Lawyer Urges Lesser Penalty for Murderer

A man who pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of a Huntington Beach woman should be spared from the gas chamber because he was “emotionally crippled” by childhood abuse from his mother, a defense attorney said Friday.

James Gregory Marlow has already been sentenced to death for the murder of another woman.

He sat impassively, staring down at his hands during the penalty phase of his trial as his attorney, George A. Peters, passionately pleaded to a Superior Court jury to instead sentence his client to life imprisonment without parole.

Earlier this month, Marlow, 35, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, which Peters said was a strategic move to try and save Marlow from Death Row.

Marlow pleaded guilty to killing Lynel Murray, 19, of Huntington Beach, and to robbing and raping her.

Peters told jurors in his closing arguments that Murray was trying to punish himself and his mother for not loving him when he was young.

“When we have a person who is crippled emotionally . . . and he plays out a pattern and he plays out a murder (in which) he is killing himself or is killing his mother, then we truly don’t have evil,” the attorney said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon Jr., however, argued that Marlow knew exactly what he was doing and that he killed Murray so she could not testify against him.

Gannon told jurors that Marlow had previously been jailed for thefts and drug-related crimes. In those cases, his convictions were based on his victims’ testimony.

“Talk about learned behavior,” the prosecutor said, mocking Peters’ defense that Marlow’s violent streak was something he learned from his mother, Doris Hill, now dead. “Learned behavior is: You don’t leave witnesses.”

During the summations in Superior Judge Donald A. McCartin’s courtroom, the victim’s relatives sobbed and several jurors momentarily averted their eyes when Gannon showed pictures of a cut, bruised and bleeding Murray.

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 two hitched a ride with Novis from a Redlands mall to a San Bernardino residence, where they had been staying. Novis was sexually molested and later strangled and buried in a shallow grave, prosecutors have said.

Five days later, prosecutors contend, the couple robbed Murray at gunpoint at the dry-cleaning store where she worked, then took her to a Huntington Beach motel. There, Murray was raped and strangled with a towel, Gannon said.

Her body was dumped in the motel room’s bathtub, he added, pointing to another photo depicting the scene.

The couple were arrested several days later in Big Bear when investigators found their identification papers along with Novis’ credit cards and other belongings in a dumpster.

Both reportedly admitted the killings to police, according to court records.

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

Marlow’s jury will resume deliberations on Monday.