Cynthia Coffman

Cynthia Lynn Coffman (born January 19, 1962) is an American serial killer convicted in the 1986 deaths of two women in California. She was convicted along with her boyfriend, James Gregory Marlow. Coffman admits to being present at the murders but insists she suffered from battered woman syndrome. She was sentenced to death and is sitting on death row in Central California Women's Facility.

Background Coffman was born in St. Louis, Missouri. After her father left her family, she was raised by her mother. Coffman's mother attempted to give her and her brothers away at one point. By age 18, Coffman married and became a mother, but the marriage did not last long. She moved to Arizona with a friend and met Marlow shortly after he was released from jail. They began to use methamphetamine together, got married, and began to commit violent crimes.

Crimes

Coffman and Marlow were accused of kidnapping and killing four women in October and November 1986.

Sandra Neary (32) on Oct. 11, 1986 from Costa Mesa, California Pamela Simmons (35) on Oct. 28, 1986 from Bullhead City, Arizona Corinna Novis (20) on Nov. 7, 1986 from Redlands, California Lynel Murray (19) on Nov. 12, 1986 from Huntington Beach, California

They were arrested on November 14, 1986, following which Coffman confessed to the murders. Coffman's attorneys say that she loved Marlow but that he battered, brainwashed, and starved her, so she did not run from Marlow when the crime spree began.

Trial and punishment They were put on trial in July 1989 and in 1990 sentenced to death. Coffman was the first woman to receive a death sentence in California since the reinstatement of the death penalty in that state in 1977. A trial in 1992 convicted her of another murder, for which she received a sentence of life imprisonment.