Today in History: Murderous couple sentenced to death

The couple was convicted of the murder of 2 women 3 years prior to their sentencing

Cynthia Coffman and James Marlow were sentenced to death in San Bernardino, California on this day in 1989 for the 1986 murders of Corinna Novis and Lynel Murray.

Coffman first met Marlow in May 1986, just after he was released from prison. Marlow, a career criminal, had been locked up for stealing his 6th wife's car.

An earlier stint in Folsom prison had earned him the nickname of 'The Folsom Wolf'. Coffman and Marlow hit it off so fast that within weeks they were travelling the country together.

In late July 1986, Marlow and Coffman were married in Tennessee. As a wedding gift, Coffman received a tattoo on her butt that read 'Property of the Folsom Wolf'. The couple moved back West, sponging off relatives until they made it to California in October.

On 7 November, 1986, in Redlands, California, Corinna Novis disappeared from an ATM. Just 5 days later, Lynel Murray was kidnapped from outside the dry cleaners where she worked in Orange County.

On 11 November, Novis' chequebook was found in a dumpster along with some papers that had Marlow's and Coffman's names on them. A lodge owner in Big Bear City reported that they had recently checked in.

Over 100 men joined a search party that eventually caught the couple who were hiking through the mountains in clothes that had been stolen from Murray's dry cleaners.

Following their arrests, Coffman confessed to the murders. Coffman's attorneys said that she loved Marlow but that he battered, brainwashed and starved her, so she did not run from Marlow when the crime spree began.

They went on trial in July 1989, and on this day in 1989 were sentenced to death. Coffman was the 2st woman to receive a death sentence in California since the reinstatement of the death penalty in that state in 1977. A further trial in 1992 convicted her of another murder, for which she received a sentence of life imprisonment.

Both Coffman and Marlow remain on death row.

(Source: roodepoortrecord.co.za)