Orange County Register

Lindon Barrett

The man accused of strangling UC Riverside and former UC Irvine professor Lindon Barrett was ordered today to stand trial in his death. Marlon Martinez, 21, has been in custody since shortly after July 13, when Barrett was found dead in his downtown Long Beach loft.

Marlon Martinez at a September hearing

City News Service is reporting this afternoon that Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani of the Long Beach Superior Court found enough evidence to bind Martinez over for trial.

Martinez pleaded not guilty to the charges in August.

During the hearing, some new information emerged about the crime, which became apparent after Barrett’s decomposed body was found July 13.

During the investigation, police realized his black, two-door Lexus was missing. They say they located it in Long Beach near Paramount Boulevard and South Street, began watching it, and nabbed Martinez when he got into it.

Initially, officials could not name a cause of death due to the advanced state of decomposition. Later, the coroner’s office said he had been strangled, and toxicology reports showed he had small amounts of alcohol and marijuana in his system.

Today, City News Service reported that Barrett was strangled with a shoelace.

Martinez, who was reportedly an acquaintance of Barrett’s, is now scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 6.

The popular professor, an English professor and founding member of the African American studies department at UC Irvine, had taken a job at UC Riverside last year.

He continued to live in his loft in the trendy Pine Avenue downtown section of Long Beach.

Barrett, who was 46 when he died, was a native of Canada.

While at UCI, he had belonged to the Critical Theory Institute, taught in the English and Comparative Literature departments, and also was an editor for the journal Callaloo.

UCI’s School of Humanities established a scholarship in Barrett’s name, administered by the Program in African American Studies.

Previous College Life posts:

• Man accused of strangling professor in court today

• Popular professor was strangled, autopsy shows

• Breaking news: English professor found slain

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