VENTURA, Calif. — A 73-year-old man has been charged with strangling three Southern California women in 1977 after cold case detectives obtained a DNA match, authorities said Thursday, adding that they believe there may be more victims.
Warren Luther Alexander of Diamondhead, Mississippi, made his first court appearance Thursday, but arraignment on three counts of first-degree murder was postponed until Aug. 21, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said. He remained jailed without bail.
Alexander’s case has been assigned to the county public defender’s office. A telephone message seeking comment on the case was left at the office.
Alexander was extradited to California on Aug. 6 from Surry County, North Carolina, where he is awaiting trial for a 1992 murder, the office said.
All of the California victims were killed by “ligature strangulation,” District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said at a news conference. They were all sex workers in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, and frequented an area known for sex trafficking, he said.
Kimberly Fritz, 18, was found dead in the town of Port Hueneme on May 29, 1977. Velvet Sanchez, 31, was found dead on September 8 of that year in the town of Oxnard, followed by Lorraine Rodriguez, 21, on December 27, in an unincorporated area.
“Although we believed that these three crimes were indeed related, the clues were lost and detectives were unable to identify who was responsible for these horrific murders,” Nasarenko said.
The DNA match to Alexander came last year. It occurred when DNA evidence was entered into a national database, the district attorney said. Investigative genealogy had identified Alexander as a suspect in the North Carolina case of Nona Cobb, 29, whose body was dumped along Interstate 77, he said.
A query of the database in 2006 had not found a match.
North Carolina media reported that Alexander was arrested in connection with the Cobb case in March 2022. That case had not yet gone to trial, said Joey Buttitta, a spokesman for Ventura County prosecutors.
Alexander lived in Oxnard in the late 1950s and 1960s. He attended elementary, middle and high schools, and returned in the 1970s, Nasarenko said.
From the 1970s to the early 1990s, Alexander was a long-haul truck driver, Nasarenko said.
“We believe there may be additional victims both locally and in other states. This is an ongoing investigation and we will continue to pursue all leads that are available. This is by no means closed,” he said.
