Coroner Says Novis Was Strangled

Coroners have determined the cause of death of Corinna D. Novis, 20, a Redlands woman whose body was found buried last month in a shallow grave in Fontana.

Jim Alexander, San Bernardino County chief deputy coroner, said the results of tissue biopsies established the cause of death as strangulation and suffocation.

Police have charged Cynthia Lynn Coffman and James Gregory Marlow, two transients, with the kidnaping and murder of Novis. She was abducted Nov. 7 from the Redlands Mall after she allegedly agreed to take the pair to the University of Redlands.

Novis was killed in a matter of a few minutes, Alexander said. He said “there would be no way we can say” whether Novis was buried alive.

Coffman and Marlow are also the prime suspects--though they have not been charged--in the Nov. 12 kidnaping and murder of Lynel Murray, 19, of Huntington Beach. She was strangled and her body was discovered in a bathtub at the oceanfront Huntington Beach Inn.