Woman Agrees to Fly From Maui to Testify in Murder Case
A woman needed as a witness in the trial of a former Long Beach man accused of murdering a Los Alamitos real estate agent a decade ago agreed this week to leave Maui to testify in the case.
Maui Circuit Judge Shackley Raffetto released Naomi Lindeman, 37, from the Maui County Correctional Center after she pledged to fly to Orange County to serve as a prosecution witness in the trial of Robert Mark Edwards. She allegedly had a relationship with Edwards.
Jury selection in the case began last week before Orange County Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan in Santa Ana and continues later this month.
Edwards, 35, was convicted in 1993 of killing 67-year-old Muriel Delbe in her South Maui
apartment. He was extradited to Orange County to stand trial on capital charges stemming from the 1986 slaying of 55-year-old Marjorie Deeble, who was strangled in her Los Alamitos apartment in 1986.
Edwards was a former boyfriend of one of Deeble’s two daughters and had been a prime suspect in her death from the start, police said at the time. However, it was Edwards’ arrest in the Maui case that investigators said gave them the needed evidence to press charges against him in Orange County.
The bodies of both women were mutilated. Prosecutors said they hope to use Lindeman’s testimony to link Edwards to both killings.
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