MJP –
Authorities announced on Thursday that a former long-haul trucker who is currently awaiting trial for the 1992 death of a North Carolina woman was also charged with the suspected serial killings of three additional women in California over forty years ago.
Three counts of murder were levied against Warren Luther Alexander, 73, during a news conference in Ventura County. The victims were Kimberly Fritz, 18; Velvet Sanchez, 31; and Lorraine Rodriguez, 21. The victims were killed by strangulation in 1977.
The bodies of the sex workers were discovered in different parts of Ventura County and Port Hueneme, Oxnard, and Santa Barbara County in May, September, and December of that year, according to authorities.
Last Friday in Southern California, authorities took 73-year-old Warren Luther Alexander off an aircraft.
According to Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko, who spoke with reporters on behalf of the office, Alexander was extradited earlier this week from North Carolina, where he was charged with murder two years ago in the strangulation death of Nona Cobb. He is currently being held without bail at a Ventura County jail.
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According to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the body of Cobb, who was 29 years old, was discovered on an interstate northwest of Winston-Salem on July 7, 1992.
Washington, DC-based NBC station WXII-TV reported that her autopsy revealed she had been strangled.
We don’t know who is representing Alexander or whether he has filed a plea since North Carolina court records for his case were unavailable on Friday night.
According to court documents, Alexander’s arraignment on the allegations related to the California case is set for August 21. Despite repeated attempts to reach an attorney on Friday night, Alexander’s side remained silent.
According to Nasarenko, the North Carolina authorities connected Alexander to the murder of Cobb by using genetic genealogy, a method that compares DNA samples from various locations with profiles created by genetic testing vendors.
Nasarenko stated that upon Alexander’s 2022 arrest, his DNA was added to a national law enforcement database, and the Ventura County authorities were made aware of the matter.
Investigators in the county had already uploaded DNA samples from the 1977 crime scenes to the same database in 2006, according to Nasarenko. However, it was not until Alexander was arrested that his DNA was submitted and a match was found.
The prosecutor stated, “Today marks the first crucial step toward achieving long-awaited justice.”
Per Nasarenko, Alexander resided in Oxnard, which is located about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles, throughout the 1950s and 1960s while he was a student. According to the district attorney, he went back to that area in the 1970s and was there for 30 years, employing himself as a long-haul truck driver.
Initially, the investigating detectives thought the same person was behind the string of murders, he added, but they ran out of leads and the cases fell cold.
To find any further victims who may be associated with Alexander, the Ad Agency is collaborating with the FBI on their Highway Serial Killings Initiative. “Nasarenko” stated.
His statement indicated that authorities are considering the possibility of other cases, both in the area and in neighboring states.
Despite appearances, Nasarenko insisted that the question was far from resolved.
