Aug 28, 2008 4:56 pm US/Pacific
Suspected UC Professor Murderer Pleads Not Guilty
LONG BEACH
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A 20-year-old Long Beach man pleaded not guilty to being in connection with UC Riverside professor.
CBS
A 20-year-old Long Beach man arrested last month in connection with the death of a UC Riverside professor pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge.
Marlon Martinez is charged in the death of Lindon Barrett, whose body
was found July 13 at a Long Beach condominium in the 100 block of West Fifth Street.
Neighbors called authorities to report smelling a foul odor coming from
one of the units.
Police said the 46-year-old victim appeared to have been dead for several days.
Detectives realized Barrett's car was missing, found the vehicle in the
area of Paramount Boulevard and South Street and set up a surveillance.
Martinez -- who was described as an acquaintance of Barrett's -- was
arrested when he returned to the car later that night, police said.
He has remained jailed since then.
He's due back in Long Beach Superior Court on Sept. 30 to get a date for
a hearing that will determine whether there is enough evidence to order a
trial.
The Los Angeles County coroner's office has not yet issued a final cause
of death for Barrett pending toxicology test results.
Before beginning work as an English professor at UC Riverside last fall,
Barrett taught at UC Irvine, where he helped found UC Irvine's African
American Studies Program in 1994.
From 2004 to 2007, he served as the program's director, according to school officials.
Barrett's move to UC Riverside was made with hopes to build a similar
black studies program.
Barrett penned numerous journal articles and a book, "Blackness and
Value: Seeing Double."
At the time of his death, he was finishing a book on slavery's central role in the evolution of Western modernity.
He served as a consultant to Steven Spielberg and Debbie Allen on
"Amistad,"
a 1997 film about an 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship traveling toward America's northeast coast.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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