The murder trial of the former Marine who is accused of killing a Twentynine Palms woman and dumping her body down a mine shaft is scheduled to start today. Prosecutors allege that in June 2014, Christopher Lee, now 27, arranged a secret tryst with his lover and next door neighbor, Erin Corwin, 19, early in the morning of June 28. Corwin had texted a friend that she was hoping for a proposal from Lee, and Corwin told her husband that she was going to scout hiking locations in anticipation of her mother’s visit the next week. Investigators say Lee drove Corwin to the Rose of Peru mining area east of Twentynine Palms where he strangled her and disposed of her body by throwing it down a 140-foot mine shaft. Investigators searched hundreds of mines before finding her body seven weeks after her disappearance. Lee and Corwin were living on the Marine Corps base in Twentynine Palms; he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps a week after Corwin’s disappearance. Lee and his wife returned to their home state of Alaska where he was arrested for Corwin’s murder after her body was recovered. Lee has been held in county jail without bail since his arrest in August 2014.
TRIAL FOR FORMER MARINE ACCUSED OF KILLING ERIN CORWIN STARTS TODAY
