In ‘day of reckoning,’ California authorities offer new details on accused South MS killer

The discovery emerged last year in an alert at a Southern California crime lab. DNA evidence from decades-old murders in Ventura County suddenly matched that found at the scene of a woman’s death in North Carolina, authorities said.

Police say it led them to Warren Luther Alexander, 73, of Diamondhead.

That breakthrough prompted the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office this week to charge Alexander with the murder of three women killed in 1977 just an hour-and-a-half north of Los Angeles. Alexander, who is also awaiting prosecution for a 1992 alleged murder in Surry County, North Carolina, was extradited on Tuesday and is held in the California jail with no bond. Authorities are now calling him a “suspected serial killer.”

“The day of reckoning,” Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said, “has finally arrived.”

In a livestreamed news conference Thursday, Southern California authorities released new details about the man first arrested in Diamondhead in 2022, and the women he is now accused of strangling 47 years ago.

Police are accusing Alexander of killing three women in Southern California: Kimberly Carol Fritz, 18, Velvet Ann Sanchez, 31, and Lorraine Ann Rodriguez, 21.

All three were commercial sex workers who endured violence, trafficking and exploitation, Nasarenko said. Each of the women frequented a Ventura County shopping center known in the 1970s as a center of commercial sex trafficking.

Authorities said all three died of strangulation by a cord or rope.

The District Attorney also released new facts about Alexander: He lived in Oxnard, California, in the late 1950s and 1960s. He attended elementary, middle and high school in California, authorities said.

He was a cab driver and electrician with the U.S. Marine Corps. He returned to Oxnard in the 1970s. At several points, he worked as a long haul cross country truck driver, Nasarenko said. He had “very minor” criminal history in Ventura County, according to authorities.

Alexander was married but it is unclear if he has children, the Ventura County Sun reported. The District Attorney’s Office will not seek the death penalty and instead will pursue a sentence of life without possibility of parole, according to the outlet.

It is unclear when or why Alexander arrived on the Mississippi Coast. He was booked into the Hancock County jail in 2022 and accused in the North Carolina murder.

Ventura County authorities also paid tribute to the deceased women. Rodriguez was found on a bridge in the early morning of December 27, 1977, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said. She had a son and daughter, who was 3 when Rodriguez died. She was a “loving and devoted mother who loved spending time with her family,” Fryhoff said.

Sanchez worked at the Navy Exchange just before her death on September 8, 1977, Oxnard Police Chief Jason Benites said. She was married but separated and is survived by one of her three children, and a sister.

Fritz attended school in Ann Arbor, Michigan before her death on May 29, 1977. She was one of three sisters and she is survived by her father and one sister, Port Hueneme, California Police Chief Michael Federico said.

Detectives had long noticed similarities across the three cases and believed them committed by the same suspect, the District Attorney said. They collected DNA evidence from each crime scene, but the cases went cold.

In 2006, detectives uploaded that evidence into a nationwide database, searching for a match, Nasarenko said. They found it in 2023. DNA evidence from the 1992 strangulation death of a 29-year-old woman named Nona Cobb in North Carolina led police to suspect Alexander in South Mississippi, and in turn matched the evidence found from the crime scenes in California, the District Attorney said.

Alexander faces three counts of first-degree murder. Authorities said they believe there may be more victims in California and other states. The investigation remains open.

“Just because a case has gone cold does not mean it should ever be forgotten,” Nasarenko said, standing before the projected images of the three women. “And while we cannot bring back Kim, Velvet and Lorraine, we can make sure that the person accused of these horrific crimes in Ventura County faces the full weight and force of the law.”

This story was originally published August 8, 2024 at 2:10 PM.