Los Angeles News

LONG BEACH, Calif. An autopsy is pending on the death of a popular and highly respected UC Riverside English professor whose slain body was discovered in his Long Beach home over the weekend, authorities said.

Lindon Barrett, 46, was discovered by police inside a condominium in the 100 block of West Fifth Street around 9 a.m. Sunday, after neighbors reported smelling a foul odor coming from one of the units, according to a release from the Long Beach Police Department.

Authorities have not yet determined his cause of death, but an autopsy is expected to be performed Wednesday, said Los Angeles County Coroner's Lt. John Kadas.

Barrett's badly decomposed body indicated that he had been dead for several days, police said, and further investigation led authorities to believe he may have been murdered.

After finding Barrett's body, investigators at the scene also noticed that Barrett's car -- a two-door black Lexus -- was missing. Police found the parked vehicle near Paramount Boulevard and South Street, and set up a surveillance, police said.

Later that night, Marlon Martinez, 20, of Long Beach returned to the Lexus, and was taken into custody, according to the release.

Martinez was booked on suspicion of murder at the Long Beach jail and is being held in lieu of $1 million bail, jail records show.

Martinez, a Long Beach construction worker, was charged with murder on Tuesday. His arraignment has been postponed until July 24, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported.

According to police, Lindon and Martinez were acquaintances, but have not elaborated on how they knew each other, or how well they knew each other.

Colleagues and students, most of whom learned of Barrett's death on Tuesday, spoke highly of the man who joined the Riverside university in the fall of 2007.

"He embraced his new position at Riverside, bringing a personal warmth and passion to the department and his field of African-American studies," English Department Chair Katherine Kinney said in a UCR statement.

Kinney, who had known Barrett since they attended graduate school together at the University of Pennsylvania, said the brilliat scholar was just finishing a his second book, "Racial Blackness and the Discontinuity of Western Modernity".

"Lindon offered so much, personally and professionally to the department, the campus, and the scholarly field of African American studies," Kinney said. "He will be missed by friends and colleagues across campus and across the country."

In the fall, the UCR English department will hold a memorial service for Barrett, according to school officials.

As news of his death spread, internet message boards and blogs filled with tributes to the professor who sported trademark dreadlocks.

"His humility and gentleness always blew me away, and is something that continues to serve as a model for me. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am to have met and been influenced by him," a person who identified herself as Jamie Park wrote on a message board.

"I am honored and so proud to have been (and to still be) his student, and to call him a mentor, and I know that every single aspect of my career will be a living legacy and tribute to his life and work," Park wrote.

Before he taught at UCR, Barrett taught for several years at UC Irvine. In 1994, he helped found the UCI's African American Studies Program, and from 2004 to 2007, served as the program's director, according to school officials.

UCI officials are also planning a memorial service in his honor.

Barrett's move to UCR was made with hopes to help build a similar program.

"He wanted to expand the curriculum and recruit more diverse students," the university said.

Although Barrett moved campuses, the Canadian native maintained his residence in Long Beach, choosing to commute.

"He never forgot how spectacular that California Coast is," Kinney told the Press-Enterprise.

Barrett wrote many journal articles and a book, "Blackness and Value: Seeing Double." He also served as a consultant to Steven Spielberg and Debbie Allen on the 1997 film "Amistad" -- a film based on the true story of a slave mutiny that took place aboard a ship of the same name in 1839, and the legal battle that followed.

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)