Convicted Killer Changes Plea to Guilty in 2nd Case

A man who already faces the death penalty for the sex murder of one woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to raping and killing a Huntington Beach woman he and his girlfriend abducted at gunpoint from a dry-cleaning shop.

James Gregory Marlow’s guilty plea, which came in the middle of his trial, is an attempt to avoid the gas chamber, his attorneys said.

Despite his plea, Marlow, 35, still faces either life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty for the Nov. 12, 1986, murder of Lynel Murray, 19.

Marlow’s attorney, George A. Peters, told the jury during his opening statement in the trial that the defense’s goal was to save Marlow from the death penalty, not acquit him.

“It’s a tactic that we’ve thought about for a long time,” Peters said in an interview Tuesday. “We’ve looked at it through all points of view. . . . (It) has tremendous advantages.”

Peters added that his client was “remorseful” for the crimes and that pleading guilty “was the right thing to do.”

Marlow was charged with rape, robbery, burglary, kidnap and murder, in addition to a number of special circumstances that make him eligible for the death penalty.

Although he would not go into details about the defense’s strategy for the penalty phase of the trial, which is to begin March 23, Peters has said that an early plea avoids having the jury wrestle with the defendant’s fate twice and saves it from hearing much of the same gory evidence again.

In accepting Marlow’s admission of guilt, Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin said that under the circumstances, “I would have done exactly what these attorneys did.”

When Marlow was being asked by McCartin if he robbed, raped and murdered Murray, he responded clearly and without much emotion: “Yes, sir.”

In the courtroom, the victim’s relatives and Marlow’s new wife, Brenda, watched silently as the pleas were accepted.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon Jr. said he will still pursue the death penalty. He declined further comment pending the completion of the penalty trial.

Marlow and his former girlfriend, Cynthia Lynn Coffman, have already been sentenced to death for the Nov. 7, 1986, rape and murder of Corrina D. Novis, 20, of Redlands.

According to prosecutors, the couple hitched a ride with Novis from a Redlands mall and then took her to a San Bernardino residence, where they had been staying. Novis was sexually molested, then taken in handcuffs to Fontana, where she was strangled and buried in a shallow grave, prosecutors have said.

Five days after killing Novis, prosecutors contend, the couple robbed Murray at gunpoint at a dry cleaners where she worked, then took her to a Huntington Beach motel.

There Murray was raped and strangled with a towel, according to prosecutors. The motel bill was apparently paid with Novis’ credit card, prosecutors said.

Several days later, Marlow and Coffman were apprehended in Big Bear. The couple were linked to the crimes when investigators found papers identifying them, along with Novis’ credit cards and other belongings, in a Laguna Beach dumpster.

After their arrest, the couple admitted the killings to police, according to court documents.

Coffman, 29, who was the first woman in California to receive the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1977, is scheduled to go to trial April 6 for Murray’s killing.

Both Marlow and Coffman also face a third murder charge for allegedly being paid to kill a 28-year-old man in Kentucky.