2nd Coffman Murder Trial Opens : Crime: Woman already under death sentence for rampage with lover faces similar charges in college student’s rape-slaying in a Huntington Beach hotel.

A 30-year-old woman already sentenced to death for a murderous rampage with her lover was variously described Wednesday as a cowed slave and as a jealous instigator, as her trial for a second slaying began.

Cynthia Lynn Coffman of San Bernardino faces a second death sentence if convicted of charges including the kidnaping, rape and murder of 19-year-old Lynel Murray, a college student who was working at a Huntington Beach dry cleaners.

Coffman’s lover, James Gregory Marlow, 36, was tried separately, convicted and sentenced to death last week for his part in Murray’s killing.

After being tried together in San Bernardino, both Coffman and Marlow received death sentences in 1989 for their part in the kidnaping, sexual assault and strangulation of 20-year-old Corinna D. Novis, who was abducted from a Redlands shopping mall. The Novis abduction took place on Nov. 7, 1986, five days before the attack on Murray.

In opening arguments Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court, attorneys for both sides did agree that Coffman participated in the killings of Novis and Murray, and that she was a drug user. Coffman was also upset by Marlow’s sexual assaults on the two victims, the lawyers said, both of which took place in the shower.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon Jr. told jurors that Murray’s killing was, “in many ways, the culmination of a series of events which started long before that.”

Gannon said that witnesses would testify to Coffman’s presence with Marlow near the dry cleaners at the time of the kidnaping, at the nearby motel where Murray’s strangled body was found. Police would testify that Coffman used the victims’ credit cards and that her fingerprints were found on Novis’ stolen car.

The victims’ belongings, including checks, were found with Coffman’s and Marlow’s identifications in a Laguna Beach trash container, Gannon said. One of Lynel Murray’s earrings, the companion to one she was wearing at the time of her death, was found in Coffman’s purse. Later, Coffman led police to the San Bernardino vineyard where Novis’ body was found in a shallow grave.

Gannon told jurors that he expected to call a former inmate of the San Bernardino jail to testify about statements she said Coffman made about her role in the killings.

While differing on Coffman’s role in the killings, Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia agreed with Gannon that they were a culmination of earlier events.

For three hours, Gumlia read to jurors from a 145-page account he had written of the lives of Coffman and Marlow, including detailed descriptions of their sexual relations. The first third of the document dealt almost exclusively with Marlow’s life before he met Coffman, beginning with a historical and sociological sketch of McCreary County, Ky., where Marlow’s parents were born.

Abuse by his mother created “a deep and powerful anger, a rage that (was) carried for a lifetime,” and became a hatred for all women, Gumlia wrote.

Marlow’s earliest brushes with the law, Gumlia said, provided him an opportunity to shift responsibility to his mother and to others.

“Blaming others to shield himself from punishment would become another Greg Marlow trademark,” Gumlia said. “Marlow was a master manipulator. He was cunning and smart. He knew all of the buttons to push in Cyndi Coffman.”

The ex-convict and biker, the defense attorney said, beat Coffman, burned her face with a cigarette, cut off her hair, stabbed her in the leg with a knife and offered her sexually to a friend.

“Please do not make the mistake of viewing this case as a trial to decide whether Cyndi Coffman knew what she was doing or not,” Gumlia wrote.

“For the most part she did. She was not a robot for Greg Marlow. Nor was she unconscious or insane. If she had been, we would be seeking an acquittal from you as to all crimes.

“Clearly, Cyndi functioned throughout these crimes. What we ask you to resolve instead is how and why she came to act and feel as she did. What forces shaped her? What forces affected her thinking and feeling? We submit that the evidence will show it was the overwhelming power of an evil man that played upon each and every weakness of a flawed girl, a girl with no direction and no sense of self.”