have announced that they also will seek a death verdict against each defendant.

“Cynthia Coffman was just as responsible for the death of these two women as Marlow was,” said former Orange County prosecutor Richard Toohey, who was in charge of the Orange County case until his recent appointment to the bench.

Coffman was sullen throughout Thursday’s brief proceedings. Marlow, who recently shaved his head, flipped through legal briefs almost continuously.

Coffman attorney Spears later declined to discuss whether he and his client had differences over the postponement.

“We have simply not had the time to prepare for a death sentence hearing,” Spears said.

Lawyers for both defendants are scheduled to confer in Santa Ana today with Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown, who is now prosecuting the Orange County case. But Marlow and Coffman are not scheduled to leave San Bernardino County Jail until after their sentencing in Turner’s court.

Turner has the power to lower each defendant’s death verdict to life without parole. However, lawyers involved in the case say Turner is not expected to overrule the jury.

Coffman testified at her San Bernardino trial that she participated with Marlow in both murders. But the young woman claimed that she was under Marlow’s control and that he had threatened to kill her if she did not go along with him.

The two met a few months before the killings, when Marlow was in jail in Barstow and Coffman was there visiting a friend.