Man charged in 1977 strangulations of three Southern California women after DNA investigation

VENTURA, California — A 73-year-old man has been charged in the 1977 strangulation of three Southern California women after investigators found a DNA match, authorities said Thursday, adding that they believe there are more victims.

Warren Luther Alexander of Diamondhead, Mississippi, made his initial court appearance Thursday, but his 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 was assigned to the county public defender’s office. A phone message was left at the office seeking comment on the case.

Alexander was extradited to California on Aug. 6 from Surry County, North Carolina, where he is awaiting prosecution in a 1992 cold-case murder, the office said.

All of the victims in California were killed by “ligature chokeholds,” U.S. 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 on May 29, 1977, in the city of Port Hueneme. Velvet Sanchez, 31, was found dead on September 8 of that year in the city of Oxnard, followed by Lorraine Rodriguez, 21, on December 27 in an unincorporated area.

“Although it was believed that these three crimes were indeed linked, the evidence was weak and investigators were unable to determine who was responsible for these horrific murders,” Nasarenko said.

The DNA match to Alexander occurred last year when DNA evidence was uploaded to a national database, the prosecutor said. Investigative genealogy had identified Alexander as a suspect in the case of 29-year-old North Carolina woman Nona Cobb, whose body was found along Interstate 77, he said.

A database search in 2006 yielded no match.

North Carolina news outlets reported that Alexander was arrested in March 2022 in the Cobb case, which has not yet gone to trial, said Joey Buttitta, a spokesman for the Ventura County prosecutors.

Alexander lived in Oxnard in the late 1950s and 1960s, where he attended elementary, middle and high school, before returning in the 1970s, Nasarenko said.

From the 1970s to the early 1990s, Alexander was a long-distance truck driver, Nasarenko said.

“We believe there are additional victims, both locally and in other states,” he said. “This is an ongoing investigation and we will continue to pursue all available leads. This is not closed by any means.”