Opinion ID: 2623595
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Murder of Lynell Murray

Text: On November 12, 1986, Lynell Murray failed to return home from her job at Prime Cleaners in a Huntington Beach mall. Around 6:00 p.m. that evening, a half-hour before Murray was to get off work, Lynda Schafer drove into the parking lot of the mall and noticed Coffman, dressed in tight jeans, walking in front of various businesses in the mall. Schafer entered Prime Cleaners and left some clothing with Murray, who was alone at the time. As Schafer left the parking lot, she noticed Coffman passionately embracing a man, later identified as Marlow, near an alley behind the cleaners. About 6:30 p.m. that evening, Linda Whitlake was leaving her health club, located near Prime Cleaners. As Whitlake walked to her car, Coffman, cursing profanely, approached her, claiming her new car would not start. When Whitlake agreed to give Coffman a ride to her motel, down Pacific Coast Highway, Coffman said she would go tell her boyfriend that Whitlake would drive them. Seeing a man in a small white car with its hood up, Whitlake had misgivings, locked her purse in her car and started over to tell them she had changed her mind. Coffman met her halfway and said her boyfriend had decided to telephone the auto club instead. Around 7:00 p.m., a half-hour after Murray was scheduled to get off work, her boyfriend, Robert Whitecotton, arrived at Prime Cleaners, which appeared to have been burglarized and ransacked. Murray's car was parked in the store's back lot. Whitecotton called the police. At 7:13 p.m., Coffman, wearing a black and white dress, checked into room 307 of the Huntington Beach Inn. She registered under the name of Lynell Murray, using Murray's credit card to pay for the room. At 8:19 p.m., a balance inquiry regarding Murray's Bank of America checking account and a withdrawal of $80 from that account were made at an ATM located at a Corona del Mar branch of the bank. One minute later an additional $60 was withdrawn, leaving a balance of $4.41. Later that night, Coffman checked into the Compri Hotel in the City of Ontario, again using Murray's credit card. Around midnight on November 13, Coffman and Marlow dined on shrimp and steak at the Denny's restaurant across the street from the hotel. The two were seen embracing in the restaurant. Coffman, wearing a skirt and blouse, did all the ordering and paid for the meal using Murray's credit card; Marlow, in a three-piece suit, neither smiled nor said anything to restaurant staff. Around 3:00 p.m. on November 13, an employee of the Huntington Beach Inn entered room 307 and found Murray's body. The cause of death was determined to be ligature strangulation. Murray's head was in six inches of water in the bathtub; her head and face were bound with towel strips, and two gags were in and over her mouth. Her right arm was secured to a towel binding her waist. Her right leg lay across the toilet, and her left leg rested on the floor in front of the toilet. Her ankles apparently had been bound with duct tape, although most of the tape had been removed. Murray's bra, pantyhose and one earring were missing; evidence suggested she had been raped and possibly urinated on. [6] She had suffered premortem blunt force trauma to the head, midsection injuries, bruising of the legs and two black eyes consistent with having suffered blows before death. A footprint on a bathmat near the body was consistent with prints made by boots belonging to Marlow. After visiting the Koppers residence on the morning of November 13, Marlow and Coffman drove to the City of Big Bear and checked into the Bavarian Lodge. Coffman registered using Murray's credit card. Further attempts to purchase clothing at a sporting goods store using Murray's credit card alerted authorities to defendants' whereabouts and led to their arrest on November 14 while they walked along a road near Big Bear. When officers seized Coffman's purse, they found it contained Murray's identification cards and wallet, an earring matching the lone leaf-shaped earring Murray was wearing when her body was discovered at the Huntington Beach Inn, a loaded .22-caliber revolver and .22-caliber ammunition, credit card receipts bearing Murray's forged signature, and a brown paper bag, similar to those used at Prime Cleaners, containing coins. A search of the room defendants had occupied at the Bavarian Lodge yielded clothing stolen from Prime Cleaners and a gray suit jacket matching the one Marlow earlier had been seen wearing, with a set of handcuffs (later determined to be the ones Marlow had taken from Paul Koppers) in the pocket, identification in the name of James Gregory Marlow, a ladies' blue wallet and various single earrings. Novis's white Honda was found parked off a highway near Santa's Village, an amusement park in San Bernardino County, bearing license plates stolen from a vehicle parked at the Huntington Beach Inn. Inside a trash can in Santa's Village, a maintenance worker found a pillowcase with, among other items, a maroon bra identified as belonging to Murray and laundry receipts from Prime Cleaners.