Warren Luther Alexander, 73, was arrested and charged with the strangulation deaths of three Southern California women from 1977, following a breakthrough DNA match by cold case detectives. Authorities suspect there may be additional victims.
The three victims, Kimberly Fritz, 18, Velvet Sanchez, 31, and Lorraine Rodriguez, 21, were all sex workers in Ventura County. Fritz was found dead in a motel room in Port Hueneme on May 29, 1977. Sanchez was discovered at the Villa Motor Court in nearby Oxnard on September 8, 1977. Rodriguez’s body was found on December 27, 1977, on a bridge in an unincorporated area. All three women were killed by “ligature strangulation,” said District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.
“While investigators believed these crimes were connected, leads ran cold, and detectives were unable to identify who was responsible for these horrific murders,” Nasarenko said.
The Ventura County cold case unit revisited the murders last year, uploading DNA evidence into a national database. Although a 2006 search had yielded no results, this time, they found a match.
Investigative genealogy linked Alexander to the 1992 killing of 29-year-old Nona Cobb, whose body was found along Interstate 77 in North Carolina.
Alexander had lived in Oxnard during the late 1950s and 60s, attending local schools, and returned to the area in the 1970s, Nasarenko said. From the 1970s through the early 1990s, he worked as a long-haul, cross-country truck driver, leading authorities to suspect there may be more victims in other states as well.
“This investigation is ongoing, and we will continue to pursue all leads. This case is far from closed,” Nasarenko emphasized.
Alexander’s case has been assigned to the county public defender’s office, which has not yet commented on the case.
Alexander pleaded not guilty to all charges at his August 21 arraignment, a spokesperson for the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said. He is being held without bail, according to county jail records. Alexander’s defense attorney, Rebekah Mathis, told CNN on August 21 she had “no comment at this time.”
The killings happened over the span of seven months in three different jurisdictions of Ventura County, according to the news release.
Prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty against Alexander due to the age of the witnesses and evidence and in an attempt to move through the trial process more quickly and efficiently.
